"God's Plan for a Joy-Filled Marriage"

Yeah, the retreat went about as well as I had anticipated.

I got a lot out of some of the sessions. It was interesting to talk about marriage as a metaphor for Christianity. Also, there was one session devoted solely to what I wanted to know: how do I make sure that my marriage "counts" in the Catholic church?

The afternoon consisted of three talks all pushing the abstinence/natural family planning perspective. Lucky me, I had heard all of this during my confirmation classes, so I didn't feel too bad about zoning out.

What upset me was that my worst fear about the retreat came true: the leaders made Jay feel judged. Not intentionally, but he still felt uncomfortable for most of the retreat.

We tried to stay positive and open-minded, and we did get some great things out of the day. Still, every time we had a break, I found myself doing Catholic-Methodist damage control.

Our religious differences never seem so complicated when it's just the two of us and God...