Ever wonder if your marriage is actually growing? Well, we’re diving deep into that juicy question today! It’s super common for couples to feel like they’re just surviving instead of thriving. After 34 years of our own marriage, we’ve learned that progress isn’t always obvious, but it’s definitely happening. So, let’s take a moment to celebrate our wins together—because trust me, when you look back, you might just be amazed at how far you’ve come. Grab your favorite drink, put your phones away, and let’s chat about how to do a little marriage checkup, celebrate those sweet moments, and set some goals for the future!

Navigating the ups and downs of marriage can be a bit like trying to find your way in a corn maze while blindfolded. We’ve all been there, right? In this deep dive, we chat about the often-overlooked importance of celebrating the little victories in our relationships. After 34 years of marriage, we’ve learned that progress doesn’t always slap you in the face with fireworks and confetti. Sometimes it’s subtle—like finding that missing sock or remembering to take out the trash without being asked (score!). We encourage couples to take a moment to pause, reflect, and appreciate the growth that’s taken place, even if it feels like you’ve been treading water. It’s a great way to shift your perspective and remind yourselves why you fell in love in the first place. So grab a cozy blanket, a cup of cocoa, and let’s chat about how gratitude can be the secret sauce to a thriving marriage!

Takeaways:

• Celebrating wins in marriage helps couples see how far they've come together.
• Taking a marriage checkup allows couples to reflect on their spiritual and relational growth.
• It's important to document milestones and memories to appreciate your journey together.
• Taking time to recount God's blessings can shift your perspective and strengthen your bond.

How do you know that your marriage is growing?

It's one of the most common questions that couples ask, especially when life feels more like surviving than thriving.

After 34 years of marriage, we've realized progress doesn't always feel obvious, but it is happening.

That's why in this checkup, we're starting with something that most couples skip.

Celebrating your wins.

Because when you stop and look back, you might be surprised at how far you've come.

Let's dive in this week on inspiring marriages.

We're going to stop, take a breath, and to see where we are in our marriage.

That's right.

So it's always a good idea every once in a while to stop and just do a checkup on your marriage.

That's right.

So let's start with a prayer.

Lord, we thank you for this gift of marriage.

Help us speak to truth in love.

Listen with grace and dream with faith.

May this time together strengthen our bond and draw us closer to you and to each other.

Amen.

First Thessalonians 5:18.

A new living translation says, be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

Why does this matter?

Well, because before diving into any areas of growth or challenge, it is vital to pause and celebrate what God has done in your marriage.

Gratitude shifts your perspective, softens your heart, and reminds you that your relationship is.

Is a living testimony of grace.

I think that's so important, Jeff, that we do take time as a couple, and each of you will take time as a couple to stop and give thanks for what the Lord has done, for things that you have seen in.

In your past years of marriage or maybe just looking back over the last year and gain a perspective of him, you know, hope for the future.

Because sometimes we can get caught up on the negative things.

We can get caught up on what didn't go right or, you know, the.

The big events you didn't get to have or, you know, just.

You can't do everything as a couple and as a family.

But celebrating the winds just gives us some more wind in our sails, you could say.

So we can have a good, bright outlook for the coming year and for the things that God has called us to do and to keep growing.

Right?

So get a piece of paper, get your Bible, and let's just.

Let's just dive into this.

Yes.

So what you want to remember, you want to talk about, and it's really important to get alone with your spouse and have these serious conversations.

No phones, no tv.

If you can get away, if you can't, just make it a, a device.

Free evening, right, Teresa?

Oh, yes.

So you can just focus on each other.

I mean, not everybody can get away now.

Everybody can go to a hotel.

But it's important for you to be isolated and talk about your spiritual wins.

I'm sure that there'll be something that you'll.

You've forgotten about over the year that really was a tremendous win and really affected your, your marriage, your lives and your household.

So sit down together and take your time and think and talk.

What prayers did God answer for us this year?

That's good.

That's really good.

So don't rush through this.

Think about it.

Think about the things that happened over the last 12 months.

If you have your.

A journal, you go back and see what you were writing in your journal this year and take your time.

This is not a speed race, you know, you are just taking your time.

Go back.

What prayers did God answer this year?

And don't treat anything as insignificant.

You know, if it was a toothache, if it was a major crisis, it doesn't matter.

Right.

You count those wins.

That's right.

It's so important, and you know, we've mentioned this before, that the scripture says in so many ways that you're supposed to go back and recount and tell aloud the things that God has done because it gives him glory.

But it also helps you get your mind on that.

God does answer prayers and he does come through for you.

And you can see a pattern of his faithfulness through your marriage and through your family life.

Right?

That's so good.

So just take your time and write those out together and you may know, spur each other memories.

And you're like, oh yeah now, now that I think about that.

How about this?

And you.

And just write those things down.

Write down the prayers that God answered for you this past year.

Number two, another spiritual win.

Think about how did we grow in faith as individuals and as a couple?

Did you do a new devotion together or did you do a devotion together?

Did you have times of prayer?

Did you have times of reading the Bible together?

Did you go to church together?

