16 Secrets to Lasting Relationships

I have a bowl of candy hearts in the office. Each heart has a saying, such as: Be Mine. Gotcha. I'm Sure. Crazy 4 U. OXOX. Love You!
Stores offer these candies shortly after the new year leading up to Valentine's Day. The bowl in my office is leftovers from a Couple's Valentine's night out with couple's  from our church.

We went bowling and ate at a Mexican restaurant. Going with the Mexican theme, anyone who had a gutter ball had to wear a sombrero until someone else on their team threw a gutter ball. We had romantic prizes if you threw a strike. The teams were selected so couple's were together, so when the prizes were exhausted and a strike was thrown, the person's partner came out to lane and either kissed or bowed to their feet according to the choice of the person who threw the strike.
What a riot!

Our community paper highlighted a couple celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. They shared secrets to a lasting marriage. During our Mexican supper, couples made romantic phrases with the heart candies and on a 3x5 card wrote their own secrets to a lasting relationship.

• Keep finding new things to go out and do together.
• Nothing diffuses anger faster than humor. Laugh lots!
• Stick together during crucial moments, yet fight over the remote whenever necessary.
• Don't go to bed mad. Don't throw garbage in his garage.
• Talk things through. Don't think they know what you are thinking or want.
• Be nice to each other, even when you don't want to be.
• Be a team: Love together, Forgive together, Pray together, Laugh together.
• Listen a lot, talk a little, love a lot.
• Compromise. 
• Don't let the past make today.
• Never go to bed mad.
• Remember why you fell in love. See them through the eyes of Jesus. Grace & Mercy. Say, "I'm sorry" and mean it. Laugh.
• Communicate. Compromise. Don't go to bed mad.
• Learn how to keep your spouses "love tank" full, then you will benefit from overflow. 
• Never leave without a kiss.
• Always encourage. 

Great tips!
1Cornthians 13:4-8a,13

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.
 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

---