A Solid Foundation

By Ty Salvant

On my confirmation retreat, the priest told us that there were other retreat opportunities in the church as a college student and an engaged couple. The seed was planted.

Fast forward seven years, and our priest gave us the marriage prep options: a day, a weekend or six weekly meetings. I immediately remembered wanting to attend the retreat.

It didn’t take much convincing before Derrick and I were off on a new adventure. Honestly, we had no idea what to expect as we didn’t have friends or family that had been on an Engaged Encounter (EE) retreat.

Derrick and I both came from divorce backgrounds, and we knew that we didn’t want that as an option for us. Initially, we agreed on everything from the possibility of adoption to one deal breaker. But on our EE weekend, we realized that we had placed a condition on our marriage.

We learned that we were called to truly love unconditionally. After lots of prayer, we agreed that we were willing to accept the challenge to mirror God’s love for each other and love each other unconditionally, even if it meant we could be hurt.

Reflecting on the vision we had for our family, we knew this is one ideal we wanted to turn into a value. Not only for our sake, but for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

With God’s grace, we have been able to live up to our marital commitments, and our children observe us living out a life-giving Catholic marriage. One of the many gifts we give our children is one of a solid foundation.