In Defense of Date Night, part 2

Well, here is where I left off yesterday with why marriage is hard work:

Somewhere during all of this, I think we both lost the reasoning for a date night. I mean we dont have kids and see each other practically every night, why should we set aside a night to do the same thing we do every other night?? And so we stopped having date night. During this time we really got lazy within our marriage. For those of you who arent married, when people say marriage is hard work, they arent lying! It always confused me when people told me that, because how could hanging out with someone you love so much be work? ...

Well the hard work is not taking that for granted. (And really it applies to everything in life, not just marriage. Life is hard work.) It takes work to not go on autopilot with the things that are "routine" in our lives. It is not enough to love your husband, you have to say and show it. It is not enough to love the Lord, you have to say it and show it. So you need things like date night in your life...

Thats why I am urging you to institute a date night into your marriage. (For those of you singles reading, institute a girls night or a quality date with the Lord- whatever you are struggling to be intentional) Yes, you may be at home with your spouse every night, but setting a certain night where you both agree to only focus on you will do wonders. This will be your time to talk about anything that has been festering in your marriage, things you have been personally struggling with in life, and dream together of things to come. It may be the time that some of you do a family devotion and worship time together each week, or it may be a tradition to play a favorite game each week. Maybe you will go out and about, or maybe you will stay in and watch a movie. You may spend money or you may not spend one cent. The specifics arent important. Maybe you have young children and cant afford a sitter? Suggestions: swap babysitting time with other parents, set aside one night a month instead, or maybe just pick a night that will be your "date" night after the child/children go to bed.

Make it work for you. But make it work!

You wont regret it. But you will regret putting it off, so I challenge you this year to resolve to start this discipline, and let the Lord bless your time together.

Anyone got any other great ideas of what to do? Or maybe a tip for young mothers on how to pull it off? What about a tip for those of you who arent married? Share share share!

In Defense of Date Night, part 1

(This turned out super long, so I am breaking it up so as not to take all your free time today with my ramblings haha!)

Mr.Pate and I are jumping back into a lost old tradition for us this week, date night.

When we first got married... well let me back up even further. During our engagement, we were very intentional about preparing for marriage. We read books, did counseling and spent alot of time talking about meaningful things. One book we read or went through really, was called "Preparing for marriage" by Dennis Rainey and some other folks (We highly highly encourage people to go through it, it was fabulous). It was a workbook that required each person to do work on their own, then it had a session you did together. We would head to Starbucks, grab some coffee and dive in. These are some of my best memories of our relationship.

Once we got married we declared Thursday nights as Date Night. Since we were both in ministry at the time, there really was a need to set a night where we could not do ministry, seminary work etc, and instead had to focus on quality time together. It was lovely. Most of the time we wouldnt even "do" anything on Date Night, just a nice night in with dinner and games.

Its hard to remember exactly when we got away from this practice but I think it might have dwindled when mr.pate lost his job and then I had surgery. I think that was a season of life where a lot of our routine and traditions changed. I was tired all the time, and it has taken quite a long time to get back to feeling like myself. Then mr.pate started working three jobs and was never home, so our quality time consisted of me hanging out at Starbucks all the time! Haha!

Somewhere during all of this, I think we both lost the reasoning for a date night. I mean we dont have kids and see each other practically every night, why should we set aside a night to do the same thing we do every other night?? And so we stopped having date night. During this time we really got lazy within our marriage. For those of you who arent married, when people say marriage is hard work, they arent lying! It always confused me when people told me that, because how could hanging out with someone you love so much be work? ...

I will tell you how tomorrow in part 2. For now, do any of you have a regular scheduled date night? What do you do? Please share!