The Garden of Marriage (Part VIII)
Three practical tools that can strengthen your vulnerability muscle in your life and marriage
Greetings Glory Carriers!
We took a week off our marriage series to reflect on The Motherly Love of the Father for Mother’s Day, and now we are going to resume the final posts of The Garden of Marriage series by continuing our exploration and cultivation of our three vital Heart Attitudes for marriage:
Heart Attitude #1: HUMILITY (we covered in the two posts, Part V and Part VI)
Heart Attitude #2: VULNERABILITY (Part 1 here, Part 2 today)
Heart Attitude #3: ONENESS (next week)
You can refer to this home page if you need to catch up on any of the past articles in the series.
Habits that Lead the Heart
Today, I am going to share three practical exercises that will help you in strengthening your vulnerability muscle in your life and your marriage. You ready? Let’s dive in…
The Marriage Huddle Template.
My husband and I developed this simple tool early in our marriage, as a way of regularly coming together to share from the various areas listed:
What we found extremely valuable is the section where you share appreciations and aggravations, so it is planned and anticipated from both sides, rather than the heat of the moment.
You can use this template weekly, every other week, or monthly as a way of opening up these areas that may be more difficult in every-day conversation. Try it and see how your vulnerability muscle will be stretched and strengthened over time as you share more deeply from your hearts in these specific areas.
You can access the PDF here.
Date night with Question Cards or Book.
We’ve had a date night every week since we’ve been married and find that every once in a while we need help getting out of our usual conversation ‘ruts.’ You know, where you talk about nothing but work and the kids? To help with this we have turned to resources that help us ask each other intriguing questions of the other to help draw out deeper and more meaningful conversations. Here is one book we have tried:
We will simply take it out with us on a date night. Or pull from decks of question cards we have collected and start off our date night this way. As the author Marcus and Ashley Kusi say,
“Asking the right questions is what leads to better conversations, learning new things, and getting to know another person on a deeper level.”
I couldn’t agree more! Even and especially as it relates to your spouse. Why don’t you try it on your next date night? If one of you is more into it than the other, ask if they would be willing to ‘indulge’ you by trying something new. See how it goes and adapt as you need to.
Sharing Emotions in Marriage Exercise.
This exercise can help you access your emotions for your own awareness, and it can help you share your emotions with your partner, which as we talked about is key to being vulnerable. Here is a simple exercise you can try:
You can access the PDF here.
Please write to me with any questions related to these tools or testimonials of how they have blessed you or helped you in your marriage. I would love to hear!
Cultivating Closeness Takes Courage and Work
I hope these simple exercises and tools can help you develop habits in your marriage that will lead your hearts in the way of a deeper connection through your openness and vulnerability. It may not come naturally or easily to you or your partner, and that is okay. But we can all commit to putting in the work it takes to cultivate the gardens of our marriages so they can blossom and bloom in unexpected ways.
Why don’t you choose one exercise above and put it into practice this week? Entrust your efforts to God and let Him do the rest!
For His Glory from My Heart and Home to Yours,
Ali
Photos of the Week
