Date Night
As I entered my 20's, I started to see two different approaches to married life. One side seemed to focus more on their children and the other still went on dates and kept wooing each other. I watched my father start to date my Mom again and thought at the time that she acted rather giddy, like a teenager on a date, and during the day of, or after, her eyes had an extra sparkle in them. Thus when I got married, I didn't want to loose that fondness of pursuing each other. As a guy, I new that it would be very easy to start to see her as my Mom, there to do the laundry, cook the meals, wash the dishes, keep the house, and forget that she is the woman I wooed, the woman whose heart I had so diligently sought! Now it was mine, how would I treat it?
So thus we try to go out on a date every two weeks. We often go to a little nicer restaurant and eat a leisurely meal and then go shopping if there is anything we need. Do we do anything glamorous? Not hardly! Unless you consider shopping for groceries, glamorous. But it is time for us to be "alone." To talk, share, for me to open her door, and to sneak a kiss when she's not expecting it, to hold her hand as we walk, and let her know that she is still the most important person in my life.
I have seen the effect these evenings have on my wife and if I didn't want to do it for any other reason, I would do it in a heartbeat just to see her eyes sparkle!
We are engaged to Christ and He is still wooing our hearts. There are days that feel like the wooing has long gone, but I must remind myself that while I want to take my wife on dates all the time, life must go on. So with Christ, we love the evenings of tender feelings but I must remember that there is always more work to be done, both in my heart and in life.
Someday though, "date night" will last forever.
So thus we try to go out on a date every two weeks. We often go to a little nicer restaurant and eat a leisurely meal and then go shopping if there is anything we need. Do we do anything glamorous? Not hardly! Unless you consider shopping for groceries, glamorous. But it is time for us to be "alone." To talk, share, for me to open her door, and to sneak a kiss when she's not expecting it, to hold her hand as we walk, and let her know that she is still the most important person in my life.
I have seen the effect these evenings have on my wife and if I didn't want to do it for any other reason, I would do it in a heartbeat just to see her eyes sparkle!
We are engaged to Christ and He is still wooing our hearts. There are days that feel like the wooing has long gone, but I must remind myself that while I want to take my wife on dates all the time, life must go on. So with Christ, we love the evenings of tender feelings but I must remember that there is always more work to be done, both in my heart and in life.
Someday though, "date night" will last forever.
Comments
The challenges of marriage to most of us men is like going hunting for something, once we have found and conquered it we think all is done, it might be this way with hunting, but in marriage, the hunting goes on and never stops, for it is a living heart we are really seeking after not a dead trophy.
Thank you for this post, I have some work to do.
Don't think that I don't have my faults as well!! We as husbands try to do the best we can but I must confess, alot of us lack the creativity it takes to come up with new and neat ideas. I would never thought it necessary if I hadn't watched my father doing it. Even he didn't think of it till he got kicked in the pants at Bill Gothards seminar when I was about 12 years old. So don't give up on us flegling husbands yet, there's still hope.
-Japheth
PS. At my fathers request, when he forgot to open her door, she would stay in the car and wait, sometimes for several minutes till Daddy would realize something was wrong! :-)