This year has been a rollercoaster, we lived in the Hospital and Ronald McDonald house in January (after our 3 year old daughter had a stroke in December),and came home to adapt to our situation and tried to get back to a new normal as much as possible.  Normality now is very different, and though we are grateful to the LORD for His blessings, we also want to thank Him for His desire for us to be wholesome.  Rene and I took a weekend off in April, which was needed for mental health, physical rest and some alone time as husband and wife.  The agenda for the weekend was sleep and spending quality time together and that, we did for sure!  For our quality time together I brought a "vision retreat guidebook for couples" and this was a wonderful tool.

Most of us at some point in our careers, have probably worked with a team that goes over the vision and goals for the organization.  But how many of us have taken time to go over our vision and goals for our marriage?  If you answer yes, you are amazing, or you did it in premarital counseling :)  Jimmy Evans is one of my favorite speakers on Marriage and we have used his curriculums at our church for small groups a lot.  I am very familiar with his materials and have always found it to be a huge blessing.  One of his resources for couples is this vision retreat guidebook for couples which I totally recommend!  He encourages this to be done on a weekend away, so you can spend quality time on it.  

This totally makes sense, we do planning for all kinds of things, but for our marriages we neglect to do some quality planning.....yes, I get it, all of us know that we want to get our kids through school, have them grow up to be successful, be financially free and have a great marriage, but that is too broad!  We need some clear goals and there are so many more details that we may take for granted.  Like:

1. What are the major ethical and moral standards that we want our family to live by?

2. How can we discipline our children while still showing that we love them while protecting their self-esteem?  How can we operate as a team in doing this?  How can we be sure to avoid undermining one another in applying correction?

3. What are our family's most deeply held values and beliefs?

These are some  questions from our guidebook.  The following link will take you to their site where you will find different options to keep in touch with them and get a guidebook electronically.  I believe that you can only get the guidebook by calling them.  I've had my book for years and finally got to use it.  Yes, sometimes it takes the other spouse a little while to be in the right mindset to do it, not everyone wants to go on a getaway and do homework.  http://visionretreatjourney.com

In conclusion, Rene and I really enjoyed our time together going over the guidebook and found it to be a great way to have healthy, real, deep communication.  Check it out and let us know how you liked it! Oh and if you don't finish it all in one week, don't worry, we are still woking on finishing ours.  The important thing is to start!