Page 13 – FamilyLife®

Grant and Melody (not their real names, but a real story), raised their son, Finn, in a traditional, faith-based home. When he graduated from college, Finn decided to join an online dating service to assist him in finding a wife. He didn’t know how to carefully ask questions of his future bride, and ended up in a very difficult marriage to Shannon.

Sometime within the first 18 months of their son’s marriage, Grant and Melody became concerned. The young couple said some things that indicated they were having financial struggles. Every six months they moved to a new apartment, but then suddenly bought a house, so Grant and Melody thought things had worked out. Strangely, though, Finn hadn’t consulted them, relying solely on input from his in-laws during their home purchase.

About a year later Finn and Shannon approached Grant and Melody needing money to make their mortgage payment. Wanting to help, Grant and Melody decided to lend the couple enough money to make the payment, and clearly communicated the repayment terms. They allowed Shannon to work off some of the debt by cleaning their home, deducting a fair wage each time she did. Shannon cleaned their home three times, and then decided that she’d rather not do the work.

Over the next few weeks Shannon and Finn both bought new tattoos, and Shannon purchased a purebred golden retriever for her brother’s birthday present. It wasn’t long after this that the loan payments stopped and Finn stopped returning his parents’ phone calls.

Three months later Grant and Melody learned that the kids’ had been evicted by the bank and their home had been repossessed. By this time, Grant and Melody were fairly certain that they’d never see their money again.

The young couple moved in with Shannon’s parents, Bob and Carol. Early on Thanksgiving morning Grant and Melody’s doorbell rang. Bob and Finn were standing there wanting to talk. Bob started by lecturing Grant and Melody about the importance of supporting their kids, and then encouraged them to show their love for Finn and Shannon by giving them a financial gift to make this Thanksgiving a time for them to be truly thankful.

Months earlier, Grant had learned some family history about Bob and Carol, which included some serious financial troubles and a home foreclosure. Grant and Melody felt extremely uncomfortable with Bob’s request for money, but said that they would consider it.

Grant and Melody decided not to give any more money to their kids, and when they consulted us we encouraged them to stand firm with their decision.

Often gifts of money do nothing but delay the inevitable and often short-circuit the learning process. We reminded them that just like a drowning man could pull his rescuer under water, they could easily become financially compromised if they continued to bailout the kids. They may lose touch with Finn for a while, but we are convinced that eventually the good values they have infused in his life will help to restore the relationship and possibly his good financial sense too.

What can a parent do?

Grant and Melody’s story is not uncommon. What can you, as a loving parent, do to truly help your children in a financial crisis without jeopardizing your own financial security? We recommend moderate actions to help, while measuring your child’s commitment to real financial change. If his desire is superficial, you’ll soon know and won’t have invested thousands of dollars in a failed effort. If his intentions are genuine, your help may be the best encouragement you could give him.

Here are six effective bailout ideas to help without enabling:

1. Education. Buy him a book on managing finances or debt reduction or pay for him to attend a Crown Ministries or Financial Peace University class.

2. Groceries. Buy him a grocery gift card, several bags of groceries, or put together a care package and leave it anonymously on his doorstep. Everyone has to eat, and this can free up money to pay bills. If he continues to struggle for several months, help him locate nearby food banks or apply for food stamps.

3. Utility bills. Pay a bill or two, directly to the utility company. Don’t give cash to your child.

4. Counseling. Pay for several sessions with a counselor to help your child get back on track mentally, physically, or relationally.

5. Medical bills. If your child is dealing with a serious medical condition and bills are piling up, contact a hospital social worker or a medical billing advocate (BillAdvocates.com). Consider paying a doctor directly for a past-due bill.

6. Practical help. Rather than giving your child money, visit him (even if he lives out of town) and offer to repair, improve, and organize things around his home.

And here are some things that won’t help:

1. Money. Unless there has been evidence of good financial management skills in the past, cash bailouts simply delay the inevitable and create financial dependence, not independence.

2. Loans. Usually a consolidation loan or another type of borrowing isn’t going to solve the problem. But if your child thinks borrowing is the answer, let her go through the process of working with a bank. Bankers are more careful and less emotional than parents. If the banker won’t lend her the money, there’s probably a good reason why you shouldn’t either. If you do decide to lend your child money, write up a contract and stick to it.

3. Cosigning. Don’t do it unless you’re willing and able to pay for the entire item or loan yourself. Once again, if a lender says that they need a cosigner, then they probably think the borrower isn’t credit worthy.

Bailout policy

Unlike many governments, we have a limited bailout policy. If our kids dig a hole for themselves, we’ll counsel, encourage, and help them find resources, but we won’t write a check to have the hole filled for them. There is much value in having to think and work your way out of a problem you created. Albert Einstein agreed when he said, “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”

If we bail out our adult kids, there is a great likelihood that they won’t invest the mental energy to truly solve the root of their financial dilemma. The lesson will be unlearned and the problem repeated, costing even more next time.

Some of you may say, “Not bailing out your kids is totally uncaring. You’re family, and that’s what family is for!” We totally disagree. Is it truly loving to continuously enable self-destructive behavior?

One night as I went out for a run, I thought about the thankless task of parenting—raising children is a tough job. Barbara and I had six kids in 10 years. Changing diapers, wiping runny noses, and hauling kids back and forth was a way of life. As I rounded the bend in the road, I felt the fresh air jogging a new thought in my mind: Someone did this for me growing up. In that moment, the value of what my folks had done for me finally dawned on me.

Come to think of it, as a baby I never rolled over and thanked my mother for changing my diaper. I don’t recall thanking her as a toddler for mopping the floor after I spilled my milk—for the third time—during lunch. I never thanked my mom for being there for me when I was running a fever in the middle of the night. And yet, my mother and father’s thankless labor of love has forever shaped my life.

Years ago, Barbara and I visited some of the old cathedrals in Great Britain. One of the things that we noticed in those great cathedrals was the tributes to mothers and fathers by children who wrote about them after their parents had died. These tender words of praise had been carefully carved into marble, permanently displayed on the ancient walls. As I read some of the tributes, I wondered, Why wait until death to celebrate the life of a parent?

The legacy my parents left is more than writing etched in marble; it’s the permanent etching on a little boy that will never be forgotten. My mother and father, Ward and Dalcie Rainey, were incredible influences on my life.

My father was a man of impeccable morals and had more influence on my life than any other man. He taught me character and integrity. He showed me how to be successful and how to compete fairly. He left me with a thousand memories of playing catch, camping, fishing, and living life.

My mother was tenacious, a leader, and impressed upon me that family life was to be treasured. That’s why her home was more than four walls, a roof, and a street address. Mom made sure our house was a place that embraced relationships. What’s more, I’m eternally grateful that she led me to Christ as a 6-year-old boy.

When was the last time you thought about the sacrifices that your mother and father made for you as a child or even an adult? Have you evaluated the impact they’ve had on your life? I want to encourage you to consider how you can honor your parents with more than just a store-bought card, candy, or even a new tool or appliance.

Give them the honor they deserve.

After all, honoring parents is close to the heart of God. He said, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you” (Exodus 20:12). Think about it. His command is radical in an age where we’re encouraged to look backwards to blame, throw stones, and find fault with our parents. Instead, the Lord wants us to appreciate and esteem our parents as human beings created in His image. Let this spring be the beginning of an era of honor, starting with four practical steps.

First, spend time with your parents on their agenda, not yours.

That may mean visiting or calling them regularly. That was one very important lesson I learned from my father. I can still recall watching him on numerous occasions get up after dinner and a hard day’s work, say goodbye to my mother and me, and walk a few blocks over to his mother’s house. I went with him on more than one occasion. I would sit there and listen to the tick of the cuckoo clock and the creak of my grandmother’s rocking chair. There wasn’t a lot of conversation; there certainly wasn’t any “entertainment value” for a young man. There was only the sense of my dad honoring his mom.

In today’s fast-paced society this kind of commitment may be too much to orchestrate. As a matter of fact, there was a time in my life when I found it very difficult to stay in touch with Mom. Our kids were young, Barbara had several medical problems, and there were high demands on time. Still, I tried to call her at least once a week to keep in touch. We made trips to Missouri to visit her several times a year. We made an extra effort to pass through my hometown as a family and stay with her a couple of days on our way to or from ministry assignments.

A second way to honor your parents is through handwritten letters.

If you’re like me, you quickly go through the mail to find the stamped pieces, and then carefully inspect those to see any handwritten addresses from a friend. In this junk-laden world, nothing shows appreciation like sitting down and taking the time to write out a lengthy letter—on paper, not e-mail.

My father died unexpectedly before I had the chance to tell him everything I wanted to say, so I promised myself that I would not let that happen with my mom. Looking back on our relationship, I feel like I did everything I could to make sure my relationship with Mom was kept alive and that she felt appreciated and encouraged. After she died, however, I realized I really could have done more.

As Barbara and I packed her keepsakes, and after going through the top drawer of her bedroom dresser, I noticed there weren’t enough handwritten letters. Mom had saved every letter I’d ever sent. Standing in her room, I wondered how many times those letters were read and re-read. There were notes from my kids stuffed in her drawer along with pictures that Barbara and I had sent. To me, that’s a statement of how lonely the latter years of our lives can be and how important it is for us as children to keep that relationship intact.

A third way to honor your parents is to never underestimate the power of saying, “I love you.”

Can you ever say, “I love you,” enough? Almost all of us love our parents, and we often take it for granted that they know. When was the last time you said, “Mom [or] Dad, I love you”? If the relationship between you has hardened, his or her heart may not be able to receive that message. Don’t let that discourage you. Your words of love are exactly what your mother or father needs to hear.

I understand that you might not have had the kind of relationship with your parents that I had with my parents. Maybe there was some abuse or neglect, and you aren’t ready to take bold steps of love at this point. Perhaps the mere thought of saying, “I love you,” to a seemingly unworthy parent makes you angry. You don’t want to express love. You don’t want to forgive.

But you and I are commanded to forgive. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” If you are having a difficult time honoring your parents, take baby steps. That’s all the Lord requires of us. Step out in faith from where you are and depend on God to give you the strength to do the right thing.

Finally, a great way to honor your parents is by writing and presenting a tribute.

Within the next couple of weeks, sit down for an extended period of time and write out a tribute. List the things you appreciate about your parents; the way they have provided for you, cared for you, or showed love to you over the years. Include the traits you admire about them. Is your father a hard worker? Is your mother hospitable? Is she a great cook? Does your father have a wonderful smile? Your tribute doesn’t have to be long; what matters most is that your words flow from your heart.

When you’re finished, type it and have it professionally framed. Then read it to your parents on a special occasion such as a birthday, anniversary, or holiday. (For more information about writing a tribute, read the article “The Best Gift You Can Give Your Parents.” You can also see examples of tributes at the end of that article, including the ones I wrote for my parents.) I promise, a tribute is a gift your parents will treasure for the rest of their lives.

I first wrote a tribute to my mother in 1988, and I’m glad I wrote it when she was alive instead of writing it for her eulogy. As I sat in her funeral, I felt satisfied, knowing that I had told her everything that I ever wanted to say. No regrets.

I’ve heard many stories over the years about the healing that can take place in a relationship with parents when a child makes the effort to honor them. I’ve even received letters from folks who have written tributes to unsaved relatives; the heart-to-heart expression of love in a tribute has cracked open the door, making it possible to be able to explain how Jesus died on the cross for them. Often Christians run home with the truth before running home with love and honor. I wonder sometimes if our parents are waiting for us to honor them before they receive our Savior.

Whether your parents are saved or still in need of a Savior, there’s not a better opportunity to begin the process of honoring your parents than right now.

Eight months ago my wife, Emily, and I received our first son, Isaac, through the blessing of adoption. We have spent many years praying about the right time for our family to adopt and felt God moving us toward adoption last year. Though we read tons of books on parenting during five years of marriage, I was shocked by how under-prepared we were for the realities of the task.

Becoming a father adds a strange and new dynamic to marriage, even if you have a healthy relationship. There are multiple lessons to be learned—about being a dad and about being a good husband/leader.

Dad lessons

1. Just survive. Even though we were not expecting a fairy-tale baby, we drastically underestimated how hard the adjustment would be. Everything that he needed we had to provide, which meant less time for our own interests. A lot less! Those first few months were just downright hard.

The temptation for any new dad is to escape the madness. If you are expecting your first child soon, all I can say is … just survive. Grit your teeth and just get through it. Every parent goes through it. I guarantee you, better days are coming. It will get better.

2. Understand your anger. In general, I’ve rarely struggled with a temper. In 20 years of playing organized basketball I have only been charged with one technical foul. But during the first few months as a parent I was shocked and even embarrassed at how angry I could get.

All the crying can really take its toll. There was one Saturday that I decided to give Emily a day out to herself, which meant Isaac and me, all day, together (I can hear every woman laughing now). He literally cried from the moment she started the car until five minutes before she returned. She was gone for eight hours. It was as if someone was scraping five-inch nails across a chalkboard all day long.

After opening up to a few people, I found that I was not alone. I found that most new parents wonder if there is something wrong with them because of how angry they get. My mother-in-law even admitted she scared herself with how angry she became.

Although our anger reached new levels, I learned that this is a perfect opportunity to become more like Jesus. Often with increased anger, sin follows closely. In Ephesians 4:26, Paul tells us, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” I’ve often had to seek forgiveness from Emily for my attitude, and way before the sun ever started to set.

I also started asking forgiveness from Isaac. He may not understand what I am saying, but it provides great practice for me as he grows up. Forgiveness is something that we continually need to seek from others as we follow Jesus.

3. Remember that this is God’s child. One night Emily and I were talking about different decisions we would make as Isaac grows. At some point in the conversation we just stopped. We realized that we can’t protect him from everything. And we can’t provide everything he will ever want or need. But we know who can.

God loves my son more than I could ever love him. He cares for Isaac more than I ever could.

I can’t explain how liberating it is to say out loud to each other that, “We can’t, but God can.” He has given us the awesome responsibility to train this little boy. This is His child. What an amazing thing to know that God loves Isaac more than I do.

Husband lessons

1. Man up and grab a diaper. As a new dad, it’s easy for me to withdraw and make an excuse that Emily is better at taking care of Isaac and that she doesn’t need me. But she does need me.

This gives me great opportunity as a man to be creative. I must look for ways to serve around the house and play an active part in raising Isaac with Emily. I’ve found that I can be very helpful by taking care of all the dishes, changing diapers, keeping up on household cleaning, and taking out the trash.

Part of being a family leader is learning to anticipate needs that are coming before being asked to do them. When I look to serve Emily—just to purely serve and take some burden off of her—it goes a long way. In Ephesians, Paul calls all men to love their wives as Christ loves the church. Christ lived so sacrificially for the church that he died for it.

Why is it that we would be willing to take a bullet for our wives, but we forget the simple act of serving them? It could be as simple as holding the baby for 30 minutes after work to give my wife a needed break. So when I feel the urge to flop down into the recliner, I just need to make sure I have the baby with me.

2. Dates are essential. Getting away together is essential to our marriage. This allows us to fight isolation by feeling like normal people. We can concentrate more on each other rather than the needs of Isaac. Isaac is very important, but our marriage is the top priority.

It is also very important to spend some time in conversation about things other than Isaac. We are still real people. What has been going on with each of us? What has God taught us? Where would we like to go on our next vacation?

This is essential in keeping our sanity. Our family can’t be all about him. And dates don’t necessarily have to be in the evening. Dropping Isaac off at someone’s house on a Saturday to get a few hours out together, even if it is just going to the grocery store, is worth it.

3. Stop and enjoy the moment. There have been so many special moments with Isaac. It was exciting to see his smile develop and to watch him learn to laugh. I think I could sit for hours and just watch him peacefully sleep.

Many dads miss these little moments. They miss the birth. They miss the first few years. They miss the school years. They are living in the same house, but miss speaking into the lives of their children. I know many parents who turn around after their kids leave the house and ask, “Where did the time go?” No offense to these parents, but I want to be able to turn around when my kids leave the house and say, “I know exactly where the time has gone. Emily and I have been there hand in hand every step of the way.”

God calls me as a parent to train up our children. That means it is my responsibility, not someone else’s. I won’t miss the moments with my kids. There are so many things in this world vying for the attention of Isaac, and I need to be the voice of truth and love in his life.

I may never achieve perfection. In fact, I will screw up. But learning is a process. Striving to be more like Jesus and love my wife is hard work.

The same is true for you. You don’t have to be perfect today—just work a little each day to love your wife and kids better. Love with your children is spelled T-I-M-E. That starts right now. Go get ‘em, dads!

I happened to catch a FamilyLife Today^® program about daddy-daughter dates, where it was recommended that dads start to date their daughters when they are about 4 or 5 years old. That got my attention because I have a 4-year-old daughter. But the idea of taking her on a date had never crossed my mind.

She has three brothers, including a twin. They are all very close in age. It’s a rough and tumble crowd, but she is my natural-born leader and always right in the middle of the mix. She is smarter, quicker, and can hit just as hard as her brothers. I grew up as one of three rowdy boys, so it honestly did not occur to me that I needed to treat my fiery girl any differently than my wild boys.

But because of the radio program, I went ahead and invited her out on our very first special daddy-daughter date. For nearly three and half hours she talked nonstop over cheeseburgers, fries, and ice cream cones. All I had to do was sit there and look directly into those big blue eyes, smile, nod, and occasionally brush back the stray curl that always seemed to escape from that unruly mop of hers.

Treating her like a little lady

Our date was the first time I had deliberately treated my daughter like a little lady and perhaps the longest amount of time that she had ever had my undivided attention. When we got back home she launched from the cab of my truck and wrapped her little arms tightly around my neck. As she clung to me, unwilling let go, she whispered in my ear, “Thank you, Daddy, for making me feel so special and for being with just me … without the boys!”

I held her for a long time with tears streaming down my face telling her over and over again just how special she was to me and how much I loved her. It was one of the best moments of my life so far … at least until our next date.

Several years ago I was asked to speak at a prayer conference that took place about two hours away from our home. My husband offered to be my escort and chauffeur. The conference ended on a Saturday evening and I was totally exhausted as I climbed into our ride—a very used, 1985 full-size Ford van. My husband loaded our luggage in the pouring rain and jumped in to start home. About an hour into the winding mountain drive, we had a blowout.

He managed to pull off the road onto the very narrow shoulder that sloped off to a sharp, Ozark Mountain descent. He went to check things out. When he opened the van door to pull out some tools, he suggested that I lie down on the couch in the back and try to get some sleep. This was going to take a while. The rain was still coming down in sheets.

An operation that he could normally perform in a matter of moments, took closer to two hours because of several complications: the torrential downpour, a tire jack that kept sliding down the muddy incline, tire lug nuts that wouldn’t cooperate with the tire tool thingy, traffic that sent road spray shooting into his face every few moments … it was a bad deal.

Completely soaked and physically spent, my faithful road warrior climbed back in the vehicle. In my groggy, half-conscious state, it seemed like I’d only been asleep a few minutes. I raised my head from the couch in the back to cheerily call out, “Well, that wasn’t too bad!” He turned his mud-streaked face to look back in the darkness with a reply, but I’d already settled back into nap position.

Amazingly, he laughs about this story now. But at the time, my lack of appreciation left him feeling pretty whipped. I missed the opportunity to loudly cheer and applaud his manly victory over the wild elements of nature and machinery! That was a prime opportunity to voice a loud affirmation and express admiration for tackling a difficult challenge—and I missed it!

I’m not justifying my thoughtless behavior, but one reason I failed to fully appreciate my husband’s accomplishment that night was that I hadn’t experienced all he’d been through. I hadn’t dealt with the stubborn lug nuts or the road spray in my face. I hadn’t struggled in knee-deep mud with a worn-out tire jack or had to work on a steep incline in blinding rain because I was napping in the nice warm van! In order to truly appreciate his service to me that night, I needed to practice the important process of empathy.

If someone could bottle and sell empathy, they’d probably win the Nobel Prize, find the solution to world peace, and put divorce lawyers out of business. When I empathize with others, I’m identifying with them through imagining what they’re experiencing. I’m crawling into their skin to view the world through their eyes and I’m vicariously experiencing their joys and sorrows, pain and happiness, pressures and disappointments. When I put myself in their shoes, compassion and understanding are birthed.

Is your love for real? Find out in Bob Lepine's new book, Love Like You Mean It.

To help us get a handle on what makes men feel appreciated, let’s have a few men share their thoughts. I hope this will help us put ourselves in our husbands’ shoes. I’ve gathered several comments from various sources and compiled a list of answers from men that I’ve found helpful in giving me insight on what communicates appreciation to a husband:

Say “Thank you” more frequently and mean it.
Listen!
Watch for signals—men can’t always put into words what they’re feeling.
Hand out compliments—men like to know they’re doing a good job.
Accept us—stop trying to change us!
I’d love to hear my wife say, “You’ve got what it takes!”
Let me know when you like something I’ve done.
Remind me when I’ve done well previously.

After attempting a home improvement project, one husband said, “This week I picked out the type and color of new shingles for the roof. My wife said they looked terrific when she saw them applied … Phew!”

I can just imagine that husband’s fear and trepidation as he entered the hardware store. “Will she say this color works? Are these shingles the ones she’d pick?” Then as he worked away on the roof, “What if she hates this? Maybe I should’ve gone with the grey color instead …”

I wonder how many husbands carry out their role of protector and provider hoping to hear “You are awesome!!” but instead are greeted with “Why did you do it that way?” or “Well, you sure messed that up, didn’t you?”

James 2:8 describes love’s royal law as an action of empathy. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Put yourself in his shoes, consider how you would want to be treated and use that knowledge to demonstrate love to your husband. At least nine times this love law is repeated throughout Scripture, spanning both testaments. The same principle is reiterated in the golden rule as we are commanded to treat others in the way we’d want to be treated.

Empathy births compassion. Compassion is the necessary ingredient for loving the unlovable.

I’ve compiled some ways to help in the process of putting yourself in your husband’s shoes, and I hope you’ll add your own ideas as you consider the specifics of your situation:

When he’s irritable, remind yourself that “hurting people hurt others” and consider where his heart may be.
Enter his world at every opportunity.
Ask him about spending a day with him on the job to give you a better understanding of the pressures he faces.
Become familiar with his background, family relationships and history, early childhood, and pivotal events of his life in order to gain a better understanding of how he views the world and what impact these experiences have on his responses to you and others.
Become acquainted with his hobbies and interests; find out what his passions are and why.
Listen! Ask him to help you understand pressures he’s facing by talking to you about them (without jumping in with unwanted advice!). Invite him to share with you his goals and dreams.

You may be thinking this is pretty one-sided and wondering why you have to be the one putting in all this effort. My response to that is: Love is birthed through dying to self. Rewards come from dying. We find freedom in Christ and in turn that freedom flows into your marriage.

Kimberly Wagner is joined by her husband, LeRoy, on FamilyLife Today^®. Listen to the Wagners talk about how they learned to appreciate their differences and to put love first in their marriage.

When it seems like those you love the most are ripped from your hands, how do you release your grip long enough to see the face of almighty God? And if you happen to catch a glimpse of Him, do you ask, “What kind of God would permit such havoc … such pain … such loss of innocent life?”

These are a few of the questions that Gary and Rachele Lightsey asked themselves when, in one tragic night, they not only lost their two children but also Rachele’s mother and stepfather.

It happened so suddenly. There were no warnings. They never imagined the early-morning fire. They never imagined what it would do to their marriage.

“I just wanted to die”

Rachele and Gary had two children: a boy and a girl. They had two pets: a dog and a cat. And they lived in a one-story house on a corner lot in Dallas, Texas. Gary had done well as an insurance broker and at the beginning of 2001 Rachele quit her job to be home with the kids.

On August 15, 2001, Rachele’s mom asked to keep both 4-year-old Tyler and 16-month-old Kyleigh overnight. It was the first time that both children had ever spent the night at grandma’s together.

The phone rang the following morning, around 7 a.m., after Gary had left for work. It was Rachele’s grandmother. “Get to your mom’s house,” she said. “There’s been a fire.”

And two days later, the Lightseys were planning four funerals.

The fire that took the children’s lives had begun around 5 or 6 a.m. An electrical short caused a couch to smolder and then burst into flames. Rachele’s mom, step-dad, and children all died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

How could the Lightseys go on? And did they even want to? “As far as I was concerned I just wanted to die,” Rachele says.

No longer a mom, she felt no purpose in life … as though she were nothing. And no matter what Gary asked Rachele, her answer was always the same: “I don’t care.” Gary begged his wife to start caring—about him, about their marriage. He felt isolated, unappreciated, and unloved.

Gary asked God what he had done to deserve the loss of not only his children and in-laws, but also the relationship with his wife. And then he convinced himself that if God really cared about him, He would have prevented the fire from ever happening.

About six weeks after the fire, Gary returned to work, but every day was a harder struggle. So after several months, he quit his job and joined Rachele at home. Much like Job in the Bible, they were “silenced by the darkness … the thick darkness” (Job 23:17) that seemed to cover their lives.

“I tried to ease those pains I was feeling”

About a year after the children died, and several jobs later for Gary, two of Rachele’s nephews came to live with them. Their parents were going through a divorce and the boys needed a place to live. Rachele was thrilled to have her title of “mom” back, but Gary wasn’t quite ready for the laughter of children to once again fill their home.

Never good at expressing his emotions, Gary escaped through alcohol, “I tried to ease those pains I was feeling.” He began late-night escapades drinking with friends. “Who knows when he would get home,” Rachele recalls, “and what kind of state he would be in.”

Sometimes Gary would go to church on a Sunday morning after coming home drunk on Saturday night. “I was tired of … him putting on the happy face like everything was peachy keen in our marriage when it really wasn’t,” Rachele says.

When a Weekend to Remember^®marriage getaway was announced in 2006 at the Lightseys’ church (Firewheel Bible Fellowship; Rowlett, Texas), Rachele asked Gary if he would go. His initial reply: “No.” He didn’t want to face his failures. He was already doing the best he could to hold his marriage together.

“It’s almost like we found the secret to a happy marriage”

“I didn’t feel like we needed it then,” he says. But Rachele was convinced that the getaway would help their marriage. Reluctantly, he agreed to go.

Rachele told herself that she would not go to the getaway to see how she could change Gary. “I was really going to ask God to give me the strength that this [marriage] is what I was supposed to fight for … I didn’t want to walk away.”

During the weekend Gary learned there was much more that he needed to be doing as Rachele’s husband and the spiritual leader of his family. But the most important thing they both learned was what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ (John 3:16-18). “I knew how to be formal and pray and go to church,” Rachele says, “but I didn’t know what it meant to have a real relationship with Him.”

Gary says that, until the Weekend to Remember, his relationship with Christ had been superficial. For most of his life he had known of Jesus Christ, but at the getaway, he asked Him to “guide my life and my marriage.” When he decided to wholeheartedly rely on God for all that had happened in his life, he no longer felt a need to use alcohol as an escape.

With Jesus now at the center of her life, Rachele understood that she should identify herself first as a woman of God instead of a mother. “It’s almost like we found the secret to a happy marriage,” she says, “and we couldn’t describe it other than by a relationship with God.”

Gary and Rachele stopped bringing up repeated failures. They put aside past anger and hurts. They began a process of placing the tragic fire into God’s hands, once and for all. By doing this, they discovered a peace that was beyond their understanding (Philippians 4:7). They knew in their hearts that God had provided a safe haven for Tyler and Kyleigh. And they completely trusted that in eternity, they would see their children once again.

“It [the fire] was out of our control,” Rachele says.

“An awesome program for marriage”

Longing for their marriage to continue to grow after the getaway, the Lightseys vowed to get more involved in their church. They bought some copies of Building Your Marriage, a small-group Bible study in the HomeBuilders Couples Series^®. They were excited about what they had learned at the conference. They wanted to tell everyone about the difference it makes when God is first in a person’s life and marriage.

After the Weekend to Remember they told a leader of Firewheel Bible Fellowship that they wanted to give their Bible studies to the church. “We want you to put them to use,” Gary said. “This is an awesome program for marriage.” They were surprised by the man’s response: “Why don’t you take these books and do something with them?”

“We don’t have a ministry background,” Gary answered. “We can’t do that.”

“Sure you can,” he replied, “You are a living testimony of the power of what a Weekend to Remember can do.”

Two months later the Lightseys began leading their first small group. They not only helped others in their church as they facilitated Building Your Marriage, but also strengthened their own marriage.

Over the years Rachele and Gary have seen God transform their shattered lives and watched Him use their pain to help others. They’ve facilitated a grief recovery group at their church and begun a “grief share ministry.” Not too long ago they reached out to a woman in their community who lost her mother and two young children in a fire.

Recently the Lightseys took a couple in their small group to a Weekend to Remember. They had a “total turnaround in their marriage,” Gary says. “ … and that’s what makes it all worthwhile.” And they’ve seen how God has fulfilled Rachele’s desire to be a mom. She and Gary are continuing to raise their nephew Danny, and in 2007 they became Mom and Dad to their 3-year-old nephew, Jaxon.

“It really was about acceptance”

Today the Lightseys’ marriage is strong and they are at peace. “It really was about acceptance,” Rachele says. “… We just had to trust God.”

Whether people ask the Lightseys how to survive a tragedy or succeed in a dying marriage, their answer is the same: “If you believe that there is a God, then you have to believe that He will get you through it.”

“I didn’t think I could do it,” Gary says. “But I did get through it and I’m living proof.”

I recall the day that I asked Barbara why she had not disciplined one of our children for what appeared to be a clear disobedience. I was surprised when she replied that she wasn’t confident of her judgment. “You’re a great mom,” I told her. “And your batting average is far better then you are giving yourself credit for. Trust your judgment and decide—God will lead you. And I have confidence in you!”

Later Barbara told me that she needed my encouragement—it showed that I believed in her, even when she didn’t believer in herself.

We all need the support of friends, family, and mentors. But there’s nothing like the love and encouragement of your spouse. You may not realize it, but nobody else has the power to build up your spouse as you do—not even parents.

This is something Barbara and I learned early in our marriage. I will never forget what a surprise it was for me as a young man, a new husband, to realize that my wife had serious questions about herself, that she had self-doubt. She needed me to believe in her, to help her, to point her to Christ as her sufficiency. And Barbara discovered how much I needed her to help me become the man God was calling me to be.

You have a special power in the life of your spouse. Here are two ways you can express this power.

First, love and accept your spouse unconditionally. True intimacy in marriage is risky. We all fear rejection, and in marriage it’s common to think, If you really knew me, you wouldn’t accept me. If you really knew what I am like on the inside—who I am as a person—you would reject me. You might not love me anymore. So the more we are transparent in a marriage—freely sharing our deepest thoughts and emotions—the more vulnerable we feel. Is it any wonder that a divorce is so traumatic? The person who knows you the best has rejected you.

On the other hand, it is powerful to know that the one who knows you best, loves you the most. That your spouse accepts you and loves you in spite of all your faults. As 1 John 4:18 says, “Perfect love casts out all fear.”

Accepting your spouse and loving your spouse unconditionally means continually remembering that he or she is God’s gift to you. It means giving him the freedom to fail, and when he does, offering forgiveness. It means making your home a safe place where your spouse knows she can be herself without condemnation. It means loving her as Christ loved the church.

Second, look for ways to build up your spouse. This does not mean controlling or manipulating your spouse to meet your standards or specifications. But you do have a special power in your marriage to encourage and help your spouse walk more closely with God and become the man or woman He desires.

Does your spouse get discouraged? He needs a cheerleader who will accept his failures, celebrate his victories, and gently encourage him to press forward and be courageous. One thing Barbara has done for me over the years is remind me of the truth about who I am—that I am God’s man. She reminds me of what God has done for me, for us as a couple, for us as a family. This is especially helpful when I’m feeling doubtful or discouraged or lacking confidence as I’m facing a tough situation.

Does your spouse have difficulty making decisions? You can come alongside her and help build her confidence. Coach and encourage her in how to think through her choices; point out good decisions she’s made in the past; help her analyze poor decisions so she can learn from them rather than allowing them to block her in the future.

Does your spouse have potential that needs to be nurtured? Many of us barely know what we do well at the time we’re married. Become a student of your spouse. What are her unique gifts and abilities? Where does she excel? What do you see him doing that he really enjoys? Expand your spouse’s borders—challenge him to try something that perhaps he’s wanted to do for years, but that no one has ever given him permission to try.

In recent years I’ve encouraged Barbara to pursue her interest and skill in art, and it’s been a delight to see how she has blossomed. It’s even turned into an outreach as she has begun developing beautiful resources to help families know and apply the Scriptures and bring meaning to holidays.

God has indeed given you a special power in the life of your spouse. The question is: How will you use it?

After Dennis Rainey’s June 10 Marriage Memo, “Establishing the ‘New Normal’ in Your Marriage,” a number of readers wrote to tell about the struggles they faced with this issue. As Dennis wrote of the “new normal” dilemma:

Each of you brings a different background and a different set of expectations into your marriage. Your family did things a certain way, and your spouse’s family did things a certain way. Often you don’t even realize what’s normal to you until you get married and suddenly your normal collides with that of your spouse.

“New normal” negotiations in marriage will occur over topics ranging from “How often should we vacuum the carpets?” to “Will our dog be allowed inside?” No matter how well you know each other before you’re married, you will be surprised by how often your “normals” collide.

One reader wrote:

I mostly have a problem with my wife when it comes to turning off lights and celebrating birthdays and having parties all the time. I prefer the light to be off when I sleep but she prefers the opposite. Again, my wife believes that every birthday (including that of our children) must be celebrated with a lot of presents (if it’s the children, then they must have a party at school, which she does all the time).

Another described a conflict that arose when she and her husband were celebrating their seventh anniversary. They had a new baby, and this would be the first time they left the baby with her mother while they went on a date. The baby was fussy at night, so she felt they should go out for lunch, but her husband insisted on dinner.

We finally sat down and talked about how both of us were feeling. I was upset because I did not feel he understood how nervous I was, and I did not understand why we had to go out for dinner instead of lunch. It turned out that that was not his “normal.” His family rarely went out to eat, and they never went out for lunch. You just had a sandwich for lunch at home. It did not seem romantic or special to go out for lunch to him. On the other hand, my family went out a lot more frequently and it was for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I always loved going out for breakfast growing up, but my husband and I never do. Now I understand why.

It’s amazing how honest communication, plus a good dose of flexibility, can help resolve conflict. Once she understood how their normals were colliding, she agreed to put aside her fears and go out for dinner. “The baby was just fine with my mom,” she wrote, “We were able to enjoy our evening together because we had talked about where we both were coming from beforehand and were on the same page.”

Everyone faces some type of “new normal” conflict in marriage, but for blended families the stress is even more intense. “My husband has two daughters, and that means that they already had established family norms,” one reader wrote. “My stepdaughters informed me, when they were young, that they would teach me how to be a mom because they knew how.”

Again, communication was the key—even if it began with an argument. “When we misunderstand each other, things get worse and worse. If we finally have a heart-to-heart and explain why we’re doing something with the kids or in our marriage, then we understand each other. Sometimes these heart-to-hearts start with a big fight, but things finally get resolved and we ‘restart’ with our new information about each other.”

In his article, Dennis suggested following the instruction of Romans 12:10, which tells us to “give preference to one another in honor” (NASB). Working through these issues is an opportunity to compromise and honor each other and create your own normal in your new home.

A reporter for The Indianapolis Star once asked historian and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Tuchman what she felt was most needed in the next century.

“Probably personal responsibility,” she replied, explaining that this means, “taking responsibility for your behavior and your expenditures and your actions, and not forever supposing that society must forgive you because it’s not your fault.”

The crisis facing parents today is the very one Tuchman anticipated. Parents must take responsibility for their actions as well as teaching their children to do the same.

Among adults, there is a disturbing trend to reword our actions and deeds in order to make them sound like something they aren’t. The word “affair” doesn’t sound as bad as the term “adultery.” “Sharing news” sounds much better than ” spreading gossip.” “Giving out misinformation” sounds like an innocent mistake when it replaces the phrase “lying.” The truth is we can change what we call our actions but that doesn’t change the action itself. In other words, calling a rose a daisy doesn’t make it any less a rose.

Just last week a lawyer in a neighboring community was arrested for public intoxication at the county jail. It seems the lawyer was on his way to visit a client but was arrested and charged with drunkenness. “The greater crime was not being allowed to see my client,” the lawyer said arrogantly.

Roots of the problem

Lack of personal accountability is nothing new. Remember Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3? They were told they could eat the fruit of any tree in the garden where they lived but one. Unable to withstand temptation, they succumbed and ate of the forbidden fruit. When God asked Adam if he had eaten from the tree he was told not to eat from Adam didn’t say, “Yes, I ate the fruit” but instead answered, “The woman you put here with me-she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” When it came time for Eve to answer for her actions she didn’t do any better. God asked her what she had done and she replied, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Adam and Eve were trying to lessen their guilt by pointing the finger at each other, but that doesn’t work with God and it shouldn’t work with parents. Romans 14:12 says, “So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.” Isn’t that reason enough to teach our children about being accountable for their actions?

Here are some practical ways you can help your children learn accountability:

1. Be a good example. Don’t fall into the “it was their fault” trap. Last week when you had a car accident and rear-ended the woman in front of you, was it really her fault or were you tailgating and you just didn’t want to admit it? Were the referees at your son’s ballgame really unfair or was the other team better? Chances are the attitude you have about your own actions will be the one that influences your children the most.

2. When your child starts to point the finger at someone else gently point out ways that their decisions influenced the outcome of the situation. For example, if they made a bad grade on a test and say “the test was too hard” or “I didn’t understand the questions, find out the reason why. Did they study enough? Did they ask for help during question and answer time? If you consistently hold them responsible for their actions they will learn they can’t take the easy way out.

3. Study biblical characters who did take responsibility for their actions. David made a series of serious mistakes but when he realized what he had done he didn’t say, “It was Bathsheba’s fault.” He said, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Maybe David’s willingness to admit his mistake is one of the reasons God called him a man after His own heart.

God gave us the perfect example to follow: His Son. If we follow in His footsteps and take responsibility for our actions, our children will do the same.

Jesus is the most fascinating man who ever lived. He is the “visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), “the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3, NIV), “all the fullness of God in a human body” (Colossians 2:9). Jesus said, “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30) and “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). So hanging out with Jesus is hanging out with God.

Even though blow-me-away experiences with God can’t be manufactured, it’s within your reach to have personal, consistent communion with God. Here are three priorities I recommend to every man:

1. Know about God, know God.

Mike believed in God but had always been content to keep the relationship intellectual. But during a personal crisis, God awakened Mike’s soul and gave him an overwhelming desire to know Jesus personally. Suddenly he was consumed with a passion to not only know about God but to really know Him.

Perhaps you’ve heard of this distinction between knowing about God and knowing God. Authentic, vibrant faith is based on accurate knowledge about God, sure—but it’s also based on personal experiences with God.

Let’s call these, respectively, theology for the head (truth, knowledge) and doxology for the heart (spirit, communion). We need both. Both are forms of worship. We know this because John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

How does that happen? Since 1988 I’ve read through the Bible every year. Sometimes I follow a Bible reading plan (several plans are available on the internet). Other times I read different versions of The One Year Bible.

I read the Bible for two reasons: to know about God and to experience communion with God. First and foremost, Christianity is a relationship with the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, who lavish their love on me. When I read the Bible, I am literally spending time with the living God. The Bible, along with prayer, is the gateway to communion with God. I also read the Bible for discipleship—to grow and mature in faith.

If you want to hang out with Jesus, the Bible is the place to start. A friend of mine, John Smith, asked, “What do you think would happen if I offered you $10 million to read the Bible from cover to cover over the next year?” Of course you would read it. Well, it’s worth a lot more than $10 million. Everything Jesus knew as a man is in there. He said, “I have told you everything the Father told me” (John 15:15). With such an encyclopedic treasure trove of His words—34,450 to be exact—why wouldn’t we want to start there?

Bible reading works best when it’s a habit with a regular time and place. I like early mornings in a favorite chair, and I shoot for five days a week. How long? Some guys spend 15 minutes a day; some spend two hours—it’s completely up to you.

Spending time to know God and know about God is central to your discipleship—and it comes with a huge promise. Jesus put it this way: “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). We’ve all wondered why Christians “stray.” It’s because they don’t invest themselves in remaining faithful to the teaching of Jesus.

2. Leave room for mystery.

On a recent January 1, I read the creation account in Genesis 1 and said out loud, “Mystery abounds!” I then wrote Mystery abounds! at the bottom of the page.

Also I decided to put the initials MA at the bottom of any page on which I found something that was mysterious, that seemed hard to understand, or that raised a question. Can you guess how many pages I initialed that year?

All of them.

Mystery, which is truth beyond human understanding, is built into the deal. God declares,

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9, NIV)

We get this. We’ve all had to hold back information from someone we didn’t think could handle it.

Part of communion is trusting—and loving—the mystery of God. We must often squint at the beauty of God’s holiness through a thick veil of human limitation.

But what about all the questions you have for and about God that are unanswered?

Allow me to show you something. I’m going to ask you to bow your head, close your eyes, and fold your hands in prayer. Then I want you to think about what your posture is trying to communicate to God.

Assume this prayer posture for a count of five. I’ll wait …

Okay, so what’s your answer? If you said, “He is the infinite God and I’m just me,” or simply “Humility,” you’d be right. We don’t come to God as equals. We come to Him with awe and humility. Some things in this life we’ll never understand—and we were never meant to.

I’d take it even further: Never want a God you can fully explain.

3. Take your time.

A business colleague and I were in New York City. Whenever I’m there, I try to take in the Monet collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As we left for the airport, I asked my friend if he wanted to catch the Monets.

He said, “I’m in,” but we were tight on time. So we asked the cab driver to wait outside the museum while we dashed in for 10 minutes with Monet. Almost as soon as we arrived, we had to turn around and brisk-walk back to our waiting cab.

Of course, you can’t really get Monet by treating his paintings like fast food. Ten minutes isn’t enough to really appreciate the depth, color, texture, and mood that are there. You have to stand, be quiet, and wait. And then, suddenly, it hits you.

It’s the same with communion with God. You can’t really experience transcendence and awe unless you slow down and quiet yourself.

I define hang time as anything that nurtures your soul with a sense of the power and presence of Jesus. It can be quiet times, Bible reading, small groups, Bible studies, conversations about God, contemplative moments, singing in church, listening to music in your car, listening to a sermon, watching a sunrise, or worshiping while hammering new shingles onto a widow’s roof.

Remember, it’s a Person you’re after, not a task to check off your to-do list.

Game changer

Men have a raw and personal need for transcendence, awe, and communion. There are so many things that hold us back, but getting it right is pretty simple. That’s because the main business of God is soul making. He wants communion with us far more than we do with Him. Mostly, it’s about showing up and hanging out.

Be sure to build time for hanging out with Jesus into your schedule. It’s something that men who lead powerful, transformed lives do differently than their lukewarm counterparts. For men who desperately want to be fully alive, it’s a game changer.

Excerpted from Man Alive by Patrick Morley Copyright © 2012 by Patrick Morley. Excerpted by permission of Multnomah Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

You’re snuggled in your warm bed, about to drift off to sleep. And then comes that dreaded question from your wife: “Honey, did you remember to turn out all the lights and lock all the doors?”

That was our story during our first year of marriage. We lived in Boulder, Colorado, where the winter nights were cold and we loved our toasty electric blanket. I remember the night when I collapsed into bed, totally exhausted, and Barbara brought me back from the edge of oblivion with a light poke. “Aren’t you going to turn out the lights?”

It occurred to me that I’d been getting up for the past two months and experiencing mild frostbite and that perhaps it was her turn. “Why don’tyouturn out the lights tonight?” I retorted.

Barbara replied, “I thought you would because my dad always turned out the lights.”

A shot of adrenalin cleared my head like the sun piercing the fog. And I shouldn’t have said it, but I did: “But I’m not your dad!”

Well, that turned out to be a night when we practiced the scriptural admonition to not “let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). You see, two forces clashed on that cold Rocky Mountain night—Barbara’s sense of normal and my sense of normal. She felt it was the husband’s duty to turn off the lights because that’s what her father had always done. That was normal to her. But in my family of origin, that task was not irrevocably assigned to the male species.

When normals collide

For example, let’s examine some of the normals surrounding dinner time:

Was it normal for you to eat dinner together as a family on most nights?
What types of meals did you normally eat?
What did you drink?
Who cooked the meal?
Who cleaned up?
How did you normally dress?
Did you open the meal with prayer?
Did you start eating when you were seated or did you wait until after you prayed?
Was it normal to get a debrief from everyone’s day or was the television turned on and the dominant force?
If someone called, was dinner interrupted to answer the phone?
Was it normal to have friends over for dinner?
How often did you eat at restaurants as a family?

You could probably add to that list. And that’s just one set of normals. How about breakfast and lunch? What were your normals regarding family entertainment? Vacations? Birthday celebrations? Christmas gifts? Pets? Handling finances?

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Reader feedback

After I first wrote on this topic for an issue ofMarriage Memo, a number of readers wrote to tell about the struggles they faced with this issue. One wrote:

I mostly have a problem with my wife when it comes to turning off lights and celebrating birthdays and having parties all the time. I prefer the light to be off when I sleep but she prefers the opposite. Again, my wife believes that every birthday (including that of our children) must be celebrated with a lot of presents (if it’s the children, then they must have a party at school, which she does all the time).

We finally sat down and talked about how both of us were feeling. I was upset because I did not feel he understood how nervous I was, and I did not understand why we had to go out for dinner instead of lunch. It turned out that that was not his “normal.” His family rarely went out to eat, and they never went out for lunch. You just had a sandwich for lunch at home. It did not seem romantic or special to go out for lunch to him. On the other hand, my family went out a lot more frequently and it was for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I always loved going out for breakfast growing up, but my husband and I never do. Now I understand why.

Creating a new set of normals

No matter how long you’ve been married, one of your priorities is to create a new set of normals in your relationship. And it’s especially important early in marriage. In their book, The Most Important Year in a Woman’s Life, Susan DeVries and Bobbie Wolgemuth write, “Over the years we’ve seen couples in conflict over money or sex or in-laws, but what they’re really fighting about aren’t those things at all. They’re really fighting about normal.”

A good first step is to commit to understanding each other’s normals.

Make it part of your vocabulary. If you find yourself disagreeing about an issue, ask yourselves, “Is this a question of differing normals?” You can create a spirit of discovery, where you can talk about normals in a way that doesn’t feel threatening. Remember that, in most cases, different is not bad—it’s just different.

It’s amazing how honest communication, plus a good dose of flexibility, can help resolve conflict. In the above story about the couple celebrating their anniversary, the wife wrote that once she understood how their normals were colliding, she agreed to put aside her fears and go out for dinner. “The baby was just fine with my mom,” she wrote, “We were able to enjoy our evening together because we had talked about where we both were coming from beforehand and were on the same page.”

A second step is to make choices together that reflect your priorities and values.

Let’s say that you grew up in a family that gave each other inexpensive birthday gifts, while your spouse’s family splurged and spent a lot more money. As you consider how to celebrate your birthdays, this is an opportunity to make your own choices that reflect the importance you place on birthdays, and the number of banks you have to rob so you have enough to spend.

As you make these decisions, follow the guidance of Romans 12:10, which tells us to “give preference to one another in honor” (NASB). In most of your decisions, your sense of normal will not be superior to that of your spouse. If you both determine not to hold too tightly to what’s comfortable and familiar, you will find ways to compromise and honor each other and create your own normal in your new home.

So … who’s going to turn out the lights in your family?

Most Hollywood romances focus on finding “the one.” A common plot point early in the movie is to have two individuals, destined to be together, almost meet. They’ll walk right past each other, perhaps even glance and smile as they pass, enter and exit the same room, bus, or café just seconds apart, or they’ll be on opposite sides of the same park as the camera hovers overhead. If only she would walk that way, she’d run into him; if only he had turned his head one second sooner …

Since the actors are the two best-looking people on the set, you know they will meet eventually, but it creates a little tension to put it off for a while.

This romantic mind-set is based on the false and harmful notion that a good relationship is something you find, when in fact it is something you make. Infatuation is something you find. Sexual chemistry is something you find. A lost cell phone is something you find. But a strong, intimate, God-honoring marriage that leads to a lifelong partnership and that fosters a sense of oneness? That’s something you make, and it takes a long time to make.

I want to say this again: A good marriage isn’t something you find, it’s something you make.

A relationship, by its very definition, can’t be found; it has to be built. It requires two people getting to know each other, and then every day they have to choose to keep relating to each other or risk drifting apart. Intimacy is created stitch by stitch, through verbal sharing, dedicated praying, acts of love and service, expressions of commitment, and building increased understanding through regular communication and by experiencing life together.

In fact, one study suggests that it takes from nine to 14 years—at least a decade, and sometimes a decade and a half—for two individuals to stop thinking of themselves as individuals and to start thinking of themselves as a couple. That’s right—the journey from “me” to “we” takes years to achieve. That’s due in part to the way our brains are wired. In a very real sense, we shape our brains with our lifestyle; the things we do and the habits we choose create neural pathways that become our new norm. That’s how addictions are built; that’s why habits can be so difficult to break.

Put it this way: Have you ever driven home from work or church, pulled into your driveway, and realized you didn’t make a single conscious decision the entire drive home? That you were essentially on autopilot? That’s neuroplasticity in action. Your brain has become so familiar with that route that once you start out on it, habit takes over. You almost stop seeing the journey as individual turns and instead process it as one basic decision: Go home.

Relationally, if you’ve been living as a single for 20 to 30 years and then get married, your brain doesn’t immediately turn into “Okay, I’m married now; I have to think like a married brain, act like a married brain, stop putting up the defenses of a single brain, and embrace the intimacy of a married brain.” Those patterns of relating that served you as a single must be dismantled. You have to consciously adopt new forms of thinking and learn how to understand, serve, forgive, be vulnerable, move toward someone rather than away even in the face of hurt, and drop your former defenses. You are no longer evaluating this person; you are dedicated to sacrificially loving them. It takes time for you to make such a monumental cognitive shift. To reach true intimacy, and that sense of oneness that we all desire, requires two things: the initial death of infatuation (which doesn’t recognize reality and therefore can’t serve true intimacy) and at least nine to ten years of practice, faithfully moving toward each other relationally.

Neurologically, a relationship can be built, and it can be systematically torn apart or die of neglect, but it is not “found” or “lost.”

The following characteristics are essential to make a marriage. You can’t expect a 22-year-old to possess all of them in their full mature form, but you should see the foundations of these elements. The degree to which they are not present is the degree to which you’ll have difficulty building intimacy with this person and the degree to which you’re going to struggle in the early years of marriage.

Humility

A quick definition: Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking less about yourself. It is someone who, like Jesus, believes he has come “not to be served, but to serve.” Jesus knew His talents, and He knew His deity, but He used His power to serve. Unlike Jesus (since we are not perfect, and He was), a humble person is someone who has experienced and is experiencing conviction of sin: They are aware that they fall short, every day, and that they have much to work on, and biblical grace is the only place they put their hope.

Ability to forgive

If you believe the Bible, you are going to stumble many times throughout your marriage (James 3:2). You will break your spouse’s heart. You will disappoint her. You will embarrass him. Your sin will inconvenience her.

A couple I was pastorally counseling needed to work on building some relational intimacy. The guy confessed that he didn’t want to fully open up to his fiancée about the stress in his life because he didn’t want to be a burden to her. I told him that if his goal is to never be a burden to his future wife, he shouldn’t marry her; he might as well break up with her right now. There was, quite understandably, visible shock on his face until I explained, “What if you get laid off and can’t find another job and she has to double her hours? What if you get a stroke and she has to hand-feed you? What if you make a really stupid investment or a dumb mistake and get fired or have your portfolio tank? One or all of those things will happen over the course of your marriage. You are going to hurt and disappoint this woman very deeply, so you might as well learn how to do it productively.”

It’s hard to accept that we are going to hurt someone we love so much, but if we marry them, we will. That’s a biblical promise. Which means forgiveness is absolutely essential.

Healthy conflict resolution skills

Because both of you stumble in many ways, you need someone who can not only forgive but can work through conflict in a healthy way. There will be conflict. The only question is, will you grow toward each other as a result of the conflict, or will your hearts grow ever colder because you avoid the issue or because you respond to conflict in hurtful ways?

Healthy conflict resolution means a person can admit when he or she is wrong. Even if someone is only 10 percent wrong, that person can own the 10 percent. But it is not healthy to confess wrongdoing when there is no wrongdoing to confess. Some people will say “sorry” when there is nothing to be sorry for, just bring about peace. That’s not healthy, and it’s not biblical. You want to find someone humble enough to admit personal failings, wise enough to recognize yours, and courageous enough to hold his or her ground if you are acting arrogantly and refusing to see you sin.

Prayerful

Why would anyone want to be married without having God as a partner? I can’t imagine facing the challenges of marriage without the hope of God to lift my eyes when I’m discouraged and the conviction of God to open my eyes when I’m blind to my own sin. Since marriage is something you make, and since marriage is going to be difficult, I’d want to marry someone who knows how to pray, who practices prayer, and who is growing in prayer.

A woman once told my wife and me that she feels so much safer when she knows her husband is praying and in the Word. She doesn’t have to ask him if he’s doing this—she can tell by his attitude, his actions, the tone of his voice, his overall demeanor. And knowing that he is regularly connecting with God gives her a peace and security that she treasures.

The other day one of my single friends posted this statement on Facebook: “I love listening to silence.”

My response: “I’ve heard of that before.”

As a mom of four children ranging in age from 2 to 23, I can testify that our house never seems empty. Never. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been the only one home and really experienced silence. Even as I type this I can hear three voices talking over each other in an adjoining room.

Yet there is a time when I experience a sense of quiet. It comes at 6:00 in the morning, while everyone else in the house is still sleeping. I slip out of bed and tiptoe to the kitchen. Once I get a pot of coffee going I pull out my Bible, Bible study pages, and a journal. With the sounds of snores coming from the bedrooms I read God’s Word.

I write down Scripture passages. In my journal, I also share what’s on my heart. There I write down my frustrations, worries, and praises—and turn it all over to God.

By the time I hear my husband getting into the shower or my toddler calling “Mama” from her crib, I feel more prepared for the day. Meeting God first reminds me that He is in control. There is nothing I will face that day that will come as a surprise to Him.

As for Bible reading, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a Scripture passage that’s helped me later that very day. It’s like getting a pep talk from a coach before you head into the football game. Our coach, Jesus, knows exactly which “plays” to run and the obstacles we’ll face. He loves to prepare us ahead of time, if we’ll let Him.

True confessions

There are two things I have to confess, though. First, I haven’t always valued time spent with God. When I was first married with kids, sometimes days would pass without me really thinking about Him. Just as I had to create the habit of exercising and drinking enough water, I had to plan for time with Jesus, my Living Water. I knew if I didn’t figure out a way to set aside time, it wasn’t going to happen.

My planning started when I had a toddler and baby at home. I also babysat for a friend. Because I was caring for little kids all day, I set my alarm clock to get up 15 minutes early. I was afraid the alarm would wake the baby, but it didn’t. I can still remember Scripture verses God spoke to my heart and some of the prayers I prayed for my kids during those early morning hours—prayers I’ve seen answered in the last 20 years.

It was only 15 minutes less sleep, but it did more to help my day than anything else. I became more caring and loving to my family. The little things that used to stress me out didn’t seem as overwhelming. I was also able to find hope and encouragement to share with other moms. As I turned to Jesus, He helped me look beyond my own problems and to reach out to others with a compassionate heart.

My second confession is that this quiet time doesn’t happen every day. (I don’t exercise every day either, though I try!) With a toddler in the house, there are times when she wakes up before I get a chance to slip away. There are also days when I’ve gotten on my computer to “just send one e-mail” and I’ve wasted my quiet time on messages or Facebook.

I can tell when that happens. Something just feels “off” for the rest of the day. My family can tell, too. I’m not as joyful or peaceful about, well, anything.

The power of solitude, prayer, and the study of Scripture can’t be overemphasized. Together they can help us become parents who, like Jesus, are servant leaders.

Yet, as is so often the case, the things that benefit us most are usually the hardest to do.

Give yourself a time-out

Solitude is elusive in our world of busyness and 24/7 communication. At any moment of the day—thanks to my computer and smartphone—people can reach me through phone call, Skype, e-mail, texting, Twitter, and Facebook!

Solitude is countercultural and challenging. It draws us into the very place from which so many of our efforts are designed to help us escape—being truly alone with God without an agenda.

For years my favorite Scripture was Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.” I’d recite that verse over and over to remind myself that life wasn’t all about what I did, but also about allowing God to work in my stillness in ways only He could.

I also like the New American Standard Bible version of this verse: “Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Sometimes the striving comes when things are going well and we don’t want to get out of the flow. Sometimes it comes when we see that the people and things in our lives need attention. We roll up our sleeves and dig in.

Often it doesn’t seem to make sense to stop what we’re doing and turn to God by reading His Word and praying. Yet once you get a few minutes of peace, quiet, and connection, everything changes. It’s like stepping out the back door of your noisy life of to-do lists and relationship demands to breathe some fresh air.

Adapted from Lead Your Family Like Jesus, a Focus on the Family book published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2013 by The Center for Faithwalk Leadership/Lead Like Jesus. Used by permission.

My first memories of Mother’s Day are sitting as a child in church as the minister recognized all the mothers. I remember them standing in recognition of their day. I also remember them all wearing corsages. It was a tradition in that generation, and somehow the men knew it was part of their jobs to provide the corsages for Mother’s Day Sunday.

By the time I became a mother, corsages had vanished, but recognition in church on Sunday morning remained. In my early mom years, I felt funny standing in church, as if that role still belonged only to my mother and not to me. But by the time I had three or four kids, I was firmly established in my new identity. As my daughter Ashley said during her fourth pregnancy, “I don’t know what happened to the old Ashley. She got lost somewhere along the way.” Mother was indelibly who I was, and the vestiges of the old me were now to be found only in photo albums.

Honestly, Mother’s Day was usually somewhat of a disappointment to me. The inherent promise and expectation of a day set aside to honor mothers was never met. It’s not that my husband didn’t try. He always bought me something; usually it was a rose bush or another plant for the yard, which he knew I liked. And my kids always made me a sweet card or a crayoned picture in Sunday school. They all said, “Happy Mother’s Day,” and gave me kisses and hugs. But then everyone needed lunch and naps, and there were squabbles to resolve and needs to be met …

The kind of honor I longed for and needed in those harried years of selfless, endless labor was not to be found on the second Sunday in May. It’s not possible for children to really appreciate you for the enormity of your service. What I wanted was a day free from sibling rivalry and a simple, genuine, “Thanks, Mom,” that was unprompted by my husband or the Sunday school teacher.

In hindsight, I now understand what I longed for is only possible when your children grow up and become parents themselves. Then they begin to “get it”!

You see, mothering is a ministry to the future. It’s a very private, unseen ministry. It’s like a long-term, 20-year investment in which you cannot withdraw any of your money until the 20 years is up. You place your bets and then wait to see the outcome many years ahead. In mothering, there are moments of glory when you see hints that your investment is paying off, but they are not permanent until the end.

Interestingly, it’s only now that my children are grown that I really appreciate my own mother. And even so, I really have no idea what sacrifices, worries, and suffering she endured for me and my brothers. Only God knows, and He is the One who will give the ultimate honor when He says one day, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

And that is the real Mother’s Day. May your focus be on the honor to come on that day, and may you raise your children to walk closely with Jesus all their days.

And remember, as I so often forgot in the daily-ness of life, that a mother’s job is laborious not because it is small, but because it is gigantic. Mothering is the most important calling on a woman’s life. Mothers can indeed change the world.

Copyright ©2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

This is one of my favorite times of year in Arkansas. People in the South love dogwoods and azaleas, and they are in full bloom. Just driving to work you see splashes of color everywhere you turn.

It seems to me that the very nature of gardening and landscaping means that you are investing in the future. You put time, effort, and money into something that won’t grow into maturity for several years. I’ve noticed, for example, that azaleas seem to grow pretty slowly. That means some of the larger bushes here in Little Rock were planted at least 10 years ago, and the very large ones have been around for decades. The people who planted those bushes were investing in the future.

To illustrate, look at the first photo on the right. This is a view of my daughter Missy’s backyard. The former owners of her home invested a lot of money into landscaping, and now Missy and her husband are enjoying the results.

Now look at the second photo. This is my backyard. Notice a difference? Though we’ve kept the inside of our home looking good over the last 24 years, we’ve ignored our backyard. Just think of how it would look now if we had invested in landscaping when we moved in.

The Bible has a lot to say on the subject of sowing and reaping and how it relates to spiritual principles. Proverbs 11:18, for example, tells us that ” … one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward.” Galatians 6:7-9 describes the difference of sowing to the flesh and sowing to the Spirit, and concludes, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

I think these passages have direct application to a marriage. We should be sowing seeds in our relationship just as gardener or a farmer sows seeds in the ground. It’s an investment in the future.

There are many ways you can invest in your marriage:

Pledge that, throughout your marriage, you will always go on dates together and spend special weekends together. This pledge may be tested with the demands of raising children, but it may be more important than ever during those years. Your children need parents who love each other unconditionally and are committed to each other for a lifetime.

Encourage each other spiritually, emotionally, and physically. You are partners in life, and as you work together and support each other, you will grow in wisdom and maturity. After 20 or 30 years you will look back and say with conviction, “I don’t know what I’d be today without my spouse.”

Look for opportunities to learn more about how to build a marriage that honors God. Attending one of FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember® getaways, for example, is one of the best investments you could make in your relationship.

Build memories together. Lately I’ve been organizing all the photos we’ve taken during three decades of marriage, and it’s been fun to revisit the past—our courtship and wedding and honeymoon, old friends, the birth of our daughters, special vacations, trips with the kids, time with relatives who have now passed. Each of those experiences becomes a shared memory that strengthens your bond with each passing year.

Look at the photo of my backyard again. It’s a good reminder that you truly do reap what you sow. In our case, we didn’t sow, so we didn’t reap.

What are you doing to invest in your marriage?

Copyright ©2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Do you know any men who pout or whine when their wives’ idea of frequent sex is different than theirs?

Do you know any men who only go on dates when their wives sets one up?

What makes more than a few young men devote massive amounts of time to video games and social media?

How many husbands need stimulation from more and more porn while physical intimacy with their wives dwindles away?

Why can many young guys hook up with girls, but not have the courage to ask them on a date or navigate a constructive relationship?

What’s causing so much perpetual adolescence among guys in their late 20s and late 50s?

God has answers to these questions which drive us to passionately reach and disciple men.

We’re facing a crisis in our culture. It’s urgent! When a boy stays a boy for life … or when a man doesn’t know what it is to be a man … when he uses girls and women like property … when he fathers kids outside of marriage … or when his marriage breaks up … the price paid is compounded for women, children, and society.

Men have been tricked

Men don’t need to be attacked, however. They need to be welcomed into a fellowship of other men, where manhood can be bestowed. They need to see and learn the manhood model of Jesus, while in the company of friends and mentors.

Men have been tricked, and we need to help them break free from the lies and false vision of manhood. One key cause for the counterfeit versions of manhood and sorry state of marriages today is one we can beat only if we identify it. We need to understand our identity as consumers and rebuild a new identity as investors.

Think about it. Most of us Americans see over 500 advertisements a day. We are trained by Madison Avenue and Hollywood to be consumers and pleasure seekers. It makes us petty, selfish, and little.

But men were made to invest—to add value, to protect and make life better for others. Doing that in marriage for your wife, whom you are to cherish, makes you and your children much happier over time.

In defining manhood and leading men, we need to square up and tackle the passive, selfish, small vision of manhood that shapes boys and men into the mold of “consumer.” Men want a vision to create something significant, battle for something good, and love a woman and family heroically.

