My wife and I are so thankful that God reconciled our marriage. I admire long-term marriages that have survived the ups and downs through the years. I admire any marriage, no matter how long, that has survived a major crisis.

Sometimes in sharing our testimony it is easy for us to leave out that even though the turn to reconciliation came quickly, there was a lot of hard work to reconcile and there has been a lot of hard work to stay reconciled and to continue to grow our marriage.

As I listen to couples across the spectrum from young marrieds to long-term marrieds, a consistent theme is that a good marriage takes work – and it is always a work in progress.

Why should we expect anything less? Most of us have learned over time that to do well at anything – school, sports, or business – it takes hard work, even if you have a natural aptitude for it.

I can testify that the rewards for working on your marriage are well worth it.