It's that time of year again. Everywhere you look there are messages to remind you about your most significant relationship. Advertisers will tell you Valentine's Day is the perfect time to give that special gift to the one you love. They'll also tell you exactly what you should buy if you really love them. Say it with diamonds, flowers, cards, a trip to some romantic destination. The pressure is on to take time out of your busy life to shop for the perfect gift that says, “I love you.”

My children are young adults now, but my wife and I have fond memories of the Valentine gifts they made for us at school. Twisted pieces of painted clay, a tin can wrapped in coloured paper, a hand-drawn family portrait. These were priceless gifts, not because of their quality but because of the time they took to make them for us.

This year, if you really want to enrich your marriage, why not make something for your spouse, something that has significant cost to you, something that really communicates your love? The gift I am proposing will transform your marriage if you are willing to take the effort. Here it is—make time.

We live in a busy, breathless, demanding world. Work, school, children, parents, church and volunteer work are all necessary and important. But if you want to enrich your marriage, you need to make time. Here's how. Follow these two instructions very carefully. First: pick a date and time to get together with your spouse. Second: when someone says, “Can you do this tonight?” you answer, “No, sorry I can't tonight. I have things in my calendar that cannot be changed.”

Warning! By spending time with your spouse you may discover something you were not aware of. New interests evolve, opportunities appear, crises happen. We are not the people we were when we got married, or last year, or even last month. If you don't make the time to rediscover one another, you may find yourself uttering the sad phrase, “We've grown apart.”

This Valentine's Day, take time to talk about your life together for the specific purpose of making your marriage better. (Don't turn this opportunity into a gripe session!) Take turns sharing and listening. Listening means acknowledging what has been said rather than telling the other person how they should feel. Here are some areas that you might want to explore with your spouse in your time alone together.

• How are you doing? Tell me how you are feeling about work, our home, our friendships or our church.


• How do you feel about our marriage? How can I contribute to making our marriage better? Tell me something that you think would be helpful.


• Is God being honoured in our marriage? In what ways? Are there areas that we can improve?


• What does your schedule look like this coming week? Can we set aside a couple of hours to be together?

Strengthening your marriage is all about connecting and being together. It doesn't have to be serious—sometimes you might just need to have a good laugh. Last year my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. It just happened to fall at an extremely busy time of year for us. One day we went to a card shop to find the perfect card to celebrate. Neither of us could find the right card to express how we felt. However, we did find some very funny cards. And right there in the store we gave each other a funny card and then put it back on the shelf. Then we found more funny cards and gave them to each other and again put them back on the shelf. We must have done this for 45 minutes. We were laughing so hard we had to leave the store. This created a memory, a fun time shared with the most important person in my life. This spontaneous moment brings a smile to our faces every time we reflect on it.

Doctors Les and Leslie Parrott, in their book Your Time-Starved Marriage: How to Stay Connected at the Speed of Life, write: “Perhaps nothing else distinguishes the most fulfilled and happy couples as much as their tender loving care of time. They spend it wisely…. They know that each moment, no matter how fleeting, holds value for them as a couple. And they prize the opportunity to make the most out of it. They understand what so many couples don't, that only time affords the luxury of creating memories to be cherished. And they are bent on racking up as many memories as possible.”

Flowers, cards and chocolates are wonderful gifts. But this Valentine's Day, don't forget the most important thing. It's about time.