That won’t be possible with a small consumer identity. We need to wake men up to the devil’s and society’s trick. God made us to be investors.

Serve the receiver … make the team look good

Consider pro football. In the quarterback meeting room and in drills, they teach men like Tom Brady and Drew Brees to throw the ball to receivers in a target diameter of one foot, perfectly serving the receiver so he need not stretch, bend, jump or dive.

And they teach wide receivers, “If you can touch it, you must catch it.” Make the quarterback and the team look good. Lay out. Sacrifice. Those are investor mentalities.

Let’s break the consumer mold, call men up to being relationship investors—guys who protect the weak, bring out the best in others, and love unconditionally. Galatians 5 tells us we were called to freedom, not so we could feed our fleshly desires but so we could serve one another—to love our neighbor. It warns that if we are selfish in our flesh and relationships, we’ll be consumed ourselves. Philippians 2 tells us to be like Jesus and look out for the interests of others, not just self.

Men investing in other men will help us all rediscover the model of manhood: Jesus, the ultimate relationship investor.

Copyright © 2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Dealing with one’s own sin issues results in voluntary brokenness or a contrite heart. But when I dealt with the ramifications of my husband’s addiction to pornography, my heart was broken involuntarily. And I needed to choose whether I would live as a victim or live in victory.

I’m telling you, I know how to throw a rip-roaring pity party! Put on your favorite gray sweat suit, grab a quart of Ben & Jerry’s, and prepare to do the B.E.D. boogie—blame, excuses, and denial. There was a time when I could have been a party planner for other wives of porn addicts because I had it down to a science. The problem is that pity parties are not well attended by others. In fact, they are usually a party of one.

My pity parties came to a halt when I joined a secular support group. It’s not that I learned better coping skills, though they tried to teach such things. No, I looked around at the other participants, none of whom seemed to know Jesus, and I realized that many of them had earned lifetime memberships to the Pity Party Club. They had no hope. These women were toxic to one another. Like yeast poured into warm water, salt, and flour, they fed each other’s negativity. That’s where the metaphor breaks down, however, because unlike fresh baked bread, these people produced nothing worth savoring.

I remember coming home from the support group one night, dropping onto the couch, and asking aloud, “Lord, is that really what it looks like to get better? In my opinion, they all seem happy to wear name tags that say ‘Bitter.’ I want something more. I don’t want to go through all of this and end up bitter. I want to end up better than when I started.”

The choice

How about you? Have you ever known anyone who seems content to be a pit-dweller? Who is always blaming, making excuses, or in denial? Who emulates Eeyore with a low, hovering storm cloud that pours down bitterness and gloom? Who lives life as a victim? Does she bear any resemblance to the face that’s reflected in your bathroom mirror? I hope not.

No matter how your spouse broke your heart, you have the same choice that I did. You can either choose to go through this experience or you can grow through it.

In John 5:6 at the healing pool of Bethesda, Jesus asked the invalid who had been there 38 years, “Do you want to be healed?” He had a choice. So do you. Choose your role. Victor or victim? Better or bitter? Grow through it or go through it.

You can demonstrate a healthy, holy response and mature in your faith as a result of circumstances you would never have chosen. To grow through the experience and come out victorious on the other side, you need to make up your mind about a few things:

1. Make up your mind to seek time with God in solitude, because it will not seek you. Especially now, you need to let your knees buckle and give yourself over to God’s Word, His throne, His grace, and His glory. Accept His offer of solitude in the midst of tumult. This is a forging place where He will heat and reform your soul.

Solitude is where you are mindful about meeting Jesus. Just Jesus. Your heart, mind, and soul are fixed on Him alone, not on your present circumstances. Here you expose your fresh, open wounds to the healing balm of the Healer. You don’t deny the difficulties and pain, but you refuse to give in to their power. When you enter into solitude, you allow your thirsty soul to experience deep communion with the Living Water. He satisfies and fills you as only He can. Then He takes your malleable soul and shapes you into His image.

2. Make up your mind that God is the sole source of your identity and you belong to Him. When you have experienced involuntary heartbreak, it’s not uncommon to allow feelings of defeat to overcome you. If you aren’t careful, you can convince yourself that life will always be difficult and painful because God has abandoned you. This lie gives Satan the upper hand.

Our God is good. He offers you a firm place to stand. “He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure” (Psalm 40:2). Choose to believe that He is protective of you. He is for you. He believes in you. He will not fail you. He will give you strength as well as rest. He loves you and longs for you to walk in victory with Him—not just for a little while, but forever. You are His witness to faith in the midst of your suffering and sacrifice. These are some of the things He wants you to know for certain.

Have you ever met someone who was cordial but clearly not open to a new friendship—leaving you just going through the motions of relating? You can do the same thing to God. You can go through the motions of meeting with Him, but not demonstrate a heart response or an openness to His work in your life.

If you are to grow through this experience, you must persevere through the pain until you find its purpose. There you will also find healing. You are His child, and nothing will ever separate you from His love.

3. Make up your mind to be thankful. Yes, thankful. Don’t worry, thankfulness does not minimize your pain; it magnifies the positive. Gratitude is a humble attitude of genuine faith.

Your pain is very real. You can be honest about that reality without letting it blot out the many blessings God gives you every single day.

4. Make up your mind not to look back with regret or guilt after repentance. Growing through this experience is a forward, upward movement. It is an ascent. Wherever you are right now is not where you will be when this is all over. Cling to the truth that you are just passing through, and commit yourself not to look back at past mistakes.

Remember what happened to Lot’s wife when she looked back (Genesis 19:16-26)? If God in His mercy has delivered you from past behaviors, choices, and attitudes, consider it your “Get out of Sodom free” card. Flee from the old life and don’t look back!

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). You have a choice to make. Go through it or grow through it?

Adapted from When Your Husband Is Addicted to Pornography©2012 by Vicki Tiede. Published by New Growth Press. Used with permission; all rights reserved.

A few weeks after their wedding, the young man came home to find his wife in tears. She told him that his father had called her and said, “I cannot believe you forgot my wife’s birthday.” In the father’s mind, it was her responsibility to keep up with occasions like these—even birthdays for her in-laws.

The young man knew what he had to do. First he got on the phone with his mother and said, “Mom, I want to apologize for not sending you a birthday card or present. I’m really sorry about that.” Then he asked to talk with his father.

“Dad, this is the only time I want to have this conversation with you,” the young man said. “I never want you to do that to my wife again. My loyalty now is to her, and if you have a problem with something I have done, then you need to talk to me.”

I wonder how many young husbands would have stepped up with that type of courage in similar circumstances? What impresses me is that he honored his mother through his apology, but he also did not hesitate to let his father know he had overstepped his boundaries. And in the process he let his new bride know that she was the new priority in his life.

Honor … and forsake

When we marry, we face a difficult balancing act with our parents. On one hand, the fifth of the Ten Commandments tells us to “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). No matter what your age, you should honor your parents by spending time with them, thanking them for what they’ve done well, caring for them as necessary … and, yes, remembering their birthdays!

But then we look at Genesis 2:24, part of the narrative where God creates the institution of marriage. This verse tells us, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The Hebrew word for “leave” means to forsake, to leave behind, to literally let go. As difficult as it may be, when you marry you declare to the world, “No other person on earth is more important to me than my spouse.” Your spouse becomes a higher priority than your parents.

So how do you balance leaving your parents while also honoring them? Here are a few suggestions:

1. When you marry, determine to set up your own home and family.

This means more than physically living apart from your parents; it also involves setting your own schedule, creating your own family traditions, and establishing your own values and priorities.

Early in marriage, one of the most common points of conflict with in-laws is holidays. Where will you spend Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or other occasions? It is difficult for many to accept the fact that those holidays will never be the same as they were. Talk with your parents well ahead of these occasions about possibilities. Be creative and flexible, and urge your parents to do the same. And in the future, when you have children of your own, there may come a time when you ask your parents to begin coming to your home for these holidays.

365 devotions for your marriage on the days you feel like it (and ones you don’t).

2. Pull away from dependence upon your parents.

One of the most common problems you will face as a newly married couple will be the temptation to allow parents to bail you out of financial difficulty. I know of one couple that kept turning to the wife’s parents to bail them out after poor financial choices. As a result, the husband was not forced to step up to his responsibility to provide for his family and to live with the consequences of poor choices. It undermined his self-respect as a man, and his wife was losing her respect for him as well.

It’s also important to pull away from emotional dependence. Some spouses are so accustomed to consulting their parents, for example, that they feel uncomfortable making decisions on their own. There’s nothing wrong with getting advice—the problem comes when they doubt their ability to make good decisions independently. This also means being willing for you or your spouse to make bad decisions and learning from your mistakes … just like your parents did when they were young.

3. Look for opportunities to spend time with your parents.

Remember how difficult it is for them to let you go. And for single parents, the loss can be even more wrenching. Leaving does not mean withdrawing from them; that’s abandonment, not leaving.

If you live far away from your parents, you will need to make a special effort to visit them on a regular basis during weekends, vacations, etc. This will involve flexibility and sometimes sacrifice, but that’s part of the commitment you make when you join another family.

4. Don’t allow them to manipulate you.

This is one of the most difficult issues to address. Your parents know you well, and they know what buttons to push so you will do what they want. And sometimes they don’t even realize how they are being manipulative. At times you will need to lovingly confront them to establish your independence.

5. Protect each other.

Don’t criticize your spouse to your parents, and defend your spouse when they are critical. If you are having a conflict, don’t get advice from your parents.

I once made the mistake of making a negative comment about Barbara to my mother. It was not a major issue, and I soon forgot it—but she didn’t. For years she brought up that comment occasionally, and I realized I had not protected Barbara as I should have.

For many of you, the act of leaving your parents will be one of the most difficult steps of your life. But it’s a vital step in the process of growing up and establishing your own home.

Copyright © 2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

For many people, just making the decision on whether to seek counseling for marriage and family issues is difficult. Once you’ve decided (see “Do You Need Counseling?”), the next difficulty is finding a qualified counselor who can help you.

While FamilyLife is unable to provide counseling, we want to encourage you in your pursuit of a qualified, godly counselor who can help you in your journey to resolve marriage and family problems. We believe it is strength, not weakness, to acknowledge the need for help. Proverbs 15:22 says, “Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counselors they succeed.”

Important qualifications in a biblical counselor

Look for someone who:

can provide evidence of solid biblical and counseling training and experience;

loves people, perseveres through tough times, and is confident that Jesus works in His people;

believes that the Bible, God’s Word, is sufficient for providing wisdom and direction for dealing with life’s issues (2 Peter 1:2-4; Hebrews 4:12; 2 Timothy 3:16-17); and

gives clear evidence of a personal, passionate relationship with Jesus Christ.

Steps to take

Ask God for wisdom to make the right decisions as you seek a biblical counselor. God promises to give you wisdom if you ask in faith (James 1:5-8). As you step out in faith, He will direct your steps to the right counselor (see also Psalm 23, Proverbs 16:3 and Philippians 4:6-9).

Seek counsel from your church. The Bible teaches that there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors (Proverbs 11:14, 15:22, 24:6). If you belong to a church, it is important to seek the counsel of your pastor (Hebrews 13:17), and other church leaders.

God has placed your pastor or elder in the local church to give direction and care for the body of Christ, the members of the local church. Your pastor or elder might be able to offer some biblical direction or resources that can meet your needs or help you with the problem you face. One or more of the elders of your church might also be trained in counseling. At the very least, your pastor needs to know the scope of your problem so that he can pray consistently for you and your family.

The pastor is also the first resource to ask about finding a Christian counselor. He cares for you; He is responsible to God; He probably knows individuals in the area or state that can serve you well and with integrity.

You might begin talking to mature or trusted believers as well. They may have already spent time with a Christian counselor. If the counselor was able to minister to your friend, then he or she may be worth your prayerful consideration.

If your pastor or church is unable to provide you with the name(s) of good Christian counselors, FamilyLife provides a list of national counseling organizations to assist you.

If you do not belong to a church, seek the counsel of godly, Bible-believing Christians. They may also have recommendations of godly pastors who can help you. And consider this: One reason many people face problems in their families is because they lack the right biblical information, encouragement, and modeling to help them succeed. Being involved in a local church may be one of the most important steps you take toward resolving the issues you face.

Seek outside counsel, if necessary. In some cases, wise, biblically-sound counsel might not be found in the current leadership of a church. Or, if you do not belong to a church, you may be looking for biblical counsel outside the context of a local body of believers. Look for a qualified and experienced biblical counselor who can help you. For more information, consult our list of national counseling organizations.

Consider whether you need to start with conflict coaching. A competent biblical counselor will help you gain a clear understanding of the biblical and heart issues involved in your problem. In some cases, however, there is such a breakdown in communication between different individuals that no constructive discussion can take place; couples may be so focused on attacking each other, for example, that they won’t listen to constructive counseling about what caused the hurt.

If this is your situation, you may need to find a trained conflict counselor—a Christian mediator—to help you resolve conflict so that you can move toward counseling. The mediation process often reestablishes communication so that a couple can go on to seek counseling for the deep issues or problems that trouble their marriage. Check here for more on conflict coaching..

Issues to consider

1. Your faith. Personal faith is essential to the process of growth in and through trials. Even amid intense suffering and pain, God is willing and able to help you. Look to His Word. It says that God will not allow us to be tempted or tested beyond what we are able to bear (1 Corinthians 10:13); that He will be our strength and our place of refuge whenever we need Him (Psalm 46:1-3); and that He promises Christians that all things, even the most difficult, will work for good (Romans 8:28). As you look to the Lord through the Scriptures, He will give you strength and wisdom to make wise decisions.

Your understanding of the problem. The more you understand the problem and how to address it, the more you will be able to promote growth in your marriage and family. Of particular importance is your willingness to admit and confront your contributions to the issue you are facing.

In addition to the Bible, there are biblically based resources that offer encouragement and instruction. FamilyLife suggests the following materials:

How Can I Change? by C.J. Mahaney and Robin Boisvert.

Resources for Changing Lives, a series of booklets published by the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) on issues like anger, pornography, depression, A.D.D., suffering, domestic abuse, etc.

The Christian Counseling Education Foundation (CCEF) resource, Changing Hearts, Changing Lives (video or audio).

These resources will help you understand that God’s goodness and sovereignty are involved in allowing pain and suffering in a Christian’s life. They will also help promote healing and growth in the grace and knowledge of God in Jesus Christ.

Questions to ask a prospective counselor

It’s important to make an informed decision about each counselor you consider. If possible, ask these questions on the phone before any appointment, or discuss them during your first meeting. The kind of counselor you will want—one who is humble and committed to the Scripture—should have no problem helping you in this way.

Then talk to your pastor, elder, or a wise Christian friend about your conversation with the counselor and his or her answers with a view to God’s Word. Don’t forget to continue to pray for God’s wisdom to make the right choice.

Ask your prospective counselor:

What is your approach to understanding people’s problems and helping them grow and change through counseling? Please describe this process.

What are some books or other resources that you recommend regularly or that have most influenced you in your approach to counseling?

Are you a Christian? How does your faith affect your view and practice of counseling?

Do you bring Christian truth into your counseling practice? How? What role does Scripture play?

Do you pray with those you counsel?

Do you go to church? If so, where and how long have you been a member?

What is your educational and professional background? What role does it play?

Are you married? Do you have children? Have you ever been divorced? How does your marriage and family situation affect how you counsel people?

Remember…

Counseling is an interactive process. It is built, established, and maintained on trust. Open and honest dialogue between a counselor and a counselee is the most important component of building trust. If you cannot establish this foundation of trust early on—if you are not confident that the counselor will be wise, biblical, loving, and faithful in your interaction—you may need to look elsewhere.

On the other hand, if you find a wise counselor who uses God’s Word to help you grow in your Christian walk, in your marriage, and in your family, Scripture says you will be blessed! As Proverbs 3:13 tells us, “How blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding.”

© 2019 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

What do you believe in?

What really matters to you?

What values help govern how you live your life?

What values do you want to pass on to your children?

We find that most people make decisions according to a few “core values.” But many have never taken the time to articulate just what those values are.

If you want to leave a godly legacy, you first must determine what you believe in—what is most important to you. And then you need to evaluate how well you are living according to those values, because your children will learn from your actions and lifestyle more than your words.

For example, if one of your core values is, “My family comes before my job,” and they see you consistently working so many hours that you rarely have time to spend with them, they’ll conclude that your real core value is, “My work is more important than my family.” This project is designed to help you surface what your real core values are.

Complete Part One individually and then interact with your family in Part Two over your answers and develop a core values list together. (You can also download a printable PDF version of this worksheet.)

Part One: What are your core values?

Answer the following questions individually:

A. Take some time and list as many values as you can that you would like to pass on to your children.

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B. Out of this list, designate your top five core values in order of priority:

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C. Reflect on your lifestyle and how you spend your time. How well does your life reflect your core values? Pull out your calendar if it’s handy and see how your schedule reflects your real values. Be specific.

D. How do your mate’s values complement yours as you raise your family? (Be specific. Try to list at least three ways.)

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Part Two: Developing a unified list

Interact as a couple:

A. Share your answers from Part One. In what areas do you agree and disagree with each other’s conclusions? Where are you different? Talk about how you need one another for balance.

B. Now develop a unified Top 10 Core Values list (in order of priority):

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C. From that list, choose the values that you think you would need to consider as you look at different schooling choices. (For example, your desire to pass on a core value of being “helpful” or “caring” may not affect your school choice. But a core value of developing a solid work ethic may influence your decision if you learn that one school choice would not provide your child with the academic challenges he needs.)

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D. Close in prayer together, confessing any failures in this area and asking God to enable you to live according to your core values.

Part Three: Developing a plan for installing core values

A. Select one of your Top 10 Core Values that is not a strength for your child.

B. What are you doing right now to model and to teach this value to your child? How well does your life reflect this core value?

C. Write down your thoughts about your child’s personality, behavior style, and various strengths and weaknesses and how this might affect how you teach and model this value to him.

D. What influences outside your home are helping or hindering your child as he learns this value?

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E. What ideas do you have for helping your child live by this core value? Caution: Don’t limit your ideas to discipline or negative reinforcement. Think of proactive ways you as parents can positively instill and reinforce this value.

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Note: You can repeat questions A-F for each core value you want to pass on to your child.

F. What are three things you want to start doing this week in order to begin instilling your core values in your child?

Core values list

If you have a problem thinking of some core values, the following categories might spark your thinking.

Spiritual values
Trust Christ as Savior and Lord
Love God with a whole heart and serve Him
Childlike faith
View life from God’s agenda
Trust the Scriptures
A broken and contrite heart
Tenderhearted
Humble
Hunger after righteousness
Fear (reverence) of God
Dependence upon God
Forgiving
Full of hope
Submissive

Civic and cultural values
Law-abiding
Social-minded
Patriotic
Convictions about specific issues
Sense of Christian ethics

Relational values
Respect for others
Friendly
Gracious
Compassionate
Merciful
Caring
Thoughtful
Kind
Helpful
Giving
Generous

Moral values
What you base your moral choices on
Stands on moral issues

Lifestyle values
How you spend your time each day
Level of emphasis on material things
Work ethic
Level of emphasis on relationships
Mission mindset

Family values
Commitment to your mate
Level of importance of commitment to each other as a family
Level of importance of grandparents and relatives

Personal/development values
Personal health convictions
Intellectual growth
Developing skills and hobbies
Cleanliness
Discipline

Character values
Honest
Loving
Truthful
Faithful
Trustworthy
Obedient
Teachable
Tolerant
Temperate
Patient
Loyal
Morally pure
Financially ethical

Copyright © 2002 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Dag Hammerskjold, former Secretary to the United Nations, once said, “You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal; play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth; play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.”

What’s growing in your garden? Did you know that what you grow and cultivate in your garden today could spread to your offspring? Did you know that a sin you now tolerate could still be tormenting your great-grandchildren?

Consider the following strident warnings of Scripture:

Then the Lord descended in the form of a pillar of cloud and stood there with him and passed in front of him and announced the meaning of his name. “I am Jehovah, the merciful and gracious God,” He said, “slow to anger and rich in steadfast love and truth. I, Jehovah, show this steadfast love to many thousands by forgiving their sins; or else I refuse to clear the guilt, and require that a father’s sins be punished in the sons and grandsons, and even later generations” (Exodus 34:5-8).

You shall not bow down to any images nor worship them in any way, for I am the Lord your God. I am a jealous God, and I will bring the curse of a father’s sins upon even the third and fourth generation of the children of those who hate me; but I will show kindness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments (Deuteronomy 5:9-10).

What do these warnings mean? Is God trying to deliberately ruin the next generation? Why would God set up a system that visits one generation’s flaws on three or four others?

I have a hunch that God is trying to tell us that the way we live is of supreme importance to Him. Possibly He’s using a warning of future judgment on our descendants to keep us on the straight and narrow today.

Whether you like it or not, your children are becoming just like you. Their little eyes are watching to see how you relate to your mate, how you pray, how you walk with Christ on a daily basis. They hear your words and subconsciously mimic your attitudes, actions, and even your mannerisms.

And as time goes by you’ll find that they’ve inherited some of the same tendencies toward sin that you learned from your own parents. That’s why so many children from broken homes, for example, grow up and fail in their own marriages.

Leaving a legacy

I’ll be honest with you: The thought of my kids sinning in the same areas that I sin has bolstered my obedience to God. I’m reminded of the piercing statement by C. H. Spurgeon, “Sin would have fewer takers if it’s consequences occurred immediately.” I wonder, if we could see how our sin affected our descendants, if it would make a difference?

One of our FamilyLife staff members is committed to breaking the chains from his past. When speaking to individuals considering vocational Christian ministry he always says, “I grew up in a broken home and I don’t want to end up like my father. He lived his life for himself, and in the end, there were only 10 people in attendance at his funeral. I want a packed funeral—full of lives my life has impacted. I want to leave a heritage that would outlast me.”

Just think for a moment of the sins that could be visited upon your children. What do you struggle with? Lust? Selfishness? Anger? Lack of discipline? Jealousy? Pride? How about deceit? Broken promises? A gossiping tongue?

The following letter contains a sad commentary of one father’s legacy. (I’ve changed the names and places, of course.)

Dear Benjie: Before I start this letter to you I must tell you that I love you and none of what has happened or is going to happen is in any way your fault. If I had been as good a father as you are a son there would be no need for me to write to you now.

Over the years I have been unfaithful to your mother in thoughts as well as in deeds. Because your mother had complete trust in me I was able to cover up by lying to her. Last May I met a woman in Sacramento. Her name is Susan. I am going to leave your mother and go to live with her. This does not mean you no longer have a home. Your mother and I still both love you very much. I want you to know that your mother and I will always receive you into our homes with love that is unconditional.

What I have done is morally wrong and I hope you will not follow in my ways. When you meet the right woman make a lifelong commitment to her. I was never able to do this and it has caused much sorrow.

Please do not allow this to change your feelings about your mother and me. We love you very much and both need your love now even more than before. We will always be your family and will be here for you even though we will be living apart.

I love you. Dad

Every time I read this letter I wonder what was going on in that man’s mind. Did he really think that by telling his son to not follow his footsteps that he could reverse the damage he’d already done? It’s clear to me from Scripture that, unless God takes hold of this young man’s life, he will find himself having the same difficulty in making a lifelong commitment when he’s an adult.

Breaking free

So what are we to do? Wallow in guilt, because we are far from perfect? Are we enslaved to our ancestors’ wrong choices and thus permanently under the punishment of God?

No, we can stop the chain reaction by our repentance and confession. God in His grace stands ready to forgive us and grant us favor. You can, by faith, stop even the most tyrannical control of a sin that has beset your family for generations in the past.

Under the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, He can give you victory over those weaknesses. I pray frequently that God would help me arrest those things in my life that could be passed on. And He’s working—there’s hope.

The good news is that there is a forgotten promise in one of the passages I quoted earlier: “… but I will show kindness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Deuteronomy 5:9-10). That means your righteousness can still be influencing others a thousand generations from now. Now that’s encouraging news!

Once I asked one of my children what he thought about this idea of sins being passed from one generation to the next. His response was piercing:

“Don’t sin, Dad.”

He was too young to realize the wisdom of his own words. But I knew. The more I walk with Christ the more I see the wretchedness of my humanity. Moses’ prayer is becoming mine:

Oh, please, show the great power of your patience by forgiving our sin and showing us your steadfast love. Forgive us, even though you have said that you don’t let sin go unpunished, and that you punish the father’s fault in the children to the third and fourth generation. Oh, I plead with you, pardon the sins of this people because of your magnificent, steadfast love, just as you have forgiven them all the time from when we left Egypt until now (Numbers 14:17-19, TLB).

Copyright © 2006 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Several months ago I received an e-mail that I have not been able to forget. A man I’ll call Jason sent the following message:

Would you please write an article about the differences between being a single woman and a married woman [with regard to] her relationship with her father?

I struggle with my wife remaining “daddy’s little girl.” In the time it takes my wife to speed dial her daddy every time I give her an answer [on issues from] when the oil in her car needs changing to what time we are planning to meet for dinner, she calls her daddy to make sure what I said is “right.” I have stopped wasting my time and self-respect responding to her on issues that she is going to daddy about regardless of my answer.

Can you sense Jason’s disappointment in his marriage … feel his pain?

Sad to say, he is far from alone.

There are countless daddy’s little girls, as well as mama’s little boys—husbands or wives whose heartstrings are still tied to their childhood roles. And there’s no quick fix to their problems.

A change of allegiance

Where can one begin? How about in the Garden of Eden?

Genesis 2:24 (KJV) gives this advice to a husband and his wife: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.”

“Leaving” parents means forsaking dependence on them. “Cleaving” to your wife means joining together. And with that new bond of marriage comes a change of allegiance.

“Before marriage,” author Gary Chapman writes in Toward a Growing Marriage, “one’s allegiance is to one’s parents, but after marriage allegiance shifts to one’s mate.”

Jason’s wife has not transferred her allegiance from her daddy to her husand. And by continuing to depend upon her father, she has left her husband feeling second-rate, discounted, and understandably upset.

A friend I’ll call Eric identifies with Jason’s dilemma. While Eric didn’t know how to fix anything when he first married, his new father-in-law could have starred in a home improvement show. “Fortunately,” Eric says, “my wife’s father saw this as a potential problem and after a few instances started to direct her to talk to me first.”

10 ideas

I asked some pastors and Christian counselors how a husband in Jason’s predicament should approach his wife. What could he do if she is too dependent on her father? Here are 10 ideas that might help:

1. Ask God to help you get to the heart of the issue. Spend some time looking inward. Have you done anything to cause your spouse to ignore your opinions? Have you made bad decisions in the past? Have you disrespected her? Not listened to her or belittled her? Have you ignored her past requests for help?

2. Talk with a mentor about your problem. Ask him to help you recognize any of your shortcomings that may have caused your wife to feel insecure, resulting in her numerous calls to her dad.

3. After spending time with the Lord and a godly mentor, go to your wife and discuss the situation with her. Identify the issues that you think are causing her insecurities. Calmly discuss why you need to be the head of your house—not your father-in-law.

4. When you talk with your wife, focus on expressing your feelings, and don’t attack. One pastor said to use “I feel …” language, not “you …” language. For example: “I feel disrespected,” instead of, “You are so disrespectful.” “I feel like my opinions don’t matter,” instead of, “You don’t care what I think.”

5. Focus on only one specific issue at a time. For example: “Last Thursday when you noticed the oil light on in the car, you said you needed to call your dad. That made me feel like I’m not capable of helping you.”

6. Ask your wife if she senses a barrier forming between you and her. If she does, ask her why she thinks this is happening.

7. Ask her, “How can I help you?” And then really listen to what she says.

8. Pray with your wife. Ask for her forgiveness for any ways that you may have failed her. Then ask her if she has any fears that are prompting her to call her dad before you. With compassion, try to understand what is going on in her heart. Does she feel like she can’t trust you? Is she unwilling to let you fail? Is she somehow afraid she’ll lose her relationship with her father if she stops calling him for advice?

9. You may want to call your father-in-law for some “manly advice.” Respectfully share how you feel so that everyone is on the same page. Maybe your father-in-law does not realize the ramifications of his responding to his daughter’s numerous pleas for help. Maybe he doesn’t understand why you are not helping her more. “Without talking to her dad,” one pastor said, “there are too many possibilities on the table.”

You might explain to your father-in-law that you’re trying to change and need his help in getting your wife to look to you instead of him. Respectfully ask your father-in-law to stop rescuing his daughter. If this goes well, you may want to meet regularly with your father-in-law to evaluate how things are going.

10. As you and your wife work together to have a godly marriage, pray together as a couple. Ask God to give you wisdom and unity as you make the shift in allegiance together (she by relying less on her father and you as a supportive spouse). You and your wife could also share your challenges with friends at church, asking for a couple to mentor you in this season of life.

With God’s help, biblical counsel, and hard work, hopefully a wife who has had a hard time leaving and cleaving will begin to look first to her husband for help. Each time she does this, she will communicate to him, “I trust you.” And trust is at the core of any successful marriage.

All grown up

In a traditional wedding ceremony, the pastor asks, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”

The father’s typical response is, “Her mother and I do.” Often with a tear in his eye, dad will slip the arm of his daughter onto that of her future spouse.

As she recites her vows, she transfers allegiance from dear ol’ dad to the new man in her life. And with the pronouncement of “man and wife,” a new family unit begins. The time she has dreamed of has finally arrived.

Daddy’s little girl has grown up.

Copyright ©2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Stories of resurrected marriages

Stories of good marriages strengthened

Stories of couples who got married after living together

Salvation stories

At FamilyLife, we love to tell stories about what God does in families. He saves marriages. He strengthens homes. He changes lives for eternity through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We hope that you will be encouraged as you read the following stories of real people. Nothing is impossible with God!

Stories of resurrected marriages

Accused of Being a Bible Thumper
The more I tried to convince Steve to believe what I believed, the farther it pushed him from the truth.

Adrift in Marriage
Jerry and Olivia Dugan wanted to stay married but didn’t know how.

Can God Do the Impossible in a Marriage
When a husband and wife turn their lives and their marriages over to God, amazing things happen.

Can One Weekend Really Change a Marriage
We were pretty close to the end if we didn’t do something.

Could God Heal Their Marriage?
There was an invisible barrier between Marc and Lisa Lavalas.

The Difference God Makes in a Marriage
At a Weekend to Remember marriage conference, our marriage was set on the right path when my husband invited God to be a part of his life and a part of our relationship.

Finally Doing Marriage God’s Way
We now have the tools to make our marriage work, and we’re sharing them with others.

Four Words That Revived a Dying Marriage
Both Vivian and Guy had been married before, and the frustrations of trying to blend their two homes had reached a breaking point.

He Didn’t Know His Marriage Was Dying
Alberto and Debbie Rodriguez were two strangers living in the same house. One was getting lonelier and lonelier … while the other was clueless.

He Had Two Affairs in 18 Months
David wanted nothing to do with his wife or his marriage.

He Led a Double Life
Scott Jennings lived in a world of lies, affairs, and deceit—until it fell apart.

He Wanted a Divorce … She Wanted a Marriage
Scott Garmon couldn’t understand why he should stay in an unhappy marriage.

Her Husband Wouldn’t Speak to Her—for Three Years
Even in the silence, June Sims continued serving her husband as she waited for God to answer her prayers.

His Lies Finally Caught Up With Him
Mary Murray felt betrayed, and Mike felt desperate and suicidal. That’s when God stepped in.

I Decided to Give the Whole ‘Faith Thing’ a Try
During the early years of their marriage, Jim and Nina Roesner made some life-changing decisions at Weekend to Remember getaways.

‘I Fell in Love Again With My Wife’
Their marriage was all but over when Dolores Hardin offered an astonishing and radical proposal to her husband, Al.

I Wanted Him to Die
We gave a Weekend to Remember a chance.

The Judge Kicked Them Out of Divorce Court
“The only problem was that neither really wanted a divorce.”

Keeping the Peace Almost Destroyed Our Relationship
We needed a biblical foundation for our marriage.

The Lost Decade
Mike and Pam Calvert’s story shows that broken homes and broken marriages can be put back together again.

A Marriage Raised From the Dead
Less than 12 months after Tim and Teena Hoover married, their vows to God and to one another were shattered.

A Mighty Legacy
Rather than giving in to the cultural pressures and divorcing his wife, Skip Leffler left a very different heritage.

Never Too Late to Ask for Help
Darrel and Evie Couch experienced years of turmoil in their marriage after he returned from the Vietnam War.

On the Brink of Failure
Divorce wasn’t an option for either of us, but we didn’t want to spend the rest of our married lives just tolerating each other.

Our Marriage Was a Mess
A Weekend to Remember conference was the turning point for us.

Our Marriage Was All About Me
I did not have the tools to be a husband and father.

Our Marriage Was Dead
Nobody knew Dale and Laura Danser were experiencing problems in their marriage. Attending an I Still Do™ event was the turning point.

Pornography Was Killing Our Marriage
We learned how to talk about my sexual addiction at a Weekend to Remember

A Marriage Raised From the Dead
Tim and Teena Hoover have celebrated over two decades of marriage, but they are not the same two people who walked down the aisle on their wedding day.

Reborn, Recommitted, and Remarried
It’s not the old marriage but a new marriage with God at the center.

A Remodeled Barn and a Transformed Marriage
Jim and Penny Nally’s barn was once a sore spot in their troubled marriage but now is a place of hope.

She Felt Oppressed by Her Marriage
Attraction turned to isolation and even hatred as Dave and Sonya learned how difficult it was to blend two families together.

She Hated Her Husband
Brian and Julie Moreau thought there was no hope for their family.

She Never Gave Up on Her Husband
Tom Flippin resisted God nearly all his life. But in the end, God answered his wife’s prayers

Surviving Tragedy: A Couple’s Story of Hope
After the fire, Gary and Rachele Lightsey wondered how they could go on.

Their Marriage Had No Hope
We decided our marriage was worth saving at a Weekend to Remember conference.

Their Marriage Was a Train Wreck
Roger and Tonya Haskin had no clue about marriage.

They Got an Annulment for Their Divorce
Alex and Jill Averitt learned that nothing is impossible for God.

They Needed a Marriage Makeover
How one couple’s renewed commitment influences the next generation.

They Thought Marriage Would Be Easy
Kyle and Jamie Soucie had been married before. This time, they figured, things would work out “happily ever after.”

Two Strangers Living Together in Marriage
Adam and Laura Brown had no hope … could one weekend really save their relationship?

Was Marriage the Biggest Mistake of Her Life?
Unless God intervened, they wouldn’t make it.

We Buried Our Old Marriage
In one weekend, God renewed our hearts and gave us hope.

“Why do you think we divorced?”
Lee and Laura Gwyn found hope for reconciliation.

Would She Marry Him All Over Again?
Danny and Nora White married after a whirlwind Sound of Music courtship. But when they began to drift apart, they wondered if their marriage was a mistake.

Would She Walk Out on Her Marriage?
Troy and Sara Groves once said divorce was not an option. But they didn’t anticipate the struggles they’d face with weaknesses, expectations, and bitterness.

Would Their Marriage Survive Multiple Affairs?
When Gerald Varlack lost his job, he was involved with several women—at the same time.

Would They Throw Away 22 Years of Marriage?
When Tracey learned her husband was having an affair with his ex-wife, their marriage seemed hopeless.

Good marriages strengthened

The Dynamic Duo of BaltimoreBonita and Tazwell Thornton are leaving a priceless legacy to untold generations.

We Didn’t Take Time for “Us”
A Weekend to Remember was just what our great marriage needed.

Stories of couples who got married after living together

After Three Years of Living Together, She Wanted More
How Lance and Jess Miller learned about God’s plan for marriage.

Salvation stories

Accused of Being a Bible Thumper
The more I tried to convince Steve to believe what I believed, the farther it pushed him from the truth.

Can One Weekend Really Change a Marriage?
We were pretty close to the end if we didn’t do something.

The Difference God Makes in a Marriage
At a Weekend to Remember marriage conference, our marriage was set on the right path when my husband invited God to be a part of his life and a part of our relationship.

The Difference a Stranger Made
My life and marriage turned around after someone gave me a book and a brochure.

From Homeless to Homemaker
How God transformed a rebellious teenager into His ambassador for the family.

He Led a Double Life
Scott Jennings lived in a world of lies, affairs, and deceit—until it fell apart.

Marriage is Better the “Second Time”
Chip and Jan Winnard were like “two people trying to glue themselves together without the glue.”

Reborn, Recommitted, and Remarried
It’s not the old marriage but a new marriage with God at the center.

She Hated Her Husband
Brian and Julie Moreau thought there was no hope for their family.

She Never Gave Up on Her Husband
Tom Flippin resisted God nearly all his life. But in the end, God answered his wife’s prayers.

What Happened to Her Prince Charming?
For Rick and Beverly Weeks, marriage was not the fairy tale they expected.

Stories of real people whose lives and legacies were changed by God at a Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway.

Years ago, when I was a single college student and a young follower of Christ, I traveled with some buddies to Southern California. One of my friends knew a family in Pasadena who offered us a place to stay.

I will never forget walking into this home in Pasadena. Almost immediately I noticed that there was just something different in the atmosphere.

I had never met these people before, but within 20 minutes I felt like I‘d known them all my life. They displayed genuine hospitality, care, love, and graciousness that I had never seen in a home before.

In 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 we read, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” That’s what I could smell in that house—the fragrance of Christ in the lives of these people who had been transformed by Him. I’ve never forgotten what it was like to walk into that kind of environment.

Now the question for us is: What does it smell like in our homes? If folks walked into our houses, would the fragrance of Christ be present? Do people look at our marriages and see and smell the aroma of Christ?

I believe there are two factors that give a marriage the fragrance of Christ—that make it distinctively Christian. And both are impossible without the transforming grace of God.

1. A uniquely Christian marriage has a different kind of purpose.

When asked why they get married, most people will say something like, “Well, we’re just in love.” But behind that statement are a number of other reasons for marriage:

They’ve dated long enough, and marriage is the next step.

They want sex without guilt.

They are adults, and marriage is what’s expected.

There are economic benefits from combining incomes into one household.

They want someone to take care of them.

They are lonely, and need the companionship.

Their biological clock is ticking, and they figure it’s time to start a family.

They want to escape a bad situation—abusive parents, pregnancy, etc.

At the heart of most of these reasons for marriage is the big me. People are getting married for self-centered reasons, not God-centered purposes. That describes me as well.

In fact, that‘s the universal human condition. We are self-centered; and so our self-centered tendency, carried into marriage, creates two self-centered people trying to negotiate enough good out of this deal so that they can co-exist.

A higher purpose

But there’s another, higher purpose for marriage that is stated well in Psalm 34:3: “Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together!” A friend of mine actually used that verse when he proposed. I think he saw beyond his own natural selfishness to a greater goal for his life.

When you focus your marriage on exalting and glorifying God together, your relationship will become a vehicle through which people can smell the aroma of Christ. It will be a demonstration of the gospel to the world—you will show God’s grace, His compassion, His forgiveness.

Now, is there companionship that comes along with it? Yes. Is there love and intimacy that comes into the deal? Yes, and I‘m glad for these things. But when you magnify the Lord together you will both say, “This isn‘t about us. This is about putting the gospel on display to a watching world.”

When you truly understand that purpose, it changes everything. I like how Paul Tripp puts it: “We were made to live upward and outward, but most of us live inward. When we can quit living inward and start living upward and outward, life changes.” When our marriage can be about upward and outward, things change.

Strengthen your marriage. Take the free online course, I Still Do.

2. A uniquely Christian marriage has a different kind of love.

What does this distinctively different kind of love look like? Well, again, it starts with being God-centered instead of self-centered. It’s upward and outward instead of being inward.

To be more specific, Christian love is self-sacrificing, not self-serving love. In Philippians 2:1-4 Paul writes:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

That kind of love is different than what the world knows. It is patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not arrogant, not rude, not insisting on its own way, not irritable or resentful, not rejoicing in wrongdoing, but instead rejoicing in the truth, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

Another way that our love should be distinct is that it should be a forgiving love, not a hard-hearted love. Ephesians 4:26-27 tells us, “ Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”

How many of you would say, “What I really want for my life is to be in a concerted partnership with the devil”? But that’s what you’re doing when you hang on to anger, resentment, and bitterness.

And then read verse 32 in Ephesians 4: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Controlled by the Spirit

A third way our love should be different is that it should be controlled by the Spirit and not by the flesh. You can’t do this in your own power. Regard your spouse as more important than yourself? Forgive your spouse just as God has forgiven you? Love your spouse by showing patience, kindness, and not insisting on your own way? Try doing this consistently in the flesh for more than a day or so.

The only way we can have a different kind of love—and purpose—in marriage is to experience a true transformation in our lives. Here are the words that always come back to me as I think about the gospel and what God has done for us in Christ: He took those of us who were weighed down by sin and took the weight off. He forgave us and freed us. As we walk in that forgiveness and freedom day by day, He is transforming us more and more into the image of His Son. And in the process He gives us a hope that we never knew before we were saved by Christ.

These two unique aspects of a Christian marriage—a different purpose and a different love—are something we cannot manufacture by ourselves. They are impossible apart from the transforming grace of God in our lives. And when we experience this transformation, the world will notice something very different in our relationships.

Listen to Bob Lepine speak on this topic on a recent FamilyLife Today^® broadcast.

Copyright ©2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Lance Miller and his girlfriend, Jess, were like a lot of couples these days: passionate, trying to make ends meet … and living together out of wedlock. Lance thought that was the normal course of a relationship: “You get a girlfriend. You live together. That’s as good as life gets.”

Only one person, Lance’s pastor at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Largo, Florida, said it was wrong for them to live together. “Nobody else said anything,” Lance says. “They just acted like this is just how things go.”

About three years after Jess moved in with Lance, the pastor said he wanted to groom Lance for ministry, but couldn’t because of his relationship with Jess. Then, about two weeks later, Lance happened to hear a radio ad for a Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway.

He recalls FamilyLife Today® co-host Bob Lepine saying, “If you are even thinking about marriage, then you need to be here at this conference.”

Lance asked Jess how she felt about their future together. She said that she had moved in with him because she thought they would get married one day. He was dumbfounded. “She actually wanted something more.” She wanted a commitment, but that word had never crossed his mind.

Now Lance had a lot of questions about marriage.

So unbeknownst to Jess, he made reservations for a Weekend to Remember. He wanted to learn a real plan for how to be married. “I didn’t know anyone who was doing this [marriage] quite well,” he says, “and I wanted to go see how to do it.”

At the getaway

When Lance and Jess arrived at the Weekend to Remember, they sat in the back of the hotel ballroom with their heads down. As the speakers got everyone laughing, they started to relax. By the time the session ended, they were glad that they had decided to attend.

The next morning, speakers Tim and Joy Downs met with premarried couples. They talked candidly about struggles the couples might be having, even before marriage. “And that was eye-opening for me,” Lance says. He recognized that their communication problems would only get worse if they didn’t start to solve them.

As the Downs spoke, Jess learned why God created marriage. “We hadn’t ever heard that God has a plan for marriage,” she says. “We had only heard the world’s view.”

Later that day, Jess noticed that the premarried couples would be meeting for a session on sex, “Two Become One.” Jess did not want to attend.

Lance cornered speaker Tim Downs. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “We’re living together, and we’ve been having sex, and we’re really not sure about doing this whole marriage thing. Do you think we should go to this session?”

“I think it’s just right for you,” Tim said. “I think that’s where you need to be.”

That’s all Lance needed to hear.

The premarried men and women were separated for the session. The speaker for the men encouraged each man to honor and respect his girlfriend. He said that they were not yet “one flesh” and should abstain from sex.

Lance realized that he and Jess were not living in obedience to God, and they needed to change. He pulled out the “purity pledge” in his premarried workbook and signed it to commit himself to abstaining from sex until they were married. That night Lance did not get into bed with Jess. Instead, he told her of his new vow to purity.

The wait finally ends

Lance says the weeks following the Weekend to Remember were a sobering time for him. Determined to keep his commitment to purity, he met with his pastor. He told him that he was ready to enter into a God-honoring relationship with Jess. The pastor affirmed his decision and suggested that Lance ask her father for his blessing. So when Jess and Lance traveled to Seattle to see her parents, he did just that.

Finally, about three months later, Lance proposed on Jess’s birthday. He gave her a special acrostic puzzle and the answer spelled “Will you marry me?” All of the clues came from the Weekend to Remember manual. When Jess read the puzzle answer, her tears said it all. “I had been waiting a long time.”

Six months later, Lance and Jess were pronounced man and wife.

You can’t take it back

Shortly after they married, Jess was having what she calls “a moment.” She was sitting by Lance on the couch when she told him that she was sorry she had not kept her purity for her wedding day. “This was really bugging me,” she says, “and I could not shake it that I could not take this back.”

Wanting others to learn from her mistake, she recently told a friend who was considering moving in with her boyfriend about her own wedding day regrets. “I understand it can feel okay,” Jess said, but “whether it’s this person or not, when you have to look at someone and say ‘I didn’t wait for you as I knew I should have’ … that’s a pretty hurtful moment to have to go through.”

Today, Lance calls the Weekend to Remember his life-changing event. Their relationship is now built on lifelong commitment rather than feelings. And they are doing all that they can to help others learn about God’s plan for marriage. They’ve hosted The Art of Marriage® video conference in their church, and also attended more Weekend to Remember getaways.

Jess says that they plan to attend a marriage getaway every year. “We can go for one weekend, shut out the world, and focus on what God says about our marriage.”

Copyright © 2013 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

January 2013

In my neighborhood here in Little Rock, huge piles of tree branches are piled in front of nearly every home. It’s the aftermath of a winter storm that swept through central Arkansas on Christmas Day—freezing rain and then 10 inches of snow.

It was a white Christmas, but not the type you dream about! It’s difficult to enjoy the snow when falling trees and snapping limbs take out the power in over half the county. In our case, the outage lasted five nights.

If you have ever faced a similar situation, you understand what a shock it is to realize how much you depend on electricity. Your normal lifestyle is disrupted when you lose it—especially in cold weather. We have a generator, but that only gave us power for a refrigerator, a space heater, cell phones, and a few small appliances. Our house grew colder and more depressing with each passing day.

Once our power returned, I was left with two major questions:

1. How did our ancestors make it without electricity and central heating or air conditioning?

I feel spoiled by my modern comforts and conveniences. I can’t imagine the hardships faced by rural families trying to make it through a winter in Wisconsin or Nebraska—or a summer in Arkansas. Yet those days were not so long ago—many of our grandparents or parents who grew up on farms didn’t receive electricity until the 1930s and 1940s.

2. How do I get rid of a bad attitude?

This was my biggest struggle. After the second night without power, thoughts began running through my head:

This house is making me depressed—it’s so dark and cold.

Other people are getting their power back on … why is it taking them so long to fix ours?

I was looking forward to my time off between Christmas and New Year’s, and now I don’t get to relax at all. My whole life is focused on staying warm. Why did this have to happen to me?

I felt like I had a constant pressure weighing me down. At times I was irritable, sour, and moody.

I knew I had a bad attitude, but I couldn’t break out of it.

I think this is one of those nitty-gritty issues of life. And it’s a critical issue in a marriage and family; when you’ve got a sour attitude, it creates a black hole that threatens to suck in every other person in the home. Sometimes the bad attitude will focus on your circumstances, sometimes on your perception of another person, sometimes on problems in the world at large. I’ll bet each of you can recall situations where you’ve created that black hole—or where you’ve been affected by the sour attitude of a spouse, child, or parent.

So I return to my question: When you’ve got a bad attitude about your circumstances, or another person, or about anything at all, how do you deal with it? How do you get out of the rut?

Honestly, I don’t have a good answer for this yet. So I’m doing some reading and gathering some feedback. I’d like to hear from you.

How have you dealt with your bad attitudes?

How have you dealt with sour attitudes in another person—especially your spouse?

In particular, how has your faith helped you address these situations?

©2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

I could tell I touched a nerve in my recent Marriage Memo on “How Do You Change a Bad Attitude?”. When I asked for input from readers, quite a few began by admitting to the same problem. “I have found myself in the position you describe far more times that I like to admit,” one wrote. Another said, “I just wanted to let you know that this memo hit home for me today! I was just thinking this morning how I need to apologize to both of my sons for being in a sour, bad mood this entire weekend.”

My problem has not been recognizing that I’m in a sour mood. Instead, the issue is what to do about it. One reader’s comment echoed my experience: “It’s as if once the bad attitude has settled within me, I can’t get over it. I recognize it. I know it’s not godly. I know my family is suffering because of it. But I can’t shake it.”

In my earlier article I described my poor attitude when we lost electricity for five nights over the holiday break. Reading your e-mails and comments, I saw how silly my attitude truly was. How can losing power compare with the difficulties of long-term care for parents, or with a husband who tells you he’s leaving after 19 years of marriage and nine children. One reader said he had just lost his wife of 23 years in early December. “For the four kids aged 22-15 and me it was a pretty somber holiday season.”

This underscores the first common theme I saw in your e-mails. Often a key step in battling a sour attitude is reorienting your perspective. “The way I deal with a bad attitude toward a situation or person is to look around and see what is right, not waddle in self-pity,” one reader shared. “After the school shootings in Connecticut right before Christmas, my father-in-law dying the day after Christmas, and a friend who is 5 about to die any day, I look at my life and I am humbled and grateful that God has still allowed my husband and me, along with our children and grandchildren, to still have our health.”

In my initial Marriage Memo I asked for ideas and advice on how to deal with a bad attitude. I appreciate your responses and how they reminded me of some basic, biblical truths. If I could reduce all the responses down to four primary steps for changing a sour attitude, they would be:

Step One: Recognize the bad attitude for what it really is, and repent.

What we call “bad attitude” is usually pride, anger, or selfishness in disguise. We want to be in control, and we are not. As one reader wrote, “The tendency is to be selfish and focus almost obsessively on these circumstances and details. We have no control over this and, to me, the sour attitude has to do with taking back control from God.”

Another said:

I find the quickest way to get back on track is repenting. Usually by the time I discern I have a bad attitude I have already said or done something to offend a member of my family. I gather my family to the table or if in the car while driving (this can happen too often) I say these exact words: “I’m sorry for acting poorly by yelling, not acting nice, or lashing out. I was wrong for having this behavior; would you please forgive me?”

Step Two: Turn your thoughts toward God.

A bad attitude is like getting stuck in a rut in the road. You’ve got to take active steps to stop what you’re doing and pull yourself out. Readers mentioned reading Scripture to remind themselves that God is sovereign and in control; praying and thanking God for the situation; singing songs and hymns of praise; taking a hike and enjoying God’s creation. “A little over a year ago I was struggling with negative thoughts and I decided I was not going to be defeated by those thoughts that day. … Every time a negative thought entered my mind I thought of a verse to quote or a song to sing. … By the end of the day I had a wonderful feeling of victory.”

Step Three: Make a list of your blessings and thank God for them.

I could have included this as one of the “active steps” that readers mentioned to turn their thoughts toward God. But I’m highlighting it separately because it was the most frequent piece of advice from readers:

Just like the old hymn says, “Count your blessings, name them one by one.” No matter what situation I find myself in, there are always so many things to be thankful for, and it’s important to be specific. I always begin with thanking God for sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to be my Savior. Then I continue to thank Him for the family and friends He has given me, and so on. It is difficult to stay irritable when you are thanking the Lord for all He has done.

—

Begin counting your blessings to put you into an attitude of gratitude. It’s a mental decision, a choice that one has to make. … There are times when I have a bad attitude about something regarding my husband, but when I remember the blessing that he has been to me, the deeper things that he puts up with from me, the unconditional love that he has shown me since before we married, etc., it begins to deflate my “feel-sorry”/bad attitude.

This discipline is a direct application of Philippians 4:8, which tells us, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Step Four: Get your mind off yourself by finding a way to serve or help someone else. This forces you to get your mind off yourself and your circumstances, and focus on someone else instead. One reader said, “I change my mood by doing something generous for someone else. It doesn’t have to be financial. Acting kindly toward another person to bless them changes my whole outlook very quickly!”

Readers also mentioned pursuing hobbies or other things you enjoy … doing something physical … taking a nap … and talking out the situation with a friend who can offer a fresh perspective. All of these actions help us refocus.

One comment from a reader has stuck with me because I think it summarizes this issue well:

Something I have learned is that attitude is made up of what we feel, what we think, and what we do. We tend to focus on trying to change the feelings, but this is not the place to begin. We need to change what we think and do first. These are what affect our feelings.

This describes me perfectly. When I find myself stuck in a sour mood, I won’t shake it by focusing on my feelings—in fact, that only leads to discouragement. Instead, I need to become proactive in changing what I think and what I do. The steps listed above are a good start.

Another question I asked in my original Marriage Memo was, “How have you addressed a bad attitude in your spouse?” I received some good responses to that question as well, and I’ll use those in a future article. Meanwhile, here’s another question on that same topic: How has your spouse helped you change a bad attitude? If you have any thoughts on that, please leave a comment below.

©2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

In his article, How Do You Change a Bad Attitude, Dave Boehi asked for ideas for readers. Here are 50 of the emails we received. Click here for the rest. And click here for the follow-up article inspired by these responses.

1. I change my mood by doing something generous for someone else. It doesn’t have to be financial. Acting kindly toward another person to bless them changes my whole outlook very quickly!

2. I just wanted to let you know that this memo hit home for me today! I was just thinking this morning how I need to apologize to both of my sons (ages 12 and 13) for being in a sour, bad mood this entire weekend. I know that it affected all of us. Even on my drive into work, I was wondering what I can do differently to help me when I get in a rut like that. Between having a migraine and yesterday was the birthday of a close that was murdered by her husband last July, I was in no mood to deal with two boys that were not feeling good but felt good enough to argue and fight with each other. I can’t wait to hear the suggestions on how to turn a bad attitude around. I’m ready!

3. Amazing that this came today. We are in the throes of this very problem at our house. The tendency is to be selfish and focus almost obsessively on these circumstances and details. We have no control over this and, to me, the sour attitude has to do with taking back control from God. I found that it helps to memorize and meditate on scripture that reinforces that we are not in control. I find it really hard to stop thinking about MYself and MY circumstances in all of this. Something that snaps me out of it is by praying for someone else or serving someone else in someway.

4. Love this question. Take it to the Lord in prayer … then listen to Him. Look for him. He will appear in the most amazing ways! Then sing!

5. The one thing that has helped me change my bad attitude in marriage is a book called How to Act Right When your Spouse Acts Wrong. Starting next Thursday, I am going to have weekly meetings with my daughters and daughter-in-laws to go through this book. It made me realize that sometimes marriage isn’t about my happiness but my holiness. When the book says that, it is not to say our works make us holy, but in my case my husband is not a believer, therefore my actions may be the only testimony of Christ that he sees. I must keep my actions before Christ in order that I can pray for my husband salvation and not be a stumbling block. Does that mean I always succeed? No! But it reminds me that the only person or attitude I can change is me!

6. Your piece on bad attitudes hit me where I live at the moment. I have a mom with Alzheimer’s who thankfully is happy, pleasant and not difficult to deal with. My dad on the other hand is a different story. He has some health issues but not anything that should keep him sleepy and in bed most of every day. Several doctors have told us it isn’t depression and since he won’t talk much, I have concluded he is ready to die and go live with Jesus.

My bad attitude comes from the struggle to provide care for my mom when my father still has a ring on his finger testifying almost 53 years ago to take care of my mom in all circumstances of life. It takes four people to take care of them so they can stay at home. It costs money, which I try to carefully manage. The cost to my physical and mental health and that of my sisters cannot be calculated. Since dad interacts with us on a limited basis, we don’t have a good understanding of what is going on with him. This also contributes to the attitude issue.

I find that going to choir practice puts a balm on my soul and heals me a bit. “Talk therapy” with my husband, children and best friends helps also. I try to get outside myself and do something to help someone else. It might be volunteering in the church nursery, fixing a gift basket for an upcoming fundraiser or fixing dinner for my family. If I take the time to look around I can always find someone in a tougher situation than I am. I also realize that this situation is not forever although it seems like it sometimes. I KNOW that heaven is forever and this trial is momentary. The biggest thing I do is pour my heart out to God and ask him to fix me. He is faithful to me and I could not endure this valley in life without my church family.

7. Oftentimes I do catch myself with a bad attitude, or with the people around me. And it is not always easy to snap out of it. As a woman, sometimes I attribute it to “hormones” and I have two teen-age girls who are going thru the change, so when they start having a “bad” attitude with me, I have to remind myself of how much of that “change” is affecting them too, then I just learn to adjust.

Or there are times when it doesn’t even make sense why I have a bad attitude, it could be the dishes, or what to make for dinner, or just things don’t go as planned, just anything that I could put the blame on. Then, I stop in my tracks and have to look at the big picture and remind myself of all the blessings that are hidden in those things that I complain about. It’s all a matter of perspective and having a grateful heart then a better attitude seems to follow after…

By simply acknowledging GOD’s greatness, changes my whole disposition, soon thereafter, I realize I have a smile on my face, and thankfulness takes over my heart. Then I know, GOD just made me feel a lot better already.

8. First I’m glad you didn’t leave us with a three point… how to get out of a bad attitude lesson. I agree with you that it is a very tough issue and not one to easily write about or be an expert on. I also think many “Christians” find this as a major daily struggle. I once had a professor who claimed to be “entirely sanctified” (whatever that means) but most weeks he had a horrible attitude and was not a nice man. Needless to say I didn’t buy the theology he was selling.

I think in my own experience a good attitude is comes from finding perspective. When I was a young man I took a trip to Haiti twice and saw things that most kids my age had not. Because of this view on poverty and oppression I found myself more positive and thankful about life. When the electricity got shut off during a storm, like your example, I was not crushed because I realized 90% of the world does not know the amenities we take as normal each day. I think having a bad attitude often comes from not having a realistic view of just how good we have it in comparison to the majority of the world. Go to prison for a day and then you will know what tree freedom is. Become a trash collector and realize how much our western culture values materialism. Just fill in the blank and you will change your bad attitude into an attitude of thankfulness to a God who is truly good and wants only good things for us… even with the lights out.

9. Thank you for this devotional today. My husband is suffering from an Inflammatory Arthritis condition and has been on Prednisone for several months. He is 72, and has always been very active and loves hard labor! Of course now he is quite limited, having only about 6 productive hours a day. He is also experiencing some personality changes, as well as memory issues, which we hope are short term.

I am having to remind myself each day that these changes are most likely due to the pain and the medications he is on, and it is a real challenge for me to stay patient (not always gracefully) and to understand that some of this may be permanent. At the same time, our 42 year old son who is serving God in China, recently asked that we commit to pray for him for 10 minutes each day. In meeting this challenge (you know, sometimes prayer for your kids only amounts to ‘dear Lord please bless ____ and walk with him today and keep him in your care’) I am finding scripture to pray for him.

I recently decided to pray the blessing of fruits of the spirit. Wow! What an eye opener. Because as I prayed these fruits over him, I realized that I also needed to pray them for me. It has made such a difference in my attitude toward my husband. It is changing me from being selfish to attempting to be more selfless, and it has been truly a joy. Perhaps this small example will help someone else who is reading this.

10. Gratitude is the king of all emotions. When you are being grateful it conquers All other emotions. Thinking about being grateful may not be enough sometimes it takes the action of actually sitting down and writing the things you are grateful for.

11. I find the quickest way to get back on track is repenting. Usually by the time I discern I have a bad attitude I have already said or done something to offend a member of my family I gather my family to the table or if in car while driving (this can happen too often I say these exact words: I’m sorry for acting poorly by yelling, not acting nice, or lashing out, I was wrong for having this behavior would you please forgive me it stops my attitude immediately.

12. Hello. I recently heard a woman talk about all of her challenges she is facing and at the end she said, “God is enough”! When life is throwing things at me left and right, I tell myself, “God is enough”!

13. When I have a bad attitude it is because I am focusing on only the negative. I try to remember that God’ s word says to think on that which is lovely, true & good. This goes a long way in helping me. Also sometimes the bad attitude is because I am worrying or want to be in control of the situation. Again God’ s Word says “be anxious for nothing.” Instead we are commanded to pray about everything. When I feel worry coming on I try to remember to take my concern to God & turn it into a prayer because God is the only one who can change the situation.

Also God is the only one who is in control, not me. When my spouse is being sour I try to talk to him as a brother in Christ & remind him of these same principles. It all boils down to getting our thinking in line with God’s thinking. Not always easy, but worth it if we can just kick our flesh to the curb.

14. I have had to adjust to the bad attitude of my spouse. We will walk into 20 years of marriage this August but we have been separated for the last 6 years. Reconciliation has been trying to manifest since last April. We deal with anger and strife (& every evil work literally) in our marriage and frankly my husband has checked out and feels his life is ok but mine isn’t.

When dealing with his bad attitude concerning me the Lord has kept me in 1 Corinthians 13 since Nov 2011 (The Lord had me studying this scripture before I went to Phil about reconciling). I have had to develop a love that is not touchy, fretful or resentful (plenty of practice here) and allowed the Holy Spirit to show me him the way he sees him.

Dealing with bad attitudes constantly reminds me that Jesus went to the cross for us and knowing that we all have bad attitudes yet he still went anyway.

15. I have found myself in the position you describe far more times that I like to admit. Carrying around a bad attitude, and knowing it, but not able to change it, at least not as quickly or easily as flipping a light switch.

In my faith walk, I have been struggling for quite some time, years, with how to really turn things over to Jesus. It seems like I always try to do it HIS way but using my abilities. I am doomed to fail when I try to do it alone. Just recently, it clicked that I still have to move but I have to let HIM do the work. It has to be me taking the actions or steps required to do the things I need to do, but I need to constantly recognize that my abilities are inadequate and pray for HIS strength and abilities to bring me the victory over sin that I desire.

HIS strength will resist that snack. HIS love will erase that bad attitude. My strength and talent alone are never enough to beat the sin virus that plagues me. Only in HIS Grace is victory a certainty. It’s all in the mind set, and it’s all about keeping it simple.

16. I have been in a bit of a funk lately. For me I think it is a grief reaction with several recent losses: my dog died, one of my first friends in our current city, daughter went back to college, etc. I force myself to compose a gratitude list sometimes a few times a day, giving thanks for the many blessings I do have. Also for me getting away in nature revitalizes me to appreciate God’s majesty.

17. I don’t know if this will apply but I feel it will help. A little over a year ago I was struggling with negative thoughts and I decided I was not going to be defeated by those thoughts that day. I was not going to let it consume me as it had in the past (kind of like the bad attitude). Anyhow, every time a negative thought entered my mind I thought of a verse to quote or a song to sing. I was at work a lot of that time so this would happen most of the time in my thinking but some of the time out loud. By the end of the day I had a wonderful feeling of victory. It was really neat.

I know that if I would apply that all the time it would make a major difference in my life. Satan can’t stay around when there are praises to God or scripture being quoted. Just like it was when Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days and Satan was defeated. All negative thoughts and bad attitudes come from our allowing Satan to have control when in fact we are on the winning team and we have control – through Jesus

19. This is a timely one for me. I was just going through this last week when I was sick & feeling completely overwhelmed by the problems in the world & my outlook on what was happening. It also helps to know that I had missed 2 weeks of my shot. I unfortunately now suffer from low testosterone. I started by shutting off tv (which I barely watch anyway) & talk radio. I even had to stop listening to my favorite AFR Talk. I then removed myself from my wife & son so I didn’t take it out on them for 1 evening.

Ultimately, I didn’t actually start to get better until I made it to my doctor to get my shot to regain a normal hormonal balance. Other instances usually just require evaluating what’s missing. I told my wife years ago that there are 3 areas that must be in balance for my attitude to be in balance. 1) Regular exercise, 2) Regular church attendance, 3) Regular intimacy. When 1 or more is out of whack, it manifests itself in a poor attitude.

