Quality Time - rebuilding trust and pizazz

I hear this all the time today; "we are just so busy". If you and I are "so busy", it is going to be almost impossible to put the "pizazz" back in our marriage. There is no substitute for "Quality Time". I think "quality time" is one of the most important ingredients in igniting that sparkler that lies inside of each of us when it comes to our marriage relationship. Showing your spouse that you care, but desiring to spend quality time together is also a step in trust building. 

What really got me thinking about "quality time" was reading my daughter Erin's friend Kristy Caver's blog. She has been journaling the last two months about her husband Simon's journey with liver cancer. Simon was diagnosed a month and a half ago. 46 days after his diagnosis he went home to be in the loving arms of Christ, leaving his family with precious memories, a time to rejoice and a time to grieve. Kristy wrote a powerful piece titled "Quality Time". She gave me permission to share. Read her words below but keep the Kleenex nearby...


Not gonna lie, we were a busy family.  That’s mostly my doing as a textbook extrovert.  We had been married almost ten years and had jobs, church, life group, Bible study groups, School Board, Boy Scouts, dance lessons, swim lessons, piano lessons, birthday parties, and many other activities.  I kept an organized master calender and we consulted it often as we navigated schedules.  Having stuff to do is not intrinsically bad. But it certainly reduced the quality time we spent with each other and our kids.

Even though the past six weeks were devastating, because I don’t know how being handed a death sentence wouldn’t be, they were so meaningful.  Besides the obvious fact that we knew our time together would be limited, I think what we didn’t realize was how nice it was to spend intentional, uninterrupted time together, as a couple, as a family, and with extended family and friends. We talked, we sat in silence, we ate, we reminisced, we prayed, we watched movies, we looked at each other, we planned, we dreamed, and we said goodbye.

Without hesitation, I would trade back those 46 days to have Simon here again.  But the time we spent together during those days was a gift – it made me believe in love again.  Not just the romantic kind, but the kind that makes you feel alive as you spend time with people who are in it for the long haul.  Simon said multiple times how grateful he was, how he had gotten everything he wanted. He was surrounded in love and confident in God’s promises.  And as I assess the stuff we have and the things we did, it is so evident that who we are and the love we share is what really matters.


I came across another great blogpost on quality time on Jackie Bledsoe's blog...you can read it here.