This morning I woke up filled with thanks.  I was thankful for my husband, thankful for our friendship-family here in Fayetteville, and thankful for the kick-ass new basket that I’ll be filling up and putting on my fireplace this afternoon.  I know what you’re thinking “Seriously?  A basket?”  But, it’s not just a basket.  

Randy has been away playing soldier for about three weeks.  We’re at the halfway mark for him coming back home, and even though this is a short separation by military standards I’ve been seriously missing him.  I mean, missing him in a can’t sleep, random tears, netflix-binging kind of way.  Separation is par for the course in our marriage, but that doesn’t make the time go by any quicker, and doesn’t make the distance any shorter.  

Last night, I dragged myself into the house after a long day, ready to face another evening by myself.  But, this time I wasn’t alone!  There was a big, beautiful basket sitting on my kitchen counter.  The exact basket that I had pointed out (and maybe drooled on a little bit) during our date night before Randy left for training.  Turns out, my husband had not only REMEMBERED that my love language is gifts, and remembered the exact thing I had set my sights on, but he had called on our friends (read: family) to put the pieces together and surprise me.  Note: If you haven’t read “The Five Love Languages” stop right here, go get it, and read it immediately!!  

This is one of the most important, most meaningful gifts I’ve ever received.  My love-tank is full on so many different levels.  Not just because my husband is awesome (he is) but also because it shows that we have friends who love, support and uplift our marriage.  Friends who are willing to drive around town to buy some silly basket, and then coordinate with my crazy schedule so that they could sneak into my house, get jumped on by my Great Dane, and leave me a reminder that I am loved and certainly never alone.  
This could not happen without our family of friends.  There is no way that my husband could have filled me in this way were it not for Ben & Melissa being willing to invest their relational, physical and financial capital in my marriage.  If we want to #redefinemarriage we need to stop believing that we were ever meant to go it alone.  Your marriage is not an island.  This idea of nuclear families, where we live in isolation without a deep dependence on others, is new.  And it’s a failed experiment.  If my marriage is going to thrive, I need you to be a part of it.  

Most of us  are living in community- whether we know it or not.  For the most part, we have a group of people who orbit our lives frequently, who see the ins and outs of our marriage relationship, and who (intentionally or unintentionally) impact our marriage.  Experience tells me that when I surround my marriage with people who are INTENTIONALLY choosing to lift it up, we don’t just survive, we thrive.  

Look around and you can see the effects of our failing communities on marriages everywhere.  When a couple hasn’t had a date night in years because they can’t afford a sitter, when a wife calls friends who encourage her to gossip about her husband, when a husband is made fun of for being “whipped”- it all screams of community that is unintentionally tearing down each other’s marriages.  We can choose to build each other up instead, but it’s outside of our norm.  We’ve spent so long living as islands that we’ve mostly forgotten that we need each other.  

4 years ago, my husband wouldn’t have even considered his big-basket-surprise to be a possibility.  He simply wouldn’t have thought of it, because the idea of inviting our community of friends to invest in our marriage wasn’t even on our radar.  For most of us, it still isn’t.  Hear this, though- it’s not our fault!  We simply weren’t raised with this concept, people!  As a matter of fact, most of us grew up in the midst of a society that taught us to hide our needs and weakness in marriage (until, of course, those needs go unmet for so long that we announce it to the world through divorce).  I love that our culture values self-sufficiency.  But, in marriage, going it alone does not and will not work.

To #redefinemarriage means that we need to make a choice to live intentionally, taking every opportunity we can to build up and strengthen the marriages around us.  And, what’s so amazing about this, is that as you focus on strengthening those relationships you are redefining the culture of your community.  Married couples in your orbit will begin to do the same for each other, and the same for you.  This shift is huge.  It starts with a small choice, though.  

There are endless small choices that we can make begin to #redefinemarriage, simply by focusing on the couples we encounter every day.  What are the needs you see in the marriages around you?  Next time a friend calls with marriage drama, how could your words intentionally strengthen their marriage instead of unintentionally tearing it down?  Could you offer to watch the kids for friends who need a date night?  How about sharing your own struggles and successes with the newlyweds in your life?  What if you brought dinner to new parents so that they could have some down time together?  Know exactly what your friend wants for their birthday?  What if you shared that with their spouse- let their partner be the hero for a day!  

When marriage vows are broken, there are many more people responsible than just two.  When a marriage thrives there are many more people who have invested in it than just two.  Without the intentional choice to invest in each other, the best that we can hope for in the marriages around us is survival.  Joy, fulfillment, romance, laughter- these things are sustainable only when we are honest about what we need and give those closest to us the opportunity to provide.  

Today I have three heros.  My husband, my friend Melissa and her husband Ben.  I am not only reminded that my husband notices me, misses me and loves me, but I am also reminded that we are not in this alone.  

A few things for us to think about…

• Who is in your “marriage community”?  Who are the three to six couples that you most frequently spend time with.
• Does this group of couples intentionally uplift each other, or do they unintentionally tear each other down?
• What are a few of the needs you see in these marriages?
• In what way could you and your spouse #redefinemarriage in your community by meeting one of these needs this week?