20. 1st of all the way I deal with a bad attitude, towards a situation or person, is to look around and see what is RIGHT, not waddle in self-pity. After the school shootings in Connecticut right before Christmas, my father-in-law dying the day after Christmas and a friend who is 5 about to die any day, I look at my life and I am humbled and grateful that God has still allowed my husband and me, along with our children and grandchildren to still have our health.

Things aren’t always easy and some of us struggle with finances and disappointments but a humble and grateful spirit always reminds me that things could always be worse for us and we could be one of the people dealing with losing a child, losing a job, without a home, etc. If your trials can be fixed, a broken heater, car, air conditioner, or etc., just thank God that it can be and you are not dealing with life changing experiences.

21. Hi. I have a chronically bad attitude or at least a propensity to have one. My delightful wife of 23 years just passed away 6 weeks ago. She entered the hospital early Thanksgiving morning and died 12/4. For the 4 kids aged 22-15 and me it was a pretty somber holiday season.   But I think we and I did overall pretty well and we didn’t have that sour attitude.

Here’s how I’m getting through it. I’m thankful to God for the great marriage we enjoyed all those years. We have 4 great kids who are all believers and go to church each Sunday.   The oldest graduated college and is living at home saving money and hopes to settle down some time. Needs a Christian husband. We have a nice mostly paid off home and an excellent church family.

So it seems simple and it really is.   Take the focus off of ourselves, keep looking to Jesus to care for us and counting our very many blessings. Things could be so much worse.

22. As a photographer, I love wide-angle lenses, especially when used properly. The photos from these lenses are dull and uninteresting when used simply to get everything in the picture. They are stunning, however, when used in the right perspective. For example, a 20mm lens can be placed relatively close, within inches, of an object and render something relatively close in a very different way with perspective of the overall surroundings, when allowance is made for a large depth of field. When my attitude is bad, I need to take my eyes off the critical up-close focus and increase the f-stop to gain perspective of the whole picture.

I am a pastor of pastoral care to a congregation of over 2,000 people. The needs and issues are overwhelming at times. In my ministry, I constantly find God calling me back to one simple perspective: see all that there is in light of the cross of Christ and the Christ of the cross. When I reflect on Ps. 118, that even the day of the cross was the day the Lord had made and I can and must rejoice in it, I regain my perspective in my circumstances, and the circumstances of our people.

There is much more I could write. We were missionaries for 20+ years in West Africa with extended time in bush situations with no electricity, running water, telephone, etc. Mail came every 5 weeks or so. The hospitals I visit regularly are incredible compared to what all of our African friends there had and endured. It does make me very grateful for 24hr. electricity, running water, even hot water, telephones, washing machines, refrigerators, etc. Finally, I remember why things happen.

In the words of Robert Kellemen, we live in a ‘fallen world (that also longs to be redeemed) and sometimes, it falls on us’.

We also reap what we sow, i.e. there are consequences to our actions.

God allows some things just to demonstrate His glory (e.g. the man born blind. Neither his father nor mother sinned. It happened for God’s glory to be shown).

God allows us to experience suffering to remind us of our dependence on Him for all things.

God allows suffering, sickness, etc. to allow us to experience a bit of what Christ carried for all people for all time.

God allows things in our life for the unbelieving world to see how He carries us through any and every circumstance, trial, sickness, problem.

God allows things in our lives that folks might minister to the Lord Himself by ministering to us. Mt. 25 ( I was sick, in prison, etc. and you did it unto one of the least of these).

23. On occasion with someone who just strikes a raw nerve, you cannot help but get a ‘bad attitude’! During times such as these, I use to just fly off the handle, but as I have become [hopefully] a more mature Christian, I have found myself more and more sending up silent small prayers to God asking Him to help me to love that person as He would love them, who irritates me so badly and to keep my tongue silent. It’s a good thing to remember that old saying, ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’ BTW – I had to do this Sunday at church – LOL!

24. There is nothing that we can do on our own. Just turn it over to the Lord. It says in His Words that He will take care of our needs. There are three ways that the Lord answers are prayers and we can handle two of them with ease and that is yes or no, but when He tells us to wait, that is the hardest for us humans to do. Just trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

25. The only way I can think of to shake off that bad attitude is to read God’s word, pray to him and ask the holy spirit to infuse you with joy. A physical boost I use to help with feelings of gratitude in the winter is a dose of St. John’s Wort with my morning vitamins. Between those two, I hope it helps!

26. I am currently divorced. March 2012. Most devastating time of my life. Was married to a minister, and I won’t go into the details. Needless to say, it has been extremely rough not to be and remain negative and self-loathing this past year as I have been healing.

With that being said… the answer to your question in my experience and listening to God comes down to this scripture: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8).

I taught a Sunday School class once and impacted not only myself, but those in the class as well with this truth. When you think upon something long enough, it becomes part of your belief (your heart). When something is in your heart, you act on it. That’s why Jesus said when a man looks upon a woman with lust in his heart, he has already committed adultery. Jesus knew that whatever is in a man’s heart, he will act upon it sooner or later. Is why guarding the heart is stressed so greatly in scripture…but that’s for another time.

God made this scripture real to me one day. I had just moved back into my home in August 2012. I had been there maybe a month? I was outside pulling weeds from an overgrown flower bed. I was angry at what my ex-husband had done. Didn’t know why this happened to me. I lost my independence living again with my parents, lost my financial security, lost my best friend, lost my lover, lost being a full-time mother… you get the picture. I was grieving, but very angry and had nothing good to say or think. My attitude was bad. Rather than take it out on my family, I took it out on the weeds. They were getting ripped up with anger.

As I sat there in the flower bed crying and praying to God, I felt the Holy Spirit so gently speak to my heart… “Bekka, think on those things that are holy and pure and good and of good report.” I stopped dead in my tracks. And I began to say OUT LOUD to myself… I am thankful God for my children being healthy. I am thankful my parents are here helping me through this and financially keeping me stable as we share this home. I am thankful that I have good friends and support. I am thankful I am healthy….

As I continued on counting my blessings… I spoke those words into my ears, which affected my mind (thoughts)… I felt the anger melt away inside of me, and my attitude changed from anger to grateful.

So to answer your question, attitude depends upon our thoughts. And sometimes those thoughts have to be changed intentionally and with effort. Circumstances and fiery darts are always slamming into us every day. Put on the whole armor of God… protect your heart by protecting your mind. It is easier said than done. This I know. As I continue to heal, I continue to struggle with this every day… but every day, I choose to win with Christ who strengthens me. I just have to keep asking…

27. Hi! I am currently experiencing lots of bad attitudes. Funny thing…is all me! I have been like a switch lately. Sometimes with reason and sometimes without. I am praying and asking God to help me. I am that black hole that is dragging everyone in my family in. I am reading a devotional sent from God! It is called Unglued. The writer seems to experience everything I am. I believe this is from God because I am learning the exact Bible verses for the specific need.

28. I have seen how my issue will affect others in that moment. I look at my fault and change it. I forgive myself and go to that family member and apologize. Then be proactive in changing the atmosphere. I become the thermostat not the thermometer.

29. Hello! When I have a bad attitude about someone, in this case my husband. I can feel like everything that he does makes me mad, I ask leading questions so that I can justify being mad, etc. What do I do, I confess and ask his forgiveness for my actions. But before I do all of this I get on my knees, confess, ask for forgiveness from our Lord and ask for help in softening my heart and helping me find the right words to speak to my husband and ask for his forgiveness. I think that just owning it and telling the person that you recognize your bad attitude and you’re making steps to change this is a huge thing in healing and moving forward…with a new attitude.

30. I start singing. I’ve found that when I have a song in my heart, no matter what kind, it lifts my mood, changes my focus. From Amazing Grace to The Hokey Pokey and everything in between, music comes from the heart and it can’t be crabby when it’s singing.

31. Thanks for sharing so candidly! I struggled quite a bit this past year in my marriage and in my parenting with bad moods. It’s so funny how my kids (12 and 14) can so easily point out when I’m in my funk. But I facilitated a 22 week Aphesis discipleship group from January to June of 2012 and what I learned and experienced there really helped decrease my reactivity levels as well as equip me to deal with bad attitudes. The process took us through 3 basic themes.

First, we spent 5-6 weeks exploring our old selves, ie. sinful nature, cultural influences, and family dysfunctions. Then another 5 weeks or so engaging that self with Father God, the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. The remaining weeks were spent on identity, relationships, and life skills of building trust, communication and forgiveness. What really helped was growing the skills of awareness of emotions / attitudes and the beliefs underlying them. Then reflecting and sorting them out with God and fellow believers / family members. Basically living in the light of God, His truth and grace. Here’s Aphesis’ website: http://aphesisgroup.com/

32. As I write this, our megachurch is praying and fasting today for the wife of one of our pastors who was just diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer a few weeks ago. Few people ever prepare for something like that. She is young and beautiful, he is handsome and both have been godly people at least since they met at Moody Bible College some 20 years ago. They are scheduled to speak on a weeklong marriage cruise in March, my wife and I are on that cruise, our first in 12 years of a very rocky marriage. Her prognosis is not good, but we are praying for a miracle.

I have fallen into that bad attitude throughout my marriage and the way I have finally found to overcome it and get out of it, is to focus on Jesus and not poor pitiful me. This pastor and a colleague began a Discipleship Training group at our church, aimed at making disciples of all men, focusing on men, to be the spiritual leaders of our homes and families. One of the books required in that curriculum, which they developed, is “Inside Out” by Dr. Larry Crabb. He has found the secret to finding joy in all things as the Apostle Paul had. Whether in want or in plenty, we realize our insignificance before a holy and righteous God who owes us nothing but eternal condemnation as our starting point. I recommend anything written by Crabb, I have read about 12 of his books now, and they all have the reader do internal examination to see our sin as God sees it.

Once we fully appreciate just how far we are from the holiness of God, only then can we appreciate and feel the love he has for us, that he would offer a way of salvation at all. Suddenly, my marriage problems seemed far less significant, but my contributions to them became much more apparent. It is not a pleasant journey, but I think it is a necessary one for every Christian. Crabb’s book “Shattered Dreams” is probably my favorite of his as it takes you through the book of Ruth in his self-examining way. His latest, “66 Love Letters” is a fitting ending to the journey of self-examination that focuses more on the love of God seen in every book of the Bible.

This is what permanently changed my bad attitude. We must quit writing our own story and add our story to his, the greatest story ever told.

33. Yes, I had bad attitudes about a lot in my marriage…and it’s always been what somebody else could do to make it better, I started forcing on what I can do and me only. I let go of unspoken expectations of my husband, it I could not tell him then I let it go. It also took him telling me about my self….boy did it hurt…I receive it because I was able to listen to him. I also was able to express some shortcomings of mine

34. When the bad attitude is toward my husband of 33 years, because of his sin and I tried, in love, to confront the issue with no resolve, for years, how do I change my attitude? It’s getting harder and harder. Psalm 23 says the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want (need). I feel like I need (and deserve) him to change and stop the resistance but the Lord says he’s met my needs. My attitude toward what I think is a need, must need changing. How?

35. I think of situations or people which are worse than mine. There is always someone who needs prayers for illness, finances, or marriage. I am a member of online support groups for fibromyalgia and lupus. The heart-breaking stories make me feel so blessed and healthy. Or I often think of our brothers and sisters from articles in “Voice of the Martyrs” magazine. And I recall stories I have read from the Holocaust. My life is near perfect when I think of others who are worse off than me.

36. Well in my home it’s my marriage and husband refusing to fix it or working towards allowing god to be his guide. For today he told me after 19 years of marriage and 9 children he wants nothing but to divorce he’ll keep everything as is and don’t want to affect the children. Well they are already affected because you say I love but I am not in love with you. I don’t see a future so let’s leave each other. I don’t understand how a men who goes to church holds bible thinks like this…throughout our marriage he has been unfaithful but still I stayed because the vows where between God and him through whatever I will be their and I was. Conviction is what I hear for my husband because, in reality only god can bring him to his knees and allow him to see that where he is, is destruction. I can not save him only god can before it is to late.

37. It is one of the most difficult things to overcome, but sometimes, you need to refocus on how our ancestors did it, and survived the winter. When our children were little, not babies, thank God. We bought some property. We had prayed about it and God allowed us to purchase it. I remember telling God, I don’t know what I’m asking for, but my husband really wants property, so if it is your will, let us get it. Well, we did not take into account that there was not electricity on the property and a well was dung, but with no electricity, it doesn’t work.

Anyway, we lived it the high desert in California and that winter it snowed. We were living in an 8 x 40 trailer. Thank God, we had propane so we had the stove and oven. I cooked a lot and baked a lot to keep us warm. We got water from our neighbor, 10, 5 gallon water bottles and 25 lbs of ice every other day for the frig. We lived this way for nine months. We found out after winter, that we actually did have a heater. There were good times and bad times, but I never felt so close to God, and the kids, our son, Raymond 8 yrs old and our daughter, Amber 3 yrs old, thought it was wonderful. It takes completely taking the focus off of us. We had an hourlong drive to church and at least the car heater worked, too. God has brought us through so much and yet, I doubt. Thank you for your time.

38. I used to facilitate a customer service course for government employees and one of the tenets I shared with participants was “choose your attitude”, which was borrowed directly from the FISH philosophy of customer service. Simply put, we make a choice as to how to respond to a situation. No matter what life throws at us, we choose our response. I often have to remind myself – or be reminded by my husband – to practice what I preached.

My word for the year is patience. I have 3 small children under the age of 6, one who is a preemie and very needy of my time and energy, which makes the other 2 a challenge at times. I often find myself at a breaking point when I feel like all 3 of them are pulling me in opposite directions and my husband either isn’t there to help, or is and still isn’t. I find the best way to calm down is to take a deep breath, and remind myself to practice what I teach. My sour attitude never makes things better; in fact, as my husband says, “when Mama’s unhappy, everyone’s unhappy”. It doesn’t always work, but I’m trying. That’s my word this year is patience. I’m a continual work in progress.

39. I have a rule about negative attitudes that tend to dominate us when things aren’t going like we think they should! I remind myself and others I am in the presence of that we need an “AA”, i.e. Attitude Adjustment. We need to get our focus off the difficult circumstances we are facing at the time and adjust our attitude to a more positive approach. Count our blessings rather than looking at the “lack of blessings”. I have found this helpful in my personal and business life. Give it a try!

40. A friend of mine sent this to me while I was going through radiation treatment for breast cancer. “In my devotional today I am reminded that “to bring the sacrifice of thanksgiving means to sacrifice our understanding of what is beneficial and thank God for everything because He is benevolent.”

Holding onto my definition of what is beneficial with a white knuckled grip produces sore fingers when God has to pry it out of my hand. My attitude seems to follow my definition of beneficial.

41. My Christian Leadership group is reading a book called Leadership and Self Deception, by the Aberdeen Group. Although it is not faith based, it speaks directly to how our own attitudes color our perceptions of others, which in turn change our behavior toward them and how we often “justify” our behavior as a result.

42. You have to kick-start your prayers. You have to force yourself to start counting blessings. Push the bad thoughts out of your mind and replace them with the things you are thankful for. The first thing to do is HIT YOUR KNEES! Really, drop to your knees. Just that act makes you realize that you are in the presence of the Lord, our God, and it is a humbling experience. Then block out all of your whining and complaining and thinking of the things you want or need, and immediately start thinking of the things you are thankful for. Start praising God for them and continue. Tell God how wonderful He is. Tell Him how awesome He is. Tell Him how much you love Him. Thank Him for all of your blessings. Make a list of the things you are thankful for, and keep it near. He will strengthen you and help you through the hard times. Keep the FAITH!

43. For me I have noticed lately that when things happen and I refocus on God and tell him ok Lord, this is all yours and wholeheartedly surrender it to you and not take it back, my attitude changes. When it comes to my spouse when him and I are actively and consistently in God’s word together and doing devotionals the bad attitude does not come as often and I am able to see things differently. Moments with You devotional has helped my husband and I reconnect and has helped our attitudes towards each other.

44. I pray for Gods help. I sing and try to think on things to be thankful for. If I can get my eyes off me I usually start feeling better. If it’s my spouse I try to encourage them to see the bright side (if there is one!) or sometimes I just give them space to work thru it with Gods help.

45. There was a time period of about 3 years where my spouse was irritable and angry nearly all the time. The rest of the time she was in bed. Doctors did not find anything physically wrong with her. She blamed it on my job, but she pushed me to work harder and harder all the time.

That 3 years was the darkest time of my life. I dealt with it in several ways. First, I considered my duty to be there for her regardless of whether she was helpful for me. I reminded myself it was for better or for worst imaginable, not for better or for better. In those times that I was about to display a bad attitude I would remind myself how Christ treated His bride in giving himself up for her. It took a lot of reminding myself repeatedly of the above.

When there are less troubling things like the weather and loss of power, I do different things. One thing I do is consider it a learning experience. I would use it as a chance to research how others dealt with this situation in the past, find books at the library about it. Or books about people who have survived being exposed in the wilderness or snow/ice.

Also, I mix in singing praise to God. Some Christian songs are so catchy, it’s just infectious and lifts your mood. I picture myself as Paul when he was singing praises to God in prison even after being beaten and flogged.

46. This is a struggle for me too. The only way I can get over it is to get the bad out through prayer. I have to be willing to humble myself and go to the Lord. The key is to stay in that position until you find the peace and change required.

Along with that, is serving. My wife Leslie and I have 7 children, thirteen and under! We have been working on adding two bedrooms to our home for nearly two years. As you can imagine, life is hectic at times and our house feels like a storage unit. This has been incredibly frustrating and disappointing, especially as we have been delayed in completing the project for financial reasons.

One day I found myself angry over the ‘pile-up’ in the master bathroom. Immediately I began to have a bad attitude, thinking thoughts like, “can’t she pick up any of her junk on the counter” and “how hard is it to pick up after yourself?” So, I began to pray and wait on the Lord and then He replied to me in a small voice, “How hard is it?” So, I started picking up. As I worked through the mess in the bathroom, God began to open my heart and mind to peace.

The bad attitude was dumped out and replaced with concern and compassion for my bride. She and I both work, me at the church and her at the hospital. She works nights. Immediately I thought of all the work she does and all the ways she blesses our family.

She prays for us every day; she cooks; she gets the kids to church on her own; she works out; she cleans; she does so much. She is the most amazing helper I know.

Our life may have ‘pile ups’ in the bathroom (& possibly the kids’ rooms, our room, and the couch with unfolded laundry), but it is also filled with love and family. My attitude change started with prayer, then was transformed through service. God lavishes His grace and compassion for us through the prayer of Jesus Christ in the garden and His obedient service to death on a cross. That’s how my attitude gets changed.

47. I seek God, in His word, as well, prayer concerning the situation at hand.

48. I grew up in a very negative household and when I was 21 or 22, a man I was dating brought my pessimistic outlook to my attention. Since then (I’m now 42), I’ve tried to have a more optimistic outlook.

When the power is out for an hour, or even a few days, be grateful you have a roof over your head; you will have power eventually; you aren’t living on a sheet of cardboard in the streets. When you can’t cook b/c the power is out, be grateful you have peanut butter and crackers and you’re not rifling through trash for someone else’s leftovers.

I do find when I try to say these things to my spouse, he gets very irritable and says I’m trying to make him feel guilty, so I just have to pray for him. He will come around in God’s timing. It’s not my job to help him change his attitude. That’s for him and God to do. I just love him and sometimes avoid him if he’s especially nasty. He almost always apologizes later, which I know is God working in him.

49. Before I can change a bad attitude, I have to realize I have a bad attitude. It’s so easy and common to complain, and many of us don’t even realize we have one until a spouse or friend comments on it.

Years ago my husband told me I complained a lot. I was surprised. I thought I was giving him information. I figured I had a lot to complain about, since money was tight, and life didn’t exactly fit into my expectations. It was easy to find fault with him, too. Years later I came in contact with some business associates who recommended some books on attitude. It was an eye-opener to be sure, and started my journey of change. I read scripture verses about “have this mind in you” and “as a man thinks, so is he,” and realized God didn’t want me to have a poor attitude. These business associates also stressed the need to be grateful, and it didn’t take long to experience a better attitude in various circumstances.

My husband now tells me I put a positive spin on things! I wondered why I hadn’t heard much about attitude in the churches I attended throughout my life, since scripture says a lot about it. As I walk with the Lord and desire to please Him in all I do, I am growing an attitude of thankfulness, acceptance of others, trust in His care, and release of expectations that could derail me.

My husband and I will celebrate our 40th anniversary in July. We attended a wedding in June 2012 where we “won the dance contest” as being married the longest, and the MC asked each of us what made our marriage a success. Not being skilled with spur-of-the-moment replies, I blurted out that it took us about 35 years to start to get it right! I had learned to accept my spouse, good and bad, and to be responsible for my part of the relationship, owning the disrespect I had shown (that was a shock to learn).

We attended a Weekend to Remember (2004?) but we were still in too much pain to see solutions. The Lord guarded us and took us through a few more years, an interstate move to care for my elderly mother, a six-month separation, deep pain, and eventually we were able to work through issues. We are grateful to the Lord for His hand in our lives. I heard a Focus on the Family broadcast interviewing Emerson Eggerich about his book, “Love and Respect,” and was stunned to read how easy it was to be disrespectful to the men in our lives (all men, not just husbands).

My husband and I have worked through a lot, healed from our painful marriage and are doing better than ever. SO grateful. We both know that we have good will toward the other, and I am aware of treating him with respect. He is loving me with so many acts of service, it’s hard to believe this is the same man I wanted to run away from. We are enjoying each other! Ahh, thank you, Lord.

In 2011, I won a book from a Christian radio call-in (I hadn’t caught the title they were offering, but I was the 7th caller). When it arrived in the mail, my first thought was, oh, it’s a book for men (oops, attitude showing). A few days later I opened it to look at it and found an envelope inside that contained a complimentary registration for Weekend to Remember! We were not able to attend at the time, but I kept it where I wouldn’t forget.

Our church did a small group series on marriage and we met some new people. One couple wanted to attend the Weekend but couldn’t schedule it. Recently, after a conversation with them, I ran and got my free registration gift card and gave it to them. They were very excited and attended! It meant a lot to me that they have the opportunity to grow. Oh, and that book on men standing up–my husband picked it up, read it, liked it, and has recommended it to other men. He’s concerned about the lack of men’s ministries and discipling men. So much to be grateful for!!

50. a) I remove myself from the situation temporarily (not leave) just back away for a few. It can be as easy as going to the garage to grab something or stepping into the bathroom. b) I attempt to clear my mind of the emotions and pull out the facts. c) Analyze the facts in light of what could be (both positive and negative). What I wish were happening right now and what if it were truly worse? d) It at this point my inner child pops out and I’m forced to admit I simply don’t want to feel better. Once you reach this point you have a decision to make. e) I try (not always successful) to simply force myself to make the next move whether I feel like it or not. Sometimes just acting like I feel better is what ultimately turns the tide.

In his article, “How Do You Change a Bad Attitude?” Dave Boehi asked for ideas for readers. Below find the second group of emails we received. Want to read the first 50? Find them here.

51. I’ve always thought that attitude is a choice. You can choose to be let a bad situation get you down or you can decide that it won’t. Don’t dwell on the bad; look for the good. I’ve found that giving thanks in the hard times helps bring to mind the blessings you have already received. There’s a reason we’re told to give thanks in all things. Have you ever been able to give thanks or praise God without a smile on your face? You don’t have power? You still have a generator! You don’t have a generator? You still have a house to keep the wind out. Your vacation got spoiled? At least you were home to be better able to deal with the situation with you family (by the way – there are no coincidences!). It’s really all in how you look at it.

52. The way I handle my bad attitude is to start counting my blessings. Instead of focusing on the disagreeable at the present, start thanking the Lord for all of your blessings. It works!

53. In answer to your question, begin counting your blessings to put you into an attitude of gratitude. It’s a mental decision, a choice that one has to make. As one song puts it, “Count your blessings. You’ll find one if you try…”

An attitude of gratitude will make all the difference. There are times when I have a bad attitude about something regarding my husband, but when I remember the blessing that he has been to me, the deeper things that he puts up with from me, the unconditional love that he has shown me since before we married, etc., it begins to deflate my “feel-sorry”/bad attitude.

What I have an attitude about may be something very real and something that needs to be addressed, but having attitude about it isn’t going to help the situation. Adding personal subjectivity and blowing the issue into bigger proportions doesn’t help to solve it. Acknowledge it is an issue, get the attitude in check, look at all there is related to the situation that there is to be thankful for, and then one can more appropriately carry on/make it through/address the situation/have patience – whatever the situation calls for.

54. For me I recall my favorite passage in the book Love and Respect. The one who breaks the “crazy cycle” is the one that is more mature! So if I have a bad attitude towards my spouse or a co-worker I see it as a challenge to let go of any resentment because after all, I am a mature adult.

55. Here are some of the things that help me when I get a bad attitude:

I count my blessings! Just like the old hymn says, “Count your blessings, name them one by one”.   No matter what situation I find myself in, there are always so many things to be thankful for, and it’s important to be specific. I always begin with thanking God for sending His Son, Jesus Christ to be my Savior. Then I continue to thank Him for the family and friends He has given me, and so on. It is difficult to stay irritable when you are thanking the Lord for all He has done.

I try to recognize that it is in the difficult times that we grow the most. There is a saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger”. Although this saying doesn’t come from the Word of God, there is truth in it. This concept can be found in James 1:2-4 where we are told to “count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations”. We can rejoice in our trials and hardships knowing that the Lord is using it to mold us, teach us and make us stronger in Him. As we mature spiritually, we can truly come to the place that we rejoice whether our circumstances are good or bad, whether we are up on the mountaintop, or down in the valley.

Lastly, I try to focus on Jesus Christ and the glory that awaits to all who have trusted in Him. I think about the story of Peter when the Lord called him out of the boat to walk on the water. He was able to walk on the water as long as his focus was stayed on Christ. However, as soon as he looked at the roaring waves around him, he began to sink. We must not focus on our circumstances or we will become depressed, fearful, doubtful. We must keep our focus on Christ and trust in Him to be our refuge and strength.

Dealing with a spouse that has a bad attitude:

This is a bit more tricky as we do not have control over the attitudes and behaviors of others. I have to be careful in this area, as I have tried to control my husbands’ behaviors/attitudes and have erroneously believed that I could somehow “fix” him! Don’t make that mistake! I have found that becoming angry or pushy with another person only drives them further away and makes the problem worse.

The best way to deal with a spouse that has a bad attitude is to continue to treat them with love and understanding. Be there to listen and let them know you are willing to pray with them, read God’s Word together, or do anything else that may help the situation. As a wife, I have come to realize that my own behavior and attitude that I display speaks volumes more than any words I could say. And lastly, never stop praying for your spouse. The Lord hears our earnest prayers for our spouse and He will answer in His time. Have patience and wait on the Lord.

56. I’ve found the best way to get out of that “funk” that we sometimes find ourselves in is to take the focus off those fleshly desires, not easy when going through the situation, and putting the focus on God, and praise him through the storm. It was very helpful for me to be involved in a church were we had an awesome church family full of people who could pray for us through a time when we weren’t able to.

57. Jimmy Evans has a great teaching he does called “The Hurt Whisperer. It outlines coping mechanisms we come up with that may be tied to generational iniquities. Have you considered how long of a line of bad attitudes you have knowledge of generationally? That perhaps you were “bent” that way and have continued in these thought patterns not fully understanding this was passed on to you? In response to your question “has the bible helped me?” the answer is yes. The bible makes it clear that certain curses/iniquities would be passed on to the 3rd and 4th generations. I am learning that we can choose to break those off by recognizing them without blaming our parents bringing it into the light and responding in obedience to Christ. Truth is most people might not consider a bad attitude a generational curse, but the promise of multiplication of it is the part that should cause us to look deeper into the truth. The focus is to recognize and understand where the influence came from (especially when we hear ourselves say things like “I just couldn’t snap out of it”) and to choose to break it off in obedience to Christ choosing to bless our children/grandchildren to the 3rd and 4th generations. This has not been an easy process, but one we are hoping will yield the fruit of Christ like attitudes because that is what was passed on. Thanks for allowing us to respond.

58. How? I’ve learned to pray, pray, pray. And there are times when I find myself falling back into the “old” way of trying to control the situation myself and then realize that I can’t do this on my own!

59. I must admit that I too struggle with bad attitude. I am one to let my circumstances dictate how I feel. Sometimes getting the right perspective — like helping others more misfortunate snaps me out of it. Other times hearing the right sermon/lesson helps. Talking with others and getting their perspective helps me with my sometimes narrow thinking. Being around people that support and love me helps me more than anything. When relationships strain during hard times it only makes matters worse. When a bad attitude develops knowing that I have people around me understand and support me helps the most. However, I am not asking for a “pass” in my bad attitude. Sometimes I also need someone to speak truth in to me.

60. Thanks for your transparency. I live in Charlotte, NC and we had about the same situation with Hurricane Hugo some years ago so I sort of “feel your pain”. At any rate, I find the best way to break of out of the crud is to think about how blessed we really are. I know this will sound self-evident but just think about it. At least you weren’t harmed. At least you knew the power was eventually coming back on. What about the people who never had power ….duh. Anyway, the Word says to think on the “good stuff”, i.e. Philippians 4:8-9. Also somewhere in Job it says, “Shall we accept the good from the Lord and not the bad?” I’m still working on all this too so don’t feel like the Lone Ranger.

61. I deal with any negative feelings towards situations by reminding myself that this life was never meant to be perfect – I must therefore live with the eternal hope in eternity spent with Him! Not to say that initial feelings of frustration don’t come up, they do for sure. I actually had a really bad year last year – financially anyways. My business was failing and I am the only source of income at home. I have been a faithful tither and do my best to run my business to honor God but here it was falling apart. Initially panic and fear set in and try to destroy but as I worked to keep things in perspective I realized that nothing can really be so bad that I should be bitter on this earth – I win in the end no matter what!

I also ask what He can do with me through it all rather than why it is happening. So many other bad things happen every day, even if my wife or kids died I would hope I could keep sight of the bigger picture and hold on to the grace that abounds in Him. Our future in Him is secure no matter what this world throws at us. Paul said it – “to die is gain, to live is Christ!”

I used to seek out more practical answers like “count to 10”, “ask yourself if it will matter in 5 yrs, if not then it doesn’t matter now”, etc but all of those kinds of things still left me hungry for something more real. I had to seek God out and really, truly find Him. Once I did that my outlook on all of life changed. If you have a little more time read my testimony – attached. Hopefully you will see what I mean.

62. This is an area that has plagued me through time. I can even put on an air, act as if nothing is the matter yet be upset. Within me I feel an attitude, sometimes displayed outwardly and sometimes not displayed outwardly. I believe my greatest challenge has been with my husband of 25 years. He’s a great guy, a very nice guy and perceived by all as a great guy. However, living with him I see where he could do and be so much more. I’ve shared my thoughts and concerns with him but do not see as much of a change that I think there should be. Most concerns are ones that would improve his health (weight) and others fall in the category of household management.

In continually dealing with various issues referencing the above, I have developed an attitude. How do I deal with my attitude? I first recognize I have an attitude and need to get rid of it. I self-evaluate; what I’m feeling then I try to explore the specific reason causing the attitude as well as how I am reacting to express my attitude.

When I can’t seem to easily shake the attitude, I take it to the Lord in personal prayer. Sometimes I cry-out to the Lord which is a comfort. I’ll search the scriptures where God is speaking to me, read His promises, assurance, His love, provisions, and notation of how things are in this world. God’s promises comfort me by informing me that ALL IS WELL. His Word informs me that an attitude is unnecessary and gets me nowhere. He gives me things to do, I better way to handle my issue.

I believe that reiterating that the Lord is real, faithful, merciful is a comfort. I then do my best to apply the “Word of God” to the situation and I say to myself, “Let go, let loose, and let God.”  I try to leave my attitude and issue that provoked it at the cross. I have sometimes put on praise music to sing-along, and enter into the presence of God. I purpose to laugh, make humor and be joyous. Life is short and although I still sometimes get attitudes I purpose not to hold on to it but, to give it to the Lord; “Let go, let loose and let God”. Recognize our blessings and be thankful.

63. Focus on the positive, health, family, church, and hope in Christ.

64. Sometimes I look in a mirror and tell myself out loud to STOP. Someone told me recently they do something similar but added they are really asking God to help them get the devil out!

65. This helps me: I recognize I have a choice in whether or not to have an attitude, that’s negative. As a choice it’s simple. I feel better and am better, with a good attitude . So, I let it go, and empower myself to change. We can’t change each other. We can change ourselves,, and that can help others, too. You either get, this or you will continue to experience circumstances, that get you thinking , why me?

FYI, “why” questions seem to come from a childish position, in me…maybe you, too? All I’m saying is to take charge and accept, this is what we have to deal with. Now let’s fix it. And the right attitude sure makes it less challenging than I would imagine. God, has allowed me and my family many blessings, and when things get tough , we like to think about a saying my Dad had. ( I’m like a rubber ball, the harder you throw me the higher I bounce!)

66. Just a couple of thoughts on tude…

Concerning my wife-with-a-tude. After 28 years of marriage I finally learned to give her space and time and she will come out of it. But I’m thankful that she does not have a tude very often. Actually not very often at all. Except for the fact that she is going through the “change of life”. She is on the 4 year plan. At least it’s been 4 years and I’m not sure when the end will happen. LOL

I’m the one that that has the tude most of the time. What God has been showing me the last 3 weeks is, am I striving to be “happy” or “Holy”?

Usually my tude is wrapped around something “I” want or what “I” want someone to do. That involves my happiness not my holiness. If I stop and think that my holiness or my righteousness are nothing and make a conscious thought that Christ’s righteousness is what covers me, it makes and instant change in my tude.

67. We spent my 50th birthday and my dh’s 57th birthday, (we’re a few days apart) without electricity in a cold house, due to an ice storm, as well. We remained without electricity for almost 2 weeks. (Since we were rural and on well water, that also left us without water.) Right away, we were so thankful for our fireplace, as we knew it could be much worse without it. Although a fireplace (not fireplace insert) only heats not much beyond right in front of it, when the house is bitter cold, we could at least feel some warmth from it by sleeping and sitting right in front of it. We had piles of books we had always wanted to read, so we got through a lot of those in the evenings by the fireplace, sitting under layers of blankets!

It gave us a lot of time for sharing thoughts, as well. We would read something aloud and discuss it. We, too, pondered how our ancestors lived like that all the time…my dad grew up on a farm that didn’t have electricity until the 40s, so all of his childhood was without electricity. (he also had an outhouse all those years, too.) For us, that helped knowing if my dad and aunts and uncles could do it, so could we…that it was all in how one looked at a situation.

Counting blessings, like the song goes, helped. We were thankful that we had a roof over our heads; definitely VERY thankful that no limbs had crashed into our house!!; that we had books to read; that we were saving greatly on our propane, and our next electrical bill would be much lower; that we had a fireplace to help create some warmth; each other, so that we weren’t enduring it in the house alone; our faith, remembering that Christ was right there with us.

In fact, mentioning Christ…the thought just now comes to mind that He, too, did not have central air, nor central heat, as well. ..in fact, He had no place to call a roof over His head. And He’s our Savior…so that definitely makes me feel spoiled, even with an ice storm knocking out the electricity!

Anyway, it is so easy to become irritated and grouchy if focusing on what one has lost…but if one focuses on all that one still has, or all that could have happened…it’s much easier to still find ways to enjoy one’s self. Some of our very BEST and treasured memories are from that time in front of the fire, reading books together in the evening and sharing re: what we’d just read, or thoughts we had on all kinds of things. 🙂 There’s also something just so comforting and peaceful about sitting under layers upon layers of big, thick blankets, reading by the crackling fireplace. And btw, the savings we had from almost 2 weeks of non-use of propane and electricity…we used that to go shopping with, as a way to treat ourselves for what we’d gone through.

58. My mother always told me “Give it up to God”. It took many years to catch it, but when we do, we surrender our circumstances and choose thankfulness and choose contentment and choose to “wait upon the Lord”.

59. I definitely want to hear the answer to this one. I really can testify to having this in my life more often than I want.

60. I am wondering the same thing myself. I constantly struggle with a bad and angry attitude. I do not know how to break out of it. I cannot enjoy anything. Everything is viewed in the negative. It has taken a toll on my family, my first marriage and now my second and my children. Yet I can’t beak out of this. I know rationally I am blessed to be alive and healthy. But I am angered at the place I am in my life. Always jealous of others and their situations and families. I have a terrible family life and am angry and depressed everyday. I do not wish to be the angry old lady but I can’t get out of this mindset. no matter what I have done. I pray at church for god to help but there is still no changes. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

61. I recently had a bout with a “baditude” as well! After a couple of weeks with sick kids, Christmas vacation (when all three kids are home) and some physical pains, I was irritable. Coupled with my wife’s hard road through menopause (read: men-you-better-pause!) and some things she said in frustration, I was angry. Not the yelling kind, but the slow-burn, close-my-heart, get cold kind.

I have read the Scriptures and done enough counseling in the pastorate to know this is a bad place to be. My wife apologized, but I was not really ready to forgive. After a couple of days, I knew I had to start showing my wife love again. I needed to die to myself and extend grace – whether I felt like it or not.

Love is a decision. So reaching out to give her a hug and doing something helpful for her (again, not because I felt like it) was something I could do – even if I couldn’t force myself to have a good attitude and feel differently. As I have seen many times before, its easier “to act my way into feeling than to feel my way into acting”.

The bad attitude subsided. The sun came out again. We also realized that after about a month without any private time, we needed time together. (This is another key to preventing bad attitudes, at least in marriage). In the end, my bad attitude was mine to own. There were places along the way where I made subtle changes in mind and ways of thinking that were negative and thus were detrimental to our relationship. I needed to ask the Lord for help, stop being selfish and love my wife as Christ loved me (Eph. 5). Beware the “little foxes” (Song of Songs) of bad attitudes that get in to steal our joy and intimacy with one another!

62. Prayer and more prayer- If I have a stinky attitude, I ask the Lord to change my attitude- Often I’ll meet the same situation a bit later, and I realize I don’t feel the same.   And sometimes (since I am a woman) I have a good cry and write in my journal.

63. If I have a bad attitude I have learned through maturing that the attitude can’t last long. Making a thankfulness list and praying are key. When someone else has a bad attitude, it must be your goal to not get sucked in. Simply ask them what you could do and then step away. Negativity breeds negativity. Pray for the person and a let them get over it.

64. Here is what I do:

I repent for not reflecting the love and joy of Jesus and making my life about me and my comforts instead of Him and His glory.

Put on worship music and thanks him for everything and I meant everything.

Serve somebody – anybody but get off myself and help somebody else.

If those steps don’t work I repeat them until they do.

65. Your message is right on point for how I felt today at work. I had a horrible attitude with everybody, and I was constantly grumbling and complaining about everything I had to do. One of our co-workers called in sick, so I had to do my job, her job plus other duties that could’ve been done by anybody. I open every morning, which I like doing, but the coworker that called in sick closes. Therefore, I ended up being there from open until close.

It was hard for me to shake the negativity because my mind was constantly dwelling on how unfair I felt like I was being treated, but when I began to be thankful that I have a job, and thankful that God blessed me with the knowledge and skills to be an instrumental person on my job, then I noticed a change in my attitude. I was still frustrated, but I was just thankful instead of grumbling and complaining.

66. I have been in celebrate recovery for many years, looking and digging at my attitudes… I’ve only been married almost 3 years. I met my husband in recovery but I’ve worked through the steps and he hasn’t… We were going to divorce at the end of Oct because of attitudes.. I prayed Oct 14th for some thing big to get my husbands attention because I didn’t want to divorce but could no longer live this way…well Oct 15 at 9:30 am my 52 year old husband had a stroke… Today is three months from when he had his stroke…things got worse with attitude…God LED us to a godly therapist and now Terry’s looking keep within why he’s so mean just at home…

67. A member of our church stated that God doesn’t always calm the storm you’re in but sometimes calms YOU in the midst of the storm.

I have found the peace I needed many times when my mind was in turmoil by going into my “prayer closet”, closing the door and kneeling in worship to Him. Sometimes my attitude was so bad or my spirit so heavy that I have not been able to say much but just kneeling before the Greatest One in the world and being silent, allowing His spirit to envelop me with comfort has been enough. Even when I have had to say, “Lord, I’ve been a jerk”, there is always healing, both spiritually and emotionally for me.

Thanks for the opportunity to share. The FamilyLife daily memos are always so helpful to me and I enjoy reading them.

68. My experience is similar to what you wrote about your power outage but it occurred at a different time of year. We live in Connecticut and have occasional power outages as well when a hurricane, snow storm, or heavy rain and snowfall blows through and knocks out power lines and phone lines from falling tree limbs and heavy winds (there are lots of trees in Connecticut). Usually it lasts for a few hours and then the power is restored. Not this time.

I don’t know if this story will help but we lived through hurricane/tropical storm Irene last year and lost power for 5 ½ days. Everything in our home runs on electricity as we live in a rural area. Without electricity we cannot run our refrigerator(s), have no water from the well which means no water for drinking, bathing, cooking, flushing toilets etc.

My sister and bro-in-law were visiting from California on vacation and Irene arrived the morning after they did in late summer. It was hot and extremely windy and we could not run an air conditioner or fan without electricity. I was angry and in a real funk because it was their vacation and first ever visit in the 10 years we have lived here. I really wanted to show them a good time and show them New England but Irene came in and ruined everything. Our fridge(s) was stocked with BBQ meats, drinks, and goodies most all of which was spoiled and had to be thrown out. We had no generator and none were available as all the stores along the east coast were sold out. (I didn’t think we needed one because the power always came back on fairly quickly). We had to collect rainwater to flush toilets and when that was used up we were able to get more from a relative in another town who is on town water (no well). We all also showered there once after being sweaty and dirty for what seemed like a long time.

All the nearby stores and gas stations were closed and we had to travel into Rhode Island to get food, water, or gas and most of those places were also without power and closed. We ate what we could before it spoiled in our fridge and used the BBQ to cook and make hot water for instant coffee. My bro-in-law had really wanted to go to a New England restaurant and have a lobster dinner but all of them were closed in the nearby towns. All in all it was miserable conditions for a about a week. I was not in a good mood as I wanted it all to go smoothly as planned.

My wife and I are Christians and so are my sister and bro-in-law. This was a blessing because it all worked out pretty well after all. We prayed together, talked, laughed, played games, and just “visited together” which hadn’t happened in a long time . My Sis and bro-in-law actually helped us a lot by giving us tips on what to do and how to prepare for a storm before it arrives. They live in the mountains in California and have dealt with many extended power outages in the course of their 29 years living there (and they have a generator). They blessed us with the wisdom gained by their experiences of going through many storms over many years and by their words of encouragement, love, and prayers. I know that lifted me out of the funk, anger, and disappointment I felt. When I look back on it now we had an adventure that we weren’t ready for and got through it all with God and family. If I didn’t believe in God it would have been very different.

Plus now we have a generator and used it during the next power outage that only lasted 32 hours! (Tropical storm Sandy)

69. Chip Ingram did a series a while back about this topic. Also Earl Nightengale was an inspiration to me. He was also a man of God.

Chip tips:

Write down 10 things you’re grateful for. Any ten.

When depressed or bad attitude arises, compliment someone, either verbally, via email, etc.

Earl’s tips:

Write down 20 items every day that you’re grateful for.

Serve someone something.

Give someone something. Anything. Go to a store and buy someone something. The giving attitude produces positive emotions which will end depression.

Hope this helps! Great article. Hope you’re home is full of electricity and warmth.

70. Firstly, I reference God for direction. I worked on adaption- to live a two ways life – (Abundance/Scare city life) so when any of the situation comes, It will not be a problem but a way of life.

Dealing with the bad attitude of another person

Answer – You have to let the person know that what he or she is doing is a wrong attitude. We have three set of person in this world with different attitudes..

a) Some people are bad they knew they are bad- there is grace for these ones to change from their bad attitude

b) Some people are bad they don’t know they are bad – The chances for grace to change them is slim.

c)   Some people are bad they thought they are good – The chances for grace to change them is slim.

With faith in God in all situation, when I found myself in any bad situation I looked up to God for help and direction.

71. I pray asking God to forgive me for having a bad attitude, to soften my heart, & to help me to be the husband, father, brother, son, etc., that He has called me to be. I ask the offended party for forgiveness & try to explain the reason behind my sour attitude. I listen to Christian music allowing the message & God’s words to speak to my heart. I think about Bible scriptures which instruct (1) us husbands to love our wives just as Christ loved the church & gave Himself up for her to make her holy and (2) “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” My wife came from a broken family & her dad was an abusive alcoholic. I have to remind myself what a tender flower & what a precious God-given gift she is to me. I want her to feel safe, loved, appreciated & valued in our marriage. Also, I want to serve as a good example to both my son & daughter of what a true Christian husband, father, & family is like.

72. It seems much easier for me to change a bad attitude towards someone other than my spouse. I can better redirect my thoughts into giving them the benefit of doubt, or not be so hurt by whatever was said or happened. I believe it’s because I don’t have the connection to them as I do with my spouse. Within our 29 years of marriage, we have had a lot of water going under that proverbial bridge. When it comes to husband, it tends to be a lot harder.

We can really push each other’s emotional buttons, I can tell you! Sometimes when my bad attitude creeps in, it takes great work to get myself under control. What helps me most is to remember the things I love about by spouse. It can be as simple as recalling the gentleness in his hands when he shows affection to our dogs or cat. There are so many reasons I love him. So, for me to feel a bad attitude toward him weighs heavy on my heart. Prayer helps me immensely. I ask the Lord to help me slow my mind down. I pray for me to be the way I should be, say the things I should say, and behave the way I should behave. I pray for my husband too. But, it is my strong belief that if I am a godly spouse first, my husband will grow in our relationship, and most importantly, in his relationship with the Lord. I want to be his helpmate, not the person that holds him back.

73. I got a bad attitude and now I have daily chest pains. I barely cope with the stress of my life. We r fairly poor and live w/o electricity or running water. My husband is not being the spiritual leader I want him to be. I have been unsatisfied and telling him which does not help. I have 8 kids – 16, 13, 13, 11 (all girls) 9, 6, 6, 1 (all boys). My house is noisy, messy, and ungrateful. I am coping sort of but I think I might have a heart attack soon.

I would love to hear the miracle cure. I have been praying but I feel like the enemy puts just the right amount of pressure at just the right time to make me a daily ugly failure. I am looking for the JOY, but I am not happy.

74. I take a nap and things are always better when I am not tired.

75. Prayer. Simply prayer. It changes everything. It allows you to change your mindset to change and adjust the negative attitude.

76. Hey, praise the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Through reading the word of God and repent. Being open minded to the Holy spirit and seeking counsel from His small voice.

77. Listen to a sermon online. There are thousands of incredible messages out there that can be turned on at any moment. Turn on Christian radio or CDs. PRAY PRAY PRAY!!

Funny I read this article this morning, as my husband would tell you I was in a cranky mood as I finished defrosting our freezer last night. I solicited he and my daughter’s help which got the job done sooner and relieved the grouchiness, but guess who it filtered onto the few remaining hours of the evening. Should have tried my tips!!

78. If I am angry at my husband I give my anger to Jesus and ask Him to deal with it. I also ask Him to bless my husband. By asking Jesus to take the anger from me I know He will do the right thing with it and it is no longer my responsibility. This goes a long way in helping me regain a good attitude and move toward forgiveness and peace.

79. About the bad attitude? I recently had that circling in my head over being negative and judgemental over a person and circumstances. I didn’t like it and sat in my car and thought…what do I actually do about it. So, I prayed, God help me change this. Then, the idea came to me to list the ugly: pride, critical attitude, jealousy, judgmental thoughts.

Then, I listed the opposite of them: humility, kindness, thankfulness for what I have, generosity of thought. Then I knew that verses could come to mind and I could look up that would plant those things in me. I sought them out and am working on focusing on them all the while asking God to do his thing of bringing mercies, graces, changes in perception, joy, etc. that would seal these things.

80. I find that reminding myself and others of the blessings we have help to get over that bad feeling. The other thing that helps is to get out and help someone else in worse shape than you. Helping others gets our focus off of ourselves and on to higher thinking.

81. I think a bad attitude is really anger in disguise. The only way to overcome anger is to assess what it is you are not getting, who is preventing you from getting it and forgive and pray for that person. In your case, pray for the power company service providers. Perhaps turn your pity party inside out. Instead of focusing on self, think about those workers out in the cold working 24/7. Be on the lookout for them and provide them with hot beverages and snacks. Go door to door and see how your neighbors are surviving the storm and if you can be of any service. God provided the storm, which provided opportunities of service and ways to connect with neighbors that you might not have had otherwise. If you want to be frustrated with anybody than it should be God. God is good all the time and all the time God is good.

82. As for me and my marriage, I pray for me first. I pray that God will give me the words that my husband needs to hear to alleviate his mood and stress. I also pray for patience, courage and strength to keep moving forward in the loving way that I would expect my husband to do for me if I were in his “sour mood”. I then pray for my husband. I pray that God transforms his heart and his mood so that things can go well with him, no matter who and what he’s dealing with.

83. I am in a situation similar to what you wrote about. I just got a notice that after trying to help a fellow Christian’s son with a job at my company that we were sent a notice that his son is suing our insurance carrier. Without going into the issue it has brought me to believe that I am focusing too much on our church and not enough on God. I have long used the passage about Peter when he stepped out of the boat and started to walk to Jesus. But as he was doing this he started to sink because he was walking on the water as was the Lord.

We have a great church and a fantastic Pastor who preaches directly from the Bible and is not a “feel good preacher”. Over the years I have gotten very involved in our church. I have been on the Board for over 8 years and have been the head Stuart for the same amount of time. I am an Electrical contractor so I do quite a bit of work around the church. The Pastor and his family and ours are basically an extended family together. If something were to happen to my wife & or me they said that they would take care of our girls. They are very active in our family and ours in theirs. I am just feeling that I may be looking at too much of the stuff around me and not focusing on God. I am starting to question whether God is telling me that I need to move on or is it that I should stay.

84. The very first thing I do is to ask God to reveal to me why I have the discontent in my heart. I ask Him to shine his light into my heart to illuminate any darkness that may be lurking there. So often, for me, there are unmet expectations that lead to these feelings. As I press in and pray about it, God will reveal it and also guide me as to how to release this to Him. I have a tendency to exert my control over situations and have my own agenda…this only leads to frustration and a resulting bad attitude. When I release the control to Him and TRUST Him in every situation, He will guide my path. Thank you for your articles…they are a blessing!

85. I try to focus on God and see the good that he doing and hard time like you with no power. My family I went two week with out power when a hurricane came through. The kids where small and they were scared of dark and we had flashlight on and when battery die they woke up. Plus one of them was sick. But God came through with extend family and friends who open up there home so we could take showers and charge our cell phones and laptops up. Gave us meal to eat. It was rough bit the cool thing God did on my son birthday the power came back on. He thought it was the coolest birthday present to get. I hope this help.

86. It would seem to me that some times you just have to yell out to the Lord for help.

White knuckle it for a few weeks, this holiday season I went to the health food store and got something to calm my nerves. I did not want to be on anti-depressants I just needs something to help me be calm enough that I could think straight and listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit.

I also ended up calling a Christian counselor and ask to have a few sessions with him.

I am raising my 16 year old granddaughter and I am over 60 years old. Two weeks with her out of school, laying around all day doing nothing while I was at work. Running around till 10 pm each night with her boyfriend just about drove me nuts. Thank the Lord school was only out for 2 weeks but I still have many issues that need to be resolved.

That’s my story and the Lord knows I need help to cope at this time in my life. Praise be to God!

87. The thing that comes to mind for me is how long it has taken me to get to a place for me to be self-observant enough to be able to step back and realize when I have a bad attitude. That not only takes maturity in the moment, but it takes humbleness to purposely push out my pride and analyze why am I letting this affect me so much? That is the most difficult part.

But once the Lord’s grace allows me to do this I am able to look at the situation and separate out what is in my control and what is not in my control. In something like lost electrical power in a snow storm I am able to separate and tell myself, “It is not within my power to fix this, so we must wait on the generosity and work of others- they’re doing the best that they can.”

But another situation, like getting home and seeing that my house is an utter disaster- I know that I either fully caused this, or at least played a large part in it- It is harder to relinquish that frustration. But just like when Samuel sat in emotional grief for several days after Israel yet again turned to idols just after watching the miracles or God, Samuel had to find the gumption to get up, say to himself, “the world will go on” and he kept serving the Lord the best way he knew how.

It’s that moment when I get so tired of being sick and tired of my situation, my dirty house, my crazy family, etc that I feel that I am forced to choose either to let this thing or situation either paralyze me for the rest of my life (the rest of the day or the rest of the week) or I can choose to overcome and starting acting in a way to fix the very situation that I detest. It’s not easy, but when I find myself at that fork in the road, I find more rewards in choosing that I can change or persevere through my situation, rather than sit in grief forever.

88. There was a time a few years ago when I was the one with the sour attitude. I thought I had the school year perfectly planned. I had two kids in preschool and one in Kindergarten. Preschool was 2 or 3 mornings a week and Kindergarten was still half a day; my daughter went in the afternoon. Staying at home should be easy right? I would have all morning to spend with my kindergarten child; you know, some one-on-one time. After all, this was the last year I would be able to spend so much time with her. And my afternoons would give the opportunity to be with the other two. What I ended up finding out was I had virtually no time to “get anything done.”

By the time breakfast got cleaned up, it was time to start making lunch so we could get the younger two from preschool and still be on time for the bus. Laundry took forever. Grocery shopping always had to be done with at least one child. I know you are asking if I had help. Yes, I have a husband and he is actually very helpful. Especially when I see so many other husbands. Many times he would help fold those last one or two loads of laundry, make dinner etc.

The fact is having 3 children in less than four years was tough and I just needed to not let it get me down with a sour attitude. I even got to hate, yes I used the word “hate,” putting the clean laundry away. At least it was clean, right? I would get interrupted with tiny disagreements, snack time, potty time for the youngest, then the kindergartener would be home from the bus, etc. To make it worse, I was the one that planned it that way. I came to the realization not to expect as much of myself. If I couldn’t get laundry done in one day a week, I planned two days a week. When I put the clean laundry away, I would pray for the person whose laundry I was putting away. I would pray for their health, safety, abilities, friends, future husbands (LOL), etc. I actually didn’t mind putting laundry away anymore.

While cleaning up the kitchen or house, I would think of all the blessings and positive things about our family. We can afford for me to be home with our kids which is actually something I never thought that I would be interested in pre-children. I am not saying that the year I so carefully planned wasn’t tough, because it was. But it was easier to get through it realizing and emphasizing the positive instead of the mundane negatives.

89. For me, I sometimes find this a struggle as well…whether my poor attitude is toward people, circumstances, etc. Sometimes I am successful at overcoming, and sometimes not. For me I try several things, the main one of course is to refocus. The less I focus on whatever is causing my bad attitude, the more I am inclined to be able to come back with a fresh attitude and solve the issue if it needs solving, or to move on if that’s what’s needed.

I attempt to refocus doing many things such as prayer, counting my blessings in my life, reminding myself of how I am truly blessed despite current appearances. I listen to worship music which encourages me. I spend time doing something I love, which for me, the best is hoseback riding. On my horse’s good days its my quiet time with God and refuels me to deal with my circumstances. On my horse’s not so great days its a little extra exercise above our normal exercise that comes with riding which often helps to burn off the stress lol! Sometimes, I just need to talk it out with a friend who often brings me back lovingly with a reality check and a good listening ear.

Many times these things work, other times such as last week even my attempts to refocus are met with challenges increasing my stress load. In those moments I simply prayed through and reminded myself that tomorrow is a new day, and I won’t finish this one alone. It didn’t necessarily make my feelings go away, but it did help me to manage my attitude and do my best to correct it and survive the week.

90. I have been here many times and am still learning as well. Some ways I get a grip, so to speak is remember (unfortunately) that there are people who are worse off. Ex. You may be sick with cold or flu but someone is deathly ill just basically “waiting to die”. Or remember its temporary. You know that whatever you are going through won’t last forever in fact usually we only go through for a few days or maybe some weeks.

GOD is so merciful! Last thing I try to do is remember that usually if I focus on the problem it lasts longer, but if my focus is on prayer, praise, and GOD’s Word then it doesn’t stay as long or at least I’m not bothered by it as much. Hope this helps! God bless!

91. Quite the challenge, but what we are to do biblically should always apply….

Deny yourself – don’t allow yourself to dwell on “you” and how bad you have it, how miserable your feel.

Take every thought captive-the original thought or feeling isn’t the sin, it is what you do with it. Will you let this thought/feeling take control of you, or will you take it captive and change your focus to WWJD (what would Jesus do) and FROG (fully rely on God)

Follow the mind of Christ and take action-think about what Christ would do and take action on it, minister to others, pray for others, praise God, give thanks for what you do have.

These steps of Christian life are really hard to follow at times, but always apply. Sometimes the thoughts/feelings return two minutes later and we have to refocus again (and again and again and again) and put our priority where it needs to be, not on self, but on Christ and how are attitude and actions should be a reflection of Him to others. What do we want others to see, me or Christ? (Why am I here on earth anyway, but to honor Him and be a witness for Him.)

Think about why we are here and what purpose God would have for us at that very moment…to let Christ shine through our mortal bodies and be evident to the world. How can I do that at this very moment? The more we practice this, the easier it should become. I certainly haven’t gotten there yet, but hope that my “self” times are becoming less in length and improving, that I am becoming more like Christ with each trial I go through.

92. The first thing I do is laugh. I think of something silly my children or I have done and laugh with the memory. It helps me to break the funk of the negative spirit that’s upon me. Then I think of how good God is, how good He is to me. I think of what I do have and give Him the praise. There was a time I was without electricity in the winter but it wasn’t because of a natural storm. It was a spiritual storm for me. I had just gone through a divorce, lost my job and finances were low, too low to pay the electric bill. It was shut off during an ugly storm. My kids were with their dad for his two weeks so I was thankful that they didn’t have to endure that with me.

It was then, when I was alone in the dark and cold that the enemy spoke to me. I heard him clearly say, “see how your God treats you! You walk to church in every type of weather, pay your tithes instead of your bills and this is your reward. A cold empty house.” For a moment I felt the venom of that spirit try to enter into me and I immediately shook it off and spoke out as if he was standing in the room with me, “Yep, I do see! I could be out in that cold wind and rain but my God has blessed me with a roof over my head and protection from the elements. Now isn’t my God good!”

I tell you that the spirit left and I just began praising Him. So my advice to you when a bad attitude comes upon you, think of how God has been good to you, smile and laugh and I’ll bet the attitude will fade.

93. Studying the book of Habakkuk – particularly “Lord, Where Are You When Bad Things Happen?” by Kay Arthur. Habakkuk’s situation doesn’t change from the beginning to the end of the book but his attitude sure does.

94. This was a timely article as I think we all faced the temptation of a bad attitude when the electricity was out for so long.

We had just returned from 48 hours of travel on our way home from Thailand. We returned not only to a cold house with no electricity, but we’d had a pipe burst under the sink that flooded the kitchen, living room, bath and laundry rooms. Bummer. But perspective certainly helped in this situation. We spent 3 nights in a refugee camp when we were on the Thai/Burma border. We went into the camp to do a Christmas party for the kids there. They gave us their very best in accommodations, but on a scale of 1-10 for camping, it was a 1. Yet the kids themselves were delightful. We also gave out Christmas presents (basically hygiene packs with soap, toothbrushes, etc) to migrants living in huts made of pieces of tin, old tarps, bamboo and leaves—and they were incredibly grateful.

So whenever I started to feel sorry for myself, I was reminded of how good I have it. Even though our house will be a mess for the next few months, eventually I will have a new kitchen and insurance is paying for it. And the people we met from Burma will still not have a birth certificate or a passport or the right to work or healthcare or enough food…and the list goes on.

95. We live in Clarksville, AR. We drove to Little Rock Christmas afternoon to see family. My wife, my oldest daughter (29), our middle daughter (26) and our son (25) stayed at our son’s home. My wife was very tired and stayed home to prepared dinner while the kids and I went riding around in the snow in my jeep. About 30 minutes after we left, the power went out. Fortunately the ham we had was fully cooked, even though it was luke warm. We also had some salad and crackers. We lit candles and had some flashlights. My wife was tired and cranky. I was cold.   One thing that helped with the attitude was when the kids said this was one of their best Christmas’ ever.   Maybe our attitudes can improve when we feed off of others with better attitudes.

96. I remind myself that things could be worse. If I’m having a bad day, I praise God that I’m not laying in the hospital with cancer or dying of a terminal disease. If I’m doing something I dread such as laundry, I remind myself that there are people in wheelchairs who would give anything to do what I’m doing. Prayer, prayer, & prayer. TLC for myself. Typically my bad attitude comes from a pity party, so I do something special for myself, even if it’s small, or going and doing something for someone else helps.

97. I find that several things help me leave a bad attitude behind. One is stopping to sit alone for a few minutes and think about why I have this attitude. When did my attitude change? Did I wake up this way? Did I have this attitude at lunch? I keep asking questions to myself to find out what happened. Just knowing what went wrong and when can help me move on.

Once I know what happened, I need to think it through. Sometimes I have to deal with some sin or just realize I don’t have control over a situation. Then, confession or acknowledging God’s control might be appropriate. If I at least see the truth about the situation, it gives me a place to focus when I find my bad attitude gripping me again.

Also, I have prayed a lot for perspective. I have three young children and the oldest and I tend to butt heads a lot. When I start feeling an attitude from one of us, I have to ask God quickly for help to believe that this situation will not end badly, that it won’t ruin my day. So in this case, prevention is often the best cure. Inviting God into the situation helps me feel I am not in it alone and it can end in peace.

98. That sounds like a rough few days without power. My aunt and uncle are FamilyLife people who live in Arkansas too. They told us they experienced the power outage as well. In response to your article on a bad attitude, I’d like to recommend being thankful. In the midst of difficult situations or poor attitudes, God still has blessed us more richly than we deserve. In fact, in writing to the Thessalonians, Paul states it is directly God’s will for us to give thanks “In everything” (1 Thes. 5:18). I believe that thankfulness is the antidote to complaining and envy. It’s a law God wove into the world at its foundation.

99. I try to remember to “Give thanks in everything.” Sometimes, that’s not easy at all, however…but I try!

When my head hits the pillow at night, I usually start out my prayer with thanking God for a roof that doesn’t leak, a comfortable bed, no bugs(!) in my bed, clean sheets, a comfortable temperature to sleep in (whether that be A/C, heat, or just beautiful weather).

100. I think first and foremost, our personalities dictate so much of who we are and how we act and I have, in general, a positive outlook on life. I think it is this in addition to an attitude of gratitude that gets us through the tough times. Also helpful is getting over yourself and realizing that so much of life is not about you and the sooner you learn that, the more you can enjoy life, help others, etc. Putting things in perspective is also enormously helpful. So, when faced with difficult, challenging situations, whatever they may be, remember to put things in perspective, remember how blessed you are ( gratitude), think positively, and cry if you need to!

Of course, none of this works to its fullest without faith. Learning to let go and let God is so fundamental to getting through tough times. Trusting Him, obeying Him, seeking Him. He is our Higher Power. He is our strength. He is our Light.

101. Boy, I know I have bad attitudes sometimes. But I think one of our best ways to fight this is to pre-empt it. Realize what circumstances tend to hatch a bad attitude in yourself and prepare in advance for these circumstances by realizing that whatever God brings your way is in His plan. What He does in your life is for your best, and you should trust in Him rather than resenting your circumstances, other people, etc. Commit to react to situations and other people using attributes that God models for us and calls us to, rather than in our typical fleshly response. In doing so, we are growing in Christ and being transformed into His image. If you start to react with a wrong attitude, quickly catch yourself and nip it in the bud quickly, before it takes full root! Think about how God would react in the same situation.