And just think about those things.

How did we grow in faith as individuals and as a couple?

Right.

It could be that you had set a faith goal of wanting to get to a certain level with, you know, how many devotions you were going to do together in a month or in a week, or how many times you would read scripture together or just Encourage each other with scripture.

You know, it's not always sitting down together, sometimes just sending a text, right.

Reminding each other of, you know, something in the word or something that, like you, we were talking about before, or something you're praying about and keeping each other mindful of those things.

You know, if you just increase the amount that you do that, it doesn't have to be big things.

It can be just making it more, I'd like to say commonplace, but just like more of something, you turn into a habit that builds your marriage spiritually.

If you see that you've done more of that than you did before in your marriage and you were increasing that and being intentional about it more.

Right.

You know, intentional.

That's a great win right there.

Tremendous win.

Practicing being intentional about spiritual things more and more, whatever the area is for you.

But that's.

That's a great thing to see.

And then because you've come this far, now you can say, well, let's set another goal of what we're going to do to build our marriage more spiritually in the coming year.

Right.

Third question you can ask.

Did we experience any spiritual breakthroughs or moments of clarity?

Maybe you came to point like, oh, this is what we need to be doing as a couple, and it's just a moment of clarity or spiritual breakthrough.

Maybe you broke this habit that, that you've been trying to break, you know, for years, and finally it broke his hold on you.

So just what, whatever it is, write it down.

It's a win.

Write that down.

Sometimes, you know, for a lot of couples, it can be just an area where you didn't realize you needed to forgive your spouse and you had actually been building up some resentment about some little things or just in maybe one area that just.

Or this just really gets me, you know, and if you got revelation about that, or you both did as a couple, like, we need to forgive each other about this, about some differences we've been having, and just totally clear that out and, you know, start afresh to where you can respect one another more, honor one another more, and discuss things and give and take in that area.

Wow, that's a big spiritual breakthrough.

Yes.

And if you would like a free printout of the questions we're going over, just drop a line in the comments.

We call it Celebrate, Celebrate.

And we'll just send you a link where you can just get this.

Get these questions and you take your time and go over them.

We don't only want to celebrate our spiritual wins.

We also want to celebrate our Relationship wins.

So what's that one moment this year that made us laugh uncontrollably?

And you just think about funny things that happened.

Maybe when you were getting the dish, the chicken out of the, out of the oven, it slipped off and fell on the floor.

Tanya may not have been happy about it.

We can laugh about that now.

Something that made you, your child did.

Something that made you just laugh and laugh and laugh, or, you know, you saw a funny commercial or you saw a funny show or a funny movie that just made you laugh and laugh and laugh.

Right.

And you keep bringing it up to each other.

And he makes.

Every time you bring it up to each other, you laugh about it.

Right.

It's like it's funny all over again, right?

Yes.

So keep that.

Yeah, write that down.

Something that was bringing you two closer together.

Another thing to write down is what was a new habit or rhythm to help us feel more connected.

Maybe it was a more consistent prayer life together.

Maybe you had, I don't know, the.

30 minutes of conversation each day.

You built up to 30 minutes of meaningful conversation.

You know, that's.

That's great.

We've talked about that a lot.

Right.

Maybe it was a devotion that you, that you both did together.

Something.

What is that?

One habit, new habit or, or rhythm that helped you feel more connected.

And write that down.

And maybe you stopped doing that.

You're like, you know what?

We really felt connected when we were doing that.

Let's go back and do that again.

You can do devotions over and over.

You don't have to stop one time through.

You just keep on keeping going.

Right, Teresa?

Yes.

Because anytime you get into scripture, you're going to get something new.

Even if you've known the scripture for years, you memorized it, or you've heard it taught many times, there's always something new that God can show you, even in things that you read before or prayed together before.

It's amazing because you can't exhaust the.

All the richness that's in the word.

Of God and write down, how do we support each other this year?

Yeah, sometimes it might be a sad memory, but remember how you supported each other and write that down.

And it may be something your spouse didn't even realize that meant that much to you, to you.

But when you verbalize it really, you know, when you made me chicken soup, not feeling bad, that really ministered to me, or.

No, when you rub my feet when my, my head was hurting, that really made me feel feel better.

So.

Or whatever it is, it could Be something really serious, but write down how your spouse supported you during a difficult time.

We also want to document milestones and memories.

So we don't always tell you we've been married 34 years, and if you let things go too long without referencing them, you might go, well, what year was that?

Kind of starts running together.

Was that?

Or 10 years later?

2012.

I don't remember when.

I try to remember how old the kids were or something.

Oh, now I think I know when it was.

Right.

So good to write it down.

What we want you to do in this past year, what are three highlights or milestones that you want to remember?

Right.

So.

So like I said, this is not a rush.

You're not gonna speed through this.

Take your time and think of three highlights.

You do have three highlights.

Well, you don't.

You do have three highlights.

Just go through.

And just go back over the.

When.

Whenever you start, you're starting this.

Say it's in.

This is October.

Go back to last November.

Start talking about things happen last November.

They go through December, in January and so forth.

