BUILDING OUR MARITAL
An Interactive Marriage Enrichment Workshop
by
Edward P. Wimberly, Ph.D.&
Anne Streaty Wimberly, Ph.D.
in the Making
Our Story
Legacies are built on our remembering and recalling
our story that begins when we met and continues over
time. Your story is important to share with each other
and with others. As you follow the upcoming directions,
get ready to ask your mate the question, “Do you
remember . . .,” or to swap stories with one or two other
couples.
Laying the Groundwork for
Building
What is a marital legacy?
Let’s Tell It
A marital legacy is the unfolding
story journey of our marriage as
Christians—the life of Christ in
and through us as a couple—that
we want to be pleasing to God.
Claims On Which a Christian
Marital
Stand
Claim One
God offers us the privilege of marriage
and gives us tools or ways of forming
the talents we need to grow together in
love and marriage to the end that God
says, “Well done, good and faithful
servants. You have been faith over a
few things.” (Matthew 25:21,23).
Claims On Which a Christian
Marital
Stand
Claim Two
When we seek to live out our marriages as
Christians in ways that are pleasing to God, we
also serve as role models for others who, today,
see so many problematic images of marriage
around them and in the media. The scripture
says, “Let your light shine before others, so that
they may see your good works and give glory to
your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).
The Marital
is
Up to Us
We have to
it!
Building Steps
Our invitation now is for us to
engage in story-sharing around six
key steps.
How will we do it?
♥♥ Our steps will include remembering our journey
together, what has anchored us and the resources
we have drawn on along the way.
♥♥ We will use the letters of the word “LEGACY” to
help us remember the steps.
♥♥ At each step, we will be invited to share our
stories and reflect on scripture.
♥♥ We will then close with a guide for further couple
reflection and creation of a “Legacy Journal.”
L – Look at God’s Action ♥♥
• Legacies are built from couple’s memories of their
meeting. As a couple, tell to someone else the story
of your first meeting, when you knew you loved the
person you met and wanted to get married. Describe
the proposal.
• Share your thoughts about God’s planting in your
hearts the longing for your love to be shared and
God’s calling to you to marry and bring to each other
the gifts of self God has given you. Say aloud the
gifts/qualities you saw in the person who became
your marital partner.
• Apply Jesus’ words as an anchor to your marriage:
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and
appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and
that your fruit should last” (John 15:16).
E – Evaluate Your Journey Into and After the
Marriage Ceremony ♥♥
• Legacies are built from the memories of couple’s mating.
Share the story of your journey of planning for and moving
through your wedding. What sticks most in your mind about
this journey? Recall the vows you took.
• Look back and tell of a time during or after your honeymoon
that makes you say now, “God, you did a good thing to bring
us together.”
• Center and share your thoughts now on God’s love and
what this centering means as an anchor on your present
journey and legacy-building: “Beloved, let us love one
another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is
born of God and knows God. . . Beloved, since God loved
us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has
ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and
his love is perfected in us” (I John 4:7-8, 11-12).
G–Grow Together Through Thick and Thin 1
♥♥
• Legacies are built by couple’s sojourning through tough
times that surely come. Recall a challenge you’ve faced in
your marital journey that you were able to meet and tell how
you did it. What does this say about the resources—tools or
talents—God has given you to keep on keeping on as a
couple?
• Share your thoughts on ways the following scripture served
then and may yet be an anchor for personally stepping
along the marital journey in tough times: “Love is patient;
love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or
rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or
resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in
the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things. Love never ends. . . And now
faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of
these is love” (I Corinthians 13:4-8a, 13).
Grow Together Through Thick and Thin 2
♥♥
• Legacies are built on couple’s remembering the
joys of marriage. Recall one of the happiest
moments you’ve experienced on your marital
journey. What made it happy? Consider and
share what happiness means to you.
• Share your thoughts on ways the following
scriptures served then and may yet be an
anchor in times of joy: “The Lord has done great
things for us, and we rejoiced” (Psalm 126:3).
You have made known to me the ways of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your
presence (Acts 2:28, Based on Psalm 16:11).
A
– Access Resources for Continuing Marital
Aliveness Through the Ages/Stages of Life 1♥♥
• Legacies are built through the changes couples
experience and resources they draw on as they
go from one age/stage to the next. Identify the
age/stage you are in now (e.g., early adulthood,
middle adulthood, older adulthood). Describe
what you are going through as a couple in your
present age/stage.
• Which one(s) of the following resources are you
drawing on in your present age/stage that helps
to keep your marriage alive: Couple and family
rituals; couple talk time; couple Sabbath rest;
couple check-up times at marriage retreats, with
a spiritual guide, or a counselor; times apart for
self-reflection; and/or other resources that you
name.
Access Resources for Continuing Marital Aliveness
Through the Ages/Stages of Life 2♥♥
• Share your thoughts on what the following scriptures
suggest for a way of being in marriage and what each
spouse may adopt for yourself as you move from one
age/stage to another in your marriage: “Be of the same
mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of
one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,
but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.
Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the
interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was
in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:2b-5). “For I have learned
to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to
have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. . . I can
do all things through him who strengthens me”
(Philippians 4:11b-12a, 13.
C – Celebrate Your Marriage and
Your Spouse 1
Habits
Legacies are built by the habits couples
form to celebrate both their marriage and
their spouse. Tell a story about one or
two of the following 12 habits. Then
identify at least two more that you will
form:
12 Celebration Habits
• Say often to each other, “I love you.”
• Pray and have devotions together.
• Dream about the future and create talk time to
share your dreams and how to make them a
reality.
• Give an unexpected gift.
• Update your sex life—new ways, new places,
new times.
• Ask yourself at the beginning of each day: “What
will I do today to nurture, pamper, or show
appreciation to my spouse? Then answer the
question by doing it.
• Take a walk together; see a movie, play, or concert;
listen to and/or dance to music; get a shared hobby.
• Get a new couple picture and post it on the wall
and/or in your wallet.
• Move beyond the usual talk to “heart talk” about
thoughts lying at the quiet center of your being—
dreams, questions to ponder, words of affirmation
you want to give or need to receive.
• Check on sleeping children together—quietly—then
marvel at this gift of life given to you or agree based
on a child-rearing challenge that WE brought them
into this world and WE can take ‘em out.
♥♥ Celebrate your anniversary or make it a
month-a-versary; and do not forget birthdays.
♥♥ Snuggle in bed even when you do not
tuggle.
See some of these and more on: “23 Ways to Celebrate Your
Marriage,” http://sheknows.com/tags/being-married
Repeat the following scripture aloud: “I
thank my God every time I remember
you, constantly praying with joy in every
one of my prayers for you, because of
your sharing in the gospel from the first
day until now” (Philippians 1:3-5).
Y – Yield to Opportunities to
Share With Others
• Legacies are built as couples relate with,
engage in times of fun and share their
testimonies with others. Tell a story about an
exciting or memorable time of being or sharing
with another couple, family members, or others.
What made it memorable or exciting?
• Share your thoughts on what the following
scripture means for couples’ relationship with
others: As it is, there are many members, yet
one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I
have not need of you,” nor again the head to the
feet, “I have no need of you” (I Corinthians
12:20-21).
Creating Times for
Reflection
Building A
Journal
(See Handout)