102. This verse is from Ecclesiastes 7:8-9: “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.” I got this verse back in the fall on my daily bible verse. I thought – that is something to live by. So that evening I shared this with my wife and children.   Thinking back I see how God worked in my life for years without me knowing this verse…however, sometime there are situations that come up and you are quick to think doom and gloom “how in the world will I over-come this ordeal…”

Here is a real-life situation that I wanted to share with you. I got some University of Tennessee football tickets from a friend of mine – free tickets but upper deck.   My 14 year old son and I are planning a day at the game – just me and him. We get to our gate about 40 min before the game and our 2 tickets won’t scan. The gate attendant and supervisor at the gate says that the tickets had been re-printed that morning. Then they asked me are you the season ticket holder?…I said NO…They tell me that only the registered season ticket holder with PHOTO ID can get them re-printed – sorry you can’t get in!!!…but go to the main ticket office and explain your problem.

So we hike back around the stadium to the main ticket office. During that time I tell my son that whatever happens we can always watch the game at home on TV…then I remember this verse “better is the end of a thing than its beginning”. So I tell my son there’s a bible verse that tells us as Christians to stay calm don’t get angry the end will be OK…He says “stopping to eat and watching the game at home will be OK…” God has blessed me with wonderful children!

We get to the main ticket office and see a guy that looks like he might be in-charge. I tell him our problem … that these tickets won’t scan and for some reason the guy at our gate says they have been re-printed. He takes us over to a will call window and has a college coed wait on us… So I explain our problem for the fourth time to her (not the slightest bit of anger in my voice because we know God will make it OK. She steps back and talks with another supervisor and comes back and asks for my ID.

Then she is gone for about 10 min and comes back and says, “We don’t know what happened with your tickets.” I’m thinking her next words will be “enjoy the game at home – it’s on TV”. But she says, “Here are some tickets – they will get you in the gate. Enjoy the game.” We circle back around the stadium thinking wow, we were blessed with this outcome – Thank-you God.   More blessing to come – these tickets were on the 50 yard line, 16 rows up. Wow what a blessing. You may ask – so how did the game turn out? Our team lost but great character building day for me and my son.

103. We can relate to no power. We went through Hurricane Sandy. Even though we had minor damage, we were without power for 4 days. But yet, we saw God move. A friend brought over a generator for us and others to share. We also had a healing with a neighbor that we have not been getting along with. So even in times of no power and attitudes that were not always God ordained, He moved anyway!!

104. Abraham Lincoln said it best, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their mind to be.” Also, the fruit of the Spirit is “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.”

105. I had a struggle with bad attitude over Christmas 2011. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out well. I spent many days and nights crying and wrestling with being positive. I called family and friends and prayed constantly for God’s intervention. There were arguments and strife, but ultimately God used the experience to begin a healing process. Not what I expected, but what I needed. I made mistakes in handling my bad attitude, but God used that to bring about healing that needed to happen in both my life and my husband’s life. Prayer was the best thing I could have done to handle a bad attitude.

106. Great article and definitely one of the tougher challenges in life to address. About 10 years I found myself very unhappy with my marriage. I found it a burden that was just sucking the life out of me. Through lots of prayer and self introspection I realized my mood & feeling would usually reflex what I was focusing on. If I didn’t like an aspect of my marriage that was what I focused on and soon my whole perspective was that my marriage wasn’t very good.

Slowly over time I started choosing to focus on the great parts of my marriage. My attitude changed and so did my marriage. Not because my wife was doing anything different, but because I now viewed the positives. Another key aspect to making this work was depending on God. If firmly believe that He softened my heart and gave me the grace to make this change. This may sound a bit simplistic, but for me taking this approach and leaning on God has been trans-formative not only in my marriage but in all areas of my life.

107. I sometimes get real cranky and chew out my daughter and wife. I get unpleasant to be around. I have a short fuse and little things set me off. As a “Christian” I don’t swear and yell but I can be hurtful and cutting in what I say. For me the first step is God lets me know I am being cranky. That what is setting me off is me, not them. I then try and step back and look at things and reconsider if I am being unreasonable or if the situation does merit my comments that try to put some one in their place. Normally I am the one wrong. I have to pray and ask God to forgive me and then ask the same thing of the people I just attacked. It helps me to tune down even more. Sometimes I need to go for a walk and talk with God about my attitude and let Him calm me down or cool me off. I do appreciate your family file devotionals.

108. That’s a tough question! I think it’s tough because, if you’re the one with the bad attitude, the first step is that you have to realize it. Many times I think it’s easier to just blame everyone else for the stuff going on than to take a step back and say “maybe I’m contributing to the drama in this home.”

Furthermore, if you are the one with the bad attitude, then you need to allow God to change it and surrender that attitude. Be honest with Him and tell Him to show you why you have that attitude and what you need to surrender to Him. I think everything about a Christian’s life is about surrendering and having a willing heart. When you close your heart off to listening to God’s voice and allowing Him to change your attitude, you’re on a quick road to negativity.

If it’s the spouse that has the bad attitude, I tend to be blunt and ask him what’s going on. I try to just make him realize that whatever is going on inside of him is now affecting the rest of us at home. I’m grateful that I haven’t had to do this often and that he’s always taken a step back and realized that he’s usually just cranky because of something going on at work.

It is hard, though, when life seems to be unfair…I’ve always thought that moments like those just show us who we really are and that prayer is the key to accessing God’s transforming grace…

Editor’s Note: On the January 9-10, 2013, FamilyLife Today® broadcasts, host Dennis Rainey interviewed Todd Wagner (senior pastor of Watermark Community Church; Dallas, Texas) about raising sons and daughters. Dennis referred to two lists that Todd has created: What It Means to Be God’s Woman and What It Means to Be God’s Man.

We’ve provided these lists for you. It is our hope that these documents, in addition to the broadcasts, will serve you and your family well.

Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and bless her; Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
“Many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all.”
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
Give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
—Proverbs 31:25-31

1. SEEK GOD FIRST

(Reject the lie that anything or anyone else can satisfy you.)

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; tor tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” – Matthew 6:33-34

Other Scripture: Matthew 6:25-30, 1 Chronicles 16:8-12, Luke 12:22-34, Psalm 27:1-5, Psalm 34:10-14, Psalm 40:16, Zephaniah 2:3, Psalm 9:10

2. SPEAK FAITHFULLY

(Love others—with godly wisdom, boldness, and kindness as a faithful completer of others.)

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
– Genesis 2:18

Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy. – Proverbs 31:8-9

Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. – Proverbs 27:5-6

Other Scripture: Proverbs 12:18, Proverbs 13:3, Proverbs 16:13, Proverbs 20:15, Proverbs 24:26, Psalm 19:14, Proverbs 31:26

3. SHOW TRUE BEAUTY

(Bodies deteriorate, persons develop. Invest in that which lasts.)

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. – Proverbs 31:30

Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. – 1 Timothy 2:9—10

Other Scripture: 1 Peter 3:3-5, Proverbs 31:30, 1 Samuel 16:7

4. STAY HUMBLE

(Be constantly aware of pride and self-protection. Don’t think less of yourself but think of yourself less.)

“Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” declares the LORD. “These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.” – Isaiah 66:2

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 2:3-5

Other Scripture: 1 Peter 3:8-9, Psalm 141:5, 1 Peter 5:5-7, Proverbs 12:1, Micah 6:8, John 15:5

5. SERVE THE LORD

(Set your mind on eternal things, serve the eternal King, live to please only Him.)

“He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” – John 12:25-26

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men. – Colossians 3:23

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. – Galatians 1:10

Other Scripture: Philippians 1:21, Mark 10:42-45, Hebrews 6:10, 1 Peter 2:21-23, 2 Corinthians 5:10

You may also enjoy reading: “What It Means to Be God’s Man.”

© WordsfromWags wordsfromwags.com. Used with permission.

A couple of months after my wife, Carol, died, I stood in our laundry room facing a significant pile of laundry. It had been a long day at work—not the best day—and I had just made dinner. I was tense, and I broke.

I looked at the mound of clothing and towels and thought, I can’t do all this; I don’t want to do all this. Where did Carol go? She always did the laundry! Why has this happened? I don’t want to cook. I can’t run our house and take care of the kids. I don’t want to be a single parent. This is impossible!

Raw fear swept over me as my mind darkened and my stomach tightened in one big knot. Then God intervened—right there in my laundry room! Immediately the laundry room became a symbol of everything I hated and everything I needed. There was no audible voice, but I distinctly heard God tell me, Rob, you can do this; I will get you through this. Immediately I was flooded with a sense of peace that, remarkably, has largely continued to this day. I remember that moment as if it were yesterday.

There’s no getting around it: Deep pain brings us to the end of ourselves and, more times than not, face-to-face with overwhelming fear. This struck me again not long ago when I spoke at a funeral for a 26-year-old man who had committed suicide. I had conducted services for suicide victims before, but this one was off-the-charts sad because this young man had off-the-charts potential. He had simply lost his way. That afternoon I shared some of the bedrock truths God had been teaching me about disappointment and loss. Truths that helped my laundry room become a sanctuary. Truths that gave me peace in the midst of my nightmare.

Please don’t misunderstand: Recognizing these realities won’t make the agony of death—especially suicide— go away. It won’t immediately take away all your anger over a job loss, divorce, or a child who has strayed. Nor will it answer the “why” questions. I do not want to oversell. But I can and will tell you what I told those heartbroken family members and friends about working through tragedy. And make no mistake, it is work … faith-work … that enables a person to grieve without losing heart.

So as I addressed the grieving, hurting people who had gathered at that young man’s funeral, I offered what I hoped would be something of a lifeline. Here are three of the truths that I’ve learned to cling to.

Truth #1: We live in a fallen, sinful world. Cornelius Plantinga’s well-written book on sin is called Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be. I love that title! Suicide, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorism, war, poverty, rape, murder, self-centeredness, hate, hypocrisy, abuse, adultery, addictions, and human trafficking—they’re all products of living in a fallen, sinful world. This isn’t pessimism: It’s realism, biblical realism.

At the risk of sounding like a killjoy, let me suggest that too many of us expect too much out of life. Our expectations are unrealistic because our view of sin and its pervasive consequences is minimalistic. As a result, we unintentionally set ourselves up for disappointment whenever difficulty comes. So listen carefully, and I say this gently: There’s a sense in which we, as followers of Christ, need to lower our expectations, relative to what this life offers, relative to what this life will be like.

Truth #2: God is wonderfully and completely sovereign. After my wife, Carol, died, nights were the worst. I hated going to bed, hated being alone. The questions and fears always intensified at night when I was tired and it was dark and quiet. I thought morning would never come. It’s easy to panic in the middle of the night.

Perhaps that is why a second truth was, for me, so significant: God is sovereign, and He invites us to rest, really rest in and cling to His sovereignty. Let’s look at a biblical example. Joseph, whose story is told in the book of Genesis, spent some of the best years of his life in an Egyptian rat-hole of a prison. And this for crimes he did not commit! I can’t imagine his disappointment. But amazingly, neither bitterness nor self-pity seemed to gain a foothold in Joseph’s life. Years later he would say to the very brothers who betrayed him, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20).

Wow! Joseph refused to remain stuck in unforgiveness because he was resting and trusting in the sovereignty of God. Joseph saw past his personal tragedy to the living, active, personal God of the universe who both transcended and trumped his circumstances.

During Carol’s illness, we were given the same gift. We both had a deep, overwhelming sense—better, a conviction—that God was in control and that His good plan for our lives would not fail, regardless of whether Carol lived or died. We weren’t pretending and we certainly weren’t plastic; we were simply believing and attempting to live in submission to our loving heavenly Father. This is why Carol was upbeat even when she was in severe pain and why I didn’t collapse in bitterness and self-pity, especially during those late nights when I had to rush her to the hospital’s emergency room.

Joseph, like all spiritually healthy people, was God-centered, not problem-centered, not disappointment-centered, not man-centered. He was convinced that God had a plan and that God was working that plan.

Truth #3: The believer is not home yet. Jim Harrell, a member of our church and a good friend, began experiencing pain in his left calf in 2001. Always active, Jim assumed he had suffered a minor athletic injury. After all, he seemed to be in the prime of his life. He and his wife, Linda, had been married for over 20 years and had four children, the oldest of whom was in his early teens. He was respected for his work as a consultant on railroad labor relations, and he was loved by his friends for his big heart and practical jokes.

Gradually, Jim realized that the pain in his lower leg was not going away with rest and physical therapy. After running batteries of tests, his doctor called him on a Saturday morning in early 2003 with a grim diagnosis: Jim had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. A terminal illness, ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes the brain to lose the ability to initiate and control muscle movement.

The illness progresses at different rates among ALS sufferers. Jim lived nearly seven years past his original diagnosis—years beyond normal life expectancy with this disease. Yet its effects in Jim were no less brutal. One day near the end of his life when I was with Jim, I noticed that one of the few parts of his body that he could still move was his right hand.

As physically weak as he became, Jim taught me a significant principle for handling tragedy: We, as followers of Christ, are not home yet. Jim would tell you he didn’t get that immediately. For the first year after he learned he had the disease, he really struggled. Then a friend asked him to speak to a church group about living as a Christian in the business world. Near the end of his talk, Jim mentioned how much easier it was to talk about God with non-Christians now that he had a terminal illness. Jim’s suffering was drawing him to Christ, making him more like Jesus.

In fact, after his diagnosis, Jim had begun leading neighbors to Christ—lots of them. He also wrote countless e-mails lifting up Christ and accepted dozens more speaking engagements, sharing his story with business groups, high schoolers, and college sports teams. I had him share his story in our church’s morning worship services several times from his wheelchair as well. When his disease had progressed to the point that public speaking was nearly impossible, Jim produced a DVD of his story, which he had boldly sent around the world and to such places as the White House.

And what was Jim’s primary message? Although he’d been a Christian since college, he admitted that, like so many of us, he had spent most of his adulthood more focused on his life here on earth than on what would come next. His prognosis—a few more years at best to live on this earth—changed everything.

Climbing out of the pit of grief

I am a hard-charging, constantly-in-motion, easily reactive controller. A type A. Perhaps that’s why the experience in my laundry room just after Carol’s death affected me so deeply. In those moments I knew I couldn’t do what I needed to do. Not anymore, not without Carol. In effect, the laundry room personalized the death of my wife. It was my tipping point, in the worst way. I felt stripped, hung out to dry, powerless, and overwhelmed. Carol had carried me in so many ways; she was the music of my life. And now the music was over.

But God stepped into my despair, assuring me of His presence and power in a very personal way. My panic gave way to peace, my sorrow to joy, my confusion to conviction.

These three truths are basic Christianity—principles we easily assent to when times are good. Yet each one of them took on new meaning for me as I climbed out of the pit of my grief and began to make sense of life in the aftermath of incredible loss. These truths have, in ways I never experienced before, become deep and sustaining friends. Now I know, based on personal experience, that they will not fail. That why I commend them to you.

Taken from When the Bottom Drops Out by Robert Bugh. Copyright © 2011 by Robert Bugh. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

As Christmas day approaches many of you will be finishing last-minute details at work, or driving to Grandma’s house, or shopping for groceries before the big meal.As we gather with friends and family to celebrate Christmas, I am reminded of couples who have an extra reason for rejoicing this year.

Couples like Drew and Angie.

They live in Seattle, and are a blended family. In her words, their first five years after their wedding could be called “a crash course on how to destroy a marriage.”

Last year Angie and Drew separated, and God started working in Angie’s heart, calling her back to Him. Over the course of the summer she changed her attitude toward her husband—she began to love and respect and honor him despite the circumstances. It wasn’t long before he noticed a change and God began to move in his life as well. A practicing Wiccan, Drew gave his heart to the Lord on Halloween of 2011.

By the new year, Angie had seen such a radical transformation in her marriage that she wanted to help others. She went online and started to do some research about what kind of events or Bible studies were out there that she could use. She found the Art of Marriage®.

Being relatively new to their church, she wasn’t sure how things were supposed to work to get something like that started. So she approached her pastor and asked if the church would be interested in purchasing the Art of Marriage kit, and she’d lead it. She said if they weren’t willing to buy it, she and her husband were going to buy it on their own.

The pastor smiled … (Earlier that year my wife, Deborah, and I had the privilege of speaking at the services of that particular church about our ministry with FamilyLife. We gave the church a kit for hosting the Art of Marriage.) “There’s no need to buy it,” the pastor told Angie. “I have it in my office already. A missionary couple gave it to us and I just hadn’t had time to look through it.” He went into his office, handed it to her, and asked if she would let the church know how they could help.

Drew and Angie held their event in March with about 15 couples. Angie told me it was such an honor to be able to be part of something that transformed lives. She was excited about how cool it was to see some couples praying together for the first time in their marriages.

At the end of the event, the pastor led a vow renewal service. Drew and Angie were excited to go through it themselves, this time fully understanding what those vows meant. Angie has even decided to take on Drew’s last name after six years of marriage.

Angie has since joined the church’s staff, where she oversees the intern program as well as the school of ministry and other aspects of church leadership. Drew has started a men’s fellowship group, and both are active with the teen ministry at their church.

That’s just one story. I know there are many other couples who didn’t know if they would make it to Christmas this year. There are kids who will only have to set one table for Christmas dinner rather than one at Mom’s house and one at Dad’s house. These are families that celebrate Christmas with a special sense of joy, because they have seen firsthand why Christ came—to save sinners and to change lives.

©2012 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

“The weather had turned very bad early Christmas Eve,” my friend Mike remembers. “Sleet and snow were coming down hard.”

Driving conditions became so poor that his mother decided to stay home and not join Mike and his wife in their holiday festivities. So Mike decided to make the difficult two-hour trip to pick up his mom and bring her to the family gathering. Now, years later, his mother still refers to this as her priceless Christmas gift. “She felt so loved,” Mike says.

Love … isn’t that what Christmas is all about? After all, it’s the time of year when we celebrate love Himself, Jesus Christ, coming to earth (Luke 2). God gave us the greatest gift ever: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:11, NIV).

God expressed His great love for us through Jesus Christ. And as we celebrate His birth at Christmas, we often attempt to express our affection for others through tangible gifts. But no price tag can be put on true love.

I asked some friends to tell me about the most meaningful gifts they’ve given or received for Christmas. Here are 15 examples of gifts from the heart—priceless presents that will never be forgotten.

1. My aunt gave me a pair of earrings that belonged to my grandmother. Giving old family items can have lots of sentimental value without the high price tag.

2. My sister gave me a shadowbox with a piece of my grandmother’s quilt in it. Every time that I look at it, I think of Nana and my sister.

3. My daughter-in-law typed her grandmother’s poems and had them printed in a little book. She gave them as Christmas presents to her parents and siblings; they were truly touched.

4. Once my husband gave me an evening of painting, which is something I love. He had found a video on a painting tutorial, and set out all of my paints and two canvases in the living room. That night, each of us painted a picture together.

5. One year I surprised my husband with a special Christmas present: a hiking or fishing trip that we would do together.

6. I wrote poems for each of my grown children.

7. I gave my wife the gift of time. Now every afternoon from about 5-6 p.m. we sit on the porch and enjoy coffee together. I just listen as she decompresses her day. Very precious to her.

8. For Christmas, I ask my out-of-town family not to buy me anything tangible. Instead I ask them to use that money to come see me. For me, Christmas is about the celebration of Jesus Christ with those I love. Having lost all my grandparents and my mother, I am aware that tomorrow is not promised.

9. For Christmas gifts one year my sister typed up my grandmother’s handwritten recipes for all of our siblings. She put them into a notebook with a copy of one of my grandmother’s final letters. It was such a great gift and meant a lot to us.

10. One year, my precious grandmother (in her 90s), gave each of her 16 grandchildren a photo album that she had worked months to organize and put together. Each grandchild’s album was filled with pictures from her collection of that particular grandchild— from the time they were an infant into their adult years. I still cherish my album!

11. At the time when our oldest child was born, I wrote all about that day. Now, more than 30 years later, I will give this to my son on Christmas Day.

12. I made my wife a small wooden crucifix out of some really beautiful wood that was recovered from our house. She likes it because it’s one-of-a-kind.

13. Unbeknownst to me or my siblings, my grandfather wrote a memoir of growing up in the Depression, serving in World War I, etc. One of my sisters discovered this and gave me and each of our other siblings a copy as a Christmas present.

14. One Christmas I ended up giving my husband one of his most memorable gifts. Because our children are homeschooled, they are home most of the time. However, there was a three-month period of time when they attended a science camp one day a week on Tuesdays. My gift to my man was to invite him to come home for lunch every Tuesday for some special time together in the bedroom. Sometimes we would enjoy some soup before he would return to work, but if we didn’t get around to eating he never seemed to complain.

15. I received a card in the mail with a picture of me and my friend. She wrote a sweet note saying how thankful she was for our friendship. This was much better than a gift card.

Mother Teresa, who devoted herself to caring for the sick and poor, said “Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do … but how much love we put into that action.”

This Christmas, let’s put more than things into our packages. Let’s add our love and give gifts from the heart.

©2012 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

December is the month when many of us listen to a small group of songs, over and over and over again. And we love it.

If you think about it, there are really not many well-known Christmas songs. I just looked through my music and developed a list of most-recorded holiday tunes; I ended up with 38 on my “religious” list and 33 on my “secular” list. Most singers or music groups recording Christmas CDs work primarily from this small body of music.

Out of curiosity, I just took a look at the music stored on my computer, and discovered I’ve got 10 different versions of “White Christmas.” Performers include Bing Crosby, Martina McBride, The Drifters, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, Johnny Mathis, and The Beegie Adair Trio.

I was also surprised to find I have 20 different tracks of “Silent Night.” My list includes versions in piano, harp, jazz, orchestra, country instrumental, and bossa nova. I’ve got everything from Michael W. Smith to the Robert Shaw Chorale to the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble to Simon and Garfunkle. And I’ve got additional “Silent Night” versions that are not on my computer.

I suppose this should not surprise me. I’ve been collecting Christmas music my whole adult life. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas day I often listen to it for several hours a day—mostly as background music while I’m working. Accordingly, much of my Christmas music is instrumental—piano, orchestra, jazz, etc. (And in case you’re wondering, it’s playing right now as I’m typing these words.)

With so much variety in the holiday music available today, there’s something for seemingly every musical taste. Since my preferences are rather eclectic, I’m going to share a list of my favorite holiday CDs, with a special focus on music about Christ’s birth. As much as I enjoy the other holiday songs, my true favorites are those that reflect the true spirit of Christmas. This is the music that fills my mind as Christmas day approaches.

All these CDs are available in stores or online; perhaps you’ll find something new—or perhaps something old that will feel new.

Piano

1. A Traditional Christmas, by Brian Crain

2. Christmas Magic, by Jennifer Haines

3. Christmas, Plain & Simple, by Michele McLaughlin

Vocals

4. A Christmas Album and Home for Christmas, by Amy Grant.

5. Greatest Christmas Songs, by Julie Andrews

6. White Christmas, by Martina McBride

Orchestra

7. The Music of Christmas and Hallelujah! by the Percy Faith Orchestra.

8. The Glorious Sound of Christmas, by the Philadelphia Orchestra

Chorale groups

9. Christmas with the Academy, by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra and Chorus

10. The Little Drummer Boy, by the Harry Simeone Chorale

11. The Many Moods of Christmas, by the Robert Shaw Chorale

Miscellaneous instrumental

12. Christmas on the Mountain, by Craig Duncan (country instrumental).

13. Enchanted Christmas, by Anna Maria Mendieta (harp and orchestra).

14. A Festival of Carols in Brass, by the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble

15. A Music Box Christmas; 19th-century music boxes from the collection of Rita Ford

And finally, my favorite of all. This CD includes a few secular Christmas songs, but anyone who has watched the television special knows how the story ends …

16. A Charlie Brown Christmas, by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

Copyright ©2012 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

“So, Kellus. Tell Mommy. What is Christmas about?” I waited eagerly for my son’s answer, wondering if he would remember what I taught him last year.

“Christmas is about Christmas trees and lights and decorations and presents!” he answered. His voice was roaring with excitement and he jumped up and down all around the living room floor.

“Oh, I see,” I answered. “Well, can I tell you what Christmas is really about? Christmas is really about Jesus!”

“Awhh, OK,” he said. Then he quickly changed his answer. “Christmas is about Christmas trees and lights and decorations and Jesus!”

Hours later. “Kellus, what is Christmas about?”

“Jesus!” he answered.

I laughed at his quick answer, which was probably to appease Mommy. But I knew it was a great start.

The next assignment was to explain the full story. In my heart, I knew it was time for my husband and I to get down to the nitty-gritty about what the true meaning of Christmas is, and especially since most of everything in our American culture tells us Christmas is all about Santa, reindeer and elves. I wanted to figure out how I could teach him the truth and do so in a fun way that a young child could understand.

Since my husband and I are both followers of Christ, it’s important to us that we teach our children the real meaning of Christmas—that it’s a season where we reflect on the birth of our King and do our best to show our appreciation by giving. Now, explaining that to a two- and four-year-old—with short attention spans—means I have to do so in the most creative ways.

Tips for teaching the meaning of Christmas

Here are a few ways I thought might be helpful to my kiddos.

1. Be animated.

My kids love story time, except when it’s evident that momma is tired and not really there in storyland. So I try to make a habit of hopping into character, even when I’m bone tired. Or I become loud, silly and cartoonish. How cool is it that three wise men follow a huge star to find Jesus! Kids tend to remember a story when it’s exciting.

The moment momma becomes boring, the crickets chirp and suddenly I hear an exhausted voice yawn, “Mom, can I play Super Mario?” or “Can I have some juice?”

2. Be intentional.

I like to focus on the moral of the story once we’re done. When talking about Jesus, I like to make sure it’s clear exactly who He is—how He came, lived and is coming back! This paints the picture well in their eyes and helps them understand—even on their level.

“Jesus is the son of God who came to earth because God loves us sooo much.” My son responds, “Really, Mommy? God loves us sooo much?”

I’ve learned that the more intentional we are about sharing the gospel to our children, the more interested they become in learning more. “But why, mommy?” is usually the next question from my son. I just love the dialogue. I’ve noticed that when he prays at night he thanks God for Jesus. I believe he’s catching on.

3. Softly explain the truth about Santa.

When I was younger, my parent’s didn’t hesitate to tell us the truth about Santa. In our home, it was not a big problem because we were taught young. By sharing with my toddlers early, they have a lesser chance at being hurt when they learn how unreal Santa is. Children are captivated by the rosy cheeks and red suit (hey, it is a fun costume). But they could be even more excited to learn about a baby who came to love and save them.

Grab your FREE FamilyLife Christmas Countdown!

4. Get them involved.

Last year I took my children out into the community to pass out Christmas cookies and a small message of hope. This helped teach them how to be loving and giving—that the holidays are not all about receiving gifts.

5. Give Christmas cards, videos and drawings.

My children love to color. I think it’s a sweet idea to work on a gift for a loved one (or a stranger) and allow the children to help. This would truly brighten up someone’s day and teach them how to be giving.

Copyright ©2011 by Kennisha Hill. All Rights reserved. Used with permission. Originally appeared on MomLife Today.

You’re into preparation mode: shopping, cooking, invitations, fundraisers, junk mail, Christmas cards, special parties. And this is above and beyond the regular stuff on your plate: sports teams, concerts, work deadlines, homework help. And then there’s the unexpected: a child’s broken leg, another ear infection, a friend in crisis.

But for many there’s another source of underlying stress: Your in-laws or parents are coming for the holidays. Or you are going to be with them.

You may be anticipating this visit with great joy or with a bit of dread. It all depends on your relationship with them. Either way, simply having extra adults or extra children around will bring extra confusion and increase the level of stress.

Here are four tips will help to make this a good holiday for all.

1. Keep realistic expectations.

It’s easy to be form a mental picture of a perfect family deeply enjoying one another by the fireside at Christmas. Longing for this fantasy can set you up for disappointment.

There is no perfect family. We are all sinful people. You will disappoint someone in your family in this season. And someone will disappoint you.

It may be wise to discuss expectations before the visit. If you are the elder visiting, don’t go with your own plan as to how you will “help.” What looks like help to you may not be what your kids call help. Instead say, “I’d love to help you in any way I can but you need to tell me exactly what that will look like for you.” And this will be different for each one of your kids’ families.

If you are visiting your parents and taking your kids, ask your elders for one or two specific things you can do to help them. After the visit, be sure your kids write a thank you note to their grandparents. Thoughtfulness is a character trait we want to develop in our children.

2. Guard against a critical spirit.

Your mother-in-law may not load the dishwasher the way you want her to, or she may mess up your wash, or she may not pay enough attention to a specific child. It’s easy to be critical of her, and criticism becomes resentment. Realize that her motive was to help. She may have gone about it in the wrong way, but at least she tried.

On the other side, you may be the older parent feeling disappointed by the fact that your children are letting your grandkids trash your house. They are not disciplining them as you think they should. And you feel unappreciated.

Realize that your children are exhausted. The season of parenting little kids is one of the most stressful periods of life and young parents are usually worn out. Cut them some slack, especially in this season.

Holidays and family reunions are not the best time to deal with difficult relational issues. Those are better addressed during the year. Family reunions are times to celebrate what is good. The rest of the year is the time to nurture the relationships. During this season choose to believe the best in one another.

3. Plan specific fun.

One of my greatest treasures is an old tape on which we recorded an interview we did with my elderly grandmother. We asked her what it was like to grow up in the deep South. (She was born in 1889!) We asked her what was invented while she was a child, what life was like for her parents and grandparents, what toys she played with, who was President, and what was happening in the world. It was fascinating and today it is a part of our own grandchildren’s history.

Plan to video an interview with your elders. Have your kids come up with some of the questions. This is their heritage and one day they will appreciate it.

Another idea is to plan one or two activities to do together. One family I know makes gingerbread houses. It’s a multi generational tradition and provides fun bonding for all.

4. Keep the main thing the main thing.

Don’t focus on difficulties in your family during Christmas; remember that this holiday is about the birth of Jesus who was born to die on the cross so that our sins might be forgiven.

He knows we are broken. He knows not one single family is perfect. That’s why He came. He came to bring healing for all. This season we need to keep our focus on Him. We need to ask Him to give us a grateful heart for what He has done for us and to ask Him for the insight to see things to be grateful for in each family member.

Copyright © 2013 by Susan Yates. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

“If you think your life is hectic during the holidays, you ought to try coordinating schedules, dinner plans, and Christmas gifts with the parents of three households—most of whom don’t care for each other very much.”

Stepmother Sheree was trying to explain her holiday stress to her own mother, who had never experienced stepfamily life. “Everything is just more complicated, Mom. There are so many people who influence our plans and lots of adults who don’t share the same priorities. It’s like hitting a moving target.”

The holidays are supposed to be a time when we slow down from the everyday hustle and bustle of life, spend some extra time with our children and extended family, enjoy some well-planned meals, do a little shopping, and see the latest Christmas movie. But for the average household, the holidays mean an endless to-do list that includes parties, travel to see extended family, decorating and putting up lights, attending school programs, and making purchases we can’t afford and won’t pay for until we get our tax refund next April.

Sheree knows that these normal stressors are even more challenging given the complexity of stepfamilies.

Here are some ideas that can help you manage step-stress during the holidays:

1. Plan, plan, plan. Be proactive in discussing upcoming holiday events. A lot of stress results when families fail to plan and then play catch-up with all that needs to be done. Get an early start anticipating and coordinating your schedule with other households and family members. Set a spending budget and stick to it.

2. Maintain simple rituals of connection throughout the holidays. A hectic schedule can make us forget the simple things. The small, simple behaviors that families repeat on a regular, and perhaps daily basis communicate love and keep us connected even when life’s typical schedule is disrupted. Hugs before leaving for school, a special note in a lunch box, and Friday night pizza with a family video are rituals that should be maintained if at all possible.

3. Parent 364. It’s easy to get so caught up in the uniqueness of the holidays that we obsess in making them “perfect.” Don’t forget that what really matters most to children is what happens the other 364 days a year.

4. Give kids your permission to enjoy the other household and all their family members while away from you during the holidays. When a mother says, “I’m thrilled that you will be spending time with your dad and stepmom over Christmas; have lots of fun!” you are releasing them from guilt and worry over how you will fare during their departure.

5. Be aware of loyalty and loss. Realize that no matter how long it’s been since a divorce or marriage, children struggle with feelings of loss. Being with mom means not being with dad. Being with dad means cutting time short with a favorite aunt on mom’s side of the family. Or if a parent is deceased, family traditions don’t feel the same without that person’s presence.

Be sensitive to children’s losses and realize that mixed reactions are common. For example, children may show excitement and sadness within just a short period of time. Don’t punish them for sadness; listen, hug, and provide a little extra TLC to help them through.

6. Honor traditions. Maintaining old traditions can be more difficult given the shifting presence of family members. Keep the ones you can and look for ways to establish new traditions if new family members are present.

7. Do what you can and accept what you cannot change. By working on your co-parenting relationship with your ex throughout the year, your chances of respectful negotiation will improve during the holidays. But realize that you ultimately cannot control the other household and you may have to grin and bear it. When stuck in awkward or difficult situations, appeal to difficult family members with “for your son’s sake, let’s try to put our differences aside and resolve this matter.” Hopefully this will be motivation enough. In the end, put what you cannot change at God’s feet and go on.

8. Part-time biological parents should try to spend some exclusive time with their children. While everyone tries to get in a little more family time during the holidays, part-time parents especially should take advantage of opportunities to spend special one-on-one time with their children.

9. Be flexible and make sacrifices. You cannot make everyone happy all the time. Accepting this truth immediately takes away the pressure to give everyone what they want. Being flexible may mean modifying an old tradition to bring an “outsider” (i.e., stepfamily member) in. For example, perhaps you will need to open gifts a day before or after Christmas in order to ease between-home transitions for children.

One stepfather found himself disappointed year after year because his stepson had to be rushed off to his father’s house in the middle of Christmas Day. He was never able to fully enjoy the day with his wife and stepson because everyone was watching the clock. Eventually he and his wife proposed a change to her ex, who, as it turned out, was also discouraged each Christmas and was open to changing the visitation agreement. They settled on an alternating arrangement that gave each home an undisturbed Christmas holiday while the other home had an undisturbed Thanksgiving holiday.

10. Let priorities save the day. You can’t do it all so don’t sweat the small stuff. Ask yourself what really matters and plan your schedule accordingly.

What should matter? Might we suggest that opportunities to spend time with your children and extended family, activities that reinforce spiritual truths, and honoring traditions should be at the top of the list.

11. Embrace your “expanded family.” You may not have chosen all the members of your multiple-household family, but choosing to welcome, embrace, and love them is a gift to everyone—especially yourself.

12. Discuss titles for family members. New stepfamilies especially should discuss with the children how they will address other people. Find terms (like “step-uncle”) that feel appropriate to children and will be respectful to adults.

13. Gift-giving tips:

Stepparents and stepchildren should be encouraged to give cards and gifts to one another that feel appropriate to their relationship.

Expect stepgrandparents to be equitable in giving gifts to grandchildren and stepgrandchildren.

To avoid duplication, children can give a different wish list to each biological parent.

Do not buy a gift together with the ex-spouse. It sets up false expectations for the children and is not healthy for the remarriage.

Do not compete with your ex-spouse by trying to buy a “better” gift or spend more money.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

Taking action

For pastors:

1. When presenting holiday-related sermons/classes remember the added dynamics of multi-home families. Don’t make the assumption that Thanksgiving and Christmas family activities are the same for everyone attending your congregation. For example, many single parents and stepcouples are without children on special days. Encourage your congregation to be an extended family to people in these situations.

2. During the stress-filled holidays, stepparents may feel “moved to the outside” and children may show their stress through increased oppositional attitudes. So remind stepfamily classes or small groups to offer extra support to one another.

3. Encourage stepfamilies to plan early for the holidays and maintain a flexible attitude.

Copyright © 2008 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

To understand the behavior of children in stepfamilies (including adult stepchildren), you must understand loyalty and the natural tug-of-war it creates.

Cameron’s mom has been asking him for a month now whether he wants to spend the majority of his summer vacation at his dad’s house or with his mom and stepdad, but she can’t seem to get a definite answer out of him. He talks in circles about where he’d like to be but won’t give her an answer. She’s growing very impatient with him.

Sisters Kelly and Katie are generally rude to their stepmother of three years, Tonya. Everyone who knows the girls describe them as polite and considerate, but Tonya doesn’t experience that side of them. Tonya is frustrated and growing weary of trying to win their affections.

Loyalty refers to our devotion and attachment to the people we love. It refers to where we choose to put our allegiances. In stepfamilies, people generally place their first loyalty with their biological family members. Cameron feels caught between his biological parents and wants to spend his summer vacation with both of them. But to choose one means he can’t be with the other; it also it means jeopardizing the feelings of one parent should he choose to be with the other. For Cameron, choosing is a no-win tug-of-war.

It could be that Kelly and Katie haven’t been properly taught to respect authority and their rudeness is a natural outgrowth of poor parenting. However, the fact that they are generally polite toward adults indicates something else is at play. Rather, it is likely that each word of sarcasm or discourteous behavior to their stepmother is actually a declaration of their loyalty to their biological mother.

In times of stress and sadness, children and adults alike tend to tighten their biological loyalties. That’s why a generally warm and amenable child might become distant or cold toward a stepparent after a last-minute change of plans prevents the child from visitation with the other parent’s household.

It also helps adults understand why a child who often refers to their stepmother as “mommy” suddenly switches to “Ms. Julie” after coming home from a weekend visit to mom’s house. The change in label symbolizes the child’s inner desire to tighten their connection (loyalty) to the biological mom; it also reveals the sadness children often feel when transitioning from one home to another.

The feelings of loyalty

Common emotions associated with the loyalty tug-of-war include:

Being protective or defensive of one parent while spending time with the other;

Feeling guilty for enjoying a stepparent knowing their biological parent feels left out;

Feeling sorrowful when embracing a new family because it means letting go of a deceased parent.

In addition to these troublesome emotions, what is most problematic in the loyalty tug-of-war is the perceived burden to take care of someone. One 5-year-old innocently expressed his burden this way to his stepmother: “When I’m here with you and daddy, can I love you, and when I go to my mom’s house can I hate you?” The only way this little youngster could resolve his tug-of-war dilemma was to “love the one he was with” and then turn around and convey negative feelings about them when with the other.

I thought this perceptive stepmother’s reply was noble: “Yes, you can.” While her sense of fairness wanted to ask him to stand up for his affections toward her, she wisely knew that this was unlikely for a 5-year-old (and most 15-years-olds, for that matter). Instead she gave him permission, not so much to “hate” her, but to not be her caretaker.

Loving parents always want to find ways of relinquishing loyalty binds for children, but it seems impossible to do so. Even after the death of a parent when there isn’t a competition between homes, some children who are genuinely drawn into their stepparent still find themselves fighting to “keep dad alive” by defending his character, habits, or beliefs.

They may idealize a deceased parent and declare, “My mother would have understood how important this is to me and let me go to the dance!” Loyalty conflicts simply can’t be removed from a child’s heart. But they can be managed.

Loyalty is not the enemy

Parents and stepparents must understand that loyalty is not a troublemaker in their home. A child’s primary loyalty to their biological parents is as it should be. God has created within parents and children a strong blood-bond that is vital to the integrity of the family. This bond generates a much needed commitment to one another and motivates us to care for and nurture family members. Loyalty is good.

A loyalty tug-of-war does create tension within and between family members. But real problems develop when adults refuse to honor the loyalties of children or compete for them. For example, a stepparent who refuses to let children keep important photos of their first family on display in their bedroom is in essence asking the children to deny their loyalties and affections for their blood-relatives.

Likewise, a parent who caters to their child’s material desires or removes chores so that the child is more attracted to spending time at their household is competing with the other household for loyalty. This only exacerbates the ongoing loyalty dilemmas faced by the child, emboldens their selfishness, and empowers them to “play one house off the other.” The net result—the parental authority of both homes is weakened and children are forever caught in a no-win situation.

If a spirit of fear (the belief that love comes in finite amounts and therefore must be competed for) places children in the tug-of-war, a spirit of love will take children out of many of their loyalty battles. Fear dishonors the attachments of children; love honors them. Fear strives to keep children emotionally near for personal benefit (often an act of aggression toward an ex-spouse); love confidently gives them permission to love others knowing that in the end, love from the child will likely return in full bloom. Fear pulls harder on the tug-of-war rope while love releases it. This is how we help children find relief from the tug-of-war.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

TAKING ACTION

Loyalty conflicts can’t be completely eliminated, but they can be managed. Here’s what you can do:

Biological parents:
Give children your permission to like, respect, and even love the many different members of their stepfamily. A mom, for example, might make statements that loosen the tug-of-war ropes like, “I’m so glad you enjoyed your time with your dad and stepmom this weekend. I think that’s great.”

Ex-spouses should act in a civil manner toward one another. Criticism of the other parent, court battles, sarcasm, and an uncooperative spirit implicitly asks children to choose which parent they prefer or agree with. This inflates and perpetuates the tug-of-war and your child’s inner battles.

Encourage contact with the other home. Barring extreme circumstances, never add to a child’s guilt by limiting their availability. This usually only increases the child’s resentment of you.

Stepparents and grandparents:
Don’t try to “replace” biological parents (living or deceased). The more you try to force your way in, the more resistant children tend to become. Talk about being an “added parent figure” in their life and welcome hearing stories or memories about the child’s relationship with the other parent. Their relationship is not a threat to you.

Grandparents can support grandchildren by affirming the new couple and family. Constant references to the original family or showing partiality implies grandchildren should remain loyal only to the past.

Pastors:
Being aware of the loyalty tug-of-war that children/youth experience will help you to minister to them in important ways. You can:

Use case studies in your teaching time of children caught in the middle.

During special celebrations like Father’s Day have enough supplies for children to make two cards if they so desire. Never force them to make a card for their stepfather but let them know that to do so “shows honor without replacing the special place your dad has in your heart.”

Don’t scold or make children feel guilty for not attending Bible class each week. This adds pressure to their visitation arrangement and reinforces the idea that one home is better than the other.

Support their connections with both households.

If one parent isn’t a member of your church, take the time to call or get to know them anyway.

A positive relationship with you may help the child be more regular in their church participation.

Copyright © 2008 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

On July 8, 2009, my wife Laurie was diagnosed with breast cancer. Almost three long years later, she died on April 4, 2012. Soon my two sons and I will have our first Christmas without Mom. Although it hasn’t been easy, I am filled with hope.

Like lots of other people I know, Laurie and I had a wonderful but imperfect marriage. And despite the dings and dents in our relationship, I loved her dearly. I often told her how much she meant to me … how she made me be a better person. Part of what I gained from loving her as my wife for those 14-plus years has helped me fill a hole in my heart with God’s strength, courage, and grace.

Entering our first winter of loss

I am grateful that God gave Laurie to me for a season. This fall I was reminded of that as I passed a stunning maple tree at the top of the hill overlooking my house. Every October God blesses me when the afternoon sunlight shines through those golden leaves. But then the inevitable always happens: A cold front moves in, the wind blows, and the rains pound down, leaving bare branches and only memories of those October afternoons.

Now I’m left with only memories of Laurie. Her death has left a deep void in our family. The boys and I are finding that we need to be intentional about filling that empty space with God. You see, a vacuum can fill up with lots of stuff if you let it. It can fill with depression, anger, frustration, or fear. It can fill with addiction to any number of things. It can fill with loneliness or a relationship with the next person who comes along.

But repeatedly, God calls us to wait on Him. He tells us when we are weak and laboring under heavy burdens to turn them over to Him. Paul told the Philippians that he knew what it was to live with plenty and with nothing, but that he could do anything with Christ who gave him strength (Philippians 4:12-13).

The gap in my family

Sometimes you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Our family didn’t fully appreciate the abundance we enjoyed until we had to live without the love, joy, and beauty that my wife brought.

As a husband, I didn’t fully appreciate how she completed me as a person. As a parent, I now struggle to balance being both the “bad guy” of discipline but also the “good guy” of understanding, comfort, and sympathy. I often reflect on how Laurie loved our sons, taught them, reined them in, and then let them go.

Laurie defined our parenting mission that I carry on today: “to raise excellent, godly men.” She started traditions for us, like praying together with the boys each morning while waiting for the bus. Or saying, “YCDA!” (you can do anything) as they ran off. They would always reply, “Yes, I can, with God’s help!”

She introduced me to Christian radio and FamilyLife Today® and podcasts, where I constantly hear the right inspiration at just the right moment. We challenged each other continuously to think about our faith. And she challenged me in such a way that I studied and prayed more.

Spring will come

As Christmas approaches in the shadow of our loss, it’s easy to focus on sadness, depression, and frustration. Some might even shake their fist at God and ask why a person who gave so much had to be taken so soon. But I always try to remember to say, “Thank you, Lord,” and to celebrate the blessing of Laurie. I thank God for the difference she made in my life, especially how she drew me closer to Him.

Only Christ’s unending love will help the boys and me make it through our first Christmas without Laurie, through our winter of loss, and then into springtime filled with hope.

Many readers have asked for this recipe, which we’ve mentioned in various FamilyLife Today® programs about how our family celebrated Thanksgiving as our kids were growing up. Usually we went to my parents’ home for the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but earlier in the day we enjoyed French toast at a family brunch. Warning: This French toast is very filling!

½ cup margarine

1 ½ cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

8-12 slices of bread

8-9 eggs

pinch of salt

1¾ to 2 cups milk

Melt margarine in a 9 x 13 pan. Add brown sugar and cinnamon and stir. Layer bread on mixture. Beat eggs and salt together, then add milk. Pour over bread. Cover and place in refrigerator overnight. The next morning, uncover and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Cut into squares and place upside down on plate so melted sugar/cinnamon is on top.

Copyright © 2001 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

At FamilyLife, we love to tell stories about what God does in families. He saves marriages. He strengthens homes. He changes lives for eternity through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We hope that you will be encouraged as you read the following stories of real people. Nothing is impossible with God!

Is your love for real? Find out in Bob Lepine's new book, Love Like You Mean It.

Choose a topic below:

Stories of Resurrected Marriages

Stories of Good Marriages Strengthened

Stories of Lifelong Marriages

Premarriage Stories

Stories of Parenting Challenges

Salvation Stories

Stories of Resurrected Marriages

Accused of Being a Bible Thumper
The more I tried to convince Steve to believe what I believed, the farther it pushed him from the truth.

Adrift in Marriage
Jerry and Olivia Dugan wanted to stay married but didn’t know how.

Can One Weekend Really Change a Marriage?
We were pretty close to the end if we didn’t do something.

Could God Heal Their Marriage?
There was an invisible barrier between Marc and Lisa Lavalas.

The Difference God Makes in a Marriage
At a Weekend to Remember marriage conference, our marriage was set on the right path when my husband invited God to be a part of his life and a part of our relationship.

Finally Doing Marriage God’s Way
We now have the tools to make our marriage work, and we’re sharing them with others.

Found With Another Man
Strange as it may seem, it was a relief when I realized my husband knew my secret.

Four Words That Revived a Dying Marriage
Both Vivian and Guy had been married before, and the frustrations of trying to blend their two homes had reached a breaking point.

He Didn’t Know His Marriage Was Dying
Alberto and Debbie Rodriguez were two strangers living in the same house. One was getting lonelier and lonelier … while the other was clueless.

He Had Two Affairs in 18 Months
David wanted nothing to do with his wife or his marriage.

He Led a Double Life
Scott Jennings lived in a world of lies, affairs, and deceit—until it fell apart.

He Wanted a Divorce … She Wanted a Marriage
Scott Garmon couldn’t understand why he should stay in an unhappy marriage.

Her Husband Wouldn’t Speak to Her—for Three Years
Even in the silence, June Sims continued serving her husband as she waited for God to answer her prayers.

His Lies Finally Caught Up With Him
Mary Murray felt betrayed, and Mike felt desperate and suicidal. That’s when God stepped in.

I Decided to Give the Whole ‘Faith Thing’ a Try
During the early years of their marriage, Jim and Nina Roesner made some life-changing decisions at Weekend to Remember getaways.

‘I Fell in Love Again With My Wife’
Their marriage was all but over when Dolores Hardin offered an astonishing and radical proposal to her husband, Al.

‘I Now Understand that God Truly Wants my Marriage to Succeed’
A participant in a pilot showing of The Art of Marriage shares his experiences.

I Wanted Him to Die
We gave a Weekend to Remember a chance.

The Judge Kicked Them Out of Divorce Court
Tom and Maureen Santacroce wanted to stay together. They just didn’t know how.

Keeping the Peace Almost Destroyed Our Relationship
We needed a biblical foundation for our marriage.

The Lost Decade
Mike and Pam Calvert’s story shows that broken homes and broken marriages can be put back together again.

A Marriage Raised From the Dead
Tim and Teena Hoover have celebrated over two decades of marriage, but they are not the same two people who walked down the aisle on their wedding day.

A Mighty Legacy
Rather than giving in to the cultural pressures and divorcing his wife, Skip Leffler left a very different heritage.

My Wife’s Affair Shattered (and Saved) Our Marriage
Our marriage was a mess, and we needed to break a lot of bad habits in how we related to each other.

Our Marriage Was All About Me
I did not have the tools to be a husband and father

On the Brink of Failure
Divorce wasn’t an option for either of us, but we didn’t want to spend the rest of our married lives just tolerating each other.

Our Marriage Was a Mess
A Weekend to Remember conference was the turning point for us.

‘Our Marriage Was Dead’
Nobody knew Dale and Laura Danser were experiencing problems in their marriage. Attending an I Still Do™ event was the turning point.

Pornography Was Killing Our Marriage
We learned how to talk about my sexual addiction at a Weekend to Remember

A Remodeled Barn and a Transformed Marriage
Jim and Penny Nally’s barn was once a sore spot in their troubled marriage, but now is a place of hope.

Reborn, Recommitted, and Remarried
It’s not the old marriage but a new marriage with God at the center.

A Second Chance to Marry Jason
Even after we were divorced, my husband pursued me.

His Lies Finally Caught Up With Him
Mary Murray felt betrayed, and Mike felt desperate and suicidal. That’s when God stepped in.

She Felt Oppressed by Her Marriage
Attraction turned to isolation and even hatred as Dave and Sonya learned how difficult it was to blend two families together.

She Hated Her Husband
Brian and Julie Moreau thought there was no hope for their family.

She Never Gave Up on Her Husband
Tom Flippin resisted God nearly all his life. But in the end, God answered his wife’s prayers

Surviving Tragedy: A Couple’s Story of Hope
After the fire, Gary and Rachele Lightsey wondered how they could go on.

Their Marriage Had No Hope
We decided our marriage was worth saving at a Weekend to Remember conference.

Their Marriage Was a Train Wreck
Roger and Tonya Haskin had no clue about marriage.

They Each Had Secrets
Learning God’s principles for marriage the hard way.

They Got an Annulment for Their Divorce
Alex and Jill Averitt learned that nothing is impossible for God.

They Needed a Marriage Makeover
How one couple’s renewed commitment influences the next generation.

They Thought Marriage Would Be Easy
Kyle and Jamie Soucie had been married before. This time, they figured, things would work out “happily ever after.”

Trapped in an Unhappy Marriage
When Michael was accepted to law school, he and Catie had no idea what a strain it would put on their relationship.

Two Strangers Living Together in Marriage
Adam and Laura Brown had no hope … could one weekend really save their relationship?

Under Construction
A family rebuilds on a solid foundation

Was Marriage the Biggest Mistake of Her Life?
Unless God intervened, they wouldn’t make it.

We Buried Our Old Marriage
In one weekend, God renewed our hearts and gave us hope.

What Happened to Her Prince Charming?
For Rick and Beverly Weeks, marriage was not the fairy tale they expected.

‘Why do you think we divorced?’
Lee and Laura Gwyn found hope for reconciliation.

Would She Marry Him All Over Again?
Danny and Nora White married after a whirlwind Sound of Music courtship. But when they began to drift apart, they wondered if their marriage was a mistake.

Would She Walk Out on Her Marriage?
Troy and Sara Groves once said divorce was not an option. But they didn’t anticipate the struggles they’d face with weaknesses, expectations, and bitterness.

Would Their Marriage Survive Multiple Affairs?
When Gerald Varlack lost his job, he was involved with several women—at the same time.

Would They Throw Away 22 Years of Marriage?
When Tracey learned her husband was having an affair with his ex-wife, their marriage seemed hopeless.

‘You Can’t Help But Be Changed’
The threat of separation had finally caught his attention.

Stories of Good Marriages Strengthened

The Dynamic Duo of Baltimore
Bonita and Tazwell Thornton are leaving a priceless legacy to untold generations.

God, Why Don’t You Fix My Husband?
When we worked through problems in our marriage, I never could see anything I was doing wrong.

Good Things Happen Over Coffee
Our devotional time together is my favorite part of our marriage.

Investing in My Marriage and Family
The interviews on FamilyLife’s daily radio program help me make daily choices that are honoring to the Lord.

My Wife Didn’t Feel Like She Was My Friend
There was a rift between us, and someone had to make the first move.

Was It Worth Fight Over a Steak?
I knew I could either stand up for my rights and risk ruining the evening, or surrender it to God and trust Him.

We Didn’t Take Time for “Us”
A Weekend to Remember was just what our great marriage needed.

What Happens When Couples Pray
Seven stories of couples who decided to make prayer a daily discipline.

Stories of Lifelong Marriages

I Still Do … Every Day
It wasn’t in our plans, but it was in our vows.

‘I’ve Never Once Stopped Loving You’
A young law enforcement officer watches an elderly couple model lifelong commitment and faith … and his life is changed forever.

Never Too Late to Ask for Help
Darrel and Evie Couch experienced years of turmoil in their marriage after he returned from the Vietnam War.

Roy and Sophie: A Commitment of Love
No one knew the depths of this man’s love for his wife.

She Didn’t Know She Was Married
Beth Walker woke from a coma with no memory of who she was. That left her husband, Hal, with some difficult choices.

They Never Quit
How an aunt’s advice kept D.L. and Helen Govan together.

What are the Secrets for a Lasting Marriage?
Is life-long marriage still possible? Couples married 50 years or more share advice for your marriage.

Premarriage Stories

After Three Years of Living Together, She Wanted More
How Lance and Jess Miller learned about God’s plan for marriage.

The Man Who Waited
It’s not easy to wait until marriage to begin having sex. But Tee Uzoigwe was determined to wait for God’s best.

Stories of Parenting Challenges

And Then Everything Changed
Jessica Nichols went to the hospital expecting to deliver her third child. But something felt wrong—like she was having a heart attack.

Deserted by His Dad
Brian Yak didn’t want to get married until he had the chance to meet his biological father … and get some answers.

My Husband Married Trouble
A story of answered prayer and transforming grace.

My Parents Kept Praying While I Kept Partying
Regardless of the tremendous blessings in my life, I wanted what the world had to offer.

Why Would God Let Me Get Pregnant?
A young woman looks back on the consequences and blessings of her unwanted pregnancy.

Salvation Stories

Accused of Being a Bible Thumper
The more I tried to convince Steve to believe what I believed, the farther it pushed him from the truth.

Can One Weekend Really Change a Marriage?
We were pretty close to the end if we didn’t do something.

The Difference God Makes in a Marriage
At a Weekend to Remember marriage conference, our marriage was set on the right path when my husband invited God to be a part of his life and a part of our relationship.

The Difference a Stranger Made
My life and marriage turned around after someone gave me a book and a brochure.

Explaining the Story of Easter Through Resurrection Eggs®
An interactive way to plant the seeds of the gospel.

The Family She Never Had
After a fragmented unstable childhood, Julie Boyd prayed that God would begin a new legacy with her own family.

From Home-Less to Home-maker
When I was a teenager I didn’t even like kids.

He Led a Double Life
Scott Jennings lived in a world of lies, affairs, and deceit—until it fell apart.

I Thought Christianity Was a Joke
My opinion was that most Christians had two brains: one was lost and the other was looking for it.

I Was Trained to Be a Jezebel
I remember crying out to God, “Are you real?”

Marriage is Better the ‘Second Time’
Chip and Jan Winnard were like “two people trying to glue themselves together without the glue.”

My Parents Kept Praying While I Kept Partying
Regardless of the tremendous blessings in my life, I wanted what the world had to offer.

Reborn, Recommitted, and Remarried
It’s not the old marriage but a new marriage with God at the center.

She Hated Her Husband
Brian and Julie Moreau thought there was no hope for their family.

She Never Gave Up on Her Husband
Tom Flippin resisted God nearly all his life. But in the end, God answered his wife’s prayers.

This is one of my favorite times of the year—not because the weather is especially nice (I’m not fond of the cold), but because it is a season of giving. Everyone seems to be a little more generous and charitable around Christmas.

Although the spirit of giving can abound this time of year, the spirit of “me-ism” can quickly sneak in if we’re not careful. As much as we want our children to get excited about all of the festivities of the holidays, we also want to teach them to focus their hearts and minds outward on others—just as Jesus Himself did.

Below you will find 20 relatively simple ways your family can serve together this holiday season. Many of these activities require little to no money. Try one, two, or even all of them (if you’re really ambitious).

1. Deliver cookies to the employees at a fire station, police station, or hospital on Christmas Day.

2. Choose a child’s name off of a giving tree and pick out the gift together as a family.

3. Pool together some money to buy a tank of gas for a friend or relative who can’t afford to go home for Christmas.

4. Recruit several families and adopt a nursing home. Buy a simple gift for each resident (lotion, slippers, holiday throw blankets, etc) and arrange a time to deliver the gifts.

5. Send Christmas cards to military personnel overseas.

6. Prepare a meal together as a family and take it to a sick or elderly friend. You can use this free “From Our Kitchen to Yours” printable for baking/reheating instructions.

7. Deliver a baked good to your neighbors.

8. Leave a Christmas card (and perhaps a little treat) in your mailbox for the mail carrier.

9. Go caroling at a nursing home.

10. Volunteer to read a Christmas book aloud to your child’s class … or contact your local bookstore to see if you can schedule a time to read aloud to their children’s section. If possible, choose a book about the real meaning of Christmas.

Grab your FREE FamilyLife Christmas Countdown!

11. Ring bells for the Salvation Army.

12. Host a Christmas dinner for the widows and widowers at your church.

13. Host a packing party for Operation Christmas Child, a ministry through Samaritan’s Purse that sends a shoebox of gifts/personal items to a child in a Third World country for Christmas—which is often the only gift the child will receive.

14. Take balloons or small gifts to the children’s ward of your local hospital. You probably won’t be able to deliver them to the children themselves due to privacy policies, but you can ask the nurses to deliver them or ask permission of the parents who happen to be present at the time.

15. Choose a day to serve each other inside your own home. Take out the trash for your husband, encourage your children to pick up their sibling’s toys, and show appreciation for one another.

16. Encourage every member of your family to look each person they come across that day in the eye, smile, and express their appreciation with a simple “thank you” or a compliment.

17. Go to the grocery store together as a family and pick up a few items for your local food pantry. Many stores have drop-off locations within the store itself during the Thanksgiving/Christmas seasons.

18. Volunteer to babysit, as a family, for a couple with small children so that they can go out on a date.

19. Clean out your coat closet and take your old coats to a local shelter.

20. Set the timer for 10 minutes. Have each person in your house go through their books and choose a few to donate to your local library (or elsewhere).

Copyright © 2012 by Janae Jacobson. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Three years into his mom’s marriage, Samuel, a 14-year-old boy, told me, “I used to be best friends with mom. But I got pushed back to fifth place when she met Benny.”

When a marriage precedes the birth or adoption of children, the resulting parent-child relationships don’t inherently compete with the couple’s marriage. Further, when one parent cares for the child he is also caring for his marriage and vice versa.

However, when a single parent marries someone who is not the child’s parent, a competing attachment is formed. To the child, the parent’s increasing affection, dedication, and time spent with the new stepparent challenges the perceived importance of the child. In a very real sense, marriage sometimes destabilizes the child’s world.

Biological parents, of course, don’t feel this way. I’ve never met parents who said they loved their child less since getting married. Nevertheless, it is easy for children to feel displaced and less important. After all, someone unrelated to them (e.g., a stepparent or stepsibling) is vying for the time and energy of their parent.

More pieces of the problem pie

In addition to a natural shift in focus to a spouse and away from children, a number of other factors potentially contribute to this problem. While parents have an endless number of love-points for all the people in their life, they have a limited number of time-points and energy-points. And because parents can’t be in two emotional places at once, children may feel pushed aside.

Plus, the shift to a two-parent household is vastly different for children than a one-parent household. Asking for permission used to be a simple process between parent and child, but now it is a more complex process where the parent considers another person’s opinion, and sometimes changes how the answer because of the stepparent’s influence. All of this decentralizes the children—and they feel the difference.

Another possible factor is when a parent loses time with the child because of custodial and visitation arrangements. Even further, noncustodial fathers sometimes think it easier on their children if they keep their distance. They are deceived into thinking that reducing between-home transitions somehow helps their children. It does not. It only confuses the child and adds to their sense of lost connection.

When children feel “downgraded,” another negative dynamic can come into play. Some children shrink back from engaging their parent or attack their stepparent. Essentially their withdrawal or criticism is a backward request for reassurance, but the negative behavior further alienates them from their parent and generates conflict in the stepfamily.

The solution

The biological parent holds the key to this issue in blended families. Maintaining an active emotional connection with your children is essentially what they need. You must make this a priority, even if you think not much has changed since your marriage (the kids probably do). Some ideas:

Verbally communicate your love for your children on a regular basis and reinforce your commitment to them.

Show empathy for the child by acknowledging, “If I were you, I’d feel left out and displaced sometimes.” This shows your heart for them and opens the door to honest communication.

Maintain touch points with your children. There are important rituals (like a shared wink or hand-shake, holding hands in the park, or bedtime stories) that communicate love, involvement, and commitment. If the transition to a new family has made you lose some of them, try to reestablish this valuable form of communication.

Noncustodial parents should take advantage of modern technology to stay connected (e.g., text messages, Skype, etc.). Don’t let changes in the other home (e.g., residential or church changes, moving out of state, etc.) reduce your continued involvement. Adjust and stay connected.

Strive to find balance in your multiple blended family commitments. For example, find couple time to nurture your marriage, but also carve out special one-on-one time with each child. Occasional time with all of your kids together, without any stepfamily members, is also helpful.

Be fully present. It’s easy when spending time with one party to divide your attention as you feel guilty about not being with someone else. Try to be fully engaged where you are.

Even when implementing these strategies, it’s important to have realistic expectations. No matter who you are spending time with, someone else will probably feel left out; this cannot be avoided. The nature of competing attachments within blended families makes this very common. Still, your children need to be affirmed and reassured of your continued commitment.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

TAKING ACTION

Couples:

Stepparents, you can help by supporting your spouse and stepchildren with the following:

Agree that it is important for your spouse to reassure their children and give your verbal permission for them to do so. This helps them to not feel guilty or anxious that you are feeling jealous of time they give to the children.

Work with your spouse to find special time for you as a couple. And, on occasion, bow out of activities so the parent and children can have exclusive time together.

When noncustodial children come for visitation, work with your spouse to help them make the most of their limited time with their kids.

Remind yourself that a grace-filled attitude that gives permission to parent-child connections counters the natural competition that children sometimes feel and shows you to be a safe person. This in turn, makes it more likely that stepchildren will like and respect you.

Pastors:

Church sponsored retreats and camps are great ways of encouraging biological parents to remain connected to their children. Make use of such activities whenever possible.