And you will find three highlights or milestones that you will want to remember.

And write them.

Write them down.

Sometimes it'll just help to look at your calendar, wherever you've had, where you keep your schedule of everything that's happening.

And go back and look.

There may have been a, you know, a special occasion, like a special birthday, or you got to celebrate your anniversary in a new, unique way, or, you know, there was a great family outing or you had a getaway together.

Just some things that were just really good markers in that year that just.

Just high and, you know, heightened your marriage, improved your marriage.

That's.

That's always great to write those down and remember those things and even look at the photos.

I mean, yeah.

Look at the photos you took.

You go on your phone.

You go back to in the last year.

Yes.

And you look through all those loans and just take this opportunity and delete the ones that I don't need pictures of my food.

Just delete them.

Yeah.

And this second question kind of is related to the first question.

Did we celebrate any special occasions in a meaningful way?

And so if it was a birthday, it was an anniversary, whatever it is, what special occasion did you celebrate?

Any of those in a meaningful way?

And if you can't think of it, that's a clue to you to celebrate special occasions in a meaningful way.

Right.

You want to write it down.

Right.

Be a little more, as we say, intentional.

Do a little Planning and preparation.

So this coming year, you can celebrate some of those things in a unique way, a special way.

Just try something you haven't done.

Right?

I mean, we're not talking about things, anything expensive or outlandish that, you know, your budget doesn't support.

You just, you know, you can celebrate in a meaningful way.

Now, a third question about milestones and memories is what memory from this year do you want to retail for years to come?

So you think about, think about together.

Now you might have two separate memories.

You want to retail, you write them both down.

And so what memory from this year do you want to retell for years to come?

Maybe you had a memorable vacation.

Maybe something happened that was significant, like.

Birth of a grandchild.

Those are always big, big moments.

Big moments.

Or maybe you got married.

Just what is a memory from this year that you want to retell for years to come?

Yes, those, those wedding day memories are always fun.

Retail for years.

We still talk about ours.

Yeah.

Tell our kids because, you know, they weren't there.

Our kids can, can, can recite our.

Our relationship highlights.

Right.

Verbatim.

Because we tell them every year what happened when our first date was, when we got engaged and all that stuff.

Oh, yeah.

Now, since we've done a lot of looking back on spiritual things and relational things, let's talk about how you've been growing this past year.

So this is.

These questions are called growth and resilience questions.

Okay.

The first one is, what challenge did we overcome together?

I know we've seen some couples where one spouse was in a hospital or had a serious physical condition, and they had to pray and overcome that situation together.

And that's.

That's a huge milestone and a huge challenge.

But it can be something smaller, just like, you know, overcoming a communication issue.

You know, there's.

There's so many areas you could look at and think about to answer that question, right?

Every.

Every couple goes through storms, but God has given us grace to overcome those storms.

We had facing challenges this past year with the health of our youngest daughter, and with God's grace and God's strength and God's mercy, we're able to overcome that challenge.

So talk about the challenges that you overcame together.

Number two, how do we show up for each other in unexpected ways?

So that's always a good thing to talk about is, you know, showing up for each other or being present for each other.

How did you show up or be present for the other one in unexpected ways?

And it could have to do with the challenge you overcame together.

Sometimes one person in the marriage feels like they're handling the challenge all by themselves.

And finally, you know, if the Lord's talking to your spouse, they come alongside and say, hey, you don't have to go through this all by yourself.

Let me help, help you.

Let's share this burden together, you know, and that's.

That is so powerful.

That's why marriage is so much better than any other relationship, because God created it for you to be strength for each other.

You know, when one is weak, the other can be strong.

But it can even be little things like, you know, your spouse decides to start writing poetry for you and just surprise you with it.

And, you know, look, I've just, I've just had these ideas and I started writing poems and, you know, give them to your spouse to, you know, just surprise them and be romantic for a date or, you know, that's.

That's a nice idea for next year.

Haven't done that.

Write down what did we learn about ourselves in our marriage?

So just take the time.

Like this is not a rush through one evening type of thing, right?

You need to take your time.

Think about it.

Especially for those introverts.

Introverts, sorry.

Especially with those introverts, you know, you may be having a hard time verbalizing something like that.

Just take your time.

What did we learn about ourselves and.

Our marriage that's really good.

And the last question about growth and resilience is how did we grow spiritually, emotionally and physically?

And he's like, well, I don't know.

Take your time.

How did you grow spiritually?

Maybe it was a new devotion.

Maybe you had a revelation about some truth of the scriptures.

How did you grow emotionally?

Are you closer to your spouse than you were a year ago?

Are you better communicators to each other physically?

Maybe you cut out sugar, you know, or reduce sugar.

So it's something that you've done.

How did you grow spiritually, emotionally and physically?

And write those down.

Hey, thank you for joining us in a very special episode of Aspiring Marriages.

If you would like the PDF of all these questions, just drop a comment below.

Just say celebrate and we will send you a link where you can download this PDF of these questions so you can take your time, go through and answer them together.

Remember, husband and wife are friends for life.