A North Judson native who has dedicated his life to teaching Biblical family life and creation ministry is hosting a family conference tomorrow and Saturday in North Judson. Dean Wickert and his wife, Lynn, have five children and five grandchildren. He says communication is critical.
“Pretty much anything you can think of that you’re going to run into in your marriage, whether it’s financial, whether it’s if you’re going to build a house or where you’re going to live, what kind of work you’re going to do, how many children you’re going to have, if you’re going to have children. All of those kind of things are things you need to prepare for. You don’t have to make the decision necessarily, but you need to talk about how we’re going to make that decision when the time comes,” Wickert said.
“There’s all sort of differences between men and women, but part of the joy of marriage is discovering them and realizing, ‘OK, I’m attracted to you because you’re different, but once we get married I have to be sure I don’t let those differences become an aggravation.’ A lot of times the same things that aggravate us about our spouse are the things we were attracted to before we were married, Wickert added.
Wickert says marriage is a spiritual commitment.
“God has very, very strong spiritual purposes for creating marriage. So if we can focus on our life with Christ, if we can focus on serving God through Jesus Christ, then our marriages will get better because we’re going to become more and more like Christ. The more we are like Christ the less we’re going to be troublesome to our spouse, and the less we’ll be troubled by our spouses.”
The Families from the Beginning workshop starts Friday evening at 7 p.m. at The Carpenter’s Yard in North Judson and continues Saturday until 3 p.m. Find more information online at http://familiesfromthebeginning.org/?page_id=226. Wickert says the conference is open to couples and individuals. Pre-registration is encouraged but not required.