Singles ministries can remind dating parents to not completely focus on a new found love, and premarital counseling should remind parents of the need for them to not abandon their children when shifting their affections to a new spouse.

© 2012 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

There is a powerful and sometimes ominous dynamic at play in blended families. Desiring connection and security within family relationships is normal and expected. But when relationships are undefined and fragile, and one person wants connection with someone more than the other person(s), the dance of want can drive them a part.

Do you remember having a crush on someone but didn’t know if they were also interested in you? That was the dance of want. Even before a first conversation, individuals can find themselves anxiously wondering whether the other person shares an interest in them. Girls will ask their friends, “Do you think he likes me?” and guys will ponder, “What if I ask her out and she says ‘Get away loser!’?” No one wants to want more than they are wanted.

But even after a first—or many dates—this dynamic continues. One person may find themselves dreaming of marriage, only to become insecure wondering if the other is equally interested in life-long love. The nerves men feel before asking a woman to marry them is in part about the dance of want. “What if she says, ‘No’?” And well into marriage the dance continues as the ebb and flow of life leaves people wondering, “Why hasn’t she spoken to me as much lately?” and “Why is it that I initiate sex most of the time?”

Stepparents and children

In the early season of a blended family, stepparents typically find themselves seeking the want, respect, and acceptance of a child. But they are at an inherent disadvantage. For example, being parental (e.g., setting boundaries) gives the child more reason not to want them in their life and stepparents know it. This tempts stepparents to “go easy” on the child for the sake of preserving what is a fragile relationship.

Biological parents usually don’t deal with this because both parent and child have an unending devotion to one another. There’s nothing fragile about their relationship, so parents can afford to make their kids mad because they aren’t going anywhere. Stepparents, on the other hand, often feel like they’re walking on eggshells. This gives the child dramatically more power and on occasion they’ll use it to their advantage.

Family harmony

Hoping to achieve peace and harmony in the home, blended family couples obviously want the kids to accept their marriage and family. All the kids have to do to spoil the whole thing is to not want, that is, to not embrace the new family identity. This leaves adults feeling hurt, rejected, guilty, and confused, which in turn leads some adults to pile on guilt or become manipulative in order to move kids toward “want.”

Clearly, you can’t will someone to want (just ask God).

A battle for control

The dance of want sets up a battle for want. When the person who wants more closeness or bonding tries to convince the other to want more than they do, a battle of control ensues. In blended families, typically it is the adults who want more want from the kids. They entice the kids to their house with fun and games; they whine to their children about how they should appreciate the stepparent for all they do; and when kids (young or adult) express discontent about the family or a family member, they attempt to argue them into changing their feelings—and, therefore, their level of want. But the battle for want has two paradoxical outcomes parents must understand:

The more parents demand want from children, the less likely they are to get it.

The more parents demand want, the more dependent they become on the children.

This results in less parental influence and increases feelings of frustration and anger. None of this fosters family connection and bonding.

The Jesus response

On many occasions Jesus disappointed people; He didn’t seek their acceptance, approval, applause, or want. On one occasion He turned away from a gathering of people seeking healing (Mark 1:35-39). On another He told an enthusiastic would-be follower to count the cost carefully because He might not have a place to sleep if he followed (Luke 9:57-62). Jesus didn’t manipulate want from others; He didn’t “need” it. Rather, He softly invited it by leaning out over the edge of rejection with His love. Therein lies the key.

When fear makes you insecure because you’re unsure of the anothers’ wants for you, lead from a position of strength. When you are tempted to manipulate, cajole, or press for want, instead boldly state your desire for the other, press through the risk of not having this reciprocated, and act accordingly. Many won’t sacrifice or give to another without first being assured of their want; these people drown in fear. But those who lead with their want (which inspires actions of mercy and grace) often find the other willing to do likewise.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

TAKING ACTION

Find your source in God, not people:

One reason Jesus could withstand the disapproval and “un-want” of others was his relationship with the Father. What filled Him—His source—was not the approval of men, but the love of His Father. To build this “God-esteem” in your life, practice the following:

Embrace your identity in Christ. You are loved, forgiven, and accepted—not because of your performance in this life, but because of His grace.

Focus less energy on how others feel about you and instead focus on how you can love and serve them. Serving feels our self-worth; approval from others is fleeting.

Give yourself permission to “love yourself,” not in a selfish way, but with self-respect. “As yourself,” love others (Matt. 22:34-39).

Memorize and repeat daily this affirmation that can lift you up and remind you of your worth, especially when facing rejection by others: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5 NIV)

Pastors:

Help singles, couples, and stepparents recognize the dance of want in their relationships. It isn’t a bad thing, but they must not choose to deal with their vulnerability and fear with manipulative games. Help people see their worth and value in Jesus Christ and not in the approval of others.

© 2012 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

“I just can’t put my finger on it, Ron. For some reason, I just can’t break through the walls my stepkids are putting up.” Weston had been a stepdad for just six months, but was feeling defeated and discouraged. “My wife and I go back and forth trying to figure out what’s going on, but mostly we don’t agree. And even when we do, we’re not sure what to do about it.”

When stepparents and stepchildren struggle to connect or have a strained relationship, family members naturally look for something—or someone—to blame. Biological parents sometimes blame the stepparent for not trying hard enough to emotionally connect with the child. Stepparents might blame the child for not opening up to them or the noncustodial parent for running interference. Children (including adult stepchildren) may blame their parent for a quick remarriage or their stepfather for some personality attribute they find uninviting.

Siblings, extended family members, even ex-spouses get into the mix with their blame theory of why people don’t get along. Blame has been part of tense relationships since the first family on earth; when stepparents and stepchildren struggle to connect, stepfamilies have their share of blame games, too.

A myriad of dynamics

The first two years of stepparent-stepchild relationships tend to be tense and stressful for everyone. During this tumultuous period many stepparents became increasingly distant because their efforts are rebuffed by the children; adolescents in particular have the ability to discourage stepparents from continuing to build relationship.

Yet despite obstacles, research consistently reveals that stepparents who eventually develop close bonds with stepchildren remain persistent in their efforts to communicate with the child and establish a warm, friendly relationship. They do so by engaging the child in activities that are of interest to the child (not just activities that are of interest to the stepparent), finding opportunities to talk directly with the child, communicating empathy and compassion for the child, and sharing their desire to get along.

But while it’s clear that smart stepparents are persistent in seeking connection with their stepchildren, the absence of this connection cannot be blamed entirely on them.

True, stepparents sometimes stop affinity-seeking behaviors far too quickly or prefer a distant parenting posture to a close, connected one. But children can also contribute to the problem by blocking or ignoring their stepparent’s efforts to get close. They may not value the new relationship, have little in common with a stepparent, or find themselves unable to resolve a loyalty conflict with their biological parent. Even still, sometimes biological parents themselves block the stepparent’s attempts at connection, even though doing so only sabotages their stated goals of a “blended” family.

My point is this: There can be a myriad of dynamics at play in the evolving relationships between stepparents and stepchildren. Placing blame is nearly always shortsighted and only begets defensiveness. Instead of finding blame for the past, your family is much better served by shared efforts to grow relationships and build toward the future.

A stubborn, loving presence

Stepparents should commit themselves to a stubborn, loving presence in the lives of their stepchildren, even if they aren’t currently open to reciprocating the relationship. Success is not found in technique or an amount of shared activity. The most important thing you have to offer is you. Love them with an undeniable, unconditional love (just like God loves you) and eventually most children will be won over.

Biological parents should commit to valuing the relationship your spouse currently has with your children. Their relationship probably isn’t as strong as you’d prefer, but constantly being discouraged over what isn’t is a drag on everyone’s ability to enjoy what is.

No, you don’t have to be satisfied if they have a weak, strained relationship. But do try to appreciate what is going well for them. Building on strengths is always more productive than casting blame or focusing solely on deficits.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

TAKING ACTION

Couples:

Stepparents, you can’t control every response from stepchildren, but you can manage yourself as you seek connection with stepchildren. Take this self-exam to see if you are hitting the bull’s-eye.

True   False     Even when discouraged, I try to stay emotionally engaged with my stepchildren.

True   False     I create and take advantage of opportunities to connect with my stepchildren’s interests
(e.g., sports, music, books, movies, youth group, etc.).

True   False     My stepchildren would say that I take interest in their activities and support (e.g., attend
performances and events, show regard for their desires, appreciate their talents, etc.).

True   False     I am generally warm and friendly toward my stepchildren. They feel safe with me.

True   False     My spouse does not feel threatened by my actions toward her children.

True   False     I am intentional about experiencing memorable events with my stepchildren (e.g., taking
special trips together, attending concerts or service events together).

True   False     I express heartfelt value and affection to my stepchildren through verbal and non-verbal means
(e.g., saying, “I appreciate you,” giving hugs, or developing fun “inside” jokes).

True   False     Friends of our family would say that I, even when rebuffed, am stubbornly persistent in caring for
my family and developing deeper bonds with my stepchildren.

Pastors:

The faith development of children is enhanced tremendously when they experience service activities beside a loving family member. For example, when families share in a student mission trip, Christmas musical, or serve dinner together at a local homeless mission, the intimate roots of faith are planted in a child’s heart.

Such ministry activities also afford stepfamilies a secondary blessing: stepparents and stepchildren are bonded through the experience. The challenges faced and the lessons learned support their deepening relationship. Encourage stepparents to engage in service activities with their stepchildren.

© by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

Have you ever wondered why one person hears the word of God and follows it, while another ignores it? Why does one person see—and heed—the wisdom of God’s laws for holy living and another thinks them foolishness?

One difference between these two responses is attachment.

Relationships people have with the heavenly Father come in many shapes and sizes, with many layers. Some only believe that He exists, while others have elevated Him to the Lord of their life. Some float in and out of their relationship with God, but others are deeply attached to Him. Those who are deeply attached to God will trust His leading and guidance, respect His commands, and have a sense of their own value (i.e., they are loved and worthwhile). But for those with a limited attachment to God, He has limited influence in their choices.

A similar dynamic occurs in parenting.

A secure base

Attachment is a term used to describe the deep emotional connection and trust we experience in intimate relationships. Infants must experience attachment from their primary caregiver (usually their mother) if they are to develop a strong sense of trust and self-assurance; this provides them a secure base from which to explore the world.

To become effective leaders of children, stepparents must develop a secure bond with their stepchildren. And just as God never thrusts Himself on anyone unless they have invited Him in to their life, stepparents must pace their authority based on a developing attachment with stepchildren.

Biological parents have a natural strong attachment to their children; they have a built-in blood-bond connection that gives them love and trust—and respect—from their children. Stepparents, however, must grow this deep attachment in order to increase their parental authority and influence. The contrasts are striking:

Children are quick to offer grace to biological parents in conflict, but have a low tolerance for disappointment from stepparents.

Biological parents are afforded “insider” status while stepparents are sometimes viewed with a “you don’t belong, outsider” perspective.

Children love biological parents, period. It isn’t decided; it’s automatic and deeply felt, while love for a stepparent must be nurtured, tested and retested, and ultimately chosen.

Auto-approval. This attitude says, “If mom says it, it must be right” and results in a natural bias toward approval of a biological parent’s actions. Stepparents typically do not receive a benefit-of-the-doubt attitude.

Auto-trust. Children assume that bio parents can be trusted (even when proven otherwise). Stepparents have to prove their trustworthiness, again and again.

Bio parents are granted access to a child. “My space is your space.” If, however, a stepparent moves in too quickly, it can be perceived as a violation of the child’s personal boundaries.

Clearly, attachment gives biological parents a profound advantage in parenting. Stepparents who do not understand these differences can easily sabotage themselves by trampling on their stepchildren. Consider these principle suggestions.

Building attachment a step at a time

1. A watched pot never boils. Love and caring takes time to develop and you won’t hurry it along with worry. Children under the age of five may bond with a stepparent within one to two years while older children, teenagers, or adults may take many years. Persist in trying to deepen relationship while enjoying the relationship you have today.

2. Loyalty may be a barrier. I’ve written before about how children are often emotionally torn when they enjoy a stepparent. They fear that liking them somehow harms their non-custodial, biological parent and this creates guilt that confuses the attachment process. Here’s how you can help:

Don’t be offended by a child’s loyalty and encourage regular contact with biological parents.

Never criticize their biological parent in front of the child, as it will sabotage the child’s opinion of you.

Don’t try to replace an uninvolved or deceased biological parent. Consider yourself an added parental figure in the child’s life, not a replacement parent. Note that a child’s emotional attachment to a deceased parent continues well after death. Children should be encouraged, especially by the stepparent, to keep alive their thoughts and feelings toward their deceased parent. Biological parents can talk with them about how they can “make room” in their heart for their stepparent while also keeping alive their parent’s memory.

3. Follow the cardinal rule: Let children set the pace for their relationship with you. If your stepchildren are open to you, don’t leave them disappointed. If, however, they remain aloof and cautious, don’t force yourself on them. As time brings you together, slowly increase your personal involvement and affections. Together you can forge a workable relationship that grows.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

TAKING ACTION

Tips for stepparents to strengthen attachment:

Be aware of your stepchildren’s activities and interests. Know what they are doing at school, church, and in extracurricular activities, and make it your aim to be a part.

If one-on-one time with a stepchild seems awkward, focus on group family time. Move to exclusive time together only when it feels comfortable for both of you.

Share your talents, skills, and interests with children.

Share the Lord through dialogue, music, or service projects.

Learn more about your role in discipline.

How biological parents can help:

Listen to your spouse. Remember that you don’t experience your kids the same way they do. Stepparents need to be heard with empathy, not defensiveness.

Require and maintain a standard of courteous behavior from your children toward your spouse, the stepparent. Even if they don’t display deep affections for them, they should be courteous and decent in their tone.

For those ministering to stepfamilies:

It’s important to remember that nearly all parenting books and curriculum resources used by churches assume attachment between adult and child. In other words, they give advice and outline discipline strategies based on a strong parent-child attachment. Naively telling stepparents to follow the same advice can actually fray fragile stepfamily relationships. Make sure to supplement your parenting training programs with materials designed for stepfamilies, not just biological families.

© 2010 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

Emotional attachment, trust, and love are what open the door to influence in parenting. Once that is established, an adult—foster parent, grandparent, adoptive parent, or stepparent—can lead and discipline a child. Said another way, the old adage is true: Rules without relationship leads to rebellion. Wise stepparents understand this and grow relationship in order to grow authority.

Authority can exist without a bonded relationship, but it has its limits. A police officer can pull you over, a boss or coach can tell you what to do, and a teacher can tell a student the rules of the classroom, but none of these authorities obtain obedience out of love or deep admiration.

Until stepparents establish a love-relationship with a child, they are just external authorities imposing boundaries. That’s why it’s critical early in a blended family that stepparents recognize these limits and borrow power from the biological parent. If they over-step the limits of their role, they can sabotage the developing relationships and any authority they might have had along with it. Therefore, for new stepparents the question is: How do they establish themselves as authority figures while waiting for bonding to occur?

Borrowing power

Think about babysitters. On their first visit to a home, they don’t have any relational authority with children. The kids don’t know them, don’t like them, and don’t need them. (Stepparents take note.) But if the kids and babysitter get many evenings together, they can form a significant relationship bond over time. In the meantime, while babysitters are hoping for a relationship to develop, how do they manage the children? Answer: by borrowing power.

Babysitters can put children in time-out, take away privileges, and declare bedtime because the child’s parent has passed power to the babysitter. The “she’s in charge while we’re gone” speech is usually quite effective. Now notice, this empowers the babysitter to set boundaries and impose consequences that ultimately are owned by the parent. However, if the biological parent is unwilling or unable to own these boundaries, there will be chaos.

Stepparenting follows a similar process. Initially stepparents act as extensions of the biological parent. They can enforce consequences, set boundaries, and say “no,” but do so knowing full well they are not standing on their own authority. They live on borrowed power until such time as their love-relationship with the child matures and opens the door to more influence and authority.

Discipline do’s and don’ts for stepparents

At best, new stepparent authority is fragile and easily shattered. That’s why these do’s and don’ts must be a priority.

Do make sure the biological parent has your back. Biological parents must communicate to their children an expectation of obedience to the stepparent and be willing to back up the stepparent’s actions. When disagreements occur, settle them in private.

Do strive for unity in parenting. Discuss behavioral expectations, boundaries, consequences, and values (read the parental unity rules). Bring your parenting philosophies in line.

Don’t be harsh or punish in a way that is inconsistent with the biological parent.

Do focus on relationship building. This is your long-term strength.

Don’t unilaterally change rules or try to make up for past parental mistakes or failings.

Do listen to the child. If they draw into you sooner than expected, don’t look back. Use the relational authority offered you. Don’t get impatient. It often takes years to bond and develop a trusting love-relationship with children. Be persistent in bonding with them.

Do communicate with the biological parent a lot! If uncertain, find parental unity before engaging the children.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

TAKING ACTION

Relationship building tips for stepparents:

Play! Having fun is a great way to connect. Do something fun.

Track with them. Know what activities a child is engaged in and enter that world. Take them to practice, ask about an activity, be aware of their world.

Take interest in the child’s interests.

Share your talents, skills, and hobbies.

Communicate your commitment. Let the child know you value and want a relationship with them. This helps them to know your heart.

Share the Lord and your spiritual walk. Shared spirituality can facilitate connection and a sense of family identity. But don’t be preachy. Instead, share with humility your faith journey so they will see you as a safe person.

Pastors:
Stepparenting is a delicate balancing act. Knowing when to step in or back away is challenging; missteps often pit biological parents and stepparents against one another. The more abreast you are of stepfamily dynamics, the better prepared you will be to help couples get on the same page and unify their family. A good start would be reading The Smart Stepfamily.

© 2012 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

And so it comes to this: Two men finally facing off in a winner-take-all contest.

Both men are successful and accomplished, yet both have walked through the valley of defeat. Both live with the fact that fame and job security is fleeting.

Both men are supported by millions and both are ridiculed and condemned when they don’t perform well. They are accustomed to living in the public eye, and know how it feels to have their words and decisions picked apart by the media.

And just to be clear, I’m not talking about this week’s presidential election.

No, I’m talking about this week’s contest between Georgia football coach Mark Richt and Auburn coach Gene Chizik, whose teams face off this coming Saturday.

And while the outcome for the presidential race remains unclear, Auburn fans have little hope of knocking off Georgia this year. Georgia is 8-1 and ranked fifth in the country, while Auburn—which won the national championship just two seasons ago—is 2-7 and suffering through its worst season in many years.

Recently I read books about both coaches and was impressed with how similar the two men are in their commitment to their Christian faith, to their families, and also in their desire to mentor the young men they coach. In All In, an autobiography by Chizik, I was struck by the unique pressures and difficulties faced by college football coaches. I can’t imagine trying to keep a marriage and family strong in those circumstances. Chizik writes:

I love my job. But I also love my family, and unfortunately one of the downsides of coaching at this level is the amount of family time you have to give up. Between recruiting, off-season practices, the regular season, and—if things go well—bowl games, we are basically on the go year-round. Most days I’m at the office early and I don’t get home until late—I usually put in a sixteen- or seventeen-hour day. From August 1 until the first Wednesday of February (National Signing Day), we pretty much run nonstop—no days off, no holidays, no breaks …

With this schedule, Chizik writes, his wife Jonna is “pretty much a single parent six to seven months a year.”

And that’s just the schedule. How would you like to live in a glass bowl where people love or hate you depending on whether your team wins? How would you like to see your husband picked apart weekly in the media?

To survive in this world, you need a true partnership in marriage. And it’s clear that Chizik and Richt have been blessed with wives who are committed to building a marriage and family that honors God.

Both couples are outspoken about their dependence on God for guidance and strength. When asked in a Fellowship of Christian Athletes video about how he and his wife Katharyn keep their marriage together, Richt said, “If we both pursue God, we’re gonna get closer together … as humans we’re never going to always agree on everything or always been in perfect relationship to each other at all times, but if there is a conflict or there is something wrong … we always turn to the Lord. If I’m trying to fix my relationship with God and she’s trying to do the same thing, we end up pretty close together.”

I also was impressed by the commitment these couples have for mentoring the young men who come through their football programs. “The longer I coach the more I realize the great responsibility we have for the young men God has put us in authority over,” Richt says. Both football programs offer everything from educational tutoring to character classes to training in how to speak with the media. Players are given opportunities to attend Bible studies and devotions. And, since many of the players come from troubled family backgrounds, both programs boast a strong emphasis on family. Players often see the wives and children of coaches at practices and team functions. Chizik writes:

We want our players to become good fathers and husbands, but what good would it do if we stood up in team meetings and emphasized the importance of marriage and fatherhood but didn’t give them concrete examples of how a good father and husband looks, talks, and acts? My marriage isn’t perfect—it can’t be because I’m a part of it!—but it is a loving, biblically centered marriage. Jonna is around our team enough that she should probably demand to be on the payroll, which means the players can see how she and I communicate and get along with each other in our marriage.

This may be the final showdown between Richt and Chizik; Auburn’s poor record has led many Auburn boosters to demand that Chizik be replaced after this season concludes. It’s hard to imagine—just 21 months ago he was on the top of the world—kissing Jonna on national television after Auburn won the national championship.

But that’s the crazy world of a college football coach and his family.

© 2012 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

The leaves have changed and are at their peak. There is a sugar maple tree on the south side of our house that is glorious in its expanse of pure yellow. I like to sit under it and just soak in the color. I don’t do it enough, but every year I make myself sit in its splendor at least once even if it’s just for 10 minutes. Fall is welcoming. It calls us home to crackling fires, warm soups and stews, and extended family time at Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite of the year.

Thanksgiving is simply a time to give thanks. But do we do that? And better yet, is the giving of thanks to be reserved for only this one time of year?

As my children were growing up, I wanted them to know the real story of Thanksgiving, the history of the Mayflower and the people who sacrificed so much to come to the new world. Mostly I wanted my kids to know about their faith; faith that inspired great courage and modeled heroic lives of gratitude and thanksgiving for generations to come.

In 1620 and 1621 the Pilgrims had nothing but gratitude. Today we have everything but gratitude. Thanking God is, for a Christian, a reflection of a heart that trusts God. The Pilgrims had much to trust Him for and much about which they could have been fearful, but the overriding lesson of their lives is one of gratitude which is an expression of great faith.

Reading the stories of their journey over the Atlantic, their first winter without shelter, and their severe lack of food and clothing and protection is almost shocking to our modern way of thinking. But in the midst of it all they expressed gratitude to God. They understood that being grateful is a choice. We think being grateful is a result of being happy. We believe if circumstances are good, then we can be grateful. But they understood the biblical truth of “giving thanks in all things for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, emphasis mine).

In the midst of a struggling economy and a new administration in Washington we have national difficulties for which we should give thanks as the Pilgrims did. Closer to home, each of us needs to give thanks for the abundance the majority of us in America live with every day. We should even give thanks for the air we breathe and the light we enjoy every day even when it’s cloudy. They are daily gifts from the hand of God. And we need to guide our children and grandchildren into the habit of giving thanks in all things. This is not just for adults.

But the greatest gift for which we must give thanks regularly is our freedom. We are free to worship and speak and go and come as we please in this country, and that alone is a gift we do not adequately appreciate. My prayer is that we will grow in gratitude in this nation and that we will value our freedom more highly, always giving thanks to God, for it is all from Him.

Copyright © 2012 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

On the whole, human beings are fascinated with sex—men and women, young and old, Christians, atheists, and everyone in between. In all cultures, throughout all of history, sexual desire has been one of the greatest motivators of the human will. Men and women throw away their families, houses, money, and land in order to be sexually satisfied. Some are addicted to it. Wars have been fought over it. We compose songs about it, make movies about it, and write stories about it. And this preoccupation with sex is not simply a facet of our fallen nature. Even one whole book of the Bible (the Song of Solomon) is dedicated to celebrating the sexual relationship between the husband and wife.

But have you ever wondered why all the fuss? Why did God create us as sexual people in the first place? He was obviously not tied to a need for sexual reproduction in order to propagate the species. He just as easily could have created humans as asexual creatures that reproduce like amoebas.

Until we understand why God created sex, we will never sufficiently make sense of His commands regarding sexual purity, for His commands always relate to His purposes.

Christ and the church

Ephesians 5:24-32 pointedly describes the sexual relationship within marriage as an image of the spiritual relationship between Christ and the church. As you read the passage, note carefully the significance of the last sentence (verse 32) within its context:

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

In this passage Paul is discussing the relational dynamics of Christian marriage. And as he gives instruction to husbands and wives about how they are to treat one other, he draws a tight parallel between human marriage and Christ’s relationship with the church. The way Christ treats the church, Paul tells us, serves as the pattern for the way in which a husband is to treat his wife. And the way the church relates to Christ is the way a wife is to relate to her husband.

Revealing a mystery

But why is this? By what logic does Paul ask husbands and wives to relate to one another as Christ and the church? The answer is found in verse 32. Human marriage, Paul tells us, “refers to Christ and the church.” In other words, marriage is a “type” of Christ’s relationship to the church. Drawing upon the ancient marriage formula of Genesis 2:24, Paul reveals a mystery (i.e., a previously hidden truth): Sexual oneness within marriage was created by God to serve as a foreshadowing of the spiritual oneness that would exist between Christ and His church. As the great church father Augustine once wrote, “It is of Christ and the Church that it is most truly said, ‘the two shall be one flesh.'”

From Paul’s comments in Ephesians we can see that when a man and a woman come together sexually, in some mysterious way they become one in their flesh (see also 1 Corinthians 6:16). Something profound occurs through sexual intercourse. The marriage union is not simply a legal union or a social union, a financial union or a familial union, but rather a union of bodies, a sharing of physical life.

Through sex, two people are joined together in the deepest and most wonderful way—so much so that they are said to become one. This is why sexual intercourse is rightly said to “consummate” a marriage.

Living out of the union

Marriage is more than sex, but it’s not less than sex. In fact, in the ancient biblical world, sexual union was the primary means by which a man and woman married each other (see, for example, the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 24:67). Unlike today, religious clergy of the ancient world did not create a marriage through a formal pronouncement; rather the act of sex itself created the marriage.

Thus, a healthy marriage relationship is the living out of the union that is established through sexual intercourse. (This is why a sexual relationship that occurs outside the context of a marriage relationship is so emotionally destructive. The act of sex, which is meant to initiate and sustain a permanent union of marriage, is broken apart and divorced from its very purpose.)

But herein lies the greatest significance of sex—not what it accomplishes on an earthly plane, but what it images on a divine plane. Sex is not an end in itself; it points to the deeper reality of the gospel. Just as the sacrifice of the Passover lamb in the Old Testament foreshadowed Christ’s atoning sacrifice in the New, so too the physical oneness established through sex foreshadows the spiritual oneness that will exist (and which already exists) between Christ and his church at the wedding supper of the Lamb.

The bride and bridegroom

The New Testament’s many references to the church as the “bride” of Christ and to Christ as the “bridegroom” further highlight this parallel between earthly and heavenly union. Additionally, many of Christ’s parables use the wedding motif as an illustration of His return and consummate union with the church. And the book of Revelation explicitly refers to the wedding supper of the Lamb as inaugurating the dawn of the eternal age (Revelation 19:7; 21:2, 9; 22:17; see also Matthew 25:1-13).

But it’s important to remember which came first in God’s mind. God did not pattern the divine marriage after human marriage, but rather human marriage is a foreshadowing of the divine marriage. It’s not as though God discovered the connection between sex and the gospel the way a pastor peruses the Wall Street Journal for preaching illustrations. No, the connection was purposed before the foundation of the world. As Paul tells us, the sexual oneness of marriage refers to Christ and the church. Just as God ordained the coming sacrifice of Christ, so too God ordained human marriage—from the very dawn of creation—to testify to the coming wedding supper of the Lamb.

Can sex in Christian marriage be spectacular? See our online course!

Remembering the gospel

Our spiritual union with Christ is an essential yet often overlooked aspect of the gospel. The good news of salvation is not simply that God has forgiven us but, rather, that through our union with Christ we are born again into his very life—we have become sharers of his nature (2 Peter 1:4).

Forgiveness is indeed a significant aspect of our salvation, but we must not reduce the saving work of God to simple bookkeeping in the divine registry. Forgiveness cleans the slate, but forgiveness alone is not sufficient for entering the kingdom of heaven.

It is only when we understand that our chief culpability before God is not bound up in our sinful actions but, even more fundamentally, in our sinful nature—the source of our sinful actions—that we can begin to understand why we need more than forgiveness.

Not surprisingly, the main requirement for entering into eternal life is that one actually be alive. Jesus Himself said, “No one can see [enter into] the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3, NIV). A key component of New Testament salvation, therefore, is centered on our connection to the very life of God, through Jesus Christ via the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

It is when we become one spiritually with Christ Himself that we enter into both forgiveness and life. Just as a husband and wife become one in their physical life, so too Christ and the Christian, through the indwelling of the Spirit, become one in their spiritual life. Through our union with Christ, His life becomes our own. We are born again precisely because we have been united to the one who is life itself.

Supernatural union

The ability to live a God-pleasing life, indeed, to inherit eternal life, does not stem from our dedication to God or vows of our will; rather, it flows to us from the power of the divine life granted to us through our supernatural union with Christ. The very life of God through Christ via the Holy Spirit has taken up residence inside us. We are irrevocably wed to the divine nature, and human marriage is a powerful picture, or symbol, of this union.

In the end, our final hope of salvation is that we have been married to Christ. When we come to God for salvation, He makes us one with Christ—just as a man and a woman become one in marriage. This union with Christ is the very thing that provides eternal life.

Indeed, the eternal life that we have now begun to live is the eternal life that Christ lives. The sap of the vine is the sap of the branch. Through our union with Him, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). He has become our head, and as His bride, His job is to present us “to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:27, NIV).

And He will do it. Marriage and sex are powerful illustrations of the union that exists between Christ and the Christian, and they were created specifically for that purpose.

Adapted from Sex, Dating, and Relationships by Gerald Hiestand and Jay Thomas, © 2012, pp. 17-26. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.

After a recent webinar for stepparents I was struck by the number of participants whose unsolicited feedback went something like this: “Thanks for the information tonight. I feel encouraged—I think I can keep going because I have hope again.”

Comments like this remind me that while parenting is tough, stepparenting is extremely tough. Stepparents face unique challenges when it comes to discipline, the loyalties of children, differences in emotional attachments with children, and how loss impacts a child’s responsiveness to stepparents.

Biological parents have challenges, too. But on a regular basis they also enjoy encouragement—a sweet moment with their children, a thankful “I love you, Mom,” or a shared exciting adventure that brings laughter and smiles all around. Even a teachable moment when a child takes to heart a parent’s wisdom brings great joy to a parent.

Stepparents enjoy these kinds of moments as well, but with much less frequency than biological parents. And as a 25-year-veteran stepparent said to me recently, “even when they do come along, they are intermingled with anxiety and confusion. That can spoil the good moments pretty quickly.”

My point is this: Stepparents need regular doses of encouragement for the long journey they travel.

The joy of the payoff

Hebrews 12:2 tells us that for the joy set before Him, Jesus “endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (NIV). Was their joy in enduring the cross? Immediately, of course not. But from a long-term perspective, Jesus’ joy resulted from the purpose of the cross: Man was reconciled to God. In a similar way, stepparents (and their spouses) must look past the immediate trials and struggles they experience for the joy that will come one day as a result of their work, love, and faithfulness. And for most, the payoff does come.

Laurie sent me an email recently; I could see her smile through the words:

I got a big payoff last weekend. My husband threw me a big 50th birthday party. Jason, my stepson from my first marriage (now 35), came with his two kids; they drove six hours to be there. He was delightful—so sweet and affirming, so willing to let me love on him and his kids. I’m not even married to his dad anymore and he still welcomes me into his life. He texted me twice after he got home and thanked me for the weekend and for being in his life. That kid and I had some turbulent times when he was growing up. I didn’t have a strategy; I just hung in there with him.

But he wasn’t the only stepkid who loved on me that day. I got an incredible call from Katie, Jay’s oldest away at college, who called to say how much she wished she could be there, how much she loved me and was glad that I married her dad. She said she was lucky to have me then said, “Laurie, I was so mean to you when I was about 15. I’m so sorry. What was that about?” We talked light-heartedly about that and ended up having a chuckle. I thank God that he allowed me to taste His goodness through those kids last weekend. To me, it’s a sample of what Heaven is going to be like.

I can’t promise all stepparents that this will happen to you. But I can encourage you to live today as if it will. Press on for the joy set before you.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

TAKING ACTION

A circle of encouragement:

A biological parent also has a key role in encouraging their spouse, the stepparent. The following can create a circle of encouragement that provides strength for their journey:

1. Give them a medal…or at least a hug! Your spouse needs a consistent “thank you for putting up with my ex… my fears… few acknowledgements from my kids, etc., etc.” Stepparents deserve a medal of valor about once a month (but if you can’t arrange that, a big hug will suffice) along with a plague recognizing the challenges they meet each and every day. Your compassionate recognition will go a long way to fuel their determination and help your children feel safe in their care.

2. Insist that your kids be considerate and respectful toward the new stepparent. If you don’t create this expectation and follow-up to make it happen, children may slide toward disrespect and disobedience. Elevate the status of your spouse in your children’s eyes and everyone wins.

3. Politely ask extended family to honor your marriage. When grandparents or extended family members disregard your marriage, it discourages a stepparent and makes them feel like an unwanted outsider. Be polite, but insistent: “You may not approve of every aspect of our family story, but for the sake of our children, please acknowledge our marriage and my spouse. We will treat you with respect and kindly request that you do the same toward him/her.”

4. Make sure your marriage is a source of joy. When a stepparent can’t find immediate reward in being a stepparent, they need an island of safety. Your marriage needs to be a respite, a source of comfort and care. If it, too, is strained or stressful, a stepparent can easily fall into despair. For the sake of your family, build a safe haven marriage, no matter what it takes.

Pastors:

Ministry leaders should seek to bring honor to stepparents. Our world is filled with negative stereotypes of the “wicked stepmother” and the “abusive stepfather,” but you can combat that with stories of faithful or “heroic” stepparents. Publically and privately, lift up stepparents and express gratitude for their loving service to their families.

© 2011 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

Children in blended families often experience multiple losses: from the death of a parent or death of their family through divorce, to the economic changes of living in a single parent home, to the emotional loyalty conflicts they face in a blended family. And parents know it, which is a big reason they can become overprotective.

Tim, a biological father of two and stepfather of two, had a hard time finding his place. “My wife is very protective of her kids and it has taken the better part of two years for her to feel ready for me to discipline them,” he said.

“If she is out of the room and she hears me talking to the kids she will still ask me what the problem is, so she can be aware of what I might be asking them to do. Then she goes to them and gets their side of the story; that usually backfires on me.”

It’s natural for a biological parent to seek to protect her kids from harm and create peace within the household. But problems arise when a parent continually tries to guide, guard, and direct the stepparent’s every step. These parents defend their children at all costs, go behind their spouse’s back to undo what he or she has done, and might even block efforts to create emotional bonds with the children.

Manipulation

Moms seem to struggle with guarding their children a little more than dads. For example, moms who are overly connected emotionally to their children often make the child’s dependence on them a priority. They will block stepdads, biological fathers, and all would-be outsiders from challenging her enmeshed relationship with the kids.

This kind of over protectiveness results in arrested child development and fosters jealousy within a stepfamily. Ironically, these mothers also train their children to manipulate them against the stepdad.

Don shared that his stepson, age nine, was compliant to his teachers at school but wouldn’t listen to any of his directions. “He whines when he doesn’t get his way because he knows his mom will give in. He plays her against me and then she blames me for provoking him. I am completely lost.”

It’s hard enough for stepparents to build a relationship with their stepchildren, especially during the fragile early years when their attempts to connect are sometimes rebuffed by children, especially adolescents. It’s even more difficult—and discouraging—when the biological parent is blocking the stepparent.

Talk about fears

If you find this dynamic at work in your home, start by humbly acknowledging it with one another. Don’t cast blame or you will end up on opposite sides.

Instead, the biological parent should talk about his or her fears regarding the children that are driving the overprotective behavior. What are you concerned will happen if you don’t intervene? What must change for you to risk letting go of control?

If this conversation highlights some actions or attitudes in the stepparent that are hostile, angry, or fear-provoking, then they must take responsibility for them. If the stepparent, for example, has a hot temper, take responsibility for it, or don’t expect your spouse to trust you with the kids.

Whatever the underlying fears, make it your goal to eliminate them so overprotectiveness will be unnecessary. And remember to articulate to one another the goal of supporting each other’s role with the children as your blended family grows over time.*

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

TAKING ACTION

Couples:

When in balance, all of these roles are needed from biological parents.

Gatekeeper—protecting your kids from the stepparent and/or the stepparent from the unpleasant realities of parenting your children

Defender—of either your kids or the stepparent

Interpreter—trying to bridge the gap between your kids and the stepparent

Tutor—helping the stepparent to understand and parent your kids

When a parent is out of balance—too heavy on one of these roles—a destructive atmosphere is created. Discuss how well the biological parent is assuming these roles, and whether any are out of balance.

Pastors:

Encourage stepparents to develop close bonds with stepchildren. The stepparents that do this remain persistent in their efforts to communicate with stepchildren and establish a warm, friendly relationship. They do so by engaging the child in activities that are of interest to them (not just activities that are only of interest to the stepparent) and find opportunities to communicate empathy and compassion for the child, and share their desire to get along.

Adapted with permission from The Smart Stepdad by Ron L. Deal. Published by Bethany House Pub., © 2011.

Most stepchildren live in two countries; that is, they hold citizenship in two homes and are invested in the quality of life found in both. Parents should do everything they can to help children thrive and enjoy each of their two homes.

Often I’m asked, “What if the rules in my ex’s home are different from the rules in our home?”

My answer? “It all depends on your diplomacy and how cooperative you are as an ambassador.” Let me explain.

Over 23 years ago my wife and I went with my parents to Kenya for a brief missionary effort. I will never forget going on safari in the Masai Mara and seeing lions, cheetahs, giraffes, and hundreds of other wild animals that Americans can only see in a zoo. But what I remember most distinctly was the radical change in culture that we experienced. Clothing was different, social customs seemed odd, the economy and systems of government were unknown to us. We had to learn to drive on the left side of the road. Despite all of these shifts in customs, ritual behaviors, and rules of conduct, we learned to adapt quite quickly.

My parents later returned to Kenya (about 15 times) to coordinate volunteer mission efforts in East Africa. The changes in culture we experienced initially grew more predictable for them, but they always experienced an adjustment period when traveling between countries. One year my father returned to the U.S. and began driving on the left side of the road. The oncoming traffic abruptly reminded him of the change in driving system! Generally speaking, though, my parents adapted to each country as needed.

Children can adjust

There are many parallels for stepchildren. At first, different rules, customs, and expectations between homes requires an extended adjustment. Later, when the territory becomes more familiar, only a brief adjustment time is required. Sometimes children need gentle reminders from their parents about what the rules are (“You may be able to play before homework at your mom’s house, but here the rule is…”). But generally speaking, children can adjust to the many differences rather well.

Can you imagine what travel for my parents would have been like if Kenya and the United States had been at war? Getting on a plane and heading to the “other side” would have been considered treason. An old African proverb says, “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” Divorced parents who fight with each other are trampling on their most prized possession—their children who have to live in both homes.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

In his book, Stepfamilies: Love, Marriage, and Parenting in the First Decade, researcher James Bray warns that when one parent speaks negatively about a child’s other biological parent, the child internalizes the comment. In other words, “A child who hears a parent attacked thinks, in some way, he is also being attacked.” A simple comment like, “Your father is late again. He can be so irresponsible,” cuts the child as well as the parent.

Remember the biblical story of the two mothers fighting over a child (1 Kings 3)? Each woman had had a baby, but one accidently smothered hers to death during the night. She tried to take the other woman’s baby as her own. A battle ensued and each woman claimed to be the child’s mother.

No one knew who the living child belonged to, so the women were taken to Solomon for a decision. His ruse judgment to cut the baby in half and give half to each woman revealed the compassion of the true mother; ultimately she was given the child. I’ve long thought that Solomon’s decision was simply making plain what the battling parents were already doing—cutting the child. Ex-spouses and stepparents can do the same if they are not careful.

Are you making a POW swap every other weekend? How often are children trampled? As citizens of two countries, they should be privileged to all the rights, relationships, and responsibilities of each home. Your job is to be at peace with the other country so your children can travel back and forth in love.

TAKING ACTION

For those ministering to stepfamilies:

Most church-based education programs for parents never discuss conflicts and parenting matters that occur between homes. Speak to the teachers of your Bible classes and small groups and encourage them to address these issues. Ron’s free online e-booklet, Parenting After Divorce, can help.

© 2010 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

Few things are more challenging than the role of Christian stepparent. In short, the stepparent joins the biological parent in raising his or her child, but does so initially without a clear role or bond with the child.

Consider the email I received from a biological father looking for help: “Jean is the stepmother to my 7-year-old son. In the past 10 weeks, a very intense relationship has developed between them. Once inseparable, Jean now wants nothing to do with him and has told him as much. This has strained our marriage, and she has talked about leaving. Our marriage is as perfect as one can get when my son is visiting his mother, but when he returns it is very uncomfortable for everyone. My wife does not understand why God is doing this to her, and she is questioning her faith.”

I can just imagine this stepmother explaining her situation. She likely feels confused about her role, displaced from her husband when her stepson is around, and helpless to change the situation. And she may be feeling guilty because she knows that God is expecting her to love this boy. It’s a difficult situation to be in.

Finding an effective stepparent role is indeed a challenge. Yet with healthy expectations and a specific strategy to build relationship, a satisfying bond can be nurtured.

Realistic expectations

Stepparents and biological parents alike frequently expect too much from the stepparent, especially early in the stepfamily’s development. Research confirms, for example, that stepparents and biological parents generally assume that the stepparent should be affectionate with stepchildren and attempting to assert authority (to establish their position as “parent”).

However, stepchildren report—even five years after the wedding—that they wish the stepparent would seek less physical affection and back away from asserting punishment. The challenge, then, for biological and stepparents alike is to lower their expectations and negotiate a relationship that is “mutually suitable” to both stepchild and stepparent. Keep these principles in mind:

1. Give yourself time to develop a workable relationship. Realize that love and caring takes time to develop, especially with pre-adolescent and adolescent children. Some research suggests that children under the age of five will bond with a stepparent within one to two years. However, older children—teenagers in particular—may take as many years as they are old when the remarriage takes place. In other words, a ten-year-old may need ten years before they feel truly connected with you. Try to imagine your stepfamily in a crock-pot—it’s slow cooking, so don’t rush it. Besides, crock-pots do gradually bring all the ingredients together so trust that the low heat will eventually do its work.

2. Children’s loyalty to their biological parents may interfere with their acceptance of you. Children are often emotionally torn when they enjoy a stepparent. The fear that liking you somehow hurts their non-custodial, biological, parent is common. The ensuing guilt they experience may lead to disobedient behavior and a closed heart. In order to help stepchildren deal with this struggle:

Allow children to keep their loyalties and encourage contact with biological parents.

Never criticize their biological parent, as it will sabotage the child’s opinion of you.

Don’t try to replace an uninvolved or deceased biological parent. Consider yourself an added parental figure in the child’s life—be yourself.

3. The cardinal rule for stepparent-stepchild relationships is this: Let the children set their pace for their relationship with you. If your stepchildren are open and seem to want physical affection from you, don’t leave them disappointed. If, however, they remain aloof and cautious, don’t force yourself on them. Respect their boundaries, for it often represents their confusion over the new relationship and their loss from the past. As time brings you together, slowly increase your personal involvement and affections. Together you can forge a workable relationship that grows over time.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

Recently a gentleman told me that it took 30 years before he could tell his stepfather he loved him. Undoubtedly, his stepfather struggled through those years for his stepson’s acceptance. But despite his godly attitude and leadership, his stepson simply couldn’t allow himself to return that love.

Eventually, however, love won out and was able to express appreciation to his stepfather for being involved in his life. Trust that doing the right things in the name of Christ will eventually bring you and your stepchildren together. In the meantime, try to enjoy the relationship you have now and build on what you have in common.

Relax and build relationship

“Relax” is an interesting word to hear when you feel like you’re not making any progress. Yet, that’s exactly what you need to do. Time and continued positive experiences will eventually bring you closer to your stepchildren, but you can’t force their affections. So relax, accept the current level of relationship, and trust the Lord to increase your connection over time.

© 2008 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

Improving your relationship with stepchildren is one of the greatest challenges of forming a stepfamily. Use the following suggestions to help you to be intentional about slowly building your relationships:

1. Do not expect that you or your stepchildren will magically cherish all your time together. Stepchildren often feel confused about new family relationships—both welcoming and resenting the changes new people bring to their life. So give them space and time to work through their emotions.

2. Give yourself permission to not be completely accepted by them. Their acceptance of you is often more about wanting to remain in contact with their biological parents than it is an acceptance or rejection of you. This realization will help you to de-personalize their apparent rejections.

3. Give your stepchildren time away from you, preferably with their biological parent. The exclusive time stepchildren had with their biological parent before he or she married you came to a screeching halt after the wedding. Honoring your stepchildren by occasionally giving back this exclusive time in one or two hour increments.

4. Early on, monitor your stepchildren’s activities. Know what they are doing at school, church, and in extracurricular activities, and make it your aim to be a part. Take them to soccer practice, ask about the math test they studied for, and help them to learn their lines in the school play. Monitoring seeks to balance interest in the child without coming on too strong. (From Stepfamilies: Love, marriage, and parenting in the first decade, J Bray, New York: Broadway Books, 1998)

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

5. Until they feel comfortable with you, buffer your relationship with other people. Be involved with stepchildren when another family member can be present. This “group” family activity reduces the anxiety children feel with one-on-one time with a stepparent.

Adults frequently assume that the way to get to know their stepchildren is to spend personal, exclusive time with them. This may be true with some stepchildren; however, most stepchildren prefer to not be thrown into that kind of situation until they have had time to grow comfortable with the stepparent. Honor that feeling until the child makes it obvious that he or she is okay with one-on-one time.

6. Share your talents, skills, and interests with the child and become curious about theirs. If you know how to play the guitar and a stepchild is interested, take time to show him how. If the child is interested in a particular series of books or a video game, become interested and ask her to tell you about it.

These shared interests become points of connection that strengthen trust between stepparent and stepchild. Sharing the Lord through dialogue, music, or church activity is another tremendous source of connection. For example, service projects are wonderful activities for parents and stepparents to experience together. Little brings people together like serving others in the name of the Lord. Discussing values through the eyes of Christ and having family devotional time can also strengthen your relationship.

© 2008 by Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

Congratulations! The decision to marry has been made, perhaps a date set, and you’re planning a wedding. Just be sure to plan for becoming a family, as well, because ultimately that is what this is all about—becoming family to one another. Through the years I have encountered countless blended families that were comprised of a strong marital couple who really loved each other trying to exist within a divided stepfamily household. Preparing for a good blend will hopefully keep that story from becoming yours.

Don’t be surprised if you feel underprepared for stepfamily living. Don’t be surprised by growing stress and tension around how to blend. It’s not easy even in all-around healthy situations.

I often tell pastors that the key objective of stepfamily ministry is to get the newly formed family through the first few years. Surviving the “integration years” is really what you’re trying to do. On the surface that may not sound like much, but actually it’s rather significant. The first five to seven years are when everyone is adjusting to life together and becoming family, that is, learning first to like each other and then, perhaps, to love each other even as they are psychologically redefining their existing family to include new family members. This is a stressful process with many potholes and road hazards. Expect there to be a period of transitional stress for your home after the wedding.

Some may ask, “Ron, are you trying to scare us?” No, but I am trying to inform you that while good dating requires much work, more work will be needed after the wedding. Don’t relax your initiative; move instead into this next season of your relationship with as much drive as you’ve had up to now because, while the integration years may be stressful for many (not all) blended families, the rewards are worth the price.

I’m convinced that healthy stepfamilies are a redemptive work of God for both children and adults, but that’s a function of years of dedication, determination, and smart stepfamily living, not just good dating. Here are two core concepts to get you started.

1. Decide to put your spouse before your children.

In the digital era, it’s rare to receive a snail mail letter. One day I opened my mail and received this heartfelt petition addressed to me but, I think, written to you.

Dear Ron,

I don’t know why I’m writing this letter to you.

Unfortunately, four and a half years into a second marriage, I realized that I’ve always been in the #2 position behind my stepsons in my wife’s heart. I’ve heard and read how serious this is but did not fully understand until experience caught up with me. Now, with my stepsons determining how my wife interacts with them and with me (and my children alienated from me), I now see what a grave mistake I made.

Please continue to tell spouses that God designed marriage for them to be #1 in each other’s hearts, and that straying from this design will never, ever work. Of course, I’m not referring to a spouse who is abusive or following one who is contrary to Christ. I’m referring to the majority of spouses in stepfamilies who are doing their best but find themselves in second place, with their spouse deferring to and trusting the children rather than them.

I’m three to six months away from divorce at this point … I have always been #2 and after years of spiritual work and determined effort I’ve not been able to move to #1.

Respectfully,

Joe

Unfortunately, Joe encountered the Achilles’ heel of blended family integration—a biological parent who is unwilling to boldly move their spouse into a place of prominence in their heart and family. You simply will not bond or grow together in love if this dynamic is true in your marriage.

Joe referred to being #1 or #2. Talking about rank sometimes frightens biological parents because they think this means abandoning or neglecting their children. It unequivocally does not!

This isn’t about leaving anyone behind, but it is about prioritizing the marriage as a lifelong commitment and positioning the marriage as the parenting team and focal point for leadership in the home. Couples in first marriages raising their biological children do this, as well. Yes, they devote a great deal of time and energy to raising and nurturing their children, but the kids also know that Mom and Dad don’t hide things from each other, are deeply loyal to each other, and are a united team in leading the home. This understanding empowers the couple and provides stable leadership within the home.

Of course, in a biological family kids are as equally invested in their parents’ marriage as the couple is; that is, they want Mom and Dad to be loving and committed to each other. In a newly formed blended family, however, some children are threatened by the marriage and feel pushed aside by it. That means the first time Mom says, “I know I used to give you quick answers, but now I need to ask my husband what he thinks before making a decision,” they may challenge Mom’s effort to position the stepfather as a co-leader. And the first time she takes her husband’s side on an issue, they may hit the roof.

But she must do just that. If she does not, she tears the family’s Achilles’ heel.

However, if she does express and live out her commitment to her husband, she positions him and herself to parent from within the marriage. They must be a unified team or everything begins to crumble.

2. Adopt a Crockpot mindset.

Just because you’re engaged or newly married doesn’t mean you can accelerate your rocket to Passion Planet at light speed with the expectation that your children will also accelerate theirs. That would be trying to combine your stepfamily in a blender—quickly and with high velocity. It is far wiser to adopt a Crockpot pot cooking style—slowly with low heat.

The great paradox of adopting this approach to integrating your family ingredients is that it helps everyone relax about being family. No heavy pressure (which just invites resistance from kids). No upside-down “you need to take care of me by loving the people I’ve inserted into your life” burdensome messages from adults. No “forget your past, end your loyalties, and get happy now” crazy talk. Just calm “we respect your confusion and accept you anyway” patience and mature leadership. This, over time, paradoxically fosters openness and connection—just what you’re looking for.

Here are some contrasts to help you adopt a Crockpot strategy to family integration:

A blender mentality assumes that because children are happy that you’re getting married, they won’t ever also feel confused and sad by it. A Crockpot mentality expects some “hitting the brakes” reactions from the children at some point (weddings commonly bring this on).

A blender mentality forces children to call a stepfather “Daddy,” but a Crockpot mentality lets them decide on their own.

A blender mentality expects everyone to be happy with the new family, but a Crockpot one finds calm when there’s tension, knowing that they’re not done “cooking” yet.

A blender mentality expects that combining all holiday and other special-day traditions will make everyone pleased, but a Crockpot mentality says “try it and see,” knowing that it may take a few years to figure out what actually works.

A blender mentality makes children take down pictures of loved ones, but a Crockpot one encourages honoring deceased family members and staying connected with extended family.

A blender mentality assumes the adult children will “be mature about this,” but a Crockpot one gives them space to be hurt.

A blender mentality declares, “I do so much for them—I should get more respect than this,” but a Crockpot one says, “I give freely to my stepchildren and trust that with time they’ll show gratitude.”

A blender mentality says, “My kids should not have to be disappointed, so my new spouse will just have to deal with my catering to their pain,” but a Crockpot mentality says, “I can be loving to my kids and still allow them disappointment—besides, catering just keeps them stuck in their pain and doesn’t invite them to grow through it.”

If any of the above challenged your thinking or left a pit in your stomach, you’re catching on. Merging two families into one is not as simple as toasting bread. It’s more like discovering by trial and error a recipe for a casserole of ingredients you’ve never combined before. Getting smart about the process will help a great deal, but even then there are some things you’ll just have to discover with God’s help all on your own. Trust Him to show you how.

A final encouragement

You’re about to marry the wrong person. That doesn’t sound very encouraging, does it? Well, it really is. What is means is this: If you were perfect, you could pick and marry the right person. But since you’re not, you’ll pick the wrong person—who, of course, in God’s economy is the right person. That is, the right person to help God reveal what you didn’t know about your selfishness or frailties or limitations and to grow you beyond them.

Furthermore, God will use the journey of marriage and becoming a blended family to sharpen you, refine you, and teach you how to love with humility, sacrifice, and surrender, just as Christ has loved you. That is, God will do all these things if you will let Him.

I suggest you do.

Adapted from Dating and the Single Parent ©2012 by Ron L. Deal, published by Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Publishing Group, www.bakerpublishinggroup.com. Used with permission.

Michelle and Jackson called for an emergency premarital counseling session. “We’re getting married next month and I’m finally facing my jealousies,” Michelle said. “Jackson is very close to his 10-year-old daughter, as he should be, but it scares me. I don’t know why, but I’m jealous of her. I’m also jealous of the fact that when Jackson and I have a child together it will be my first, but not his. Nothing in our marriage will ever be the first.”

Michelle’s honesty was refreshing to me. Stepfamily members frequently experience some measure of jealousy within their home, but often don’t tell anyone out of embarrassment or shame. In my experience, that makes things worse; jealousy buried alive quietly erodes family relationships.

Jealousy and its close cousin, resentment, are not uncommon in stepfamilies. Differences in emotional connection and attachment between parents, stepparents, and children, for example, make jealousy a common emotion. Complex Old Testament families that mirror modern-day stepfamilies had similar dynamics. For example, Sarah, Abraham’s first wife had been expecting a baby promised by God. When she tired of waiting to become pregnant, she took matters into her own hands.

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

Genesis 16 tells us she came up with what to us would be a horrible option, but was a common practice in that day: She offered her maidservant, Hagar, to Abraham as his second wife so they could have the promised child through her. The plan went awry once Hagar became pregnant with Abraham’s son, Ishmael, and Hagar started belittling Sarah.

Instead of being fulfilled by Hagar’s child, Sarah felt challenged, insecure, jealous, and very angry. This ignited an ongoing rivalry between Sarah and Hagar. Later, when Sarah did have son Isaac, the rivalry escalated. Competition, jealousy, favoritism, and insecurity described their family experience for generations.

The root of the matter

Jealousy, called an act of the sinful nature (Galatians 5:20), is typically rooted in insecurity and fear. Sarah and Michelle alike found themselves jealous of their stepchildren for fear that what was special to them would not be as cherished by their husbands. Michelle was also jealous of all the “firsts” in Jackson’s life (e.g., first marriage, first pregnancy, first birth, first family holidays, etc.) that Michelle could not be part of.

How many women grow up fantasizing about being “second” in their husband’s life and heart? Since history can’t be changed, how can Michelle cope with what has come before her? How can she embrace her stepdaughter, her husband, and his past?

The grace paradox

Insecurity and jealousy tempts us to hold tight to relationships we deem fragile and compete with others for a position of importance. This intensifies their competition with us as they, too, fight for belonging. It activates the jealousy paradox: Fighting for position only garners resentment against you.

Overcoming the jealousy monster, then, begins with the willingness to trust the grace paradox which recognizes that having a gracious spirit toward others actually makes more room for you to be loved and embraced as well. Listen to the wisdom of Scripture: “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” (Proverbs 11:24-25, NIV)

The wisdom of this passage is that a gracious, generous spirit toward other stepfamily members invites relational prosperity. A spirit of competition, on the other hand, brings relational bankruptcy. Grace connects while possessiveness divides.

If Michelle is going to manage her jealousy, she must reach toward her stepdaughter, not away from her. She must be inclusive, accepting, and choose to be supportive of her stepdaughter’s relationship with her father, Michelle’s husband, Jackson. This gives permission to her stepdaughter’s place in the home and paradoxically will increase the grace Michelle receives as the new stepmom.

This same principle applies to Jackson’s past. Every time Michelle feels fearful that being “second” means she isn’t as important as she’d like, she must choose to give permission to Jackson’s past. She must find a way to incorporate it as a reality into her marriage, rather than try to deny it or minimize it. To do so only invites competition and fear. Acting on jealous feelings never diminishes jealousy. Acting on grace, however, does.

Be inclusive, filled with grace, not exclusive, filled with fear. That’s how you overcome the jealousy monster.

TAKING ACTION

If you’re ministering to stepfamilies:

When teaching from the Old Testament, look for the similarities in dynamics between the families of the Bible and modern-day stepfamilies. Many stepfamilies will find hope and relief that they are “not the only ones” while non-stepfamilies will be educated about the needs of their friends and extended family members.

©2012 by Ron Deal. All rights reserved.

One of the first things I fell in love with about my husband was his eyes. He has beautiful blue eyes, and in them I saw a peace and strength I couldn’t resist. I had no way of knowing then how important the look in his eyes would be to me 25 years into our marriage.

When I was first told that I was going to need a double mastectomy, I was initially shocked and scared about the surgery itself, and then I became scared about what the resulting scars would look like–what I would look like. I scoured the web for any information I could find on the subject. My family physician told me that compared to other surgeries, it wasn’t too bad. He said surgeries that go into a body cavity, like heart surgery or hip surgery, are much more invasive and much more difficult to recover from physically.

He also acknowledged that the emotional aspect could be significant. I searched all the Christian sites I could think of for information about how mastectomy might affect my married life, and I found nothing. I only had a week to decide whether to go for reconstruction, which would require more surgeries — moving muscles and fat from other parts of my body after my mastectomy — or whether to opt for wearing prosthetics after my surgery. It was all so overwhelming!

In the middle of all this confusion, my husband said an amazing thing to me: “You’re my wife. I love you, and that’s never going to change. I didn’t marry you for your breasts.”

He had actually said this to me immediately after the doctor told me I was going to need a mastectomy, but in the shock of the moment, it hadn’t sunk in like it should have. Now it did.

I let it all go — all the worries, all the stresses. I just trusted my husband to mean what he said, and I remembered that my breasts didn’t define who I was as a woman. I’m so much more than that. I am a daughter of God! I’m a wife. I’m a mom, a friend, a sister, and many other things. No surgery can remove those things. I decided to forgo reconstructive surgeries and go for the simpler process of wearing prosthetics after healing. I headed into surgery feeling pretty positive.

The “ick” factor

Just after my surgery, I had five or six drains — each the size and shape of a grenade — taped across my chest that would require almost constant draining, measuring, and care when I left the hospital and for weeks after that. My insurance would pay for a nurse to come to our house to do some of this, but my husband wanted to take care of the drains for me. I appreciated the thought behind his offer, but I was unsure about whether or not I was comfortable with him doing it because of the “ick” factor. It seemed very un-sexy and very unattractive.

Not only is it hard for me to accept help from anyone, but I was unsure about having my husband actually looking at my wounds, bandages, scars, etc. But he wanted to do it for me, and he talked me into it. A nurse was going to have to teach him how to do this, if he was going to learn how to take care of me. He was going to see the results of my mastectomy before I did. I hadn’t anticipated that happening, and I was dreading the unveiling!

The nurse came in to show him the procedure, and I felt quite helpless in the middle of their conversation. I didn’t even hear any of it. All I could focus on was my husband’s eyes. I was locked on them, watching for his reaction. All that was hanging in the balance was my self-image, how I knew he felt about me — everything! Would he be repulsed? Would he gag and run out?

The nurse started her explanation, and she said, “Now, remember not to pull on this, or it will hurt her. …” (Okay, I heard that!) I watched his eyes the whole time, and he never flinched. He never looked away! He was just focused on the task at hand and how to take care of me. He was fine with the new me.

Afraid to look

Now, how would I be with the new me? I’m not going to lie to you and say it was easy to go home from the hospital after surgery, look in the mirror, and say, “Oh, that’s not so bad!” It was a big change to my body. In fact, it probably took me a week to get up the nerve to actually look at myself. I was afraid to look.

Once it all healed up, though, it was time to get over myself. I looked in the mirror and thought, “I look like a skinny preadolescent boy!” And I did, sort of. Then I kept reminding myself what my husband said to me. I’m his wife, he loves me, and that’s never going to change! That helped so much.

But I had to be okay with how I looked. God tells us, “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:3–4). I have physically never been a rocking beauty. And that’s okay. I diet, exercise, and take care of what I have. But beauty, according to God, is who we are to Him. The real me was still there.

Wasted time

After a few weeks, my surgeon said that it would be okay for us to resume our sexual relationship. I was still concerned about how it would go with my husband—if he would be okay with me as I am, post-mastectomy, and if I would be okay with intimacy.

But my concerns were wasted time. I should have trusted my husband more, and I should have rested in God’s Word: “‘Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble’” (Matthew 6:34).

I had worried that my husband would not really be comfortable hugging me. I made a lame joke that when he hugged me, there was “nothing between us,” meaning that my chest no longer was “between us” and was making us stand slightly apart when we hugged. I couldn’t help but think of the Proverb that says to men, “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, … Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love” (Proverbs 5:18–19). Clearly, my breasts couldn’t satisfy him. Since he doesn’t look at pornography, he would never see a woman’s breasts again!

Open communication was needed, and it was the lifeline of our intimate relationship, the same as it is for every marriage. After we resumed intimacy, I simply asked him if he could still be happy with me, with my new body, and thankfully, he was. The insecurities were all mine, not his.

Still, to be completely honest, I wear tank tops, short nighties, lacy camisoles, or something on top — not for my husband’s sake, but for mine. I don’t want you to think more highly of me than you should. I am not overly fond of the scars I have.

The lifeline of any intimate relationship

Anyone with insecurities about body image can do something similar. Talk to your husband about how you feel. If you are shy, find a way still to be intimate with your husband and work with your shyness. Let your husband know how you feel so that he can be sensitive to your feelings as you work through them. Again, communication is the lifeline of any intimate relationship.

For all of you who struggle with body image issues, if you think you are overweight, too thin, too this, or too that, try to remember that your husband married you because he loves you. You are the one who is beautiful to him. He needs you to give yourself to him. Give yourself grace.

The flaws, as you perceive them, are probably minuscule in comparison to what you’re missing if you allow them to take away from having an amazing, fulfilling sexual relationship with your man. Discuss your insecurities with him. Remember that outward beauty is a fleeting thing, and that real beauty is your inner self, a gentle and quiet spirit. And for me, I just keep reminding myself that I’m his wife, he loves me, and that’s never going to change. And I still love that peace and strength I first loved in his eyes!

My tip for you today is this: Send an email to your husband today — yes, today — and say, “Hey, babe, how about tonight we put some wear and tear on our marriage license?” And then be sure and follow through with it because as Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Blessings to you, and don’t forget to schedule your mammogram on a regular basis!

© 2011 by Suzanne Thomas. All rights reserved.

Following are reader responses to the Marriage Memo of June 18, 2012, “Fifty Shades of Caution,” by Dave Boehi. You can read additional comments at the end of the online article.

