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I attended a very interesting seminar at the youth congress on the weekend. The topic was: Preparing for marriage. I was curious! According to the speaker, if you want to prepare for marriage you have to have HEALTH:

H - Healthy - this mainly involves bathing - and bathing a lot. It also includes staying free from sexually transmitted infections like HIV.
E - Energetic - there are a lot of tasks in marriage, and you need to make money so that poverty will not enter your marriage, so you need energy.
A - Attractive - this is key - especially for women. Women should try to always look pleasing for their men. Be sure to look your best at 5pm when your husband comes home from work, and don't be clumsy - that is not attractive.
L - Loving - you need to be loving towards your spouse and your in-laws.
T - Trustworthy - husbands who go out for "reasons" should always eventually come back. And wives should avoid the garden boy.
H - Humorous - enjoy making jokes together.

Oh, and once you're married, wives, remember to: cook for your husband, bathe your husband, and make sure he is dressed. Trust me; if your husband is at work and complains of being cold, you will be asked why you did not give him a sweater (sorry, jersey!)

The session was interesting, and made me reflect on my own marriage. My marriage to John is something I will never take for granted, because it is an incredible marriage, and it keeps getting better. I came up with my own acronym - CLUSTER.

C - Communication. Being able to talk with your partner and to communicate in many different ways is VERY important. I'm an over-communicator, but I love the way John and I talk about absolutely everything.
L - Love. An obvious one. Love means thinking of the other person before yourself - wanting the best for them, and giving of your best; not just what you have leftover. Mutual submission and mutual joy.
U - Understanding. Having empathy and trying to see things from the other person's perspective can save you a lot of grief in marriage! My famous line in our first year of marriage was, "I'm not saying that what you're doing is wrong, but I'm just trying to understand why you're doing it."
S - Sharing. Sharing life, sharing adventures, sharing sex, sharing jokes, sharing tasks, sharing friendship.
T - Trust. If you can't trust your husband/wife, you can't have a marriage.
E - Eternity. OK, I needed another vowel, but I think that a good marriage is based around a mutual love for God. In a marriage you need to have enough common values/beliefs/goals and principles that you're both going in the same direction.
R - Rain. Commitment to stick together and support one another and be a team through many rainy days, difficult times and suffering.