Vital Connections

What other couples are you close to, who inspire you, encourage you and model a strong marriage?

Our Experience

I met Libby at the beginning of my sophomore year in college, her junior year. I knew her roommate who suggested that I invite Libby to the first football game.

It was a time of incredible spiritual vitality among our friends, and we were both involved in growing Christian ministries. I was a new leader in InterVarsity and she was a leader in Young Life.

I will always be grateful for a principle and practice that was planted in us then, and to this day is essential for our marriage.

Strong marriages need vital connections and regular interactions with other couples.

I doubt if there have been more than one or two years when our calendar did not have a regular small group meeting on it. I could write a good history of the neat things that happened in our life because of these vital connections.

I remember hearing Libby say to a friend on the phone during our first year of marriage, “I wouldn’t know how Mark is doing if we weren’t in a small group.”

Apparently, my communication skills were a little under-developed.

The group we are in now meets two Friday nights a month for dinner. We have been in a group with some of the couples for twelve years, and two of the couples for twenty-five years.

We have shared a lot of life together, the triumphs and the tragedies.

Caring for others strengthens our marriage. Being cared for by others encourages our marriage.

When I meet a couple in crisis I can be pretty sure that they are not vitally connected to other couples. They may each have their own friends who typically give them bad advice when conflicts arise.

“I can’t believe he said that,” says one friend who helps you be a victim.

“How do you stand it?”, says someone else.

What couples do you know who impress you with the way they enjoy each other?

We don’t need ‘perfect’ couples as friends. We do need real couples, who model well the strengths and growth challenges of marriage.

For whom might you be this kind of couple?