1. I totally agree with you.   Thanks for the warning about this book.   I haven’t really heard much about it until I recently read comments on a friend’s Facebook page declaring she would NOT be reading the book & gave a link to information from a Christian woman’s perspective about the book. I was shocked at the comments people gave whom claim to be Christians.

Although, to me, their responses showed they must have conviction & were trying to justify their decision to read it. I believe the Bible is very clear that we are to flee even a hint of sexually immorality; therefore anything involving sexual acts of any nature outside the confines of marriage is wrong. My marriage has been affected by pornography so I know firsthand the effect that can cause on a marriage. It is very painful, and I do agree with you that this book is no different than what porn is for a man. I would not want to allow Satan to trap me the way he has trapped my husband in the past; therefore, this book is definitely not for me or anyone in my household. Again, thanks for the information!

2. I heard so much about the book so being an avid reader I considered purchasing a copy. However, I check to see what a book is about and I was quite surprised about this 50 Shades of Grey. I agree the subject matter could lead down that slippery slope towards trashy novels and porn. I had no interest in the book after I investigated. You are right on point with your comments. I will share your remarks with the women in my church, our director of Christian Education and the Pastor.

3. It’s funny that this subject should come up … I heard about the book from many friends and decided to start reading it too see what all the fuss was about … in the beginning it was intriguing … then as I approached the middle of the book I started to feel uncomfortable reading it … had mentioned that to a friend and she shook it off as though I need to let go of my prudishness … well needless to say i did not continue on to finish the book, it just didn’t feel right to me. So funny how God justifies my feelings by receiving this email.

4. Thank you so much for this article that provides great truth and insight. I recently have been told about this book by a few friends and encouraged to read it during my down time this summer. While on vacation I visited a book store and remembered their recommendation. I looked for the book and quickly learned how popular it is by the fact that it was sold out. However, one of the sequels was available so I picked it up and read the cover. I was somewhat shocked just by the outside cover and all it alluded to within the pages. I randomly flipped to one page and did not even finish the first couple of sentences. Needless to say, I do not have any desire to read the books.

5. I have a counseling background but currently do not practice; instead I choose to be with my four daughters right now. I do teach adjunct at a local university and one of the classes I teach is Marriage and Family. I speak openly about pornography and how it is something both men and women are prey to. The class as a whole typically does not anticipate where I go with this as they assume I am referring to pictures.

However, I tell them that ladies are just as susceptible but from a mental image, not so much visual. God created us differently and men do respond more to visual stimulation which is where the basic thought of pornography comes into play. However, women were created to be stimulated more through our minds and this is where pornography can grab us with erotic love stories. Though it is never one’s intention (the same said for a man), a woman quickly develops an unrealistic expectation of what a physical relationship should be with a man and is greatly disappointed when the mental image is not met. Thus, she plunges herself more into romance novels which further tears her apart from the relationship with her husband that God intended.

My students are shocked when I present this to them as most have never had it spelled out to them this way. So few of the female students have ever been discouraged from reading romance novels.

While I was at the store, I ambled through the fiction section and was greatly saddened by the amount of similar books I could quickly find. We, as women, feel betrayed and angry when our husbands look at other women in magazines or the internet but rarely see that the same should be said of our husbands when they see us feeling our minds with such unrealistic and unholy things.

All this to say, I so greatly appreciate you sharing your experience and your perspective. It may be part of the top 3 NY bestsellers but I will not be one that supports it being there.

6. Thanks for the thoughts on this book. I’ve heard a lot about it in different social circles and although I had already basically made up my mind not to read it, I appreciate the reinforcement of why. It’s always nice when the Christian community speaks out about something like this, rather than everyone just looking the other way!

7. I agree 100%. “What does light have to do with darkness?” We must stand firm in all things we do, even in or own home.

8. I thought this was an excellent Marriage Memo and the timing was perfect. I lead a women’s group in my church and last Wednesday evening we got into a pretty good discussion surrounding the topic of this book. Let be clear to say that I have not read the book, and before last week I thought it was some new show that people were talking about.

One of my closest friends received the book as a gift from a family member with a note that said she had to read this book. She loves to read, and she saw some of her friends posting messages on Facebook about how great this book is. She did a little bit of research with her friends and found out what this book was about and decided not to read it.

Another close friend of mine that has struggled with pornography in the past informed me this book comes up on her e-reader as a suggested book to read, but said she read the first 2 sentences of the “What this book is about” section and instantly decided not to purchase it.

I brought up the topic in our women’s group at church and I was amazed at the number of women that have been invited into a book club just for the purpose of talking about this book, and who were invited by Christian friends. They said they heard that it was helping their sexual desire towards their husbands. It was a discussion that started out as calling for us women to be the kind of woman in Titus, and being careful not to get ensnared by desires of the flesh that will only satisfy worldly desires. It ended on a negative note for the first time in five years. I was told that I was being too judgmental about a book that I had not read.

I am thankful for the timing of this Marriage Memo and the blog link was also really good.

9. I have read the books. As I began to read I was a bit disgusted but as the series progressed, the wholesome, pure Ana helped Mr. Grey heal and develop a “healthy relationship”.  I am not a fan of that type of lifestyle but I also feel that what a consenting couple does in their own privacy is between them. Who are we to judge another sexual acts?

I am a Christian woman who is a social worker. I have learned that my personal biases cannot affect how I help my clients. These books have enlightened me to the pains that people may have and life practices they develop due to their childhood experiences. I read many books and research topics about drugs, sex, the LGBT population and others so that I can be knowledgeable to be a productive worker.

I could talk about this in great length and discuss the pros and cons of the book. The bottom line is that it opened my eyes to what I am sure many people have experienced in their lives that I have been sheltered and protected from. We as Christians are never to judge anyone and I am sure that I will work with many people like Christian Grey and I now have an insight to how I can empathize and help those individuals.

10. Thank you for this article. All the women at my gym are buzzing about this book. They are loaning it to each other & telling (very specifically) how it affects them. I knew just from their descriptions that this was not something that I should read. Thank you for shedding light on the sinfulness and dangers of this book. I know many are falling in to this willingly.

Amen, I have no desire (pun intended) to read what sounds like another assault on our values and invite more sin into my life. “For I know the plans I have for you,” Declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

11. In response to your marriage memo, Fifty Shades of Caution, I must say I am a little bit disgusted by all the fervor over these books. I am a librarian in Iowa, so it’s the topic of many discussions recently, including more than one staff meeting. Reading fiction books in particular is generally simply for entertainment. How can a woman of faith entertain herself with that kind of material? In order to avoid “censorship”, most libraries cannot deny a 12-year-old girl who comes into the library the right to read that book. Fortunately, ours is a small town and we aren’t nearly as worried about censorship as the bigger libraries. But as a parent, would you seriously want your pre-adolescent or adolescent daughter, or son for that matter, reading this kind of material? (Because if they have a library card, they may already be reading it) And if not, then how can you justify it for yourself?

Most women would tell you they don’t like their husbands putting up calendars with half-naked, provocatively posed young women. How is reading this any different for women?

Thank you for your encouragement for women and men. In future articles you may wish to considering some statistics of the % of men/women who struggle w pornography. 85-95% of all men and 45-65% of all women including Christians, Pastors, etc. Such information brings to light the intensity of the problem in our society.

Thank you again and may God continue to fill your heart w encouraging words of wisdom to share.

12. I agree 100%. I have sin when I read over half of the first book of Fifty Shades of Grey. It was very easy to get sucked into the book. It’s everywhere, it’s easy to read, and it’s most talked about. My husband struggled with a porn addiction for many years and beat it in January 2011 and here I was reading this smut and actually telling him about it, and each time I did he would just turn his head and say, “Do you really think you should be reading that book?” as he was reading from his Bible.

It wasn’t until 3/4 thru that I told myself NO I should not be reading this kind of book. Deleted it off my tablet, asked God for forgiveness and picked up my Bible. It can be a tough fight for some woman and I assume just as tough as the porn addiction my husband had beat. So for now we are both winners.

Thank you so much for writing this! I completely agree with you, and have been disgusted at the amount of people I know that are talking about and reading this book.

13. I do feel tempted to read this book…because everyone else is. Silly reason,right? I just keep reminding myself that some friends of mine said how poorly it is written as well as knowing that I shouldn’t read it. Thanks for the encouragement to stand firm.

As one who has struggled with an addiction to romantic fiction, I have come to believe that this genre is the female version of pornography. My husband dealt with an addiction to pornography and, after reading more on the subject because so many men of our acquaintance–Christian and non-Christian struggle with this issue, I see many of the same factors in operation here.

I would love to see some–ANY–research that has been done on this subject as I feel it is a danger to women and their relationships that is very rarely recognized much less discussed. It sets women up for failure and disappointment as very few real men will be as “perfect” as the fictional characters (even when presented flawed they are made to appear romantic). The enemy will continue to push this button for years after you walk away from it and will continue to plant negative thoughts about your spouse. It takes much effort to continually “take every thought captive” in this area but it is most necessary.

14. I can’t begin to imagine what would happen if women became as deluded about sexual perversion as so many men are. For the sake of our Lord and of our families, the real truth needs to get out.

Thank you for addressing this! I have had a real concern about this and how Satan is using this to destroy marriages the same way that pornography does! People think because they aren’t looking at things that it is okay. Another concern I have over it is teenage girls reading it. Thank you for all you do!!

15. Thank you so much for writing this! It is sad to see all of my sisters and friends running after this book to be in the discussion.

16. Thank you for addressing this topic. I did see a conversation just a few days ago on Facebook, in which women were bragging up “Shades of Grey.” It was the first I had heard about it. I wasn’t really sure what some of the comments were referring to, but I sensed that it was not a God-honoring book, as words “pornography” and “dominance” were mentioned. It caused me to wonder why some of the women that are Christians were planning to read it. Your column has given me a better understanding of what the book may be about, as well as a Biblical perspective on the type of behavior ensued.

17. I thought this info was great, there are women I work with in a beauty salon who are reading and talking about this book, they had told me I needed to get it or read theirs when they were done … I’m glad for this email so I won’t have to waste my time on reading trash!

18. Loved this article! Thank you for being so clear about God’s plan for sex in marriage, and for putting the “black and white” in this area for women. FamilyLife has been such a blessing in our marriage, thank you!!

19. I agree 100 percent. I heard an interview with the author and knew right then that Fifty Shades of Grey was not a book I would read.

20. Great! A topic that really needed to be addressed! Thanks.

21. I had not even heard of this book until Friday and was so glad to see that my advise to the 2 young moms lined up with your views, and , more important, with Biblical ideas.

It saddens me to know that this is the kind of literature we are filling our minds with

Thank you for all your work on these articles. I forward them to many young moms and couples in our church

22. You are a man, but you are right on with this issue, Dave!! I remember being introduced to paperback romance novels by ‘school friends’ when in jr. high school and it led to a “chapter” of my life where it was hard to focus on right thinking and pure thoughts, and this was only solved by seeking the forgiveness of the Lord and getting rid of those books. We do have a great God!

But I would caution others that it is too easy to become dissatisfied with your life, especially by comparing your spouse to these impossible romantic fantasies, and we are called to be grateful and content with one another, and recognize our spouse for the gift that they are in our lives, and basically put God on the throne of our lives instead of sensual gratification being most important.

23. I’m a Christian woman and I read all three books. I personally don’t think there is nothing wrong. As a matter of fact my husband is reading it now and our marriage is getting closer with each other, something that was gone for so long.

24. Thank you and Family Life for once again standing strong on the only principals which never fail: the Word of God! Thanks, too, for being a warning beacon for unsuspecting women. As moral values continue to shift we need more people willing to speak up. Of course this downward moral spiral is nothing new. Anyone who has studied or read about the Roman empire already knows where this path leads if history does in fact repeat itself.

As a former guest privileged to be in your radio broadcast, regarding the flip side of this very issue, my heart breaks. Though my book, Hope After Betrayal, deals with the pain of a wife being betrayed, the damage to a marriage is certainly the same. What feels significant is that women believe they are somehow immune to the dangers of filling their minds with evil. I would like to say I’m shocked, but the philosophical supports, double standard, and justifications, for this type of material were put in place long before the words of “Shades of Grey” were ever penned. The women’s movement has systematically devalued and belittled the role women were created to fill in the home.

For the past 30 years women have been fed a constant diet of marketing, books, litigation, TV shows, and movies with the same themes: “Men are stupid and need to be led by women. They are dogs and only think with one organ, other than their brain. They are no help around the house. Women are the truly enlightened and superior because they give birth.” I don’t see a true desire for equality, instead feminists have settled for creating equal opportunities to do the same selfish things that men do. Women’s lib has become more about women using their sexuality as a weapon to hold men down. We want to stand up and put our six-inch stiletto in the backs of as many men as possible. It sounds like this book, gives women more of what they have been clamoring for–Sex in the City, Desperate Housewives, and GCB’s. No, I haven’t read it, but I don’t need to drink poison to know it kills.

The enemy will always lead us to self gratification. It’s the only lure the temporal has. Sadly, selfishness is short-lived ultimately leading to isolation and pain. God is the only one who satisfies the soul and answers the hard questions of life. “Do I have value? Is there a purpose?” and “What do I do with all the pain?” In Christ alone is our value, because the God of Everything said, “I love you.” God alone created and can guide us into our individual purpose. And even while we were yet broken and messed up, He reached down to pay the price in our place and He alone can carry and heal the pain. What’s even more amazing, He can use it for good, I know this very well.

25. A very good article. We haven’t read the book but as marriage educators and counsellors, the temptation is there. Your insights should be enough for thinking Christians, and even non-Christians who believe in the sanctity of their marriage, to bypass this book for the right reasons. Keep up the great work and keep the articles coming – they are very helpful to educators like ourselves.

26. Excellent! As I read your article, I wanted to tell you about Dannah Gresh’s blog, and was delighted to see that you included the link. Thank you for speaking out on this topic. Thank you for Family Life!

27. Thank you so much for the encouraging message about not reading fifty shades of grey! I have felt pressure from my friends over the past few weeks to read the series, but was pretty positive I didn’t want to. This email confirmed my decision and was just the encouragement I needed at just the right time. It also made me aware that I should encourage others to guard their hearts and minds and marriages by not reading the series or other similar books. Thank you for all that you do!

28. God bless you all for this healthy warning that you are spreading around. This is so important.

29. Thank you for writing about this and telling us what the book, “Fifty Shades of Grey” is about. I heard some women at my workplace, which is a professional health clinic, talking about it, but didn’t know anything about it. I don’t read much fiction anyway. It’s a real shame and eye-opener if any Christian woman or girl would spend and waste her time reading such a book.

I agree with what you and the others quoted in your article say about it and marriage. When someone reads or watches this kind of material, it just drags them down into the muck that Satan would like us to indulge ourselves in and either makes us feel guilty or deadens our conscience.

A book I would recommend reading to any Christian woman or man, which I just started reading after joining a new study class at church, is “Radical” by David Platt. If we think or want to be true followers of Christ, like many in other countries are having to do in secret or risking their lives to do, read and think about what he says. It’s true that we may think we are Christians in our culture, but would we be able to have the courage to be in other countries or cultures. Have we molded and made our Christianity to what we think it is, instead of what God wants us to be?

30. I think you are right on target! Thank you for writing this

31. Thank you for writing this. I really hope lots of women (& men) will read it. I have heard of the book & have heard enough comments to know for a fact that I do not want to read it. Thankfully, I have not be invited to participate in any discussions about it either. I would have to just state that I don’t want to read it & walk away. Please continue to write to us (& for us). We do read the emails & appreciate them very much.

32. I totally agree with everything you have said on this subject. I have Christian friends who are reading this series and bragging about how much sex they are having with their husbands. One of them is even going to read it to her husband. It makes me think of Eve taking the fruit and then giving to Adam. I sent the friend an email and had an attachment of another Christian article that was giving a Christian perspective on the books. I told her I thought she might want to read a Christian perspective on the books. She was very upset and said she was still going to read them to her husband.

I really feel like our relationship was already strained lately, but I felt that I must tell her somehow that it wasn’t right. I would want her to tell me if I was on a path that could come between me and God. Thank you for speaking out on these books. Very sad that Christian women are allowing Satan the chance to make them think “Did God really say?”.

Thank you. This is a topic I have struggled with for a long time. If I read a “romance novel” but am only with my husband is it wrong? I think so. As stated, the only person that should “turn me on” should be my husband. If that is not the case, we need to work on something. Thank you again.

33. I am so glad you wrote an article on this book to caution women from reading it. I, too, saw it all over the place, in stores, Pinterest, etc. and that people said it was the best book of the year and all of that. So, I googled it to see what it was about … boy was I surprised.

I saw comments about the book being extremely sexual and was immediately assured NOT to read it. I don’t know everything, but I have had experience with people with sexual addiction and so I am aware that books like this are like female porn…and to stay away!

However, if women haven’t seen the pain and destruction that porn causes for men, they might not think it’s a big deal to read the book. I am glad you wrote the article to educate Christian woman to consider these things…the verse about thinking about pure things definitely makes the decision pretty clear. Thanks again and keep doing what you do! My husband and I appreciate your Marriage Memos!

34. I am a Christian woman who has read 2 of the books … I agree, it is rather taboo for the Christian community … but here’s a question I have … not trying to defend my actions, but not really certain that they are “bad” actions if the effects are non-existent. Christian women are urged not to read such material, as it is harmful to our marriages, so I have for the most part honored what I’ve been taught.  So I’ll start of by saying I don’t make a habit of reading romance books, but occasionally I do find it relaxing to lose myself in such a book (not as sexually explicit as Fifty Shades!) (maybe 1 or 2 a year at most) …

The difference between a woman (at least myself anyway) and men struggling with pornography and lust, is that for a man, it seems to be such a controlling temptation and addiction that continuously comes back to haunt him and is always “driving” for more. As a woman, I am not wired that way, I can separate myself from the story and do not struggle with the material that I am reading … I don’t find myself attracted to the main character, or wanting my husband to behave, look, interact, etc. like the character in the book, or change in any way because of what I’ve read. The book did stir desire in me, (it is littered with sexual scenarios between the two characters) but my desire is only for my husband, we have been married for 15 years, happily and have both always been sexually satisfied with only each other … I did not fantasize in any way because I read this book.

It really is very different for women. I was intrigued by the book for the relationship aspect and to see his “demons” being healed and his unhealthy desires leaving him as he falls in love with this “normal” woman (it’s the romantic aspect of the book that usually draws women)…

I haven’t read book 3, I’ve had every opportunity to if I wanted, it’s been about 3 months since I read the first two, but the drive or desire is not even there, I was in no way “controlled” or “needing” to read more … as it could be for a man with such or other material … please know I am not trying to defend in any way, I just curious if it is really fair to compare a man watching pornography and woman reading romance novels…

35. Thank you for this. I was thinking of reading this book solely bc it was so popular. I had no idea what it was about but it’s popularity should have been a red flag in itself. Anyway thank you for saving me from purchasing ungodly material. I typically research before I buy so I might have found out on my own but if I’m lazy or in a super busy time in my life I’ll just order and regret it later.

No regrets for me. I’m not buying or reading the book. Thank you for a fantastic article. I forwarded it to my mom.

36. Thank you so much for the wonderful article. I have rejected even looking at this book, but it is hard when so many outside influences are bombarding you – including other Christian women. I will stand firm and not allow myself to be caught up in all the hype.

37. This is great information. I wish every young woman and women in general could receive this advice. I am sending it on to my daughters and hope they will share it with there daughters.

38. Wow! I so needed this one. I have had girlfriends asking me about this book and whether they should read it or not. I felt like a prude in a sense but I brought up many of the same points to them that you included here. This affirmed in me my decision to avoid this book and encourage my Christian friends to do the same. Thanks so much for your insights–very helpful.

39. I appreciate your comments on this book and how I need to be watchful and stand firm in faith. What does a woman do if her partner/spouse doesn’t want/desire to be intimate? My husband and I seem to have the completely opposite relationship of most women I know. I want to be with my husband, but he never does–always an excuse I’m tired, not now–or just rolls his eyes at me. I could cry … this September we will be married 15 years, we have 2 beautiful children (twins age 9). This has been going on the majority of our marriage, especially after going through 5 years of infertility and having to do in vitro. I know my husband loves me…..I just constantly feel rejected? I have read books like this and only feel more frustrated, so I know now to stand firm in faith. Satan sure gets his dirty hands into everything doesn’t he?

40. All I can say is, “Bravo!” I hadn’t heard of this book or author but one of my Christian friends/authors/blogger, Dawn Marie Wilson, had placed a similar post on Facebook about it warning women that we avoid the popular view to read it. I commended her for her stance. I sent her your article to encourage her since she had had some uncomfortable moments prior to posting. Thank you for standing in the gap for women and men today who need a compass in our sexual lives!

41. THANK YOU!!! I was shopping in Costco the other day and they had a huge pile of this book. I stopped to look at it since I’ve heard so many people talking about reading it. I almost bought it not really knowing what it was about. Your article made me so very thankful to the Lord that I did not buy it!!! Thank you again for your indepth article about this book. I’ll be able to warn others when they ask me about it!

42. I honestly could write a book like that!! I lived a liberal, promiscuous lifestyle for many years in my youth, teens, 20’s, 30’s, and a few of my 40’s. I loved the Lord but didn’t KNOW Him, and struggled with sexual sin even though I’d battled and won (with His power) eating disorders, drugs, alcohol, I still couldn’t shake the desire for sex outside of marriage. I went through 4 marriages, many other short- and long-term relationships, I began to repent, grow closer to Him, and put aside my human appetites, my need to be wanted and loved by whomever, whenever…and finally found THE man that God wanted for me; my current and forever husband and mate and lover. God heard both of our cries and put us together in a really wonderful way.

No, we don’t have a perfect marriage nor love life. Sometimes we fail badly at it, haha, but we both have come from similar lifestyles, backgrounds and pasts and we both desire to please the Lord, one another, and raise our children to know the difference. We are as honest as we can be with whomever asks about our lives, past and present, except of course, for details.

I am happy to say I am free of all that the enemy wanted to destroy me with and I continue to work daily on my relationship with Christ, with my spouse, with others (boundaries, etc.) and forgiveness of others who had hurt me and repentance for hurting others.

43. Thank you for addressing the 50 Shades of Grey issue that seems to be catching so many women. My group of female friends doesn’t fully understand why I refuse to read it, but I agree with you wholeheartedly about allowing the wrong messages into our minds – something I have spent a significant amount of reflection time upon after leaving a very abusive marriage.

I think there may be another issue with this series of books. The 50 Shades story was originally written as a piece of FanFiction based on the Twilight novels—books that were intended for teens, and was available on the Internet to read for free under the title “Master of the Universe.” The history/back-story of these novels may make this series more visible to teens. I am concerned that the message in this 50 Shades series l is very dangerous to teens beginning to develop a sense of what a dating relationship means, and could lead to a higher propensity to accept and/or allow abusive behavior. Jean Kilbourne has done quite a bit of work researching and exposing the messages we are all receiving every day about women and teen girls through various forms of media, in her “Killing Us Softly” series. The problem seems so big, and these messages are just about everywhere we go, but knowing God’s truth and recognizing the false messages as just that – false – can make a big difference.

44. Thanks for this issue. I got wind of 50 Shades of Grey from a couple of my family members without any detail other than it was on the best sellers list. I went on Amazon and reviewed the book as well and decided this was NOT something I needed to read as a Christian and especially as a wife. It is unfortunate, that some wives are vacillating with the idea of whether to read this or not. I truly believe that their time would be better spent investing in their spouses than opening the door for sin ease its way in. There are some ungodly spirits behind 50 Shades of Grey and I’d rather not take the chance of any of those spirits taking hold in my marriage.

45. Thank you for writing about this! So much attention is given to men and their temptations with pornography but not much is said for the women who are tempted by erotic (“romantic”) fiction. Perhaps society, even the Christian community, deems romance novels as less harmful but they are not! Dwelling on the romance of others can set up unrealistic expectations of wives for their husbands—to be sexy, strong lovers who will sweep them off their feet as their every need is somehow amazingly divined and fully met. And men aren’t the only ones who deal with the temptation of lust!

I think each of your points was spot-on and Spirit led and it sounds like the good beginning of a new book! Women too need to be challenged to stand firm, avoid temptation, be in the world but not of it, and strive to not let peer pressure or their own lusts tempt them away from their husbands and their loving Savior. Thank you again for standing up for what is right!

46. Glad you asked for a response because I really wanted to respond! I really wanted to say thank you for bringing this up. I just recently had two people ask me if I’d read the book. After the first person asked me I admitted that I really didn’t know a lot about it. Then an article came out in the local paper titled, “fifty shades of green” and talked about how the adult stores in NJ have been picking up business because of the book. I then had a better idea of what the book was about. Still, after the second person asked me I gave it a thought and put it on my mental list of possible summer reads, I was going to check with my sisters to see if they had started to read them. Well, I am glad you sent out your letter because I know the problems of pornography and I want nothing to do with anything related,

I am always so thankful for your articles which offer insight and wisdom in regards to Christian marriage. I especially appreciate your boldness in writing this article. Although I did not know what the book was about, I have heard a lot mentioned about it. I’m so grateful for your willingness to speak the truth and warn people about the dangers of such influences. It saddens me to think of how many people are falling into this sinful trap. If given the opportunity, I will pass along these words of caution. Thank you for being salt and light!

47. Your timing with this article is particularly interesting to me because of a conversation I was involved in this past Friday night.

Our small group had a “Girls Night Out” at one member’s home and this topic came up. Of the 10 of us, 7 admitted to already having read the first book and elaborated on the fact that there are supposed to be 2 more to follow, etc. I had heard of the name, but honestly had no idea what it was about. As they began to tell me about it, I was FLOORED. I could not believe that they were justifying reading it and actually talking about it and “dumbing it down” to make themselves feel better.

I was one of 2 girls that voiced a negative opinion on it…..about 4 others were too intimidated to say anything. I went away feeling embarrassed and deeply saddened by the conversation we all had. I guess I was just really surprised that it did not seem to be that big of a deal to a few of the girls….especially that particular kind of sexual content. Please hear me when I say that I am a sinner just like all of them and I have areas where I need to be more disciplined and focused. I do not pretend that I am better than them or more godly……In this case, it was a “no brainer” for me. Thanks for addressing this issue. I am glad that we share the same opinion on this topic and it is more evident to me now than ever that this needs to be addressed by our churches as well. Thanks for the ministry that you have and all that you pour into the mission of trying to keep marriages together.

48. bullseye and amen

49. Thank you for sharing this info! I’m sending this to the women I lead in Bible study @ church right now! Thanks, also for holding us all accountable!

50. Thanks for the article on Fifty Shades of Gray. I saw the 20/20 interview with the author several weeks ago and was quite appalled at the whole thing. The most shocking statement the author made was along the lines of, “I hope my teenage sons don’t read it. I would be really embarrassed.” I thought, who is she kidding? One of the hottest books on the market and she doesn’t think her sons will read it?!

51. It is very encouraging to hear someone disagree with reading this book. I work at a hospital and all the nurses I work around have been raving about this book and asking if I have read it. I of course say no I have heard a little about the context and have no desire to waste my time with such garbage. Perhaps I was a bit harsh, or so they thought but garbage is exactly what I think of these books. One of my good nurse friends fell into the trap of curiosity and began reading to just see what everyone was so obsessed with. I am happy to say not far into the book she told me she had come to her senses and stopped reading it. I am grateful she did not continue reading it and pray that others will do the same or even better not start at all.

52. My answer is: when a man and a women come together with the mutual intention to show their love for each other tenderly, with the energy, that is the vibration, of love, they connect with one another and with our Creator God.

If the energy is that of self-pleasuring, lust, it is as far away from God as one can get. I pray that my Husband would read all of your words of wisdom, and stop looking at porn. So far, he justifies it, he simply likes to look. I continue to pray.

53. So glad you addressed this! I am appalled & surprised that so many women are reading this. I read the summary on the back of the first novel & knew to stay away. Thank you so much 🙂

54. I completely agree. We are to guard our hearts…and sexual immorality is the only sin we are not told to stand and fight. From it, we are to FLEE! And note, it doesn’t say, “actively having an affair.” It says “immorality.” And if your mind is involved in sexual relations outside your marriage, you just have to ask yourself: isn’t that immoral? (And would you think it was if it were your HUSBAND doing the thinking?!)

I can’t remember where I heard it: a psychologist compared “bodice ripper” novels to pornography, saying that they are the SINGLE greatest threat to marriage she sees because they set up unrealistic expectations for our husbands. The guy in the novel knows just what to do and when; it’s the emotional equivalent of unrealistic-looking women in porn.

Thanks for the article. It explains FOR me why I don’t read, watch, or listen to such things. It just doesn’t fit into “whatever!” (Phil. 4:8)

55. I agree with your assessment and have found that I have erotic thoughts after viewing some television scenes. We don’t realize that our spirit is sometimes penetrated by this material, especially when we have not guarded ourselves against it. By the way, your writings and ministry are so powerful. Do you have any diverse material or conferences for single women. I am a 45 year old Christian, professional, African American woman who has been divorced twice if this information is helpful.

56. Awesome article about the stupid (thanks for letting me be frank) tool Satan is using in America these days. WE deal with so much Moral Failure that I’m thankful to pass this on to many!! I’m going to point others to in our FB page. Satan works to steal, kill & destroy (John 10:10) in areas of emotional, spiritual and physical unity and openness in marriage. It just makes me cringe to know about this book. Our 18 year old daughter Emma, is working part-time at Target stores and she says they can’t seem to keep it on the shelves. She hates seeing women buy it every day.

57. THANK YOU for writing this email. Almost all of our female friends are reading this. My wife has stood strong and refused to read it but this is definitely something we both needed to hear to confirm what we were thinking.

58. I think you are spot-on. In my younger days, I was a huge lover of pornography as presented in materials like Playboy, Hustler, et al. They certainly turned me on, but sure did nothing for my marriage. I’ll let it go at that. Today I am in my early 60s, and through the grace of Good, have become much wiser – and stronger.

59. Aside from this blatantly sinful book (I really don’t think this book deserves any more comment), written by a secular author, I have seen the negative effects of the popular “Christian” romance novels. This is where the desire to even consider a book such as this begins. Sure, these seem innocent and they are not usually overly graphic, but they still strike up feelings and desires for something one does not have and in effect, makes you desire the man in the novel under the guise of wanting her to notice him or marry him. It leaves you wanting more, as shown by the intense desire of church women and girls just thirsting (lusting) after the next in the series.

You may never hear any other women saying negative things about these books. They either don’t see it or do not want to admit what they really result in doing to them. It is only the very beginning. I find these novels very distasteful (and sinful) on so many levels. Even though these types of books were (and perhaps still are…I don’t read them) popular in church circles and within my family, I chose to throw out all of the ones that I had been given and I will NEVER let my young daughters read this type of book.

I will warn them that they are not truly Godly material to fill their minds with. I have never regretted throwing them away. I have told my husband what they contain and what they put into a female’s mind. He agreed with me that it was good to have thrown them out. I count these in the same category as books like Harlequin romance (you can see enough on the cover to know it is no good) and Danielle Steele (which I inadvertently was introduced to through a library order mix up as a young teen…Yikes! I returned it promptly with a letter), etc.

I find that some of the covers to these supposed “Christian” romance novels are similar to those secular books that I have already mentioned. You can find them and see them promoted in ANY church library as being good and wholesome. That is wrong! You can DEFINITELY tell a book by its cover in a lot of these cases (although not all…some look innocent), just as you can many of the popular movies and popular books of today. You have to really be blind (aka have a seared mind) to God’s guidelines to accept the evil in some of those when it is apparent by the depictions of demons, demonic eyes and otherworldly creatures on the cover or in the ads.

For example, I am sure that you are familiar with many (and most likely will disagree with me here, as they are widely accepted in Christian circles)…Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, Star Wars and Star Trek, and so on. The Narnia series is also dangerous, because it introduces children to evil in a very subtle, acceptable (which I don’t understand why it is so) form. The Bible is what is true and inspired. Many will say about this series “…just a book…It isn’t real, after all, it’s just fiction…it parallels the bible…but C. S. Lewis wrote it.” thinking that this gives it credibility. What they neglect to acknowledge is that it mixes in mythology and introduces children to evil and makes them hunger for more of the same.

Walt Disney features are full of these subtle and not so subtle things, but we have been conditioned from childhood to overlook it. I was a faithful Disney watcher in my childhood years, but am very careful to screen anything that my children watch or read now that I am a parent. It starts even more subtly than most people think. It is in this same category of hidden sinful dangers. These desires start out as seemingly innocent curiosity…sometimes pushed on children by adults, but we need to protect our children from the very beginning…and we as parents need to guard our minds against even these “hidden” things.

I have a sister who faithfully devoured all of the “Christian” romance novels that she could get ahold of. To this day, she is still looking for the “perfect” man…one who is not real and one whose wonderful traits are those from these novels. Her view of what the “perfect” man for her has been severely tainted by these books. Her desire is for something that is not attainable. I for one have read a few of these books in my very young teen years because they were the thing to read and were given to me as presents by various family members. I know what ideas that they truly put into a young (and older) woman’s mind, and they are not God honoring. I was not impressed, even as a young single woman with the content, thoughts and desires these put into (or awakened in) me. I was glad that I took action and threw them away, and instead, waited for God’s design for me…not one of fiction. Satan works in lives by putting something very subtle in from of our eyes…calling it “good and wholesome,” then a little worse, then a bit more, conditioning our minds (and, being scientifically proven…searing them…as the Bible states), so that we will be willing to engage in further sinful activities with less guilt…even if it doesn’t go further than our minds. It is still sin and it is still wrong. It affects those who read more than some want to admit. By writing your article, you will get many hateful responses. These will be from women who have gone down that path of, well, it is Christian, it is “clean” it is good…to reading novels of this sort. The appetite only grows once you start down this path (no matter if it is a book of a sexual nature or one of mythical/Satanic substance) and it is a very dangerous one.

Those who sin love to have company. I am always hesitant about anything popular, book, movie, or otherwise. It is always my first red flag. I take a step back and try to examine, with biblical principles as my guide, why it is so and why everyone just HAS to read or see it. If it doesn’t measure up, it is not to be viewed by me or any member of my family, even when others say how wonderful it is and dismiss our concerns as overkill. God’s ways are narrow and it is of utmost importance to see to it that we abide by the guidelines that He has given us. Sometimes the cover, as I said before, tells the true story…but the observer’s mind is seared and they no longer have the ability to separate right from wrong, good from evil and so starts the downward spiral.

I appreciate the verse that you included in your article. One that we use as our guideline for EVERYTHING that we do here is James 4:17. Our children know it well, as we discuss it and its implications in all situations, often. It is not a well known and recited (and if it was, not a well liked or followed) verse, but it is a very all inclusive, very cutting one, getting to the heart of every decision, action and thought. It reads: “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” This verse covers all.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you what my view is of not only this book, but the popular books and movies as well. They go together as whatever we see and hear affects our minds in either a Godly way or sinful way. I only wish more women saw it this way.

I would like to thank you for the work you do and the free advice and encouragement that you send to my inbox so often.

As a teenager, I was startled by an older friend’s observation to me: “Your parents are some of the most generous people I’ve ever known.” My first thought was, My parents don’t have the money to be generous. By this time, I was aware that a rented John Deere combine didn’t exactly harvest cash.

Throughout my childhood, my family feasted on the quality-rich life—financially not so much—of our family farm. Our elderly farmhouse languished peacefully on the southern edge of two and a half acres of black Midwestern soil, handed down to my father from his father. My parents logged endless hours cultivating a living out of corn, soybeans, and hogs for our family of six, who as providence would have it, were all female except for my dad. Even through Sundays and our camping vacations, animals needed to be fed. And the closest vigilance was subject to capricious market prices and weather.

But I don’t remember feeling poor. My parents kept their buildings tidy despite the steep and steady demands of upkeep. As I now wrestle with my own grocery budget, I have a new appreciation for the value my mom squeezed from each dollar (and a wide garden) to feed four girls, a hungry farmer, a hired hand, and herself. Despite the potential isolation from country living of the distinctly non-glamorous variety, I didn’t feel lonely. Instead, I grew up with an enthusiasm for wide-open spaces, work, the life cycles of plants and animals, getting my hands dirty, and close-knit relationships with my sisters. My parents had renewed to-do lists with each sunrise over the cornfields. But just as constant was the flow of people filtering out to our farm. It seemed my folks were always helping someone.

Ever since my friend made her observation, I’ve been watching my parents. What was this generosity that was so obvious to others?

For starters, they had loaned my friend one of our cars after her parents were in a debilitating auto accident. I noticed that my dad’s time was often spent giving away whatever he had: his meticulous bookkeeping as the treasurer at the church, leading game time for the kids every Wednesday night, or repairing whatever was broken there.

Over the years I’ve seen my dad continue to save people thousands of dollars by giving them free labor to rehabilitate their ailing vehicles. Most of these work for non-profit organizations. Some are single women. He assists the latter in the sale of their old cars, then helps shop for replacements, ensuring honest deals on quality vehicles. The rest of his time is often consumed with mentoring young men, some of whom are in troubled marriages or addictions. In fact, he left the family farm to work for FamilyLife, moving for the first time ever at age 41 in order to help people full time.

My mom has poured out her resources in our home before I was born. When I was a girl, it seemed like she was always making a meal for someone just out of the hospital, or caring for a friend’s children. For several years, she provided “Cradle Care” to infants waiting for adoption. She would feed them throughout the night, then rise cheerfully to help us get on the bus and get a head-start on her other responsibilities. As I got older, she brought me along to help clean a house for someone who couldn’t, stuff newsletters for missionaries in Africa, or organize a funeral for a family whose son died of AIDS. Proverbs 31:20 was being lived out right in front of me: “She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.” For years now my mom has mentored abuse survivors, those healing from the pain of abortion, and other women.

As I started to count the older children who have cycled through our home over the years, I was amazed by the breadth of ethnicities: Japanese, Russian, African-American, Rwandan, Caucasian. Our holidays are dotted with the presence of guests we’ve just met. Though we frequently entertained guests on the farm, with my parents’ new occupation—and despite their empty nest—their home might as well have a revolving door for the travelers who find reprieve in the spare bedrooms. The warm overflow of love in their home has a near-magnetic quality.

One of my sister’s friends from high school stayed for a short while during difficulties in her own home; she was certainly not the first. And now, after years of gathering advice and comfort during stays of varying lengths, participating in family birthdays, holidays, game nights, and eventually vacations and trips to see family, she calls my parents Mom and Dad.

I am astounded by the fact that even now, as empty nesters, my folks’ time, cash, and energy are held out open-handed to God. They don’t view any of their resources as their own. They’re not afraid to rest, but they’re in the midst of a new kind of “harvest time”: the opportunities for ministry are ripe and waiting.

As I chronicle my parents’ stream of generosity, I’d be remiss if I didn’t see how they were generous to me. I saw much of this open-handedness in the way they parented: with discipline cushioned by grace; with picnics, storytimes, conversations, loud singing in the car, and practical lessons in both kitchen and garage. Their goodness to me was financial in small, well-placed ways.

That goodness occurred in the context of their overflowing faith, their commitment that all they had was given to bless other people…that their time and love, too, were for giving. They weren’t doormats. They just loved God and His people deeply.

Now they give to another generation. My mom watches her grandkids one day a week so my sister and I can take a breather and help some people ourselves: my sister as a nurse, and myself at FamilyLife. (My other sisters are overseas: One teaches inner-city children art; one helps Burmese refugees.) My kids think their day at Grandma’s is the best day of the week … and it just might be one of mine, too! I’m grateful that my kids have a chance to learn and hopefully carry on that key trait: that generosity has little to do with what’s in your pocket, and a lot more to do with what’s in your heart.

Copyright 2012 by Janel Breitenstein. Used by permission.

One of the great tragedies of divorce is when one biological parent disengages from a child. For example, as is reported in my book The Smart Stepdad, 10-15 percent of nonresidential fathers drop out of their kids’ lives.

Watching your child suffer rejection from an uninvolved and uninterested parent is heart breaking. Even worse, I’ve observed that an inconsistent parent who promises time together and then repeatedly breaks the promise can be even more heart-breaking to children. Their hopes are raised, only to be dashed on the rocks of disappointment again and again. Of course, this leaves the other parent to explain their absence.

Broken promises

Jennifer’s mother, Pamela, lived across the state. Pamela had remarried and had a new son. Jennifer lived with her father, Roger, and stepmom, Amy. Pamela’s new marriage and blended family, together with a growing career, took a lot of her time. However, her guilt for not making time to be with her daughter led her to (with good intentions) promise Jennifer special weekend visits that never happened.

As Jennifer entered adolescence she constantly wondered if her mom would finally keep her promises. She became increasingly oppositional toward her stepmother and father and unmotivated in school. Though previously a good student, her grades were failing fast and so was her father’s tolerance of her behavior.

A complicating issue was Pamela’s constant invitation to Jennifer to come live with her. She conveniently blamed her ex-husband for Jennifer’s trouble in school and implied everything would be better when they could finally be together. This kept Pamela and Jennifer pseudo-connected, sharing an empty fantasy.

Eventually Jennifer began to ask why her mother didn’t care to be with her. Her increasing age and cognitive abilities gave her a new ability to see through the empty promises her mother repeated numerous times. When she finally admitted her mother’s deception, she sank into depression and self-blame. Her father, Roger, asked me what he should say to help Jennifer.

Coping with reality

I first reminded Roger that no explanation would take away Jennifer’s pain and nothing he or his wife could do would stop the longing in Jennifer’s heart. Parents cannot take away a child’s grief; they can only help them cope with reality. I also suggested that it was okay for Roger to share his anger toward his ex-wife as it related to Jennifer’s pain, but that he should then redirect conversations back toward Jennifer and her feelings.

In response to Jennifer’s statement, “Does Mom think paying child support is enough?” Roger might say, “This is extremely hard for you. It feels like your mother just doesn’t care. My heart is so sad for you; I wish your mother would keep her promises. Tell me more about how you’re feeling.” Such a response communicates an understanding of her pain and validates her experience.

Jennifer’s father should not openly criticize Pamela (“she is selfish”) or make excuses for her (“she’s just so busy at work”). Focusing on Jennifer’s feelings and helping her to develop a plan for how she will relate to her mother is the best approach. In addition, finding a therapist for Jennifer might offer her a safe outlet to talk about her loss, anger, and sadness.

A stepmom who wanted to fill the gap

Jennifer’s stepmom, Amy, wanted desperately to fill the gap in Jennifer’s life. In some ways she could, but in other ways could not. I encouraged Amy to pray for her diligently and to keep a respectful tone when talking about her mother. (The trap in this situation for stepparents is joining the child in their frustration only to have the child turn on you.)

I encouraged Amy to look for opportunities to discuss what Jennifer says and does, but not to become overly emotionally invested in her decisions or conclusions. For example, when Jennifer is crediting her mother with being responsible even though she isn’t, Amy should engage the conversation gently. “I can tell you are certain your mom will show up as promised this weekend. (Now shift the focus to the child, away from your critical opinions of the parent.) You really are hoping to see her, aren’t you? I hope you get to. You are a great kid and deserve to spend some time with her.”

The trick is not getting caught in the trap of trying to change Jennifer’s fantasy about her mother. That is, unfortunately, something she has to teach herself (and it will be a sad day when she does).

Finally, I promised Roger and Amy that these suggestions would feel grossly inadequate to help Jennifer. And they are. In such circumstances we cannot get rid of a child’s pain, but we can hug the hurt. “Reinforce your love for her over and over,” I suggested. “And hold her when she cries.”

Should you make the children go see a disengaged parent?

Frequently a parent and stepparent will ask if they should make a child go see their disengaged mother or father if the child doesn’t want to. Some children grow calloused toward an undependable parent and prefer not to be around them (and you can’t blame them). What should parents do?

Young and pre-teen children should be encouraged to keep the visitation schedule, even if the withdrawn parent pawns them off on grandma.

Teens can consider the decision more thoroughly and should have a stronger say in whether they visit and how often.

Consider the custody agreement. You don’t want to be accused of not honoring court orders. Consult an attorney to discuss the implications of letting the child stay home.

Never stand in the way of reconciliation of a disengaged parent and child, but do become an advocate for the child. For example, you might say, “I’ll tell Johnnie you are taking him on Saturday when you arrive, but not until then so he’s not disappointed again.”

Find more like this in our online course just for blended marriages!

TAKING ACTION

Pastors:

Fatherlessness is a major issue in America today, and divorce makes it worse. One classic nationally representative study found that less than half of children age 11-17 with divorced parents had seen their fathers the previous year and almost 40 percent had no contact with their fathers in five years1. As advocates for the child, children and student ministries should go after these dads—with tact and grace. Invite them to re-engage and give them opportunities to do so through your ministry.

© Ron L. Deal. All rights reserved.

During the first two days of our recent vacation in western Montana, the air was filled with smoke from forest fires. My wife, Merry, and I could barely make out the outline of the Bitterroot Mountains.

Then a cold front swept out the smoke … and replaced it with rain and low-hanging clouds. We drove up to Whitefish, and visited Glacier National Park, yet we caught only glimpses of snow-capped mountain peaks. “As beautiful as this is,” I told Merry, “we’re only seeing half of what’s here.”

And then, on the sixth day, the heavens opened up, and we experienced one of those unexpected and extraordinary blessings that we will never forget.

It was Sunday morning, and we were driving south from Whitefish to Missoula. The skies had cleared, and we could finally see the mountains in all their glory. We listened to a CD of praise music, and then we began descending toward Flathead Lake, which stretched into the distance for more than 25 miles. The view was so breathtaking that it was almost too much to take in, and suddenly an ordinary drive became a transcendent time of worship.

Romans 1:20 tells us that in nature we see evidence of God’s attributes, and that day we realized we were blessed with a tiny glimpse of God’s glory and goodness. I could hardly speak, and Merry was moved to tears.

This experience in Montana occurred just a few weeks ago, but to me it already is one of my favorite memories of our marriage. The older I grow, the more precious these memories become. They bind Merry and me together; they help make us one.

I’ve been writing a list of my favorite marriage memories. My list brings back mental images of vacations in Oregon, New England, Hawaii, and England. I think of camping trips with our children, walks along the beach, and special times with relatives.

And some memories consist of just a fleeting moment. I remember our daughter Missy’s final volleyball match in high school, when her team lost in the state tournament semifinals. I was filming the match, and in the final minute I looked up at Merry in the stands. Our eyes met, and in that moment we shared all the joy and heartache and triumph and frustration of watching a child compete in athletics. Our souls connected.

A marriage is built on memories like these. Yet how often do we take the time to talk about these memories, to write them down, to remember? Sometimes it’s easier to think of the hard times than the good ones.

So I have a challenge for you: Sometime during the next week, take some time with your spouse and make a list of your favorite memories. Be sure to note why these particular memories stand out. Enjoy the time together. If you have children, share your list with them.

In fact, I’m going to take up my own challenge and create a joint list of favorite memories with Merry. And I’ll be interested to see if she mentions that “drive in Montana.”

Copyright © 2012 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Who doesn’t enjoy a good story? Especially a love story?

As a writer for FamilyLife, I’ve had the privilege of interviewing lots of men and women about their marriages and families. But no one has been married as long as Orvil and Edith Thomas. Their commitment to one another has never wavered for more than seven decades.

My husband and I have been married for 37 years. To me, that’s a very long time. But from Orvil and Edith’s perspective, we’re just babes in the world of matrimony.

As I look at a picture of Edith Aston and Orvil Thomas, taken right before their wedding day in May of 1940, I see a young man and woman who are not very different from engaged couples today. Starry-eyed and in love, their lives were filled with hopes and dreams and excitement about their future together.

Edith and Orvil were just teenagers when they married 71 years ago. That was before television, microwaves, personal computers, and the Internet. Winston Churchill, known for his never-give-up spirit, had just become Britain’s Prime Minister.

And just like newlyweds today, the Thomases had no idea what was before them when they married. But whatever it would be, they were determined to walk through it together.

She caught his eye

Orvil first noticed Edith Aston at a community baseball game back in May of 1939. At that time, it seemed like every little community had a ball team, and Harrisburg, Arkansas, was no exception. Orvil was playing catcher when Edith, a 15-year-old beauty, caught his eye. They began dating a few months later.

Like many couples, Orvil and Edith fell in love and decided to get married. “I think if you love each other you ought to get married,” Edith says, adding, “that’s a commitment that Orvil and I both take seriously.”

But unlike most couples, they secretly married and then returned to their individual homes after the simple ceremony.

At the time, Orvil had accepted a job working in a rice field—one that paid a whopping $1.50 a day. And the job came with a house. But it wasn’t vacant yet. After a justice of the peace married the Thomases, they had no place to go. So they returned home and didn’t tell their parents.

Edith’s parents had an 80-acre farm about six miles outside of Harrisburg. They grew corn, sorghum, and cotton. About a week after the ceremony, her father drove into town to get some farm supplies. When he returned, he threw a straw hat down in front of Edith and said, “Now, there’s your wedding present!” Apparently the secret marriage had not been so secret after all.

Three weeks after their marriage, Edith and Orvil had their parents’ blessings and began living as man and wife. They moved into the rice farmer’s field hand house, and Orvil worked the fields from daylight until dusk.

Like many houses in that day, the Thomases’ had no electricity or running water. Instead the newlyweds used kerosene lamps and pumped water from a well.

But life was good because they were in love.

Walking together through life

Faith has been a key ingredient in their life together. “You’ve got to have faith if you are going to live with any success,” Edith says. “We’ve always had a strong faith. He’s [God] seen us through hard time and good times.”

The good times have included the births of their three daughters: Polly, Dot, and Kat. “I think that their faith has been the glue that’s held them together all these years,” Polly says. During the difficult times—losing siblings, parents, and two grandsons—“those are the times that your faith steps in and helps you through.”

Born and raised near Harrisburg, they once knew everybody in town. And everyone knew them. For decades they’ve held neighborhood fish fries in the summer. When Orvil turned 90 in April 2011, he and a son-in-law fried fish that Orvil had caught throughout the year. Fifty-six people, from five states, came for dinner.

Orvil still mows the yard and makes a garden. He worked on lawnmowers until recently. When he turned 90, he decided it was time to retire from that.

But he says he’ll never retire from marriage. He’ll never give up on that.

Back in 1940, when Edith and Orvil Thomas married, they had no idea that one day a man would walk on the moon. But they did know that they would walk together through the ups and downs of their lives—day by day and year by year. And for the past 71 years that’s exactly what they have done.

“Looking back, I’ve caused us a lot of grief simply because I was a bulldozer. Bulldozers are powerful machines.”

“I was a very obstinate guy and wanted things to go my way. Unfortunately … I even hate to admit it … I cheated on my wife for about 10 years of our marriage. She never even realized it until it was over.”

“Jean and I had been married for about five years when life just caved in on us. We were having serious financial problems and I felt like I had let down my ‘Queen of the Hill.’ One day, I sat down and wrote my wife a note. With tears in my eyes, I said that we probably should call it quits. I thought I was a total failure, and I just didn’t know what to do.”

Each of the individuals quoted above probably represents thousands who get divorced every day. But here’s the catch: These words came from interviews conducted with couples who have been married for more than 50 years.

People like this have a lot to teach us about marriage. FamilyLife writer Mary Larmoyeux, who talked with these couples for an article in The Family Room (FamilyLife’s monthly e-magazine),was impressed with the number who had been through severe hardship and suffering, yet stuck with their wedding vows. When they give advice like, “Hang on; don’t give up,” we need to listen, because those may be some of the most profound words we’ll ever hear.

Mary ended each section in the article with marriage tips from each couple. Here are a few of my favorites:

Solve a big problem a little at a time.

Consider each other’s opinions before making decisions.

Remember, you are not the Holy Spirit.

Always be truthful with one another.

Forgive one another as Christ forgave you.

Don’t dwell on past failures; count your blessings and look forward to the future.

Have fun together.

Marriage is a life-long commitment.

Keep courting and encouraging one another.

Trust each other and trust the Lord.

Say, “I love you” every day.

Look for ways to help and encourage one another.

Pray together.

Live the Bible—don’t just know it.

You can’t speak everything you think.

There’s another reason we need to listen to these voices…they are increasingly rare. The couples reaching their golden anniversaries now were probably the last to grow up in a time when divorce was frowned upon. Now it is so commonplace that I’ve heard stories of young children who feel strange because so many of their classmates don’t live with their original parents.

A few years ago I joined my family in celebrating the fiftieth wedding anniversary of my parents, Ron and Cleve Boehi. I looked around the room that night and was impressed with the number of couples who were about to reach the same milestone. These couples had been there for each other for decades as they raised children …celebrated birthdays and weddings and holidays … and coped with periods of illness, conflict, and grief.

I remember wondering how many couples in my generation would stay together for 50 years. How many celebrations like this would Merry and I attend when we are that age?

We hear so many voices today telling us how difficult it is to keep a marriage together. But if there is anything these golden couples have to teach us, it is this: You can make marriage work for a lifetime. And it’s worth it.

© 2006 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

One of my bedrock, foundational beliefs in life is: Take your vacation time.

Another is: Enjoy your vacation time.

That sounds simple, but I’ve been surprised by the number of people I’ve encountered over the years who say they often don’t use up their allotted vacation days. Not me. I know I need my vacation. My family needs it. And my marriage needs it.

One excuse people use for not taking vacation days is, “I can’t afford to be away from work.” I suppose for some people that’s true, but my attitude is, “My boss can’t afford for me to not take my vacations days.” As a writer and editor, my job is an intense mental exercise—hour after hour, day after day, year after year. It can consume me, and I know that without a release I could easily become a physical, emotional, and spiritual wreck.

For me, vacation days provide that release. Sometimes I will even take these days at home; I’ll tackle a big home improvement project, or I’ll play a round of golf. Something to provide the refreshment I need to stay sharp on the job.

In addition, my wife, Merry, and I have discovered that our vacations together are key to keeping our relationship strong. Whether we are going off for a long weekend together or traveling to someplace more exotic, these are times for romance, adventure, making memories, and just talking. Merry says she just enjoys getting me in a car to drive for several hours because I will talk a lot more than I do at home.

I’ve also heard people say, “We don’t really enjoy our vacation trips. We’re always tired and on edge, and we’re exhausted when we return home.”

I can certainly relate to that problem. Through our successes and mistakes, Merry and I have learned some keys to making sure we enjoy our vacation trips. Here are a few:

Don’t devote all your vacation days to visiting relatives. We enjoy spending time with our families, and it’s important for us to do that, especially because we live in Arkansas and our families are in Oregon and Georgia. But we also try to save a few of our vacation days to focus on our marriage.

Plan your time around things you like to do together. It took a few years for Merry and me to learn that there are two things we most enjoy together on vacation: 1) Visiting an interesting historical location; and 2) enjoying the beauty of God’s creation, especially at the beach. Sometimes we can even do both on the same trip, as we did a few years ago when we spent three days touring historical sights at Williamsburg and Yorktown and ended with a couple days at nearby Virginia Beach.

Plan your days around your pace and energy level. This affects everything from how far you drive each day to how many activities you try to squeeze in to how much time you spend on your feet. The first time Merry and I visited Washington, D.C., we spent the first two days in non-stop sightseeing. On the third day we woke up feeling totally drained of energy. We learned then that we need to pace ourselves on these trips and even schedule rest days when we don’t attempt to accomplish as much.

Leave your work at home. This is especially difficult in these days of hyperactive connectivity … how many stories have you heard of obsessive husbands or wives who constantly check their e-mails and make take business calls while on vacation? Doesn’t sound like a real vacation to me.

If possible, plan on a rest day at home before you return to work. After a long trip with travel by car or plane, I’m usually dead tired after I return home. I like that extra day of rest before diving back into office life.

Finally, enjoy the planning time. A recent study of vacationers revealed that people often reported the greatest level of happiness in the weeks before the trip. For them, the anticipation was more fun than the reality. I don’t want that to be true for us, but we do take time to talk about what we want to do and read up on the locations we’re visiting. As part of our planning for an upcoming trip, for example, we are looking at travel guides and reading a historical novel about the area. It makes it all more fun.

This article originally appeared in the April 26, 2010 issue of Marriage Memo, a weekly e-newsletter.

FamilyLife President Dr. Dennis Rainey spoke at the 2009 Weekend to Remember® marriage conference in Grapevine, Texas, before nearly 4,000 people. During the weekend he wrote some impressions of how God is working through the cause of the family to touch the lives of people across America and even around the world.

Saturday, February 14

Last night we launched the largest Weekend to Remember in our 33 years of doing marriage conferences. As Dan Jarrell (who also spoke at the conference) and I made our way to the ballroom, we looked around at the crowd of young couples who were attending. We remarked to one another that it is extremely gratifying to see the Weekend to Remember attracting these couples. We must equip them to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, and to build their marriages according to God’s blueprints.

I wish you could see what a giant ballroom looks like when it is filled with 4,000 people who are hearing God’s plan for marriage and family. Any time I attempted to go anywhere in that mass of people, I drew a crowd very quickly. They came up in smiles or with tears of gratitude in their eyes—all wanting to share what God has been doing in their lives.

What do you say when you are approached by people who have such wonderful stories?

“We are from Taiwan and have your book Staying Close in Mandarin and would like you to sign it. We want to take this conference back to our country.” What do you say?

“I just want to hug you and say thanks! We’ve been married for 11 years and this is our tenth conference. We’ve been bringing couples every year since the first year from our African American Church.” What do you say?

“We came here for hope because our marriage was over. We now have threads of hope. Thank you!” What do you say?

“I’m from Ethiopia and my country and all of Africa desperately need this training. My country is a mess. We have no family structure that spiritually equips generations. There’s mistrust, immorality, AIDS, and death everywhere. I’m ready to go back and do this full time.” What do you say?

“We’re Hispanic and we’ve been to 12 conferences. It’s made such a difference in our lives that we’ve been bringing couples ever since.” What do you say?

“We are from Brazil and going back there immediately after the conference. We want this for our country now!” What do you say?

“My parents have given leadership to promoting the Weekend to Remember in Minneapolis for nearly 20 years. I’ve answered phone calls as a little girl and had couples sign up to attend. I’ve sent out hundreds of brochures to equip marriages and families to follow Christ! Now I’m finally here with my husband and I just want to say thank you for your work!” What do you say?

“I’m a pastor from Kenya. Can we take this back to our country?”

“I’m here because we both lost our jobs. Thank you for allowing us to attend free.”

“We are seminary students and will be starting our ministry soon. Thank you for allowing us to attend free.”

“Our parents gave us the conference as a wedding gift four years ago and we are just now taking advantage of it. Wow!”

What do you say to the dozens of men who came up and took my hand to shake it and looked me in the eyes saying, “I will pray with my wife every day.” To radio listeners who thanked us for helping them in their marriage and for helping them raise their children?

And finally, what do you say to two couples who brought 105 couples from their African American Church … 105 couples! They want to have a vow renewal service for the entire church … with the 105 couples leading the congregation of over 3,500 people!

What do you say? TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Sunday, February 15

The conference ended on an exclamation point as I introduced a pair of American heroes, Brian and Mel Birdwell. You may recall that Lt. Col. Birdwell was just stepping out of the men’s room near his office at the Pentagon when a hijacked 757 slammed into the building on 9/11. With burns over 60 percent of his body, he spent the next three months in a hospital.

Theirs is a love story of a different kind—a wife’s tenacious love for a man who, at first, wanted to die because of the excruciating pain. Her voice and love brought hope. When we heard the story in 2002, we honored Mel Birdwell before 18,000 at the MCI Arena in Washington, D.C., with the Robertson McQuilkin Award for covenant-keeping love.

As I introduced them at the conference, over 4,000 people stood in a full one-minute ovation in honor of this couple’s service, sacrifice, and model of following Christ. With a good dose of wit and humor, they talked openly and honestly about their commitment to Christ and love for one another.

Afterwards, as couples in the audience stood and faced one another to restate their wedding vows, I was reminded that in this and seven other locations around the country, almost 10,000 people were doing the same thing. I am more convinced than ever that “all roads really do lead home,” and that this is the ministry of the hour in challenging times. The generational impact of this one weekend could be in the millions. Now that’s a cause worth your life!

1 Date + 8 Teens = 0 Romance

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the smartest equation I have ever calculated. But my heart was in the right place!

Hubby and I have attempted to make most Friday nights our “date nights” from the time our children were toddlers. They have always been “at home” dates, for early on we found this was more relaxing for us and more enjoyable for our children.

Historically, a date night goes something like this: Friday afternoon I get a call from Hubby and he asks me what I’m in the mood to eat. To which I always reply, “I don’t care—you just pick something up!” The only hint I ever give him is “something nice” or “something simple.” That gives him an indication of whether to order take out from a nice restaurant or a fun restaurant, or whether to stop at the grocery and grab a few ready-made things.

The joy for me: I don’t have to decide or make anything.

On the home front, the children always get to enjoy pizza and a movie, “all by their big selves” as my son used to say! I’ve always built it up as something really special for Mommy and Daddy—a night where we are going to stare into each others’ eyes, get all mushy, and say love words to each other. To which my toddlers used to giggle, my emerging teens used to declare, “Gross,” and my teens now … well, they just roll their eyes and work hard not to think about what the end of the evening might include. (And wrongly assume that at least it’s only one day a week!)

For Hubby and me it’s a treat to know that, even if things are a bit crazy during the week and we don’t enjoy enough quality long lasting relational time, there’s always Friday. Friday we take extra time for great conversation, great food, and great … well, never mind!

Last week I had an epic fail, however. When Hubby called, he assumed there would be no date night as he knew there were lots of extra teens lurking around. But alas, I assured him, “No, date night is on, and I’m in the mood for something nice.”

Upon his arrival home there were eight, count ’em, eight teens loudly laughing, sharing stories, consuming mass quantities of pizza, and planning what games to play when the food ran out. As Hubby entered the door he was smiling and carrying a sack from Capers—a lovely local restaurant that is one of my favorites. His big smile drooped (and so did his shoulders) when he saw the table, where we usually begin our date nights, infested with pesky teens.

So … we ate only about a quarter of our meal, sitting at the counter in the kitchen, leaning in close together talking—not to increase the intimacy but to hear each other. I gave an impish grin, and muttered, “Oops, not quite the date night you had in mind, huh?”

He smiled, laughed and shook his head, re-boxed his sparsely-touched meal and went straight for his dessert with wild abandon … recognizing that’s as sweet as it was going to get on this night.

Thankfully … there are 52, count ’em, 52 weeks in a year!

This article originally appeared in MomLife Today.

The movie that made Marilyn Monroe famous was The Seven Year Itch. The idea was that about every seven years most married people begin to itch where they can’t scratch. They know something is wrong, but they don’t know what, let alone what to do about it. Often they have an affair around that time.

Of all marital problems, that which I have confronted the most often in my pastoral counseling is, “I just don’t love her anymore.” While there is a vast difference between being “in love” and loving someone, we still crave to be in love.

Couples have been coming to me with marital problems ever since my first pastorate. Ninety percent of them have been married from two to seven years, though some as long as 30. All had the same problem—lost love.

What the Bible has to say

After hearing this repeated literally hundreds of times in serious counseling sessions, I began to search the Bible for the answer. I found it in Revelation 2:1-5.

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: I know your deeds, your hard work and perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

In these verses, Jesus Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom, is dictating a letter through the Apostle John to His bride, the church at Ephesus.

In the first verse He reminds her that He is the glorious Son of God, Creator of the World, and Upholder of the Law. He says that He has not changed through eternity. He is to her as He has always been. In verses two and three He commends her for her fidelity to Him, her work, her patience, her disdain for evil, her doctrinal integrity, and her tireless labor on His behalf.

