Loving Freely (Four Keys Exclusive Excerpt #2)

Courtesy of Ave Maria Press. All rights reserved.

Our new Catholic marriage advice book, The Four Keys to Everlasting Love, gives couples practical and spiritual advice on how to stay happily married for life. Last week, I shared the first key to everlasting love -- staying faithful through forgiveness. This week, I'm sharing the second key -- serving freely through wise stewardship.

Read on for a sneak peek at the introduction to Part II of our book, offered exclusively on CatholicMom!

Called to Be Free:

Wise Choices for Your Work, Money, and Spare Time

Freedom to marry means not being forced to the altar by people or circumstances, and not being barred by any law (CCC, 1625). But freedom within marriage means something different. It means freedom to love without counting the cost and without expecting anything in return. It means freedom to make the best and wisest choices for ourselves and the ones we love.

Our everyday choices can lead us closer to God and those who matter most to us, or further away from them. Our most important choices center on our most valuable resources: our work, money, and time. When we use these resources wisely, we’re being good stewards.

Through work, we can use our talents to support ourselves and our families. We also have the opportunity to leave the world a better place than we found it. Discovering the divine value of even the littlest tasks we do can help us to balance what might feel like competing demands of God, family, and work.

We can also put our money to a higher use. Godly principles of money management are actually quite practical and can show us how to take care of our needs while helping the less fortunate as well.

Like our work and our money, our spare time is a precious asset. It’s important to spend some of our spare time serving our friends and our communities. This way, we can use our freedom to make wise choices for the good of ourselves and others.

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Excerpt reprinted from The Four Keys to Everlasting Love with permission from Ave Maria Press.

Image courtesy of Ave Maria Press.