Happy November, readers!  Hope you are all doing well and enjoying your fall.

This is a short post to give a new marriage challenge and check in on how October’s challenge went.  Because Thanksgiving is this month (yum!), I thought this would be a great month to focus on gratitude in the challenge.  That is why my November challenge to you all (and myself!) is to thank your spouse for something every day.

Wait… EVERY day??

Don’t panic! This definitely doesn’t mean you will always need to get a gift from your spouse to thank them for, or that you need to write out a long, sappy letter of appreciation.  Many days, you might just say a quick “Thanks for taking the trash out, babe!”  Some days, you might want to thank them for something bigger about who they are- “Thank you for always being such a good listener when I need to talk about something.”  When all else fails, and you realize it’s bedtime and you haven’t thanked your spouse for anything yet, you can just tell them, “Thanks for being my husband/ wife!”

After 30 days of consciously looking for things to thank our spouses for and thanking them at least once a day… I think we will all appreciate our spouses more!  And as Madame Blueberry from Veggie Tales taught me as a child… A thankful heart is a happy heart.  If you are in for this challenge, comment below!

October Challenge Check-In

In October, our challenge was to talk about and ideally write down a legacy for our family.  My guest poster Liz Montigny offered a free worksheet to guide us through this process, and for Chris and myself, it was very helpful!  

I won’t share everything here, but the guide worksheet helped us nail down some values that are most important to our family.  Some of these were education, being welcoming to others, being family-oriented, incorporating humor and laughter into our lives, and, of course, being Christlike!  These values, in turn, helped us develop a mission statement and some short and long term goals.

While I still say the short and sweet Bennett family motto is “Love them anyway,” we now have a slightly longer “mission statement” to orient our lives around.  The Bennett family mission statement: “We will stay focused on the unity and evangelization of our own intimate family, while also living our lives in a way that convinces any and every person we meet that they are themselves a beloved member of God’s family.”

I would love to hear any values, mission statements, or goals that YOUR family came up with! Have a great November growing in gratitude for your spouse and all the other blessings in your life.