At the beginning of the fourth verse, however, the whole tenor of the conversation begins to change. “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.” Her love for the groom has cooled. It is not the vibrant thing it once was. She has fallen out of love.

How will the loving bridegroom, the master marital authority, deal with the problem?

The first overtones of the fourth verse give a surprising, subtle hint as to the approach He will use. He is understanding and patient, yet He is upset as well. It is not a small thing! A grievous wrong has been done, and He will deal with it directly and rather severely. “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken you first love.” I have something against you! I am charging you with a serious offense. This expression, “against you,” is heavy terminology. It is a serious charge, but not one without remedy. In verse five, He gives His perfect three-point prescription on how to fall in love again.

“Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”

1. Repent.

Why does Jesus say such a thing as “Repent”? Why is falling out of love treated, in part, as a sin? It can only be because falling out of love is a symptom of a spiritual problem. Because God is love and the author of love, God alone can give real love. When the process of the integration and selfless meshing of two personalities has begun to collapse, it is because God’s love—agape love—is gone.

To fall in love again you must be absolutely honest with yourself and go back to your relationship with God. Where did it jump the track? When did you first begin to fall out of love with Him? When did your heart first begin to grow cold? You will usually be able to trace your lack of love for your mate to a short time after the beginning of your loss of love for the Lord. The hardest thing you may ever have to do is ask God’s forgiveness for the sin of falling out of love. However, it is such an essential part of the prescription that it won’t work without it. Go ahead, confess, come clean with God. Admit it. Let His love begin to flow into you. Only then will it flow out from you to your spouse.

Biblical repentance also entails a change of direction. It means to get back on the track and start doing again what you were doing. Get back to where spiritual growth occurs: in the church, in the Bible, and in prayer. We may be assured His promise is secure, that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

2. Remember.

“Remember the height from which you have fallen.” The next part of Christ’s prescription to the loveless bride is to enlist all the power of the mind as an ally in her effort to regain lost love.

The New Testament writers taught positive thinking long before this generation ever heard of it.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. —Philippians 4:8-11

That’s good, positive thinking, and Jesus commands it as part of His prescription for falling in love again.

Is your love for real? Find out in Bob Lepine's new book, Love Like You Mean It.

Relive every word, incident, date, kiss, and touch as you were falling in love with this person. Remember the wedding moment by moment, flower by flower, promise by promise. Remember the joy as you drove away from the church, the thrill of your wedding night, the ecstasy of your honeymoon. Remember that first apartment, the first time you went grocery shopping together.

Recall it again and again in your mind. Remember how you felt, all of your hopes and dreams. Focus on that, and there will come gradually to your heart the desire to relive it, to pick up the pieces of a broken love affair and love again.

3. Repeat.

Knowing what pleases my wife proves our close relationship. Choosing to do what pleases her demonstrates my love.

To “do the things you did at first” is the clear requirement of this part of the prescription. Some of you are probably saying, “Do you mean that I am to play a game, to put on an act, to respond where I am unresponsive, to say what I do not mean and do what I do not really feel?” The answer is an emphatic “Yes!” Don’t focus on feeling something about your spouse—do something for your spouse. Love is something you do!

You can fall in love again

What happens psychologically and therapeutically when the soul addresses the Lord, the mind addresses itself, and the bodily actions address the injured spouse? You can fall in love again.

As your whole being is thrust into the role of rebuilding the broken relationship, you will notice two responses in you spouse. The first may well be suspicion. The second response will be your spouse’s attitude toward the new you. Your spouse will become a new person that you can more easily love.

If a relationship has grown sour, then neither party is acting as they once did. They are both only reacting. A chicken-egg cycle occurs, and there is no easy solution. Someone must take the initiative to break the cycle.

Is it worth it to you? Is the salvation of your home, the stability of your children, the sacredness of your commitment, and the sanctity of your own well-being and relationship with God worth the effort?

No one can answer that question but you. You can fall in love again, but the medicine is hard to take. The prescription is strong, but it works if you think it is worth it.

Adapted excerpt from Love Is Something You Do ©2010 by John R. Bisagno. Published by Lucid Books (www.lucidbooks.net). Used by permission.

Even before I began working for FamilyLife, I used to tell people that the Weekend to Remember^® was the “best conference I’ve ever attended.” Merry and I went when we were engaged, and we’ve attended several times since then. The weekend provided an invaluable foundation for our marriage—a clear biblical understanding of God’s purposes for marriage and the family, and some practical skills for improving our communication.

It’s the type of conference any couple can benefit from, whether they’re preparing for marriage or looking for a refresher. It’s also the type of conference that can save a broken relationship. If you are experiencing struggles in your marriage, or if you know someone else who is, this event can be the turning point.

One person recently wrote to tell FamilyLife that the Weekend to Remember “saved my marriage.” Here are his words:

My wife and I had been becoming more and more isolated over the last four years and we were at the end, with virtually no hope of saving our marriage, or at least no hope of living happily together in the same household. Something told me that this conference was our last shot. On the way to the conference my wife and I fought so terribly and I didn’t even think we would make it to the conference.

By lunch time on Saturday, my wife and I asked each other for forgiveness and have dedicated ourselves to seeking oneness with each other and to creating a Christian legacy in our three children. I truly believe that God is the one that made us go to this conference and that without his help through your ministry we would not have made it. … The transformation in my wife is unbelievable … God really spoke to her. I hope that my transformation is worthy of my wife.

I think there are three primary reasons why so many couples like this have seen their lives and their relationship transformed by a Weekend to Remember.

First, for many it’s the first time in months or years that they’ve spent a whole weekend together. Many conferees talk about how refreshing it is just to get away from their children for a weekend and focus on each other.

Second, many couples have not heard or understood God’s purposes for their marriage. They don’t know how it fits into His plan for the world, and they’ve never learned how to apply biblical principles for improving their relationship. At the conference they have the opportunity to learn this in an encouraging environment from speakers who talk honestly and practically about how they’ve applied the Scriptures in their marriage.

Finally, the conference brings couples face to face with their need for a close relationship with God. For many, this is totally transforming. They not only renew their relationship with each other, but more importantly they understand how to know Christ and rely on His wisdom and power to make their marriage work.

If you haven’t attended the Weekend to Remember, let me encourage you to do so this year. It may be the best investment you’ll ever make in your marriage and family.

This article originally appeared in the September 29, 2008 issue of Marriage Memo, a weekly e-newsletter.

My wife, Merry, and I have enjoyed some wonderful, adventurous, and romantic vacations over the years. We’ve been on trips to London, New England, Montana, Oregon, Washington D.C., New York City. We’ve relaxed on sunny beaches in Hawaii, Florida, and South Carolina.

And then we’ve taken lots of vacations like the one last week: working on projects around the house.But then, that’s what marriage is about, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s warm sea breezes … and sometimes it’s the pungent smell of drying paint.I suppose last week could be called a “real life” vacation. Among the highlights and lowlights:

Ordinary accomplishment #1: Finishing half of a major indoor painting project. There is something strangely satisfying about applying fresh paint to walls marked by the smudges of dirty hands, shoes, and balls thrown to satisfy a dog who never tires of playing “fetch.”

Ordinary accomplishment #2: Purchasing a new refrigerator … with an icemaker. When we first moved into our home, I convinced Merry that we didn’t need an icemaker, and I’ve paid the price ever since! So it was quite gratifying to finally replace the old beast and banish our ice trays to the garage.

Misadventure #1: Realizing the old water line for the icemaker needed replacement … then discovering the valve for the old line was leaking … and then tearing out several feet of rancid, water-damaged wood under the sink. What fun!

Misadventure #2: Stubbing my toe and falling against a sofa with my fist jamming against my right ribs. The resulting bruise only hurt if I moved my right arm … say, when painting. We also ate out a few times, watched some movies (“Déjà Vu” and “Night at the Museum”) read books and magazines, and visited a botanical garden. No, it wasn’t a week of making special memories, but it was a nice time to invest in our relationship and in our home.

And sometimes that’s what marriage is about, isn’t it?

© 2007 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Here are some of the online articles I looked at one day last week:

From California: “Actor Bill Murray has been hit with divorce papers from his wife of almost 11 years, who has reportedly blamed domestic abuse, drug addiction and infidelity for the breakdown of their marriage.”

From Nevada: “The governor of the state made famous in part for its quick, private divorces is now embroiled in a breakup so tawdry, so publicly spectacular and so potentially grueling that how it plays out could have implications from Carson City to the White House.”

From New Jersey: “The courtroom in Elizabeth will be dark today, but the McGreevey divorce trial is moving into its third and final phase. Superior Court Judge Karen Cassidy will have to decide whether Dina Matos had any right to damages based on her allegation that former Gov. James E. McGreevey not only lied and cheated on her, he deliberately did not tell her he was gay. Cassidy will hear from the lawyers Wednesday.”

From Connecticut: “Last night, my brother told his son that he is getting a divorce. It was the conversation he had dodged and choked on, the inevitability he had hoped to defer or evade. Whenever he came near the subject, he saw himself 35 years before, weeping into my mother’s chenille robe, begging her to tell him that the rumors — my father’s flight, his irreversible departure — were not true. He saw the hedges going untrimmed, the shingles on the house rotting and then falling off, the basement ruined by an incontinent dog, the illusion of family bliss irremediably shattered. And in spite of all these ghosts, my brother had come to the same conclusion his father had: He could no longer live in the same house with his wife.”

And finally, from Conway, Arkansas:

“J.W. and Patricia Dykes of Conway recently returned to the site of their wedding for a 50th anniversary celebration.

“They were married May 16, 1958, at Bruce Hall at Central Baptist College. On their anniversary, about 75 of their friends and family gathered at a conference room in the Mabee Student Center at CBC for a renewal of vows ceremony. Afterward, an employee of the college let them into Bruce Hall to take photos at the foot of the staircase where they were married 50 years ago.”

So … guess which article is my favorite?

A coworker here at FamilyLife, Bryan Stell, presided over the ceremony for Patricia and J.W., his great-aunt and uncle. This is the type of article I wish we saw more often in the media, because we get so jaded with all those other sad stories of lying, cheating, abuse, and failure. We need to be reminded regularly that it is possible to build a marriage that lasts a lifetime. These are the people we should honor in our culture.

I love how the article ended, with a quote from Patricia: “I always said being married was like having a good job you wanted to keep. You have to work at it every day. Trust each other. Love each other.”

This article originally appeared in the June 9, 2008 issue of Marriage Memo, a weekly e-newsletter.

Dear FamilyLife:

I don’t know what you did with my real mom and dad, but I love the new ones you’ve sent me. My parents were among the hundreds of couples at the Weekend to Remember conference this past weekend, and boy are they different!

I am convinced you switched my real parents with people who look like them, because:

1. Every day since the conference, they have been talking over what they learned and comparing notes from their workbooks over dinner.

2. They have been talking instead of arguing.

3. Dad calls Mom “my wife” instead of “your mother.”

4. They talk about legacies, about communication, about understanding one another.

5. My mom actually asks my dad to do things instead of expecting him to offer—and he says yes!

6. They’re even holding hands.

7. They’re clinging to each other instead of to us kids! Hallelujah!

What did you do to them?

I remember praying as a little girl that my parents’ fighting would stop, that the constant tension between them would dissipate, and that they would just show love to one another. Both of them were always very leery about seeking outside help; they had resigned themselves to the idea of being good parents, but having an unfulfilling marriage.

Though I’m now out of the house and living my own life, the Lord never forgot the prayers of my childhood. I was blessed to be listening to “FamilyLife Today” on my way to work on the Thursday before the conference. WAVA offered free registration to the sixth caller. Stuck in traffic, I fumbled for my mobile phone and frantically dialed.

When Mr. Lee answered the phone, I held my breath, and then asked, “What caller am I?” He answered laughingly, “About the 112th!” I told him I had hoped to win the registration for my parents, married 27 years. Out of compassion, he told me the next giveaway was mine!

I wondered how I would get them to actually go to the conference. I told the Lord that only He could have arranged for me to get the reservations, so I would trust Him to see that my parents made it there.

I called both of them from work that morning and informed them they had about 28 hours to prepare themselves for three days together. Surprisingly, they agreed. To my heart’s delight, they went off to the conference Friday night; I was grateful they didn’t have longer to think about going or else they may have changed their minds.

I sent to the conference a man and a woman who had given up all hope of happiness. You returned to me two people committed to the goal of having a fulfilling and godly relationship with one another and to living out the rest of their days in love and hope.

Copyright © 2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Sometimes our lives are affected by unexpected and unlikely encounters. For Rich Frischkorn, one of these encounters occurred when he was a young man.

Rich patrolled a neighborhood where a couple in their late 90s lived. He regularly parked his cruiser under a massive ficus tree growing at the corner of the elderly couple’s property. With its huge spread of branches, the tree provided welcome shade as he sat in his patrol car and completed his daily reports. If the elderly couple were out in their yard, they’d walk over to him and talk.

As time passed, he noticed there was something very different about the aging husband and wife—the way they looked at one another and smiled … the way they worked in their yard together … the way their hands interlocked on their evening strolls.

One day the young deputy sheriff observed the elderly man mowing a neighbor’s yard. Almost 100 years of age, he later told Rich that he was helping because the woman was “too old” to mow her own grass.

Rich watched the couple pick up mail for neighbors who were out of town. He saw them drive friends to a store or doctor’s office. He anticipated their offers of cold lemonade or tea on hot afternoons.

In Christ’s name

He wondered about the source of the couple’s love and care. Over time he learned the answer: All was done in Christ’s name.

Their curiosity about Rich’s spiritual condition touched him. They’d often comment that he was in a dangerous job and ask, “Do you know where you will spend eternity?”

He’d answer that he’d probably end up in hell. And they would say that he could avoid that.

One day when Rich was filling out reports, the elderly woman tapped on the window of his cruiser. She held a vase with freshly picked flowers.

She told him to look at the flowers—really look. Then she asked if he thought the flowers could have been created by chance. “No,” she told the young officer. “God made these for us to look at, marvel at, and wonder.”

All Rich could do was gaze at the woman with the lined face and say that she was right.

Day after day Rich patrolled the neighborhood. He watched the aging couple pull weeds together in their flowerbeds, never more than an arm’s length apart. One would reach out and touch the other. They’d look at each other … smile and nod … and then go back to pulling weeds. Rich thought, How much in love.

Rich and the couple became more than friends. They treated him as part of their family. He joined 200-300 people at their eighty-first, eighty-second, and eighty-third anniversary celebrations.

He laughed to himself when he realized that their children were in their 60s and 70s and some of their grandchildren were in their early 50s.

The phone call he didn’t want to receive

As the years went by, Rich feared that the couple’s time on earth was short. He dreaded the day when one of them would pass away. At that time in Florida, if someone died at home a deputy had to come and do a report.

Sure enough, one evening Rich received a phone call saying there had been a death at the elderly couple’s house. Wanting to be anywhere but their home, he pulled into the driveway.

He knocked on the door of their two-story house with cedar siding. “Who is it?” the wife asked.

“It’s the Sheriff’s Department.”

“Rich, is that you?”

“Yes, it is,” he answered.

“Oh, praise the Lord; I’ve been praying a friend would come.”

Rich stepped into the house and saw the elderly couple sitting side by side on the couch. She wore a faded, swirled-patterned dress and her husband had on work pants and a checkered, short-sleeved shirt. His hands were folded in his lap, his chin was on his chest, and he had a pleasant look on his face—as though he were in the middle of a good dream.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Rich asked.

She said her husband had been sick the last couple of weeks. That evening they were watching the news and he started having a little trouble breathing. She asked if he wanted her to phone the doctor and he replied, “No, everything is going to be fine.”

A young man again

But it wasn’t fine—his breathing got worse. She rose to call an ambulance, and he grabbed her hand with unusual strength.

“You may not believe me, Rich,” she continued, “but he was a young man again. And his face was just glowing and he was smiling and he said, ‘Don’t go—sit here next to me.’”

So she sat back down and she heard these final words from her husband: “In all these years together, I’ve never once stopped loving you. And I love you more today than all of the days gone by. But my Father is calling now and I have to go home. But we’ll be together again soon, and until then know that I’m waiting for you and know that I love you. Good bye.”

With that, his head dropped onto his chest and he was gone.

“He’s in heaven with our Lord and Savior and I will be, too,” she told Rich. “And one day you can be there.”

The ambulance crew arrived shortly after their conversation. Rich remembers her telling them, “He’s home with the Lord. He’s home with Jesus.”

Living color

Though more than 30 years have passed since Rich’s life intersected with the elderly couple, their example was stamped in living color on his heart. Rich eventually gave his life over to the Lord and became a Christian. “They planted the seeds [of faith] in my heart,” he says.

Whenever he talks about the elderly couple, he mentions their rock-solid faith and how they lived it day after day. “They were always witnessing and reaching out to others,” he says, “and yet they were never preachy, never pushy, it was just something I wanted to emulate.”

The last time Rich saw the old woman she was more than 100 years old. She was on her hands and knees pulling weeds in her flowerbeds.

“Every once in a while,” Rich says, “she’d reach out with her arm … smile and nod … and then go back to pulling weeds.”

© 2008 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Whether I’m getting ready in the morning, driving in the car to work, running errands, or spending time on the Web, I try to listen to FamilyLife’s broadcast FamilyLife Today. I do my best to schedule my day around it. If I’m going to be baking or doing things in the kitchen I try to do it around 9:30 a.m. so I can tune into one of my favorite radio programs.

I’ve been listening to FamilyLife Today since I first heard about it in 1995 at a Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway. (My second husband, Ben, and I attended the conference as an engaged couple.) FamilyLife Today has made such a positive impact on our lives, marriage, and family.

Before I met Ben, I had been married to my first husband for 25 years. We raised four children together. When the older two were in college and the younger two were in high school, my husband announced that he wanted a divorce. His words devastated me; I really thought that we had a good marriage.

Like me, Ben knew the devastation of divorce. His first wife left him 12 years before we met. As an engaged couple we were both very aware that we did not want to marry unless we believed with all of our hearts that God would bless our marriage.

About a year after attending our first Weekend to Remember, Ben and I got married. We’ve made a real effort to regularly invest in our relationship—we’ve attended two more Weekend to Remember conferences and I listen to FamilyLife Today every chance I can get.

“Turn the radio on”

I really appreciate how cohosts Dennis Rainey and Bob Lepine share some of their own struggles—even in their marriages, as positive and strong as they are. Barbara Rainey has shared a lot of wonderful information too. I especially enjoyed her telling about traditions and how to teach children to be thankful. We have her book, Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember, and I try to read part of it at our family gathering every Thanksgiving.

I’m a note taker and even keep little self-adhesive notes in the bathroom where Ben has put a radio. I have notes all over the house from various things I’ve learned from different FamilyLife Today programs. When I hear a broadcast that I think is especially good I’ll call out to Ben, “Hey, turn the radio on.”

I still have the notes that I took more than 10 years ago from Dennis’s interview about the top five romantic needs of a woman and how her husband can meet them. I saved my notes about this so I could talk to Ben about my emotional needs. Even now I remember that message.

The interviews on FamilyLife Today help me make daily choices that are honoring to the Lord in my own spiritual walk, relationship with Ben, parenting, and grandparenting. The broadcasts on Song of Solomon, on the dangers of pornography, and on affair-proofing your marriage were especially meaningful to me. Dennis’s series on prayer and fasting encouraged me to step out in that discipline. His words about praying for our children challenged my heart.

Another especially helpful message was the Love and Respect series featuring Emerson Eggerichs. It helped me understand my God-given need to feel loved and Ben’s God-given need to be respected. I ordered a copy of this CD and passed it along to my married children.

As our grandchildren become old enough to understand the real meaning of Easter, I give them a set of FamilyLife’s Resurrection Eggs^® and the book Benjamin’s Box. I learned about the eggs and book from FamilyLife Today—they’ve been a big hit with the grandkids.

Ben and I have a very strong marriage today. I really believe we owe so much of that to the great teachings we’ve been exposed to through Family Life Today.

Copyright © 2008 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Laughter is one of God’s lubricants for life. Consider this “slick” story:

A Seattle third grade teacher had been teaching on the parts of the human body. All of the students passed her test except for one. When asked what the body was composed of, this sandy-haired, freckled-face boy voiced his response: “The human body is composed of three parts: the brainium, borax, and abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain. The borax contains the lungs, liver, and the living things. And the abominable cavity contains the bowels, of which there are five—a, e, i, o, and u.”

What a riot! I chuckle every time I tell that story. Frankly, I just like to laugh. Someone has said that laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it in one place. Laughter releases chemicals in our bodies called endorphines—internal “drugs” that serve as painkillers. It’s a legal tranquilizer that carries no side effects. I’m hooked on laughing!

Spiritual giants like C.H. Spurgeon and Martin Luther were hooked, too. Luther once kidded, “If they don’t allow laughter in heaven then I don’t want to go there.” He went on to add, “If the earth is fit for laughter then surely heaven is filled with it. Heaven is the birthplace of laughter.” Spurgeon was once asked by the elders of his church to tone down his humor from the pulpit. The great English preacher replied, “Gentlemen, if you only knew how much I held back!”

Some of the most fun-loving people I know are spiritual giants of our age. Bill and Vonette Bright enjoyed laughing with each other and teasing one another just about as much as anyone I have known. Chuck Swindoll, pastor, author, and radio personality, has people who love his laugh almost as much as his preaching! Howard Hendricks, one of my former professors at Dallas Theological Seminary, peppers his messages with hilarious stories and some of the funniest faces you’ve ever seen.

And, it doesn’t take much to imagine that our Savior, Jesus Christ, had the most winsome smile and hearty laugh ever.

Have we lost our laughter?

You’d think God didn’t create a giggle box the way some Christians live. They act as though a couple of laughs a week is really excessive. They remind me of the sign just outside of the city limits of Aztec, New Mexico:

AZTEC, NEW MEXICO
5,667 FRIENDLY PEOPLE AND
6 OLD SOREHEADS

It’s too bad that any believer would fit in the “old sorehead” category.

The problem is we take everything too seriously—like it all depends upon us. Everything is heavy or weighty. Life can get that way, can’t it? We get too busy to have fun. We become so goal-oriented that people get in the way of living—especially those in our family. Or we get worn-down and cynical about the whole thing.

But life wasn’t made by God to be friction-free. And laughter is not a panacea for a person’s problems. Laughter doesn’t level life’s obstacles, but it does make the climb easier to bear.

When was the last time you got down on all fours and “ate your child’s tummy?” Wrestled in the “good” living room? Or tickled them ’til they begged you to quit? How about the last time you did something really rowdy or goofy at the dinner table? How about a food fight—one evening our family threw marshmallows at one another and laughed so hard we cried. Or how about reliving some funny memories with your family by looking at an old family picture album together? (After five years even the most professional wedding album is a guaranteed grin-getter.)

Love and laughter

Laughter and good marriages go well together. A Christian marriage ought to be found guilty of having too much wholesome, edifying fun rather than too little. Too many marriages become a cemetery, not a celebration. Marriages that stop courting (having fun) die slowly of boredom. Fun lifts us out of the daily ruts and assassinates the drab, boring, dull, and mundane. Laughter lightens loads and knits hearts together instantaneously.

The Scripture recognizes the reality of laughter. “There is an appointed time for everything … A time to weep, and a time to laugh” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,4).

God gave children a funny bone and a giggle-box to balance all of those of us who are overly intense. He gave our family kids who love to laugh. But it was Rebecca who lived to laugh. She has a beaming smile and giggle that is the all-time best. And when she got going at the supper table, pandemonium always broke loose—her giggle-box infected us all with an uncontrollable, delicious delight. In fact, we renamed Rebecca because of her love for laughter: “Rebecca Jean Joy Susie-Q Rainey.”

Is your love for real? Find out in Bob Lepine's new book, Love Like You Mean It.

Laughter in the walls

My family taught me how to laugh. I’ll never forget my dad’s laugh (the best) and my mom’s sense of humor. Some of my fondest memories are of laughing so hard that the tears just streamed down our faces. I remember the time my mom gave herself a Hoover vacuum cleaner for Christmas and put it under the tree:

TO: MY DEAREST WIFE
FROM: WARD

I was 4 years old when I discovered my mom’s plot—she immediately swore me to secrecy. Two days passed, and when I could stand this deceit-filled thing no longer, I went to my dad and said indignantly, “Dad, mom is about to give herself a vacuum cleaner from you, but I’m ashamed to tell it!” Our home was filled with practical jokes, teasing, surprises, and importantly, laughter. It was a fun place to grow up—we all learned to laugh at ourselves.

Maybe at the end of your life you can experience in the words of Bob Benson, “Laughter in the Walls”:

I pass a lot of houses on my way home—some pretty, some expensive, some inviting—but my heart always skips a beat when I turn down the road and see my house nestled against the hill.

I guess I’m especially proud of the house and the way it looks because I drew the plans myself.

It started out large enough for us—I even had a study—two teenaged boys now reside in there. And it had a guest room—my girl and nine dolls are permanent guests. It had a small room Peg had hoped would be her sewing room—the boys swinging on the Dutch door have claimed this room as their own.

So it really doesn’t look right now as if I’m much of an architect. But it will get larger again—one by one they will go away to work, to college, to service, to their own houses, and then there will be room—a guest room, a study, and a sewing room for just the two of us.

But it won’t be empty—every comer, every room, every nick in the coffee table will be crowded with memories. Memories of picnics, parties, Christmases, bedside vigils, summers, fires, winters, going barefoot, leaving for vacation, cats, conversation, black eyes, graduations, first dates, ball games, arguments, washing dishes, bicycles, dogs, boat rides, getting home from vacation, meals, rabbits, and a thousand other things that fill the lives of those who would raise five.

And Peg and I will sit quietly by the fire and listen to the laughter in the walls.

Life is made up of pain. Disappointments. Pressure. Doubt. Trials. Confusion. We are all sapped of strength by these dark, ominous clouds. Like an exploding shaft of sunlight in a dark room, laughter illuminates life by reminding us not to be so serious. Why not leave a little laughter in the walls of your home tonight?

Copyright ©2002 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

I had a surprise for my fiancé, Jose, back in 1997: I was pregnant. After the initial shock wore off, we decided to move our November wedding up to July. But that caused a problem. Jose couldn’t get out of his apartment lease.

So for the first two months of our marriage, it was me, Jose… and his two old roommates. It was one of the most difficult and embarrassing situations of my life.

Jose and I finally moved into a house after a couple months. At last we had a place of our own. But soon after, my mother moved in with us. She had been physically and emotionally abused by her second husband and we feared for her life.

Jose and I thought the extra person in our home would be a temporary situation. Instead, it marked the beginning of years of extended family living with us.

There were many frustrations that came with a crowded house—but we didn’t talk about them. The problem was that we didn’t know how to handle conflict. Neither of us was confrontational. We had each learned as children to be quiet, to keep the peace. But keeping the peace was destroying our marriage.

Not what I signed up for

Jose and I look at life very differently. I am artistic by nature and would rather be gardening or decorating the house instead of cooking or cleaning. I’ve never been able to see myself following a schedule—especially the same schedule every day.

Jose, on the other hand, is more structured. He likes dinner served at a certain time. If he came home and dinner had not been started, instead of complaining to me he’d just prepare it.

By year two of our marriage Jose and I rarely communicated about anything that really mattered. We existed in the same house; we lived in different worlds. I said to the Lord, I don’t know why I married Jose. I know that I am supposed to be obedient, Lord, but this marriage is not what I signed up for.

A biblical foundation

I began praying and praying. I begged God to give me the strength to work on my marriage. I didn’t want us to become another divorce statistic.

About the same time a friend entered my name in a drawing on my local radio station, WAY-FM, for a Weekend to Remember^® marriage getaway. When I won, I knew that God had heard my prayers. Jose and I were excited about what God might have in store for us, yet neither of us knew what to expect when we went to our Weekend to Remember in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Our marriage was in serious trouble. But we wanted it to work and began the weekend with open hearts and open minds. We were determined to put into practice whatever the speakers would tell us.

The Weekend to Remember gave us a biblical foundation for our marriage. It taught us how to fight—how to properly talk about the things we didn’t like about each other. We discovered how to communicate disappointments with love and respect, and how to share our frustrations instead of bottling them up inside.

Applying biblical principles

After the getaway we led a small group through Building Your Marriage, one of the Bible studies in The Art of Marriage^® Connect series. Through it we learned many more practical ways to prevent isolation in our marriage.

In the past, if Jose or I saw something that needed to be done (such as preparing a meal or cutting the grass), we’d just do it to keep the peace. That changed after attending the Weekend to Remember and going through the Bible study. We now talk with one another before jumping in and taking action.

For the first year after the getaway, if Jose and I started having problems in our marriage, we took out our conference manual and Building Your Marriage to Last. We would again apply the principles they contained. I’d remind myself that my husband was on my team—he was not my enemy.

Despite the progress in our marriage, we had setbacks. We got drawn into some family problems and neglected our own relationship. By the seventh year of marriage, Jose and I once again needed help.

So we went back to what had saved our marriage: We once again pulled out our Weekend to Remember manual and our copy of Building Your Marriage and re-read them together.

God impressed on our hearts that we had to confess any hidden sin. Jose confessed a struggle with pornography—one he had even before we married. I was shocked.

Although I felt betrayed, I made the difficult choice to obey God and continue the marriage. And God began to heal our relationship.

Volunteering

After much prayer, we decided to move to Memphis, Tennessee, even though we had no jobs there, no family, and no friends. Shortly after we arrived, we received an email saying that FamilyLife needed some volunteer help promoting an upcoming Weekend to Remember getaway in the area. Jose and I decided to help out.

Eventually, Jose and I became volunteer city ministry directors in Memphis for FamilyLife. And as a follow-up to the Weekend to Remember, we organized Bible studies in The Art of Marriage Connect series.

The transformation that we have seen in ourselves and in other couples through The Art of Marriage series has been amazing. At the end of our Building Teamwork in Your Marriage study, we asked the husbands and wives to wash one another’s feet. There were so many tears. One wife felt unworthy for her husband to wash her feet. When he did, he said that he had to take care of her as a gift from God.

The choice we make every day

Today Jose and I live in Texas with our two sons, daughter, and my mother. Instead of extended family driving us apart, Jose and I have learned to draw closer together and depend more on one another. Now we openly share our concerns and feelings and take time for needed breaks.

We have continued to strengthen our marriage by attending Weekend to Remember getaways and by going on several Love Like You Mean It® marriage cruises. Regularly investing in our marriage has kept our relationship strong. Yet every day we have to choose to love one another for the next 24 hours.

I’m so thankful that God is at the center of our relationship. We are forever grateful that we went to that first Weekend to Remember getaway where we learned about God’s blueprints for marriage.

Today people look at our relationship and tell us, “Your marriage is perfect.”

“Oh, no,” we say, “but when something arises we now know how to handle it correctly and biblically.”

Copyright © 2009, 2016 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

In 2007 the Pew Research Center surveyed over 2,000 Americans for a study on attitudes about marriage and family. In one of the questions, participants were asked:

Here is a list of things which some people think make for a successful marriage. Please tell me, for each one, whether you think it is very important, rather important, or not very important.

Adequate income
Agreement on politics
Children
Faithfulness
Good housing Happy sexual relationship
Sharing household chores
Shared religious beliefs
Shared tastes & interests

So how would you answer that question? How many of those items would you list as “very important” for a successful marriage?

You might be interested to see how your answers compare to the survey results. Here are the percentages of adults who said each item was “very important” for a successful marriage:

Faithfulness 93%
Happy sexual relationship 70%
Sharing household chores 62%
Adequate income 53%
Good housing 51%
Shared religious beliefs 49%
Shared tastes and interests 46%
Children 41%
Agreement on politics 12%

Note that children ranked ninth on the list. The Pew Research Center noted that that in 1990 children ranked third (65 percent), so that’s a big drop in 17 years.

Did Americans rate children lower out of respect for couples who cannot have children? After all, we know that couples struggling with infertility can have a successful marriage. And yet … that wouldn’t explain why the results changed so much in just 17 years. Why did so many people in 2007 rate children as less important to marriage than other things, including “sharing household chores”? Are children becoming less important in marriage to many Americans?

To me, these results were not surprising. They confirm a trend that has been developing for several decades—a steady redefinition of marriage with a greater focus on personal fulfillment.

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead writes about this in her book, The Divorce Culture. Her words are profound:

Beginning in the late 1950s, Americans began to change their ideas about the individual’s obligations to family and society. Broadly described, this change was away from an ethic of obligation to others and toward an obligation to self …

This ethical shift had a profound impact on ideas about the nature and purpose of the family. In American tradition, the marketplace and the public square have represented the realms of life devoted to the pursuit of individual interest, choice, and freedom, while the family has been the realm defined by voluntary commitment, duty, and self-sacrifice. With the greater emphasis on individual satisfaction in family relationships, however, family well-being became subject to a new metric … People began to judge the strength and “health” of family bonds according to their capacity to promote individual fulfillment and personal growth.

In other words, as a culture we are increasingly viewing marriage and family with an “It’s all about me!” attitude. It’s a seductive philosophy … after all, who doesn’t want to be happy and fulfilled? The problem is that when this attitude becomes too pervasive and powerful, you gradually lose a sense of obligation, responsibility, and sacrifice.

In her book, Whitehead showed how this philosophy led to a culture in which divorce is pervasive … without a sense of obligation and sacrifice, and lacking the skills to work through their problems, many couples are unhappy in their marriage and they seek a change.

The “It’s all about me” focus also can lead to a decaying bond between marriage and parenthood. Because marriage is all about personal fulfillment, a growing number of people not only believe that children are not an important part of marriage, but also that it’s not important for parents to be married. The recent Pew Research Center report (which was titled, “As Marriage and Parenthood Drift Apart, Public Is Concerned about Social Impact”), also noted that younger adults are cohabiting and having children out of wedlock “at rates unprecedented in U.S. history.” Nearly 37 percent of births in America today are to unmarried women, the report said. “Nearly half (47%) of adults in their 30s and 40s have spent a portion of their lives in a cohabiting relationship.”

I can’t help but think of what I learned the first time I attended a Weekend to Remember marriage getaway—that when God created the institution of marriage He had something much grander in mind than our personal happiness.

Yes, marriage is about companionship and commitment and even fulfillment, but it’s much more than that. God also created marriage so that husband and wife would reflect His character to their children and to an unbelieving world. Marriage and family is a foundational part of His plan for teaching each new generation about His love, mercy, and grace.

What our culture needs to know is that marriage is not “all about me.” It’s all about God—and we are so much better off when it is.

This article originally appeared in Marriage Memo, a weekly e-newsletter.

Brad and Cindy* had been married for less than three years, but something was very wrong with their relationship. Brad had not been himself and Cindy suspected that he was involved with another woman.

They appeared to be headed for divorce. But after some relatives learned about the Weekend to Remember^® marriage getaway, they challenged Brad and Cindy to attend. “Will you please just give this weekend a chance and then make your decision?” they asked. “What’s three days when what you’re about to do will change your whole life?” They even offered to take care of Brad and Cindy’s young daughter, Chloe.

Brad and Cindy (who asked to remain anonymous for this interview) reluctantly agreed.

Cindy: When Brad and I went to our first Weekend to Remember, we arrived in separate cars. I don’t remember who the speakers were, but I recall one of them saying there had been a time when he prayed his wife would die. “And then,” he said, “she almost hemorrhaged to death when she delivered our third baby, and I found myself on the floor praying that God would save her life.” I will never forget that because I was at the place where I didn’t want to divorce Brad, but I wanted him to die. As I heard that man share, I had a glimmer of hope. Could God do something like that for me?

Brad: At the time I was involved in an adulterous affair. I didn’t want to give that up. I went to the conference to appease Cindy. It was just one last thing to do before I left her. I had no intention of getting anything out of it. As the speakers shared, God began to deal with me and I felt a lot of pressure. I didn’t want to hear what God was saying. I wanted my own way. When the speaker asked us to write a love letter to our spouse, I just couldn’t do it. My plan was to eventually marry another woman. When Cindy read her love letter to me, I felt so bad. How could she love me? I didn’t love her. All I could say was, “I don’t think that I can make this work. I want a divorce.”

Cindy: God had so prepared my heart for those words. He had been teaching me for months how to love my husband unconditionally. He reminded me during the Weekend to Remember that He was using me to teach Brad that the cross is about unconditional forgiveness.

I came from a divorced home and I was raised by my dad. I remember thinking, I do not want Chloe to grow up in a home where she doesn’t have a mother and a daddy. I would just rock her at night and say, “God, I’m praying this for Chloe. Put Brad and me back together for her.”

Brad: My heart had become cold to God’s ways. But because they used humor throughout the conference, I had to try harder and harder to fight against what the speakers were saying. On the last day, the speaker asked his dad to stand up. As I watched this man honor his father, it just got to me. I thought of my daughter, who was a little over a year old at the time. Tears came to my eyes. I realized what I was doing to her and just couldn’t stay at the conference any longer. I had to get away. So I left the conference. I wanted to get as far away from it as I could. I was not ready to do life God’s way.

Cindy: Brad was already at the house when I arrived there with Chloe. He seemed unchanged by the conference.

An older lady had been mentoring me through this whole thing. Her advice was, “Do not seek out what is going on right now. God knows, and just try to allow God to give you as much information as He knows you can handle.” Instead of praying that Brad would fall back in love with me, I started praying that he would fall in love with God. Then I started praying for myself—that I would have hope.

Brad: Things continued to be tense between Cindy and me … and between me and God. It had gotten to a point where God kind of put me in a corner and said, “You’ve got to choose.” About three weeks after the conference, I made my choice. While Cindy and Chloe were at church one Sunday, I packed my things. I left Cindy a note and said that I would not be back.

As I walked out of the house that morning, I thought my decision would give me peace. Instead, within hours God showed me the path that I was going down. It was as though He said, “Okay, this is what you’re going to give up, and it’s not all going to be roses. Leaving Cindy and Chloe isn’t going to be everything you think it will be.” That Sunday night I just knew I couldn’t go through with the divorce.

Cindy: On Monday morning I walked outside and Brad was standing there. He said, “Can we talk?”

“I really have nothing to talk to you about,” I said.

“I just need to talk with you.” So we went into the bedroom and sat down on the floor.

“Can we pray?” he said. I was so shocked.

“Oh, God, just help me trust You,” Brad said. Then he started bawling and told me everything—how the affair started, and what they had planned. He said he wanted his family back and how sorry he was. I didn’t say a lot because I knew he was hurting so much. My mind was on him. I had been in that place before—I had rebelled and had been in sin and realized, “I want God back in my life.” I told him he couldn’t go back to work, because the affair was with a woman from work.

“I know,” he said. “I’ve already called my boss and said I want to quit.”

Brad: Cindy loved me through this, and showed me how much God loves me. Because she could forgive me, I knew that God could forgive me. After I confessed to Cindy, I talked with my mom. She gave me the name of an assistant pastor at her church, and I met with him that day. He counseled with Cindy and me for several weeks and gave us some good guidelines.

Cindy and I joined the church where I had grown up. We immersed ourselves in the Bible and prayer, and we also fasted. I got around a few older men at church who were really on fire for God. I shared with them what Cindy and I had gone through and started praying with them. Over the next year, I began to win Cindy’s love and trust back. We reconnected spiritually. I learned to appreciate her again.

Cindy: About a year after Brad and I reconciled, we went to another Weekend to Remember conference. We wanted to go back and listen and make a commitment to apply the material to our marriage.

Brad: Cindy and I have now attended four conferences. There’s a part where you look at each other and say, “You’re not my enemy.” At that first conference I couldn’t say it because Cindy was my enemy. This year we looked at each other and said, “You’re not my enemy.” It’s amazing how far we’ve come in six years.

I love everything about the conference. In fact, Cindy and I have been group coordinators for the past two years and have brought about 30 people with us. I think everybody we have brought has literally come back and told us, “Thank you for inviting us.”

Cindy: When we first came to the conference, we were struggling in our marriage and God used it as a tool to bring us back together. We want to see other couples benefit from it as well.

At our first Weekend to Remember, a couple stood up and said, “We came with divorce papers at our first conference and were holding hands at the next one.” I thought, Is that possible? Could that really happen to us? And it did.

*Brad and Cindy are not the real names of this couple.

Copyright © 2009 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Earlier this year (2010) I was reminded that people need God’s blueprints for marriage and family now more than ever.

My wife, Barbara, and I recently spoke to about 2,400 people at a Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway in Washington, D.C. We saw that the principles in this conference are as relevant today as they were in 1976 when we first began to teach them.

For a few days we wondered if the Valentine’s weekend event would even take place. Several feet of snow were on the ground in the Washington, D.C., area, closing down offices and schools for much of that week. Yet somehow nearly everyone who registered made it to the Gaylord National Hotel. That alone showed me how much these couples wanted to work on their marriage relationship.

Here are some highlights from that remarkable weekend:

More than 300 people indicated they received Christ at the conference.

Another 700 dedicated their families to Christ.

At the end of the conference Barbara and I, along with the other speaking couple, stayed until 2 p.m. talking with guests, signing marriage covenants, and having pictures made. So many stories of God working to change lives.

Twenty-six couples came from Andrew Air Force Base on full scholarships (including two nights at the Gaylord) offered by the base chaplain.

One man told me his wife gave him her wedding ring this past Christmas, asking him for a divorce. She asked for it back as the conference concluded.

I met so many men who listen to FamilyLife Today on the radio. Many came up and told of how the show had impacted their lives.

I don’t know the actual breakdown, but the diversity of the conference had to approach 40 percent. It was an honor to have so many young African American couples in attendance.

We talked with one couple, Tazwell and Bonita Thornton, who are true warriors as they work in Baltimore to help couples build strong marriages. They said they had taken 1,584 people through FamilyLife’s Preparing for Marriage course in the last 15 years, as well as more than 5,000 folks through small groups using the HomeBuilders Couples Series®.

Barbara and I met a couple from a Middle Eastern country; he’s a new believer, and she used to listen to FamilyLife Today when she was a teenager growing up in a remote part of that country. She never dreamed she’d have the opportunity to meet us. We prayed for them in the lobby of the Gaylord and commissioned them to return to their country and become emissaries for Christ and families. At that point they told us, “You do know that this could cost us our lives! Still, we want to obedient to God and be used by Him however He pleases.” Amazing.

We met another couple who said they were divorced with three children. He had just been released from prison after five years, and somehow they found their way to the event despite the snow. By the end of the Weekend to Remember getaway they had decided to get remarried and join a HomeBuilders group.

To God be the glory. He is at work in marriages and families today.

This article originally appeared in the May 3, 2010 issue of Marriage Memo, a weekly e-newsletter.

When my husband, Jim, and I said, “I do” 37 years ago, I never envisioned myself camping on a budget or whizzing through the countryside on the back of a motorcycle. And Jim never imagined himself thousands of feet up in the air. But God has used these experiences, and countless others, to gradually knit our hearts together as best friends.

Our close friendship today is a result of open communication, adjustments … and a willingness to try new adventures.

Our first adjustment occurred when I realized that I had married a man who thoroughly enjoyed camping. Although his family had camped a lot, mine had not. My idea of camping was a motor home, but Jim preferred a tent. I agreed to go on one condition: “Could we please have a campsite with electricity so I could use my hair dryer?” I asked Jim.

“Done,” he said.

So we began our first adventure as a couple—a delightful weekend enjoying the crisp autumn air and seeing the rich hues of red, gold, and purple leaves.

Our next escapade involved my husband’s longtime desire for a motorcycle. He found a deal that he just couldn’t pass up—a red, 450 cc Honda. Jim assured me that he would drive the Honda and that I could ride along. He even added a “sissy bar” on the back of the seat so I wouldn’t slide off! Since motorcycling was important to Jim, I decided to give it a try. I’m glad that I did.

Not long after Jim purchased the motorcycle, we used it for a trip with another couple to Florida, camping along the way. It was my job to read up on motorcycle trips and to find out what to pack and how to pack it. Was that an education! (Did you know that you can apply banana oil to the bike’s windshield and to your goggles to keep them from fogging?)

Everything went as planned as we rode to Florida, until heavy rains greeted us in Panama City. The pounding drops caused me to keep my head bent over so the rain wouldn’t sting my face. I didn’t see how the guys were able to drive. Finally, we stopped at the first little motel we saw.

Since we were on a budget, we asked for the cheapest room available. Much to my surprise, instead of a room, we were led to a small silver trailer that was parked on the side of the motel! Although it was barely big enough for the four of us, it felt comfortable to hear the muted sound of rain falling on its metal roof.

Shared Memories

Not only have I compromised for Jim’s interests, but he has also made adjustments to please me. One example of this has to do with my lifelong love of flying. One Christmas Jim gave me a teddy bear, dressed as a pilot, with a certificate entitling me to flying lessons. And a couple of years later, as a birthday present, he and I flew over Little Rock with a local pilot. This was especially meaningful because Jim doesn’t like either flying or heights. It just made my day to think that he would step through his fear for an interest that was only mine.

Recently, a friend asked if Jim and I had thought about developing a mutual hobby. With our retirement years fast approaching, she reminded us that we’d soon have more time to spend together. She concluded by saying, “I’ve found it is hard to find something both [husband and wife] enjoy.”

Jim and I just looked at each other. When we discussed our friend’s comment, we concluded that we already had many mutual hobbies. And not just hobbies … we had a lifetime of shared memories.

Our many escapades have given us stories to share with our friends, family, and each other. Together, we’ve developed a sense of adventure that’s provided a building block of trust. And we’ve learned to expect the unexpected when we’re with each other, and to understand the value of compromise and selflessness. And today we are joined together by a bond of deep trust.

I’m glad that Jim and I have given each other the gift of friendship. It’s great to be married to your best friend!

© 2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved. Used by permission of author.

My wife and I were staying with friends at their summer home in Wyoming. A blue ribbon trout stream snaked its way through the woods and along the fields next to their home. It was irresistible.

One morning I came back to the house with a basket full of fish and found that no one was there to view my trophies. I decided to nurse my disappointment by turning on the tube. Because we were so far out in the country, the reception on the television was limited to only a couple stations. Each was broadcasting a soap opera.

The people on the one I watched had more problems in an hour than I want to have in my entire life. They said the word “love” a lot, but practiced deception, betrayal, anger, and selfishness. I figured this is what the world would be like if only spoiled brats were allowed to fall in love.

I couldn’t believe anyone would actually watch such a foolish portrayal of life. But the next day I made sure I was out of the stream and into the armchair in time to pick up where all of those selfish, brokenhearted people had let me off the day before. Within three days I was addicted. (Fortunately, I made it through withdrawal by the time I returned home, and resisted the urge to take out a subscription to Soap Opera Digest.)

Looking for love in the wrong places

I know people (lots of them) whose lives seem as if they are scripted by the soap writers. They approach love without a clue as to what it is. Their lives are restless and unsatisfied. They keep looking for love in all the wrong places. They are proof that the myths that magazines, TV, and movies put forward about love are actually believed.

The definition of love we bring to marriage has everything to do with whether or not we are enjoying love. When I visit with a couple struggling in their relationship, I like to ask them to give me their definition of love. What I find in almost every case is that both partners have come to the relationship with only the vaguest notion of what love entails.

I want to share with you a definition of love that can bring calm to a hurried marriage. It can make a relationship between a husband and wife an oasis in the middle of a thirsty culture. Those who seriously embrace this definition can maintain the ability to love for a lifetime. They can move beyond today to a lifetime of certainty and contentment.

Let’s define love this way: Love is… the commitment of my will to your needs and best interests regardless of the cost.

Unrealistic?

I get a variety of responses when I share this definition with people. Sometimes they say it is exactly the way they would define love. Yet a closer examination of their lives shows that what they believe in theory they don’t carry out in practice. Others call the definition “unrealistic,” “idealistic,” or even “impossible.”

As married couples navigate their way through the future, their love for each other may be the only part of their lives that seems permanent. If your love is secure, you can accept anything.

Yet, loving your spouse by committing your will to his or her needs, regardless of the cost, truly is superhuman. It comes from the heart of the supernatural God Who made us. If we want to have it toward each other, we must first derive it from God. The husband or wife trying to love without a heart possessed by the Author of love is going to run out of momentum very quickly.

Secure love, therefore, requires a secure relationship with the God Who is love.

Copyright © 2007 by Tim Kimmel. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

As a police officer, I can work some really long days that can be very hard, and very stressful. Sometimes I work different shifts and things happen that are dangerous. I think that has an effect on my wife, Barbara. She doesn’t want me to see her worry, but I know she does. Issues can so easily get confused. Jumbled. Blown out of proportion.

Attending The Art of Marriage® video event had a profound effect on our relationship. It just took so much of the garbage away and explained it in simple, understandable ways. After going through The Art of Marriage, I felt relieved!

Barbara and I have both been married before, and step-family problems are probably the biggest ones for us. I have a tendency to take issues out of context and blow them up. The Art of Marriage made me realize that it’s not the issue that’s important, it’s the marriage. Sometimes I’ve gotten so caught up looking at circumstances that I’ve missed the fact that God brought us together.

I thought some of our problems were so bad that I had to solve the impossible. Now I’ve been able to take a step back to see that the circumstances are just the circumstances—that the overriding thing is that we are married and love each other. That’s what’s important. Everything else is kind of underneath that.

The video event also helped me stop looking at things in a worldly way. It helped me realize that God has the wisdom to solve our problems and that there’s benefit and beauty in working through them.

God has a plan for my marriage

I now understand that God truly wants my marriage to succeed. I had a tendency to forget that He has a plan for Barbara and me as husband and wife. I was relieved to begin looking at our issues in a spiritual way—to realize that we need to work on them together, and pray about them. This has made them seem smaller, not such a big deal.

The Art of Marriage also introduced me to a new thought: that I have to “receive” my spouse. I had not really considered that we have to receive a gift, and I learned that receiving Barbara as my gift from God is a daily task.

I also found it helpful to hear that marriage is not all about me or my happiness. I knew that already but needed to be reminded of it. And the issue of drifting toward isolation was also very revealing. I thought that I was the only one with that problem, but now I’ve learned that it’s common to so many marriages.

The explanation of the male/female biblical roles was the best I’ve ever listened to. We need to hear that men and women have equal value to God and to each other in a marriage, but very different roles and responsibilities.

Attending The Art of Marriage was an opportunity for Barbara and me to come together. We were able to say that we were both working on our marriage and that there’s spiritual wisdom to cover our marriage.

Copyright © 2012 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

My parents were particularly chatty one normal Thursday evening. My husband, David, and I stood around their kitchen island where many past conversations had blossomed. Waiting for the rolls to finish warming, we enjoyed stories filled with “remember whens.”

We laughed about the time my brother accidentally kicked me in the mouth while jumping on the bed. He chipped my bottom front tooth, which I never got fixed. Later, my dad retold the story of how we ended up in a high-speed chase in the middle of a family trip, trying to escape a crazy man driving on the highway in the middle of the night.

That reminded me of another trip we took when I was in kindergarten. We went to California to visit my mother’s family, but I remembered something odd: Daddy wasn’t there. “Do you remember that trip?” I asked, still smiling from the previous stories.

“Oh, yes,” my mom casually replied, “That was the time I was leaving your father.”

The way she said it, you would think she was talking about going to the grocery store or taking a walk. But I was shocked! Why was this the first time I heard about it?

“What? You were leaving Daddy?”

“Yes, I had decided that enough was enough, and I was leaving him,” she said.

Well, that was fine for her, but what about us kids? Didn’t we have a say in it? She had thrown us on a plane under false pretenses (taking a trip to see our grandparents), and she was planning to keep us there for the rest of our lives!

And then she told the rest of the story. “When I got there, I missed him so much. I realized I just couldn’t live without him, and I had to come back.” Her eyes sparkled as she glanced at my father.

A different life

Don’t get me wrong. I knew that my parents had some problems in their marriage, some very hard times, but what came as a surprise to me was the fact that they were that close to splitting up.

My life flashed before my eyes. As I watched a mental slide show clicking through my childhood memories, I couldn’t help but ask myself, How different would my life be if they had decided to go their separate ways?

My father wouldn’t have been there to hold me in his arms and tell me everything would be all right on the night a boyfriend broke my heart.

My mom wouldn’t have picked us up from school every day because she would have been working to support us.

I wouldn’t have known my grandmother and my aunts on my father’s side of the family, who had such a great impact on my spiritual growth even at a young age.

My younger brother wouldn’t even be here at all! He is such a central and vibrant part of the family.

And last but not least, I would have been left without the model of a godly mother and father that helped me so much in my own new marriage.

As I sat there thinking about all these precious memories, I told myself, I’m so glad they stayed together. They didn’t have to stay married. At the time, divorce was becoming more common; women were claiming their independence. They could have taken the easy way out, but they chose to stay committed because it was the right thing to do … both in God’s eyes and for the health of the family.

I’ve heard them talk about the pain and hurt they went through in their marriage, and I really don’t blame them for having second thoughts. But now that we’re in the future and the problems have been worked out, we all agree (including my mother and father) that it was worth the sacrifices they made to stay together.

If you saw my parents now, I’m sure you would find it hard to believe that they were once contemplating divorce. They lead a Bible study at church for married couples, and they use the struggles that they had in the past to help others see that there is hope, no matter how difficult the marriage.

Yes, my mother and father still argue—they’re still different as night and day. But they’ve learned to appreciate each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s sweet to see them sneak a kiss and a squeeze when they think no one is looking … it makes me sad to think they almost missed those moments.

If you are in a struggling marriage, don’t give up. There is hope for your family just like mine. FamilyLife has created dozens of resources for you and your family. Please carefully browse our website for help for your marriage.

Copyright © 2007 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Merry and I just returned from a Weekend to Remember® marriage conference at the Gaylord Texan resort in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. When you stay at the Gaylord Texan, it’s hard not to rave about the incredible setting; the hotel’s huge atrium is a wonderland of streams, vegetation, and winding paths evoking different regions of Texas.

But the real wonder of the weekend was the conference itself. We were just two of more than 3,500 people who spent the weekend working to improve their marriage relationship. As one speaker said, “Anything you hope will last a lifetime needs regular maintenance.” And of course, some couples got much more than a tune-up. One person wrote on an evaluation form, “This was an S.O.S. and we were rescued. A new life was breathed inside our spirit. The tears of relief flow like the Jordan River.”

One of the most amazing sights was that of hundreds of couples spread throughout the hotel—on lawns, on benches, in restaurants, sitting on floors—working on projects together. In the faces of the wives I saw the joy of having their husbands all to themselves for an entire weekend (even in the midst of college basketball’s March Madness) to talk and have fun together. It was encouraging to overhear bits of conversation like, “And the speaker said I’m supposed to respect you and encourage you!”

Merry and I attended the alumni sessions on the “Peacemaker Marriage: Living Above Marital Conflict.” And, naturally, we got the opportunity to immediately practice the principles we learned, for it seemed as if several different issues we’ve argued about over the last few months popped to the surface unexpectedly!

Over and over I was struck by the thought that the marriage relationship is a reflection of Christ’s relationship with each of us. For example, our speaker, Dave Sunde, told us that, “Marriage will call forth from you more forgiveness than you ever thought you were capable of giving.” When we forgive each other, we model the forgiveness that God gives us through Christ. As Ephesians 4:32 tells us, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

One of the key principles of the conference is that couples naturally drift toward isolation in their relationship. It is through weekends like this that couples work against that drift—and build the oneness that makes a marriage flourish.

If there is one thing that continually reminds me of the importance of reaching out to families, it’s the e-mail we receive here at FamilyLife. The stories people tell reveal a common thread: People today are hungry to learn how to build a good marriage, and when they learn how to build it according to biblical blueprints, it makes all the difference.

There is a misconception among some people that you don’t need to attend a marriage conference unless your relationship is in trouble. The truth is that most couples who come to a Weekend to Remember® are just looking to make a strong marriage even stronger. Ana Olivarez of Edinburg, Texas, wrote:

My husband and I have been blessed with a wonderful marriage. In fact, we don’t even know what it is to fight or argue. At first I was not interested [in attending the conference] … we really did not want to spend money we didn’t really have on a retreat we did not need. … However, this e-mail and my limited vocabulary cannot express what both my husband and I experienced. All I can say is Wow! As it turns out, this retreat was much more than about failed marriages; it was about God’s gift to mankind … I am not getting paid to advertise here. I just want to share with everyone this wonderful experience.

Tanya Goeins of Kissimmee, Florida, said she and her husband attended a Weekend to Remember conference to celebrate their 18 years of marriage. They had some problems, she said, but everything seemed fine in their relationship. The first night of the conference was an eye-opener, however, as they took a hard look at issues in their marriage:

I cried and was very sad and depressed—I couldn’t believe how bad our marriage actually was and started thinking, How did we stay together so long? The next couple of days were hard—very emotional. I found out some things I didn’t want to know about my spouse. The honesty was brutal, but necessary. With God’s grace I got through the pain, sadnesss, and disappointments and had to face the truth. By the time it was time to check out, I was able to forgive my husband for the past, accept him for the gift of God that he was, and start over. I feel like we have a clean slate and just got married all over again.

And then there was the woman who attended the conference with her ex-husband. We’ve been seeing more stories like this lately:

He and I were married for 15+ years and divorced this past April. Through a lot of work on ourselves with the help of Christ, we are working on our relationship. To be honest we were missing a key element—we had Christ in our lives, but we did not have him as the center of our lives. Now we are learning how to truly love one another. The conference was a great building block in our journey. This was information that we had never been given … this gave us the opportunity to see that everyone struggles with the same things, we were not alone as we thought we were.

As this couple learned, it is never too late to try and restore a relationship if you are willing to humble yourselves completely and allow God to work.

This article originally appeared in the October 26, 2009 issue of Marriage Memo, a weekly e-newsletter.

I wrote an article for The Family Room ezine called “She Hated Her Husband.” It was about Brian and Julie Moreau’s disintegrating relationship and the key role that a Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway played in saving their marriage. A skeptical reader posted this comment below the article: “If this story is really true maybe you should tell the part of how long and hard the road to recovery from the brink of divorce was.”

I can understand why the reader wondered if Brian and Julie’s story was fiction. It does seem like a fairytale. How likely is it for a woman who tells her husband over and over, “I hate you,” to later say that he is God’s gift to her?

“Impossible,” you say? Yes—apart from God.

Brian and Julie are indeed real people. When they attended a Weekend to Remember marriage getaway, they both made decisions to receive Jesus Christ as the Lord of their lives and the Savior for their sins. Having Christ at the center of their marriage is what changed their home so dramatically. He turned an impossible, hopeless marriage into something brand new. In fact, their relationship is now a beacon of light for other couples whose marriages are hurting.

Rebuilding

“She Hated Her Husband” did not devote much space to the actual rebuilding of the Moreaus’ relationship after the marriage getaway, but many of our stories do. Tom and Maureen Santacroce, for example, were headed for divorce after 34 years of marriage. They attended a Weekend to Remember as a late effort to reconcile. Although they enjoyed it, they had a heated argument right after the conference that left them in despair.

To make a long story short (you may want to read what the divorce court judge told them), the Santacroces recalled the words of a FamilyLife representative at the getaway: “You are going to need someone to help you piece this thing back together.”

Tom and Maureen took that advice and got the counseling they needed. Today they are encouraging other couples as FamilyLife volunteers.

Or take Tom and Anna Flippin. Anna just wouldn’t give up on her husband, even when he was unfaithful.

After two and a half years of counseling, Tom agreed to go to a Weekend to Remember. At the end of the marriage getaway, Tom told Anna that he had enjoyed it, “except for the God stuff.” It took years for Tom to come to Christ, but the Flippins ended up making their marriage work.

The impossible

The changes made in these marriages were not caused by FamilyLife. They were the result of husbands and wives realizing they could not make their marriage work on their own. The Moreaus, Santacroces, and Flippins turned their lives and their marriages over to God, accepted His help, and decided to follow His blueprints for their homes.

Brian and Julie’s marriage changed quickly because they individually vowed to make Jesus Christ the center of their relationship. It took months for the Santacroces, and years for the Flippins, to have truly healthy marriages. But each of these couples had one thing in common: They did not give up.

I never grow tired of writing about changed lives. Each new story reminds me that absolutely “Nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37)!

Copyright ©2010 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

A few weeks ago I received a phone call from my oldest friend, Mark Allen. He and I met as kindergartners in Eugene, Ore., and went through school together until we graduated from high school. He was calling to say that he and his wife, Jenny, would be visiting Branson, Mo., for a business conference, and he was hoping to visit us in Little Rock for a day at the end of the trip.

I confirmed that Merry and I would be in town, and then he mentioned, “Be sure not to call me at home about this. Jenny doesn’t know where we’re going.”

It turned out that this was an anniversary trip, and they have a yearly tradition to take each other on a surprise getaway. It was Mark’s turn this year to plan the journey.

When the day of their trip arrived, Jenny knew they were going someplace where the weather would be in the 70-80s. She knew what clothes to bring and was told to pack their golf clubs. But that’s all.

At the Eugene airport, Mark gave her a boarding pass for a flight to Salt Lake City. When they arrived in Utah, he gave her another for Little Rock. They rented a car in Arkansas, and Mark started driving north. Jenny didn’t realize their final destination was Branson until they began seeing road signs and billboards for the city.

A few days later, after they returned to Little Rock, I asked them more about this yearly tradition. They said they’ve been doing it since early in their marriage, and it has now become a highlight of each year. Most of the trips have been overnight stays at a hotel or bed-and-breakfast inn somewhere in Oregon. They’ve also been on a mystery theater train and a cruise to Ensenada.

For Mark and Jenny, the “surprise” aspect adds to the enjoyment. “The fun is being taken on this adventure,” Jenny said. Mark added that they’ve learned that whoever is planning the trip can’t tell anyone ahead of time where they are going, especially the children. “No matter how hard they want to keep a secret, they will still say something and give it away.” Friends or family who took care of the kids were given an envelope with all the relevant information and permission forms.

After years of taking these trips, the Allens have a bond of common memories and experiences. “These are memories only the two of us share,” Mark said.

They’ve also inspired a number of friends to start the same tradition. And perhaps that’s why I was so interested in hearing about it. I wonder how many other people have established traditions like this?

It’s not necessary to spend a lot of money—the point is taking the time to get away together each year to spend time alone, apart from the children.

My conversation with Mark and Jenny reminded me of a comment I’ve seen from many couples who attend one of FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember® marriage conferences: “This is the first time we’ve been away together since our honeymoon.” Getaways like these are some of the best things that a couple can do to keep their marriage fresh and exciting.

What creative things have you done to keep your marriage strong and fresh? Have you gone on any adventures together? I’d like to hear from you. Leave your suggestions in the comment section below.

One of the most difficult things I had to do after becoming a single mom was go to church.

I had been an active member at my church since my oldest child was a baby. We’re all wired a little differently, and sitting in a church service has always left me feeling more connected to God. But the summer my husband left us, I couldn’t go.

I didn’t return for seven weeks. I wasn’t mad at God. In fact, He and my kids were the only reasons I got out of bed that summer. I trusted Him, and knew He had a plan for my life. No, the reason I couldn’t go to church that summer is because I couldn’t be around the people.

It wasn’t their fault. The people at my church are wonderful. They all meant well. I think many of them just didn’t know how to be with me. They didn’t know what to say, so many of them said the things you say when “you don’t know what to say”:

“I’m so sorry!”
“Wow that must be really hard.”
“I’ll pray for you.”
“Everything will be okay. God will take care of you.”

The other thing I couldn’t handle was seeing all the complete families. It didn’t matter that nothing had really changed; I had sat alone in church for years. But now I didn’t “fit” there anymore. We didn’t fit there. We were a broken family. There isn’t a place for broken families at church. There’s a moms group, and a singles group, and a married couples group. But I felt like I didn’t really belong there anymore. The small groups at many churches were organized by life stage. There wasn’t a group for “divorced, single mom.”

