Teams of Our Lady Challenge: February

Did anyone join in our Teams January challenge to pray every day with your spouse? How did it go? Michael and I were rather successful in making conjugal prayer a more constant part of our days; as I shared in our Teams meeting I think this was thanks to a simple commitment to going to bed on time (usually 10pm). We prayed Night Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours just before retiring almost every night. In addition to being my favorite "hour", saying Night Prayer together seemed to spread a blanket of peace and unity over our evenings that was not present when we didn't pray with one another.

The Teams challenge for February is to have a good "sit-down" with your spouse. This is a monthly endeavor for all Teams couples, but sometimes it can fall by the wayside, as it has for Michael and I in the past few months. A sit-down can be different things for different couples, but the basic idea is to spend some time together discussing issues of core importance to the marriage and to the family. The format can vary: I was struck by a suggestion that each spouse have 20 minutes to say whatever they feel they need to say to the other, without interruption (or criticism, correction, etc...) and then the other spouse has a time to thoughtfully reply to the whole of what the other has expressed. Another couple in our Team spends time discussing the Teams reading, shares high points and low points of the past month, and then has an "airing of grievances"--this same couple always accompanies their sit-downs with a special dessert. I think we could learn a thing or two from them!

For Michael and I, the key is scheduling, setting aside a particular time in which we agree this sit down will actually happen. As soon as we got home from the meeting, we set up a time for our sit-down. I think we still need to have a sit-down to discuss what our sit-down format should be... regardless of the format, one will be happening later this month.