Celebrate Your Spouse | JOY for Today

(Updated 12/29/2023)

Spouses Day | January 26th Annually

A spouse is the person you do life with, a permanent fixture often overlooked. Today, take time to celebrate that person walking hand-in-hand through life with you. Rejoice in your marriage!

Spouse Celebration Offerings

• Lessons from Spouses 
• Wolfe Stew Connection
• Bible Verses and Quotes
• Activity Suggestion (for spouses, families, or classrooms)

UPCOMING HOLIDAYS:

• National Inspire Your Heart with Art Day (January 31st Annually)
• Groundhog Day (February 2nd Annually)
• National Pizza Day (February 9th Annually)

Lessons from Spouses

1. Priscilla and Aquilla - a Biblical couple who worked side-by-side making tents and ministering. The lesson I want to learn from them: live a daring life for God together. 
2. Mary and Joseph - the mother and father of Jesus. The lesson I want to learn from them: face trials together to make your faith stronger.
3. Pocahontas and John Rolfe - the Powhatan princess and Jamestown colonist whose marriage brought a time of peace. The lesson I want to learn from them: within a marriage is a new world of possibilities.
4. George and Martha Washington - USA's first president and first First Lady. The lesson I want to learn from them: relentless and selfless love and admiration for each other is never out of style.
5. Marie and Pierre Currie - 1903 Nobel Prize winning physicists for research in radiation. The lesson I want to learn from them: keep learning together.
6. My parents - the ones who love and continue teaching me. The lesson I want to learn from them: time spent together is always time well spent.

We'd Love to Know:

Of a couple who inspires you.

Wolfe Stew Connects

Wolfe Stew, in many ways, is an outpouring of our marriage. As we walk through life together, we strive to pour into other lives also. We work side-by-side to create and deliver content for a physical classroom with face-to-face learners and for a virtual world with screen-to-screen leaders. For both of these groups, our goal is to have a positive impact. Spouses' Day, to us, is a celebration of all these things. A look back at the road we've walked together, a look forward at where we want to go next, and a pause on the moment - remembering to exist in the JOY we have in today.

But also, it's a fight, as all marriages are. A fight to learn not to expect but to accept. A fight to humble ourselves while encouraging the other. A fight to commit to continue to grow together in Christ and welcome the struggle that decision brings us. 

If you want to fight too, we'd love to have you. This year, we're learning to fight for what we believe in, lasting marriages full of rejoicing being one of our beliefs. Join us and let's fight the good fight together. In January, we're focusing on CHOOSING what is a good fight. We've made a GROWTH for Today calendar with daily tasks to help you CHOOSE what matters to you, why it matters, and practice making choices that reflect your values. 

We'd Love to Know:

One reason you're rejoicing with your spouse today.

Bible Verses and Quotes to Inspire

Bible Verses

• "So be happy with your wife and find your JOY with the woman you married." Proverbs 5:18 (GNT)
• "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh." - Ephesians 5:31 (KJV)
• "But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife...But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband." 1 Corinthians 7:33-34 (NLT)
• "He who finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord." - Proverbs 18:22 (NIV)
• "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned." Song of Solomon 8:6-7

Quotes 

• "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages." - Friedrich Nietzsche
• "To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous." - Elizabeth Gilbert
• "I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with." - Mary Ann Shaffer
• "Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone, / I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One. / I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done." - Diana Gabaldon
• "A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers." - Robert Quillen

 We'd Love to Know:

Which of these verses or quotes reverberates most to you? What's one we missed?

Activity Suggestions

While Spouses' Day may not seem learner friendly:

• As a TEACHER I ask: Does it not serve as a good model for ongoing (long-suffering) teamwork?
• As an AUNT I ask: Don't your children deserve an honest exploration into the benefits and struggles that marriage invites?

Activities for Spouses

• Devote the evening to one another. Or an hour. At least 15 minutes. The point is, set aside all your obligations and commit time to each other. What you do, that's up to you.
• Write a love note. It doesn't need to be passionate, flowery, or over-the-top. Simply make a list of qualities you admire or efforts you appreciate. 
• Start reading a book on marriage. Marriages are work. Oftentimes expectations do not match reality and we must shift our perspective. Reading a marriage book can help. A couple things I've learned from them are: it's not always his fault (shocker!) and you can only change YOU (perspective-changer!). Books I've read (I haven't read the ones for men, but wanted to provide them nonetheless):
• Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
• The Resolution for Women by Priscilla Shirer
• The Resolution for Men by Stephen Kendrick, Alex Kendrick, and Randy Alcorn
• For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn
• For Men Only by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn

Activities for Families

• Discuss with your child what marriage means to you.
• See The Dating Divas for secular discussion topics
• See The Gospel Coalition for a Biblical marriage discussion guide.
• Download Teach Your Children about Marriage from Focus on the Family for age- appropriate Biblical conversation guidelines and resource suggestions (PDF) for toddlers to teenagers.
• Ask them about their thoughts on marriage.

Activities for Classrooms

• Research a married couple and prepare to discuss (or write about) evidence of teamwork throughout their marriage. What effective techniques could you apply when working as a team?
• For a list of married couples, head to Hankering for History or choose some of ours.

We'd Love to Know: 

What married couple do you think serves as the best model of good teamwork?

We’re excited to share one more day with you and wish you JOY for Today and HOPE for Tomorrow.

Fighting the Good Fight with You,

Sample one of these related posts:

To rejoice with your spouse.

To come together as parents.

To rejoice at being single.

To discover the greatest love.

To learn about your spiritual spouse.

Find even more JOY for Today in our monthly calendars, holiday, and seasonal posts.