Valentine’s Day – A Day Together

This past weekend we celebrated Valentine’s Day – the day of love! Or something like that. Honestly, I have no idea where the tradition started or why. But, I do know it’s a time that we spend with a loved one that we all enjoy taking part in. 🙂 While it shouldn’t be the only time we set aside to do something special with our spouse/significant other, it is a good reminder to make a point of loving them and spending time together.

Which brings me to my thought for today: Togetherness: “the act of being close to another person or other people”. 

I realize Grant and I are still what most people consider newlyweds. We’ve been married almost 3 years, so I’m not speaking from years of experience but from a simple standpoint of insight from our lives. This Valentine’s Day, with temperatures at a balmy 30 degrees, Grant and I headed out for a hike with our cameras in hand and our plan to spend the afternoon together outside; something we hadn’t done in quite some time. It got me thinking of how quickly life happens and if we’re not careful, we’ll miss out on time spent with our loved one. It’s funny how a tradition like Valentine’s Day can help us refocus. And everyone usually seems eager to join in! Which is great! But what if every day we made it more of a point to be together and to spend a minimum of  just 30 minutes having a heart to heart talk with our spouse? Honestly, 30 minutes isn’t quite enough for Grant and me because we love to talk, so if you’re like us, you might need more time! I can’t help but think that maybe our marriage would be stronger by making even small changes like that to our daily life!

Grant and I love spending as much time together as we can, but occasionally, because of working EMS, we would go two to four days apart with sometimes very little communication. Those days weren’t easy for us and we realized how much we missed talking about our day, things we struggled with, or praises we had. Which brings me back to my point of togetherness and how I really do think spending time together and truly talking about things that are deeper than just “How was work?,” can make positive changes in our relationship and marriage.

I don’t believe God created marriage to just be a distant, superficial friendship. I believe that just as He created us to desire closeness to Him, we were created to be close to our spouse. We should relish the closeness that we have in our marriage and continue to cause it to grow and flourish by making time for each other.

So, while I may not know exactly why or how Valentine’s Day got started (I could probably do my research;-), I do know that it can serve as a reminder of what we need to be doing daily with our spouse. I’m also writing this to serve as a reminder for Grant and me as we continue through our anniversary milestones. I don’t ever want us to forget that spending time together and truly talking and getting to know each other more, is one (of many!) great reasons why God created marriage!

We’d love to know what you’ve learned in your marriage that has helped to grow you as a couple! So comment and let us know! 🙂 And enjoy some photos from our Valentine’s Day hike together.