If you’re a single parent, maybe you know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen estimates that say 67 percent of single parents do not attend church (and I read one estimate that was even higher at 95 percent!). Most of the single parents I know, both online and off, don’t attend church regularly if they go at all. And very few churches have single parent ministries or small groups equipped to help single parent families get connected to the support we need.

Personally, I hate the terms “broken family” and “broken home” and would like to meet the person who first added those terms to our lexicon. I would tell him how incredibly awful and hurtful those words can be to a family. There is an automatic stigma attached to those words in our culture. When society uses those words to define an idea (single parent homes brought about by divorce) they aren’t pausing to consider that “broken” families consist of real people with real feelings. We use the term without thinking of the people we’re describing, how it will impact their view of who they are as a family, and their place in the community of believers.

Now, if you didn’t catch it, there is something wrong with a statement I made before, that “There isn’t a place for broken families at church.” Actually, two things are wrong with this. One, when you feel broken, church and the people there are actually the best thing for you even though it feels impossibly hard. And two, my family wasn’t broken. We were hurting and scarred, yes, and firmly planted in “survival mode.” But we weren’t broken. Not really. We have had to learn how to be a different kind of family—different from our original family—but not broken.

I did go back to church. Corporate worship is the place where I experience the presence of God the strongest, and at His urging in my spirit I knew I needed to return and root my family in Him. I cried through every service for two months, and a lot of people avoided me; but I went. I attended a DivorceCare class there and met another single mom friend. I met with people who I knew cared about me and my children—people who spoke wise words and didn’t pity us but loved us even though we were different. After all, the Bible is full of different.

Returning to church was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a single parent, but it’s also one of the best things I’ve done for my family. I needed to surround my little family with people and a community who love the way Jesus loved. That is the only kind of love that heals families and hearts.

Copyright © 2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Husbands, have you ever said anything about your wife to friends or coworkers and immediately realized you shouldn’t have?

Tom Brady did. And not just to friends in private, but to the press for the whole world to hear.

In a press conference the New England Patriots quarterback was asked what he was going to do with all his extra time during an uncharacteristic full week of practice away from home.

“I think, naturally, when you’re on the road like this, there’s less things to do,” Brady said. “You know, my family’s not here, my kids aren’t here, there’s nobody telling me what I did wrong in the house, so it’s just being at home, and now it’s being here and trying to just figure out how to win a game.”

His football mouth had already blurted out what his football brain was thinking before his husband ears heard the way it came across. Before he took another question from the press, he quickly recanted.

“I didn’t mean that, babe, so I take that back.”

Not really sure what’s going on at home, but I’m sure a better explanation was probably in order when he got there.

When you think about it, it’s pretty funny. People know them as five-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady and world-famous supermodel Gisele Bündchen. At home, though, they’re just husband and wife, mom and dad. No stadium of fans cheering him on, no auditorium of admirers looking up at her on the catwalk. It’s often just a lot of mundane responsibilities and unheralded deeds.

That’s real family life.

Teamwork

Needless to say, Tom Brady has had times where he’s not felt appreciated at home. Certainly not adored like he is on the football field. And the same with Gisele. As the saying goes, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” We often overlook the ones we’re closest to, especially our spouses. With three children, Gisele certainly needs help at home, and she depends on her husband to do certain things. And he depends on her as well.

Teamwork is what marriage is about. But often we just live through the day-to-day, and we neglect to express the gratitude to our spouses that they deserve. We get irritated at something or another and focus on that instead of all the good. Brady certainly let that slip when he made the comment to the press. It was thoughtless, but I’m sure he could come up with a long list of positives about his wife and children on the spot if he was in the right frame of mind.

It’s probably going to happen to each of us—in a time of frustration, we’ll say something when we get together with a friend. Wives are as prone to it as husbands. We’re all sinful and selfish.

But Scripture gives us ways of keeping our focus right on the home front: Think of the good.

In Philippians 4:8 we’re told that if there’s anything good (about our spouse, or about anything in life, for that matter), to let our minds focus on those things. Reflect back on the good things about your spouse and the reason that you married him or her.

Keep it between you. The scriptural principal is that if you have a problem with your spouse, talk to them first about it before you go telling the world. The more you talk about it to others (or secretly stew in it), the more likely it can lead to bitterness, which causes division and isolation in the marriage.

Apologize and forgive. When (not if) you do mess up, admit your fault to your spouse and ask them to forgive you. And if you’re the one wronged, extend forgiveness to the same extent that Christ has forgiven you. Humility and grace give life to a marriage.

Copyright © 2017 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Although we technically had six children in our family, occasionally we were visited by a seventh child while they were growing up called “Nobody.” Nobody spilled apple juice, jelly, and peanut butter on the floor and then walked off and left it—presumably to let it grow. Nobody left doors wide open during the fiercest heat wave in the summer and when the wintry winds were coldest and strongest.

The interesting thing about Nobody is that he never got credit for beds made and rooms that were picked up. But when games, toys, and dishes were strewn all over the living room floor, Nobody got the blame—full accusations by six kids. “Nobody did it.” Barbara and I probably would have disciplined Nobody if we could’ve ever caught him.

Our family’s invisible child, Nobody, is a miniature model of the irresponsibility of people in our society these days. In a childish manner similar to that demonstrated by our kids, individuals today are looking to escape the consequences of their actions. They want to clarify their “rights” but when accountability and responsibility come knocking, they flee for the back door.

“No-fault divorce”

Nowhere is this more evident than in courtrooms where hundreds of thousands of marriages dissolve each year. Who’s responsible for all these divorces? Most would answer, “It’s not my fault!” And when two people married to one another both claim it is not their fault, what do you have? “No-fault divorce.”

While the AIDS epidemic has been shouting at us in the headlines, a silent epidemic has swept through all 50 states in the past 30 years with hardly a peep. In the late 1960s not a single state in America had no-fault divorce. In 1984 when North Dakota finally gave in, it became the 50th state to lawfully sanction “it’s-nobody’s-fault divorce.”

No-fault divorce is the practical way for two people to wash their hands of a marriage and end all responsibility to one another. It’s cleaner, faster, and easier. If no one was at fault, if no one can be blamed, if neither was right and neither was wrong and both want out of the relationship, then shouldn’t two people be allowed to dissolve their relationship?

If it’s no one’s fault that the marriage failed, are we also saying it was no one’s responsibility to make the marriage work? Most would say no. But actions speak louder than words. A society that allows for no-fault divorce cannot escape the long-term consequences of its no-responsibility marriages. The permanence of my marriage vows to Barbara motivates me to be responsible for the health of our relationship. It’s for life. No excuses.

Do we believe in marriage?

Marriage was established by God for our good (defeating our selfishness) and His glory. Marriage occurs because of a covenant between a man, a woman, and God. If (in man’s mind) accountability to God is removed, then marriage vows are reduced to meaningless words. Commitments become conditional, temporal bargains.

The Bible establishes marriage as a permanent bonding of two becoming one. Two metals melting together to form a new alloy, never to be distinctly separated again “till death do us part.” That’s why the act of adultery met such a stiff penalty in the Old Testament: death by stoning. I know it sounds savage to us today, but I can’t help but wonder if adultery would be so rampant if a similar law were on our books today!

Our society’s attitude is similar to that of a famous movie star. Soon after Zsa Zsa Gabor married and divorced for the eighth time she said, “I really do believe in marriage.”

Do we really believe in marriage? Then why do so many Christians counsel other Christians to bail out when it gets tough? Why is the divorce rate within the church approaching that of society in general?

Did you know that in Ireland it’s against the law to obtain a divorce? I’m not saying that we need to copy that nation’s laws, because they do have another big problem—50,000 people who are estranged from their spouses—but their protection for the family and marriage is worth noting. I wonder if the young people there take their vows a little more seriously than we do here?

The kids of this culture are getting our message: What is no one’s fault is no one’s responsibility (not just in marriage but in life). Undoubtedly some of them eventually find themselves in a jail cell, puzzled that we still have some laws that do hold us accountable for our actions.

So what’s the action point?

I’d suggest a very basic one: When you and your mate have a conflict, quarrel, or disagreement, begin to take responsibility for resolving it. I wonder what would happen if a husband and wife cast no blame except toward self? Take responsibility. Don’t blame Nobody. Admit your mistakes—even if it isn’t all your fault. And take an inventory to see if any of the “no one’s responsible/no one’s fault” philosophy occupies your home.

Second, give some hope to a faltering marriage. Just like the angel told Mary, “With God all things are possible.” Come alongside them. Coach them. Exhort them. Send them to a Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway or start a HomeBuilders® Couples Series with them. The cure for our nation’s divorce epidemic is a vaccine of biblical accountability and responsibility.

Third, if you have kids, teach them to be responsible for the commitments they make. Tell them that marriage is for keeps, and that sliding out of responsibilities is wrong.

Finally, pray that a lay-led grass-roots family revival will spring up and that “no-fault divorce” laws will be repealed in all our states.

I pray “Nobody” will never come near my home or yours again.

Copyright © 2002 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

The wise preacher declared, “Two are better than one because … if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up” (Ecclesiastes. 4:9–10). That Scripture shouts the value of mutual support or accountability in marriage.

Here are some areas where Barbara and I have learned to practice accountability in our marriage:

1. Spiritual health. Every marriage—every life—must involve daily communication with and dependence on God in order to remain on track. Most of us are prone to laziness or distraction when it comes to taking care of our spiritual needs.

A loving spouse, who has your permission to encourage you in your devotion to Christ, can help by asking open-ended questions: “What has God been teaching you lately?” and “What are you praying about these days?” If the answer to both is, “Nothing!” it’s definitely time to slow down and spend time with God. A husband and wife praying together on a daily basis will have an accountability mechanism already in place.

2. Emotional and sexual fidelity. This is a potentially sensitive but critical area in any marriage. The way in which the issues of temptations and moral struggles are handled will chart the course for every married couple.

Neither spouse can risk opening the door to inappropriate intimacy with someone of the opposite sex. In a Bible study group I once led, Barbara sensed that one of the men was acting a bit too friendly toward her. At first she thought she might be imagining it, but after more of the weekly sessions, she knew the man had an interest in her.

Although she was embarrassed and not sure how I might respond, she confided her suspicions and discomfort to me. When I responded with kindness, I saw relief spread across her face. This unsettling secret quickly lost its negative power as we discussed her feelings openly.

Looking back on that incident, we saw that it was a test for both of us regarding accountability. Fortunately, both of us did the right thing—she shared and I did not get angry—and the incident strengthened our commitment and helped us see the value of open communication and mutual accountability.

3. Schedules. We try to help each other make good decisions by monitoring each other’s workload and schedules. Making good decisions means saying yes to some things and no to others. And saying no can be easier when you can honestly add, “We have decided that I don’t have time to do this.”

4. Money and values. Nothing creates the need for accountability more than the checkbook. Early in our marriage, it was a fork in the road as to what each of us felt was important. I recall some early accountability tests. Would I listen to her? Would I really consider her advice? Would she trust me with a final decision? These were all natural opportunities to practice godly, caring accountability to each other.

5. Parenting practice. When Barbara and I had our first child, we began the lifelong process of being accountable to each other for our performance as parents. Early on we interacted and sharpened each other on our parenting styles. We all tend to draw on the parenting techniques modeled for us by our parents. When Barbara and I noticed the good or bad tendencies, we could either encourage or help each other improve.

Secrets are primary tools in dividing couples. Accountability between husband and wife is a superb way to keep them from messing with your marriage.

This article was adapted by permission from Starting Your Marriage Right, by Dennis and Barbara Rainey, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001.

I can still remember browsing through the Bible bookstore back in college, searching for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for my then-boyfriend of three years. I didn’t realize that my purchase of a devotional would be a defining and central element of my marriage to the same great guy 11 years and five kids later.

Most anyone who knows Brodie and me understands how much we cherish our morning devotion, or “devosh” as we’ve been known to call it. It has been an intricate part of our spiritual journey as a married couple. There is no obstacle that can keep us from the time we have set aside every morning to start our day with each other, share a cup of coffee, and focus on the Lord.

There have been seasons when I got up at 4:30 a.m. to spend time doing a devotional with my husband before he left for work. It’s not an option to skip it. It wouldn’t feel right.

Our devotional time has become like oxygen—a true necessity to start every single day. I’m convinced that this is how God wants us to be: totally dependent … hungry … thirsty for time with Him.

Moments Together for Couples

The devotional that I bought during college was Dennis and Barbara Rainey’s Moments Together for Couples. I love its tattered appearance today, a true testament of its presence in our relationship.

Last year, for our ninth wedding anniversary, I bought the Raineys’ new devotional, Moments With You. It has been exciting for us to not only probe new content, but also to continue with fresh perspectives on familiar topics.

Brodie and I often say that someone could interview us individually about our marriage, family, and relationship with the Lord and our answers would line up. That’s because of the many times we have discussed important issues during devotion. Whether we talk for 15 minutes or two hours, we grow closer to one another and closer to the Lord.

Our kids (ages 4 months to 8 years) understand the importance of our marriage and that time with God comes first. We love our children, and it is precisely that love for them that prompts our hearts to ask for time without disruption to focus on God and our marriage. We feel strongly that modeling our commitment to our devotion is a gift for them that will reveal its true depth in the years to come.

When we asked the kids how our devotion makes them feel, our 8-year-old said, “It makes me feel like my Mommy and Daddy love each other.” Our 6-year-old said, “It makes me feel happy,” and the youngest (age 4), said, “It makes me feel good because you get to learn about God.”

Defining and dreaming

Devotion is my favorite part of our marriage. I love that it gives us the opportunity to define ourselves as a couple and dream about our future. I love that we get to discuss touchy subjects in an objective and emotionally removed format, dispensing of any heated feelings attached to certain topics. I love that our time as a couple leads to individual Bible study afterward, sometimes at great length.

I love that we get the chance to pray together and for each other at least once every day. I love that our devotion has enabled us to grow closer together over the years and through many life changes rather than growing apart. With Christ as our guide, we have not only weathered disappointment, loss, and grief, but we have also persevered through trials, waited on God, and accepted His plans even when they differed from our own.

Brodie and I realize that future trials will inevitably come, but we have security knowing we are dependent on God as a couple. Because of this unwavering commitment, we have experienced God’s peace as we have walked through the toughest of times.

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a tin sign that says, “Good things happen over coffee.” It now hangs in our kitchen by the coffee pot, and it lends a nod to the single most important part of our marriage: our devotion together.

Copyright ©2009 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

I can still remember browsing through the Bible bookstore back in college, searching for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for my then-boyfriend of three years. I didn’t realize that my purchase of a devotional would be a defining and central element of my marriage to the same great guy 11 years and five kids later.

Most anyone who knows Brodie and me understands how much we cherish our morning devotion, or “devosh” as we’ve been known to call it. It has been an intricate part of our spiritual journey as a married couple. There is no obstacle that can keep us from the time we have set aside every morning to start our day with each other, share a cup of coffee, and focus on the Lord.

There have been seasons when I got up at 4:30 a.m. to spend time doing a devotional with my husband before he left for work. It’s not an option to skip it. It wouldn’t feel right.

Our devotional time has become like oxygen—a true necessity to start every single day. I’m convinced that this is how God wants us to be: totally dependent … hungry … thirsty for time with Him.

Moments Together for Couples

The devotional that I bought during college was Dennis and Barbara Rainey’s Moments Together for Couples. I love its tattered appearance today, a true testament of its presence in our relationship.

Last year, for our ninth wedding anniversary, I bought the Raineys’ new devotional, Moments With You. It has been exciting for us to not only probe new content, but also to continue with fresh perspectives on familiar topics.

Brodie and I often say that someone could interview us individually about our marriage, family, and relationship with the Lord and our answers would line up. That’s because of the many times we have discussed important issues during devotion. Whether we talk for 15 minutes or two hours, we grow closer to one another and closer to the Lord.

Our kids (ages 4 months to 8 years) understand the importance of our marriage and that time with God comes first. We love our children, and it is precisely that love for them that prompts our hearts to ask for time without disruption to focus on God and our marriage. We feel strongly that modeling our commitment to our devotion is a gift for them that will reveal its true depth in the years to come.

When we asked the kids how our devotion makes them feel, our 8-year-old said, “It makes me feel like my Mommy and Daddy love each other.” Our 6-year-old said, “It makes me feel happy,” and the youngest (age 4), said, “It makes me feel good because you get to learn about God.”

Defining and dreaming

Devotion is my favorite part of our marriage. I love that it gives us the opportunity to define ourselves as a couple and dream about our future. I love that we get to discuss touchy subjects in an objective and emotionally removed format, dispensing of any heated feelings attached to certain topics. I love that our time as a couple leads to individual Bible study afterward, sometimes at great length.

I love that we get the chance to pray together and for each other at least once every day. I love that our devotion has enabled us to grow closer together over the years and through many life changes rather than growing apart. With Christ as our guide, we have not only weathered disappointment, loss, and grief, but we have also persevered through trials, waited on God, and accepted His plans even when they differed from our own.

Brodie and I realize that future trials will inevitably come, but we have security knowing we are dependent on God as a couple. Because of this unwavering commitment, we have experienced God’s peace as we have walked through the toughest of times.

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a tin sign that says, “Good things happen over coffee.” It now hangs in our kitchen by the coffee pot, and it lends a nod to the single most important part of our marriage: our devotion together.

Copyright ©2009 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

When Eric and I were first married, I heard a Christian psychologist on the radio say, “Every married couple, at some point in their life together, will wake up one morning, look across the table at their spouse, and wonder whether they married the right person.”

I was horrified at such a thought. God had perfectly scripted my love story with Eric, and I had grown to recognize God as the true Author of romance. Why should I expect something that started out so beautiful to end up turning so sour?

I mentioned this to other married Christians and always seemed to hear the same response. “Just wait,” they would tell me. “You are still a newlywed. Pretty soon the honeymoon magic will die, and you’ll understand what that guy was talking about.”

But Eric and I refused to give in to their dismal expectations. We were convinced that when God puts something together, it only gets better with time. Think about Christ’s first miracle—turning water into wine at a wedding. The wedding host was astounded that the very best wine was saved until the end of the celebration. This is a profound picture of what Christ does for a marriage relationship that is centered on Him. When Jesus builds a lifelong romance between a husband and wife, He saves the best for last!

Now Eric and I have been married almost 13 years. And I can honestly say that our love story has only grown more beautiful, more romantic, and more fulfilling with every passing year. (Just this morning, I found a sweet love letter from Eric waiting for me as I sat down to write!) We have never once looked across the table from each other and wondered whether we married the right person. We have never grown disillusioned with our marriage. And we have never had our hopes dashed to pieces because our expectations were too high.

Are we merely an exception to the rule? Are we simply fortunate to have missed out on the mediocrity that seems to visit every other married couple? Absolutely not. Eric and I believe that victorious, beautiful Christian marriages are in the grasp of everyone who invites Jesus to be the centerpiece of their love story.

What this generation of young Christians needs is not lower expectations of marriage, but higher ones. We need to understand what is truly possible when the Author of lifelong love scripts the story.

Just as God has called us as young women to showcase a radiant, triumphant, super-human victory through our lives, He has called us to showcase a supernatural, lifelong, spectacular romance through our marriages. After all, the entire Bible is a picture of marriage—the love of the Bridegroom toward His bride. Christian marriages are meant to be a picture of heaven on earth.

Make Jesus Christ your first love

Life isn’t always predictable. Marriage isn’t always perfect. And when we look to our spouses or our “fairy-tale dreams” as the sources of our happiness and fulfillment, we’ll usually be disappointed.

Only Jesus Christ can truly fulfill the deepest longings and desires of our feminine hearts. Before marriage, we often chase after temporary romantic flings, thinking that if we can only achieve the approval of the opposite sex, we’ll be happy and fulfilled. After marriage, we often chase after a specific ideal in our spouses, thinking that if we can only get our husbands to be as romantic (and wealthy!) as Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, we’ll be happy and fulfilled.

Due to a combination of trying life circumstances following our honeymoon, it didn’t take me long to figure out that my husband, Eric, couldn’t control the fleas that had infested the house we were renting, he couldn’t control the icy cold weather that wreaked havoc on our pipes and caused them to burst, and he couldn’t control the resulting tightness in our finances. He couldn’t sweep me away into a Jane Austen novel and rescue me from every discomfort I was facing. And as wonderful a husband as he was, he couldn’t meet every romantic desire of my heart, 24 hours a day. So I had a choice to make.

I could either gripe, complain, nag, and nitpick until my ideal picture of married life was finally met (which might be never), or I could turn to the true Lover of my soul, Jesus Christ, and find my happiness and fulfillment in Him alone.

I chose the latter. Though it wasn’t easy, I allowed Jesus Christ to be enough—to be everything I could ever want or need—even if none of my marriage dreams ever came true even if we lived in that flea-infested house for the rest of our lives, and even if we never had enough money for Eric to buy me one flower.

An amazing thing happened when I began to seek my joy, peace, and fulfillment in my relationship with Christ instead of in my marriage “ideal.” No longer was I looking to Eric (or to life circumstances) to meet needs that only my heavenly Prince could truly meet. And I found that I was able to treat Eric with a different attitude. Instead of always worrying about whether he was meeting my needs or fulfilling my romantic ideals, I was able to focus on serving him and giving to him.

The secret to a marriage thriving for a lifetime is selflessness. Nothing will kill a marriage faster than two people who are only concerned with meeting their own needs and desires. But nothing will cause the romance and beauty of a marriage to blossom like two people who put each other’s needs and desires above their own.

Eric has truly been shaped into a heroic prince and husband. He grows more sensitive toward me and more romantic as the years go by. But it’s not because I drop hints, criticize, or complain. It’s because I allow my intimate relationship with Jesus Christ to fulfill the deepest desires of my heart rather than putting that pressure upon Eric’s shoulders.

The reason that our love story thrives is because we make Jesus Christ our first love.

It’s true that newlyweds can take unhealthy expectations into marriage. When we expect our spouses to meet needs that only Christ can meet, we will be disappointed. But here is the crucial truth we must realize: If we allow our marriages to be a beautiful outflow of a passionate relationship with Christ, we will never be disillusioned. A marriage that keeps Christ at the center only gets more amazing with time.

Taken from: Set-Apart Femininity by Leslie Ludy. Copyright © 2008 by Winston and Brooks, Inc. Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon 97402, harvesthousepublishers.com. Used by permission.

As I think back, there were three very significant decisions my husband, Jim, and I have made as a couple.

The first was finding a church that was vibrant, alive and relevant. The second, joining a couple’s Bible study, a small group. And the third decision was serving in ministry together.

These “connecting” components—church, small groups, and ministry—have grown our spiritual intimacy beyond our wildest expectations.

Ecclesiastes 4:10 tells us, “If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But people who are alone when they fall are in real trouble” (NLT). This verse applies to our marriage in so many ways. When Jim and I tried to do our marriage alone without God and other Christians to hold us up, we failed miserably. If there is one piece of advice we can give any married couple, it is this: Don’t do marriage alone.

Church

I know each one of us can come up with all kinds of excuses not to attend church. It’s not relevant, it’s boring, I can’t stand the music, and I’d rather stay in bed. Church attendance has to be a joint effort-you both need to be there. Look for a church that you both love! The effort is worth it.

When a couple in deep weeds comes to us for advice we often ask, “When it the last time you were in church together?” They will look at each other, shrug their shoulders and tell us they don’t remember. When you are disconnected from your church family, you are disconnecting yourself from God and your marriage. It is not possible for you to grow as a couple or family without a firm foundation in a local church. I know this is true because it was very much the life Jim and I lived for the first 10 years of our marriage. We didn’t attend church, ever. Not even on holidays. We had no place to go, no one to lean on, and no one to ask for help when our marriage started to crumble.

One of the best books I’ve read on community is John Ortberg’s, Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them. John writes: “God created human beings because he was so in love with community that he wanted a world full of people to share it with. He wanted to invite all of us to dance with Him, Christ and the Spirit.”

He also says: “We all have a deep desire to connect. The yearning of our soul is to attach, connect, to love and be loved, is the fiercest longing of the soul. Our need for community with people and God is as essential as food and water. This need does not go away. It is a need that can be met through God and his church, God and his people.”

Small groups

Small Groups are where we found acceptance. It was where we studied the bible and discovered we could not do life alone. We realized we were not alone in our marriage struggles and challenges of raising godly children. Our church family fed us, paid our bills and prayed for us when we lost our jobs. They enveloped me with prayer, cards and phone calls when my mother passed away. I know it would have been extremely difficult to walk through these valleys of life without our group.

Groups put people in our lives who hold us accountable. They help us keep promises and encourage us to grow. We can’t do that on our own. Group is a place of safety, openness, and sharing. We need people to nudge us and sometimes give us a good swift kick when we’re taking the wrong path. Simply, we need others to walk beside us! We discovered group to be necessary to spiritual growth as a couple and as individuals.

Ministry

The third component of connecting with other people is ministry, or serving together.

Learn what your spiritual gifts are, then find a ministry that you love to do. It might be serving the poor, cleaning the church, teaching kids, helping in your local food pantry, and building homes for Habitat. What’s your passion as a couple? Jim and I love to volunteer at our church and serve as marriage mentors.

Discover what it means to serve God and others as a team. Your marriage will grow in immeasurable ways. You’ll be an upfront witness to the spiritual gifts God has given your spouse.

We’ve experienced the thrill of seeing God work through answered prayer and watching Him come through in the most difficult of circumstances. Our faith has grown, our love has grown and we’ve had the opportunity to share our love of Christ with many, many people.

Watching God use Jim’s evangelism gift has grown my faith in immense ways. Through Jim, I’ve grown to be a fully devoted follower of Christ, watching God work in the frontlines, even touching atheists and agnostics. It is something I would not have experienced if we weren’t serving together.

Copyright © 2004 Sheri Mueller. Used with permission

I came upon a realization yesterday as I hugged my husband. I’m a bit rounder than I was when we got married. So is he. We both have more wrinkles. His hair is speckled with gray. (My hair would have more speckles, too, if it weren’t for Clairol.)

We’re both still pretty young, yet our bodies are softening in all the wrong places, and my realization was that it’s just going to continue. We will be those gray-haired, wobbly elderly people holding hands as they cross the street. Yes, it may be in 2031, but it’s coming!

Of course, I also realized something else. I think my husband is sexier than ever. No, I’m not going to be talking about sex. Instead I will focus on passion, and passion isn’t designed for just the bedroom.

On our very first date the first thing that impressed me about John was his passion for life. He had traveled the world in the Marine Corps. He had plans for college … and dreamed of a bright future. He had passion for God.

Looking back on our 21 years together, I realized that our toughest times in marriage were those when we both became stuck in the busy ruts of life. We didn’t share our dreams; we didn’t make plans for what we could do. Instead we filled our days with busyness and both felt overwhelmed and unfilled.

Recently our family moved 1,950 miles from Montana to Arkansas and many people asked why. “Why would you leave a good job, a nice home, and the prettiest place on earth to move to Little Rock?” (No, offense Arkansas. You’re pretty too, but …) The truth is, I saw a spark of passion in my husband’s gaze that hadn’t been there for a while. He knew his skills could be used at the amazing ministry of FamilyLife. He wanted his work to matter for eternity, and I jumped on board with that.

Passion in life isn’t just something that happens. Rather it must be sought. And as wives we can help our husbands do just that.

1. Pay attention. When we first moved to Little Rock my husband talked (and talked and talked) about all the cool bike trails. I realized he wanted to explore them but needed a better bike to do it. We tightened our belt in other areas and got him a good bike … and soon our teen son got one, too, so Dad could have a biking partner. Wouldn’t you know … just a few months ago I got one, too, and we’re exploring those trails together. My husband loves biking, and he’s energized for the rest of the day after a ride. Because I was paying attention I knew it was something he’d enjoy. Turns out I also found something I enjoy!

2. Sacrifice. When we bought a nice bicycle for John it was a sacrifice to our checkbooks. When we moved 1,950 miles the sacrifice was much greater. Sure, we left a lot—our church, our home, our friends and family—but we’ve gotten many of those things in new ways. More than that, I have a husband who’s excited about his job and is a joy to be around. His passion for life is evident, and it’s worth the sacrifice.

3. Pray. We’ve made these sacrifices with a lot of prayer. We’ve followed the passions of our hearts while also keeping in step with God. There are other things we’d both love to do, but we take all things before God and seek His timing. We also understand that maybe the passion He’s placed in our hearts may not play out like we imagine. I’ll give you some examples.

First, I love the Czech Republic. I’ve been there four times and if you gave me an all-expense-paid trip today, I’d go there again. My dream is to live there for an extended period with my family as short-term missionaries. I dream of meeting people as I walk along the cobblestone streets. I dream of opening our home for English lessons and Bible studies. We have no plans for that in the future, but we’ve gone on two mission trips to the Czech Republic and we’ve helped dozens of others go there, too.

Second, John’s big dream is to open an orphanage in a South American country. We have no immediate plans to do that, but we’ve adopted one beautiful child and have the paperwork processing for another.

4. Dream together often. Today, ask your husband, “If you could do anything and know it would succeed, what would it be?” John and I talk about—and dream about—many things that would take a miracle to happen, yet we still keep sharing them.

Passion about life, we’ve discovered, isn’t just about making things happen. It’s also about dreaming and planning together about “what could some day be.”

© 2011 by Tricia Goyer.

At a bridal shower I recently attended, the bride opened her gift from the groom’s mother and found an apron with the two ties neatly snipped off. That was all that was in the box. Her future mother-in-law explained, “This was my apron. Daniel [the groom] cut off the apron strings and now they are yours.”

I broke into vigorous applause, which quickly ended because I was the only one clapping! But I meant every loud, lonely clap that echoed between houses (it was a garden shower). What a wise groom and future mother-in-law! Both mother and son knew that for the couple’s marriage to thrive the newlyweds would need to start their own individual family, putting each other above all the rest.

It’s the simple but profound leave-and-cleave concept that Jesus taught in Matthew 19:5. Jesus quoted His Father in answer to the Pharisees’ question on divorce: “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh” (KJV).

We don’t use the word cleave much, but the definition is “to glue to; to adhere.” If you have ever glued your fingers together, you know there is no room between them for even a thin, sharp blade to separate them without danger of cutting one or both fingers. That is how close we are to be as husband and wife. We are to be so close that nothing or no one can get a smidge between us.

If your husband is having trouble leaving his mom or still favors his mom over you, find a time when you both are relatively relaxed and talk to him about this. Share with him what you experience and how it makes you feel. A dear friend has worked hard in her 20 years of marriage to build a relationship with her mother-in-law while keeping healthy boundaries. Her situation includes more than one difficult, boundary-pushing circumstance that would send most of us into the fetal position within a few days. Get this—she lives in her mother-in-law’s former home and her in-laws built a house right next door! What follows are several of her valuable insights (names have been changed to protect the innocent … and the in-laws):

I think the biggest thing for me has been establishing boundaries. Since I live next door to my mother-in-law, boundaries have been so important, but painful, because Dave and I both hate conflict. If we didn’t have to do it, it would be easier to just avoid. But we have to address boundaries for my sanity and honestly, so my mother-in-law and I can have a good and healthy relationship. I firmly established the boundaries of where she could “intrude” in our life, and because she’s right next door that meant getting specific about visiting rules and when and how she could enter our house!

While being assertive and brutally honest, I have also tried to show her love. I can say I have a really good relationship with her. One way I’ve tried to show her love is to make “deposits” with her when I can. I invite them to dinner, invite them on weekend trips with us, and give them tickets for our church’s huge Easter cantata, taking them out to dinner afterward. Dave always makes sure they know it was my idea (when it was).

I have blessed her by intentionally forcing myself to ask her for help with cooking/recipes and gardening issues. It doesn’t seem like much, but cooking and gardening are her passions, and I have to humble myself to ask questions. She lights up when I do. It sounds crazy, but I have to fight the impulse to give her the impression I can do everything and am completely self-sufficient.

She is an excellent seamstress and once tried to teach me to sew and gave me an old sewing machine. Later I tried to just cut up an old towel and serge the edges to make cleaning rags. It was a disaster (again, couldn’t humble myself and call for help). The thread was knotted and tangled. I was laughing at myself by the end. It looked so pathetic that I couldn’t keep the joke to myself, and as an exercise in humility, I wrapped the sorry scrap as a gift for her. I included a note that said, “Thanks for all the sewing and alterations you do for me!” We had a good laugh at my attempt at sewing—something as simple as that really helped thaw our relationship.

I think you can see from what she said that the key is to have a healthy balance of humility and pride. Be proud of your man, your marriage, your home. But at the same time, be humble. Realize that (at least in many cases) these parents, for better or worse, poured a large portion of their time, heart, sweat, and tears into the man you call your husband, and give them the respect they deserve.

If you are living with a particularly sticky situation, or if your man just doesn’t get where you are coming from, you may want to return to your premarital counselor to discuss your in-law relationships. If your husband is resistant to counseling, consider going yourself. Whatever you do, don’t ignore the issues. You could try sweeping your in-laws under the rug, but I think that’s illegal in most states. And besides, good relationships with your family and your husband’s family can add richness to your lives.

Excerpt from He’s Not a Mind Reader by Brenda Garrison © 2010 Standard Publishing (www.standardpub.com.) Used by permission.

Meet Chris and Jessica. Chris is a successful video producer who has abundant energy, and Jessica is a graphic designer. They’re a fun couple to be around. They married in their mid-thirties and soon had a child. Now two and a half, that little bundle named Ethan affected their marriage in several ways.

There was certainly a physical impact. Jessica is petite, and carrying her preborn child was a significant strain on her tiny body. After Ethan’s arrival, her postpartum weight loss came easily, although Jessica’s energy levels took longer to recover. In fact, these days she’s pretty tired. Lately Ethan tends to get up a couple of times per night, and that’s cut into Chris and Jessica’s sleep. They’re big coffee lovers now, depending on the caffeine to keep them going throughout the day. They don’t remember the last time they had a good night’s sleep.

Chris and Jessica’s sexual relationship has been altered by their general lack of physical stamina, this interrupted sleep schedule, and Ethan’s other ongoing needs. These days, going to bed at 8 p.m. seems like a good idea—and that’s so they can sleep … nothing more.

The kind of romance they enjoyed regularly has been relegated to special occasions. Despite their desires to resume that part of their life, it’s just not happening. This is just a season, they tell themselves, and they both look forward to when they’ll be getting more sleep and have the sexual intimacy they once enjoyed.

Emotionally, Jessica and Chris will tell you they’re doing okay. They’re settling into their parental roles, adjusting to the demands of parenting. Chris gets encouragement in his fathering from the guys at work, and several of them are in a similar season. He still has time to play football on weekends.

Jessica is developing a new graphics business out of their home, and is often caught up in the busyness of that. Still, she makes time for her friends and gets a gals’ night out every few weeks. So they feel like they’re getting some quality time to keep sane.

Truthfully, though, some struggles are going on below the surface. Jessica is consumed by Ethan’s needs, and seems unavailable for Chris when he comes home in the evenings. They used to have some great talk time, but now that’s gone. Jessica is usually less interested in what happened in Chris’s day, and much more interested in what Ethan did, or how he is feeling.

And Chris is starting to resent that.

Practically, while Ethan needs diapers and baby food, there hasn’t yet been a huge financial hit. Around the house, certainly they’ve had to baby-proof the place, but it’s been a pretty natural adjustment for them. Besides, it is kind of fun to have this bundle of joy and energy … these days he’s always exploring and is learning so much!

One area of life they’re having a bit of trouble with is “together time.” While they pursue their separate interests and hobbies, Chris and Jessica aren’t doing as much together as they used to. It’s hard, because Ethan is at a particularly demanding stage. As a toddler, he tends to get into things around the house, makes messes, and needs a lot of supervision. His bedtime is so early, Chris and Jessica can’t get out for dates—and besides, who can they trust to take care of the baby? They’re concerned with his safety and well-being, so finding a trustworthy babysitter seems impossible.

Does this sound familiar? It will.

Chris and Jessica’s story may be yours.

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They’re the poster couple for a simple truth: Your marital relationship will change significantly when your baby comes. So here are four tips to help your marriage survive a new baby.

1. Stay connected as husband and wife.

Make room in your schedule for daily talk times and weekly dates. Do things together as a family. Hang out at the park with parents who also have young kids. Develop routines like Thursday night pizza or Sunday afternoons. Take family hikes or bike rides.

2. Remember that your mate is not your enemy.

Your spouse is the love of your life, and you need to treat him or her as such. Don’t get angry with each other. Don’t blow up when one of you is exhausted and really needs help. Extend lots of grace. Follow the scriptural admonition to be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19).

3. Remember that your child is not your enemy.

You love this little baby, really you do! So don’t for a minute think she is an enemy to your marriage. Yes, she will demand a lot of you, and she will extract a lot of your spouse’s energy and attention. But she’s your child, and you have a tremendous responsibility to raise her well. It’s your job to allow her needs to dictate a lot of your choices and activities as a couple—for now. And that will impact your marriage.

4. Get some sleep.

Take turns wearing earplugs. Seriously. Buy some Mack’s Silicone Earplugs and learn to love ‘em! I didn’t want to consider earplugs, but my wife, Dena, started using them and it became apparent she was sleeping well—while I didn’t, because our son kept waking me during the night. When you are desperate for sleep, wear earplugs. Alternate turns, so at least one of you gets a good night of rest, every night.

Life is changing—for the better

Having experienced the practical side of managing the arrival of a new child six times, I can confidently declare this: If handled deliberately and carefully, the arrival of a child into your marriage will indeed forever change your union—but only for the better. Looking back on life without children, I can honestly say our lives have improved by nearly every measure.

Life is more fun, and it has more meaning. Having been forced to reckon with my selfish proclivities, I’ve grown as a man. My walk with the Lord has become more steady. In my wife’s mothering, I see God’s goodness. And in our children, I see His wonder and majesty.

Yes, a baby will affect your marriage, because a baby will change you in miraculous and mighty ways.

Adapted from First Time Dad ©2011 by John Fuller. Published by Moody Publishers. Used with permission.

Sarah and Tim had been married for more than 25 years. The kids were gone, and they were finally forced to face each other—no children to distract or share their love. This empty nest stage was supposed to be a time of celebration, but they didn’t even know each other anymore. They felt like strangers. They had lived life together, but those fleeting moments of communication were swallowed by the needs of the kids and temporary disasters like bills, debts, and leaks—all the little distractions in life.

Tim captured the moment his son’s high school basketball team won the championship, but he missed the moment Sarah won the award for neighborhood flower garden of the year. Sarah rejoiced the day her daughter became a bride, but missed the day Tim became a manager in his company.

Oh, sure, Tim and Sarah knew about these accomplishments, but there were no cameras, no tears, no laughter, and no shared moments when eyes twinkle and hearts flutter. They missed the connection.

Now Sarah and Tim have nothing in common anymore. Sarah moved a TV into her sewing room, and Tim keeps one in his office. They spend most of their evenings in separation, waiting for the grandchildren to come and fill their lives again.

They’ve stopped cherishing each other.

Is your love for real? Find out in Bob Lepine's new book, Love Like You Mean It.

To love, honor, and cherish

I’ve often heard Christian communicators express to husbands the importance of cherishing their wives. It’s easy to think of a wife as something to cherish. Women are often soft, fragile, easily hurt—like china. So men can understand how a woman would need to be cherished.

But the traditional wedding vows also include a promise from the wife to cherish her husband, as well. This is a little more difficult to imagine. We don’t often visualize treating men like china, but rather sturdy, reliable wood. But if you think of cherishing your husband like cherishing your relationship with your son, suddenly it doesn’t seem so feminine. It reminds me of Mary, the mother of Jesus who “kept all these things [about her son], and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19 KJV).

To cherish your husband is not to treat him like china, but to treat his successes, his secrets, his self-image, his thoughts, his opinions, his heart like china—treasuring and caring for the intricacies that make up his persona.

Most of us married our husbands because there was something about them that we cherished and admired, but it’s easy for those feelings to fade. Yet, admiring your husband is no less important now than it was the day you got married. In her book Let Me Be a Woman, Elisabeth Elliot explains how wives can revive those feelings of esteem:

Marriage is no house party; it’s not a college campus or a stimulating political row or an athletic contest, and the man’s having been a spellbinding orator or a great halfback somehow does not seem terribly significant anymore. But you ought now and then to remember what he was, to ask yourself what it was, really, that caught your eye. Come now, you will say to yourself, you didn’t marry him because he was a great halfback, did you? No, you married this person. Whatever the inner qualities were that enabled him to do the things he did then are still a part of this person that you go to bed with and eat breakfast with and wrestle over the monthly budget with. He is a person with the same potentials he had when you married him. Your responsibility now is not merely to bat your eyelashes and tell him how wonderful he is (but breathes there a man with soul so dead as not to be cheered by a little of that?) but to appreciate, genuinely and deeply, what he is, to support and encourage and draw out of him those qualities that you originally saw and admired.

You and I married someone who is more than just a man. He is a person with feelings and a heart that can be broken, with the ability to learn and develop and transform. He is a person who experiences life much deeper than what we can see on the outside. And our husbands are longing for us, as wives, to delve into their inner persons and find the layers of their souls hiding underneath.

That’s what Tim was missing from Sarah. Recently, the couple visited their daughter, Stephanie, who said, “Dad seemed alive. He talked to me for hours about his club and his favorite collections because I was interested in what he had to say. All Mom ever does is tune him out. He was starving for someone to listen.” What a shame that Sarah is missing out on this part of her husband.

As a wife, there is no greater gift I can give than to appreciate my husband, not just for what he does for me, but for who he is.

Learning to cherish him

Embracing the man God made your husband to be is not a matter of just tolerating his behavior, but truly valuing the makeup of his personality and the traits he has to offer. Although this skill takes practice and time, these three tips will help you communicate and display admiration for the man who desires to impress you most.

First, stop nagging. In the book of Proverbs, the wisest man on earth, King Solomon, warns men about a nagging wife. Here are several Scriptures that show how draining a “contentious” woman can be:

“The contentions of a wife are a constant dripping” (19:13b).

“It is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman” (21:19).

“It is better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman” (21:9, 25:24).

“A constant dripping on a day of steady rain and a contentious woman are alike” (27:15).

Get the picture? A nagging wife is hard to live with. While washing china, you wouldn’t spray it with a pressure washer or even throw it in the dishwasher, would you? No, you would wash each piece by hand with a soft cloth and warm soapy water. Constant nagging is like putting a pressure washer to your husband’s self-worth. When a wife nags, it doesn’t matter what words are coming out of her mouth, most of the time a husband hears, “You’re not good enough. You don’t meet my needs. I would be better off with someone else.” That’s enough to make most men wonder, Why try?

Instead, if you have suggestions for your husband, have patience. Talk to him, but don’t get frustrated and fight. Make your requests and then respect his decisions. First Peter 3:1-2 calls us wives to have chaste and respectful behavior toward our husbands, so that “even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives.”

Second, verbalize your appreciation. James 3:3-5 reminds us of the power of the tongue:

If we put the bits into the horses’ mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!

The words you say do make a difference to your husband. Our spouses are easy targets for taking out frustration or being the butt of our jokes. You may think it’s all in good fun, but sometimes “good fun” hurts. Many husbands will shake off biting comments with a macho shrug, and others might take a verbal punch back at you. Either way, you’ve possibly hurt him and didn’t even realize it.

Instead, use words that lift up and encourage. You will see a difference in your husband’s demeanor if you do. Talk about him to others in a positive way. Ask him questions about his life, work, hobbies, and friends. Tell him that you’re proud of him. When he’s honored at work, tell him how valuable he is as an employee, and take pictures. Learn about the work that he does. Let him teach you about the equipment he uses and the people he works with.

It reminds me of the song, “She Believes in Me” by Kenny Rogers, which tells the story of a man who had great dreams and never accomplished any of them. But the focus of the song is not on his failure, but on the faith and support of his loving wife:

And she believes in me; I’ll never know just what she sees in me.
I told her someday if she was my girl, I could change the world with my little songs; I was wrong.
But she has faith in me, and so I go on trying faithfully.
And who knows maybe on some special night, if my song is right
I will find a way, while she waits … while she waits for me!

There is no promise that this man will ever accomplish his dreams, but the power of this woman’s support and encouragement is enough to give him hope.

Third,connect with him emotionally. Women have a tendency to connect emotionally through verbal communication, but men can tire from talking. However, there are other ways to connect even when words are never spoken:

Talk with your eyes. With just a look you can tell your husband how much you love him and that you’re proud of him.

Support him with your presence. Be there when he’s honored at banquets and when he makes a homerun on the neighborhood softball team.

Make him feel important. Take pictures of that big fish he caught, frame letters and e-mails with kudos from the boss, clear off a shelf for his trophies.

Laugh at his jokes (even when they’re not that funny). At least when he makes a flub, he knows he can count on you to appreciate the effort.

His most precious possession

As a wife, you have been given the opportunity to see the deepest, most vulnerable parts of your husband’s most precious possession—his heart. It’s not easy for a man to expose who he is underneath that tough exterior, but he’s willing to if he can trust you to take care of his heart and not take advantage of it.

An exposed heart is easy to pierce, so we wives must be careful to treat it gently and tenderly, so as not to cause damage. If he feels that he’s an easy target, he’ll shut you out, leaving you distant and alone in your relationship. But if he knows that his soul is safe with you, he’ll be more likely to share his most intimate longings and desires.

Perhaps your husband has already shut down and closed himself off from you. Maybe you’ve unknowingly trod his tender heart. The good news is that it’s not too late to open him back up. A wounded heart can heal. If you will start using these tools and have a little patience, eventually you could again have the pleasure of delving into those soulful places that only a wife is privileged to go.

Copyright © 2006 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Intimacy is the action fuel that turns new love into deep love. It provides a level of closeness that love’s infatuations alone can’t deliver.

We often misconceive of intimacy by thinking of it as a single, isolated act, like a memorable conversation in a romantic restaurant or a pleasurable sexual experience in an attractive hotel room. But those are just stages on which intimacy might unfold. Intimacy isn’t an event—it’s what happens during these events: two people actively pursuing the other person’s deepest being. It is speaking the language of the other person’s soul.

Intimacy’s fruit is produced when intimacy is cultivated. If we don’t connect and share who we are with another, it’s a counterfeit. And, as many married couples who have obtained it will tell you, intimacy is deeper, more profound, and more life-changing than they could have imagined when they earnestly said “I do.”

Of the four paths to intimacy—talking, thinking (jointly), touching, and togetherness—two are particularly attractive to most guys: touch and (believe it or not) togetherness. (The way he defines togetherness revolves primarily around shared activities, many of which are physical in nature.) The other two paths to intimacy—talking and thinking together—represent a more substantial challenge and even greater opportunity.

On average, women derive more satisfaction than men from intimate conversations. Even if you didn’t marry a guy who struggles with passivity, being intimate through talking is usually going to be easier for you than for him.

The Strong and the Weak

Here’s a general marriage principle: The stronger one in any given area should take into consideration the weaknesses of the other. This is a practical way in which our differences can grow us and strengthen us collectively and build intimacy between us. Regarding conversation, you desire intimacy; a good path to building it, if you are more skilled in this sphere, is taking into account his disadvantages.

Most men are reluctant to reveal themselves in the very sphere where most women are most comfortable with: self-revelation. This can create a tendency for you to rush him along or convey expectations that feel heavy to him. Pushing and pressure both squelch the growth of intimacy, which cannot be coerced.

We had a similar scenario with singing in public. Sandy, who grew up in a musical home, sings well and plays the piano and flute; I can play the stereo, but I can’t sing. For years Sandy wanted me to share her desire to sing in small-group gatherings, so she put on some not-so-subtle pressure. This just made me more reluctant and increasingly frustrated.

I finally explained that asking me to sing in public is like my asking people to take out a notepad and write a quick story, then collecting the sheets and reading them out loud. For most non-writers, this would be a mortifying experience. What’s a person to do if he’s expected to be what he isn’t?

When your man does reveal himself through words, really and truly listen, seeking to hear him without judging him. And be realistic. Don’t mandate marathon conversations. Intimacy will likely be short at first. You can begin to turn small talk into intimate talk if he feels listened to, respected, cared about, and understood. Most important, he needs to trust you with his real, genuine feelings. The importance of this need cannot be overstated.

Trust and “Fixing”

The word trust is related to the Middle English word troth, which means “truth,” “loyalty,” “faithfulness,” “a person’s pledged word.”

Christian writer and counselor Dan Allender was dismayed to find out why, after nineteen years of marriage, his wife told him a painful story from childhood that she’d never before shared. She said, “I trust you now in a way I didn’t a year ago.” When he asked what brought this about, she answered, “I don’t know, but I do know you are more open to hurt for me rather than try to fix me.” This is a man who counsels people regarding trust.

Wives also tend to desire to fix their husbands. Some theologians teach that this desire wasn’t originally there, that it’s a result of the Fall. In Genesis 3:16, God, speaking of sin’s consequences, says that wives will “desire” or have a “longing” for their husbands, and the word “for” may imply an antagonism. This pivotal text could be rendered, “Your desire shall be against your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

Tuned-in couples know there is an inherent power struggle in the marriage relationship. Men often have extreme reactions to power: either passivity or domination. Women often have a desire to gain and maintain control. However, sin’s corruption of the intended marital harmony is where God’s grace can shine through. He tells us we can restore it through mutual submission and a willing acceptance of love’s truth (Ephesians 5:21-33).

The desire to control and to “fix” men is dangerous, and it extends deep into Christian circles. “Fixing” men frequently means taming them, and a tame man usually isn’t a good man—he’s likely dropped his sword, surrendered his will, and turned from his own nature and identity. Odd how our noted strengths can become our greatest weaknesses! In this case, a woman’s ability to love her passive man with words can so quickly turn into a shaming assault.

By contrast, a healthy conversation between husband and wife is open, curious, and sometimes playful. It’s neither a must-win debate nor a statistical droning on of information-providing. “In some ways,” says Allender, an intimate conversation “is like brainstorming.” Emotions must be present for intimate conversation; you can help him keep his emotions present by treating him well as you communicate.

The Cancer of Contempt

The great killer of trust and emotional revelation is contempt, the belief that the other person is worthless and deserves scorn. Studies at the University of Washington’s “love lab” have found that contempt is the best predictor of whether a marriage will make it. The greater contempt’s presence, the higher divorce’s probability.

Contempt is an effort to make you big and someone else small. It will appear in your tone, eyes, words, body language—contempt can be conveyed in myriad ways, and whenever it shows up, it cripples intimacy. Contempt is so lethal that it can be harmful to proceed with attempts at intimacy before the issue is faced. Contempt must be named and transformed before even conversation has any hope of intimacy.

Furthermore, contempt is the modus operandi of evil; the name Satan means “accuser.” Accusations are generally not invitations or explorations; they are intended to humiliate, disempower, and make others vulnerable to manipulation. Contempt’s goal is to discredit and steal dignity so the victor can remain in control, unfazed by any differing view or idea.

In learning to connect with your guy, make sure it doesn’t seem like a demand. It should feel to him like an open door to enrich your lives together.

Pause to Consider

One final matter: you probably need to evaluate what’s going through your head about your guy. Chances are some of your thoughts are inaccurate. For instance, maybe you have said to yourself or to a friend, “It doesn’t make sense why he behaves the way he does.” Not true. It makes a ton of sense. There are reasons he has learned to live small and behave passively; fear and hiding are not the right responses to struggle or trauma, but they are not inexplicable or pointless, and thinking or suggesting that they are can lead you into contempt and indifference.

He doesn’t know what intimacy really is; you must be willing to help him learn. If you have been using an intense and critical demeanor, you will need to alter it into a listening and constructive approach. You’ll know that what you are doing is working because you’ll sense him leaning into you (not away from you) emotionally.

Though the misconceptions and related obstacles on the paths toward intimacy are real, and though some are more substantial than others, they are not set in stone. A wise woman of goodwill, who uses her innate influence to love and to heal in facilitating emotional closeness, is a source of magnificent power.

Taken from Married But Not Engaged by Paul and Sandy Coughlin. Used by permission. Copyright © 2006 by Paul Coughlin. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored at other sites without written permission from Paul Coughlin.

I remember the early years of my marriage, when my husband, Gary, was juggling a full-time job and a heavy course load as he pursued a doctorate in counseling. I wanted Gary to provide direction for our family, but he wasn’t doing it.

Eventually the Lord worked in Gary’s life and he became convicted of his need to fulfill his role as husband and father. And then it was time for me to make a critical choice: Would I allow Gary to lead, or would I fight for control? I imagine many of you can relate to my predicament.

When I speak at Weekend to Remember getaways, women tell me they desperately want their husbands to provide leadership in their families, but the men seem to use up all their emotional and physical energy at work and leave nothing for home. They are passive and uninvolved.

The truth is, many people today grew up either in a broken home or in a home where their fathers were passive and their mothers ran the show. As a result, men have no inner sense of how to provide “servant-leadership”—loving and leading their wives as Christ loves the church.

Genesis 2:18 tells me that God calls me to be a “helper” to Gary. Our culture tends to label a “helper” as someone second-rate. But not so in the Bible. The Hebrew word for “helper” equates to the English word “completer,” and elsewhere in the Old Testament it’s usually used in reference to God Himself. It is a title of honor and great worth.

So when Gary was ready to become the leader in our home, I had to learn to trust in God and His blueprints. I needed to let Gary assume his role—even if it meant he sometimes failed. As a wife, I demonstrate my faith in God by actively living out my love for my husband.

Marriages and families work when husbands and wives are willing to walk in obedience to God.

© 1999 by Barbara Rosberg. All rights reserved.

My husband, Rob, and I have worked through many struggles and problems in our marriage. The fact that we remain married is a testament to God’s grace and power.

During one of the more difficult periods of our marriage I decided to write out a list of pros and cons. It was a detailed list of the “good” and “bad” qualities I saw in my husband. I then tucked the list away in my Bible for safekeeping. Every once in a while, usually when we were fighting, I would take it out and read it, sometimes even adding to it. I often thought, If God would just fix him then we could live happily ever after.

Years later, in a Bible study I was attending, we studied Philippians 4:8, which tells us, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things” (emphasis mine).

As I allowed this verse to penetrate my heart, I became convicted about keeping my secret list of pros and cons. Through His Word, God was showing me how wrong it was for me to dwell on my husband’s negative qualities. Instead I needed to spend time dwelling on his good qualities.

That day I took the list out of my Bible and used a pair of scissors to cut the “con” side completely off. To symbolize my newfound conviction, I literally burned up the con side of the list.

Surgery on my hardened heart

Destroying my list of cons was just the beginning of how God began to work on my heart. The next step was to reveal my own shortcomings. He began a process where He slowly performed surgery on my hardened heart. He revealed sin that had penetrated deep into my life.

It began when I noticed that during arguments my husband would sometimes make statements like, “You always think everything is my fault!” Or, “You think you never do anything wrong!”

I finally realized he was right; I actually couldn’t see anything I was doing wrong. Psalm 139:23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” Knowing very well that I was far from perfect, I began to ask God if He would show me my own sin.

God began to reveal my heart, and I recognized sin that I had been completely blind to previously: selfishness, bitterness, and discontentment. He also revealed to me the hypocritical sin of pride, which I put into action whenever I was critical of my husband.

‘God, please change me’

Matthew 7:2,5 says, “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you … You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” I knew I didn’t want to be judged by God in the same manner I had been judging my husband.

Finally I realized that praying, “God fix my husband” wasn’t as pleasing to God as praying, “God, please change me!” I had no control over what my husband said or did, but I did have control over my own choices and reactions. So I started asking God, Please make me the wife that my husband needs, and, Show me how I am failing him.

I also realized that the bitterness and discontentment in my heart had blossomed from my own false expectations. I thought my husband would meet emotional needs that God alone could provide.

What will make God happy?

In an article titled, “Finding God in Marriage,” Gary Thomas writes, “The first purpose in marriage—beyond happiness, sexual expression, the bearing of children, companionship, mutual care and provision, or anything else—is to please God.” Rather than asking, “What will make me happy?” We are told that we must ask, “What will make God happy?”

He goes on to say, “The key question is this: Will we approach marriage from a God-centered view or a man-centered view? In a man-centered view, we will maintain our marriage as long as our earthly comforts, desires, and expectations are met. In a God-centered view, we preserve our marriage because it brings glory to God and points a sinful world to a reconciling Creator.”

I was finally beginning to understand where I had gone wrong and why I was so miserable. The enemy, Satan, had blinded me from the truth and had me thinking like the world. The lie was, “I deserve to be happy,” when the truth is, “It’s all about pleasing God.”

A daily struggle

When it comes down to it, we shouldn’t think, What can my husband do for me? Instead we should ask, What can I do for my husband? How can I please him? How can I encourage him? How can I come alongside and support him? How can I bless him?

I want to be clear that this is still a daily struggle for me. I believe it will always be a struggle this side of heaven. But, I will say that I’ve found that when I do things God’s way, they go a lot smoother. I’ve found that not only does my husband benefit, but I do, too. Even more important, our children and grandchildren benefit.

I just want to thank my husband, Rob, for his willingness to let me publish this article. Some husbands would recoil at an article suggesting that they need to be “fixed.” But Rob’s humility shows his heart to see marriages built up and strengthened. While writing this article he was a tremendous source of encouragement. We are so thankful that we never gave up on our marriage. We give God all the glory for where He has brought us today.

Copyright ©2008 by Laurie Kopf. All rights reserved.

“Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord, keep watch at the door of my lips” (Psalm 141:3 NIV) “We are the master of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out” ~Winston Churchill~

My brother Dan said, “I’m going home! Your bickering is driving me nuts. Your constant fighting’s more irritating than chewing on tinfoil!”

I defended our behavior, “Hey, it’s not like we disagree about everything. Ron and I agree on all the major issues. We hardly ever fight about “big stuff” like how to spend our money, how to raise Nick, or who’s a better driver (me). It’s just the little stuff that gets to us.”

He sighed and said, “Well, I’m sick of hearing you go to war over where to put the towel rack, which TV shows to watch, or who left the lights on. It’s all dumb stuff. None of it will matter a year from now. Why did you have to criticize the way he mowed the lawn? I know it wasn’t perfect, but couldn’t you just let it go?”

“No,” I replied, “We are having company tomorrow, and I want the yard to be perfect. So I told him to fix it, big deal! We were married in the seventies, and Helen Ready told me that I had to roar if I wanted to be heard, so I roar—and it works, because he re-mowed the lawn and I won.”

Dan paused, shook his head, and said, “If you keep this up, you may win the arguments but lose your husband.”

I smacked him on the arm and said, “Oh, stop being so melodramatic!”

The next evening, Ron and I went out to dinner with some friends we hadn’t seen in several years. We remembered Carl as being funny and outgoing, but he seemed rather sad and looked exhausted. His wife, Beth, did most of the talking. She told us about her fabulous accomplishments at work and endlessly bragged about her brilliant, Mensa-bound children.

She didn’t mention her husband, except to criticize him.

After we ordered our dinner, she said, “Carl, I saw you flirting with that waitress!” (He wasn’t.)

“Caarrrrlll,” she whined, “can’t you do anything right?” You are holding your fork like a little kid!” (He was.)

When he mispronounced an item on the desert menu, his wife said, “No wonder you flunked out of college, you can’t read!” She laughed so hard—she snorted—but she was the only one laughing.

Carl didn’t even respond. He just looked over at us with an empty face and a blank stare. Then he shrugged his sad shoulders and looked away.

The rest of the evening was even more oppressive as she continued to harangue and harass him about almost everything he said or did. I thought, I wonder if this is how my brother feels when I criticize Ron.

We said goodbye to Beth and Carl and left the restaurant in silence. When we got in the car, I spoke first, “Do I sound like her?”

Ron said, “You’re not that bad.”

I asked, “How bad am I?”

“Pretty bad,” he half whispered.

The next morning, as I poured water into the coffee pot, I looked over at my “Scriptures for Wives” calendar. “The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands.” Or with her own mouth, I thought.

“A nagging wife annoys like a constant dripping.” How did I turn into such a nag?

“Set a guard, oh Lord, over my mouth.” Oh, please show me how!

I carefully spooned the vanilla nut de-caf into to the pot, as I remembered the day I forgot the filter. The coffee was bitter and full of undrinkable grounds. I had to throw it away.

Then it dawned on me, The coffee, without filtering, is like my coarse and bitter speech.

I said, “Oh God, please install a filter between my brain and my mouth. Help me to choose my words carefully and speak in smooth and mellow tones. Thank you for teaching me the ‘Lesson of the Coffee Filter.’ I won’t forget it.”

An hour later, Ron timidly asked, “What do you think about moving the couch over by the window? We’ll be able to see the TV better.”

My first thought was to tell him, That’s a dumb idea! The couch will fade if you put it in the sunlight and besides, you already watch too much TV.

But instead of my usual hasty reply, I let the coarse thoughts drip through my newly installed filter and smiled as I said, “That might be a good idea, let’s try it for a few days and see if we like it. I’ll help you move it!”

He lifted his end of the sofa in stunned silence. Once we had it in place, he asked with concern, “Are you OK? Do you have a headache?”

I chuckled, “I’m great honey, never better. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

Ron and I recently celebrated our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary, and I’m happy to report that my “filter” is still in place—although it occasionally springs a leak! I’ve also expanded the filter principal beyond my marriage, and I have found it amazingly useful when I speak to telemarketers, traffic cops, and teenagers.

The pained voice on my cell phone told the story. He desperately wanted his marriage to work, but now, only one option seemed feasible: Move out. Caught in deadlocked communication, hurtful finger pointing, and a rapid marriage meltdown, this last ditch tactic was the only solution. He had to escape. This relationship was hanging by a thread.

One year before this couple had made promises on an altar. In front of their friends, family, and God, they promised never to give up. They were in love … I could see it in their eyes—the romantic attraction, the commitment. They knew upfront that marriage is hard. They knew that a joyful wedding celebration and a fiery honeymoon weren’t necessarily predictors of marital success. They expected challenges.

That cell phone call indicated they probably were facing the greatest challenge of their new life together so far: Marriage meltdown!

How did this happen? What caused the downward spiral?

Things go wrong

Even the best-prepared premarried couples are ill equipped for shaky finances, dual careers, old baggage, and unmet expectations. Even under “normal” conditions, the best relationships are in for big challenges. And just add a few stepchildren and ex-spouses and things get really interesting.

None of us expect perfection; things go wrong, stuff happens. Marriage is an education. There are adjustments to be navigated, lessons to be learned, and sacrifices to be made. That’s marriage. That’s normal.

But what do you do when the medical report is not good? When the portfolio collapses? When the spouse walks out? What happens when you miss the red flags and everything disintegrates? What do you do next?

When things go terribly wrong, panic sets in. You lose objectivity, communication ceases; the situation deteriorates—fast. When life caves in, you find yourself on autopilot, struggling to stay focused, incapable of making critical marriage-saving decisions.

Knowing that every marriage is destined for intermittent crisis events, doesn’t it make sense to have a plan? Doesn’t it seem sensible to develop a tactical checklist you can rely on when things go bad?

Let’s do some risk management.

If you had to prepare a mitigation plan for that inevitable breakdown, what would be your top four, bottom-line, action items? Imagine yourself deep in a marriage-threatening situation. Where would you go? What would you do? Who would you talk to? What steps would you take to save your marriage?

Here’s my Top Four list:

1. Don’t do it alone.

From a spiritual growth standpoint, the best decision Sheri and I ever made was to join a small group. We had an immediate affinity with our church group, meeting regularly for learning, community, and worship—we “did life together.”

As new Christians, our spiritual lives soared, but there was an important side benefit: We developed close relationships. When our marriage got rough, we had friends to call. Through unemployment, surgery, and financial crisis, even death, our group was there for us.

Who will you call? Don’t do it alone. Begin now—nurture some meaningful relationships.

2. Seek assistance.

Fortunately, Sheri and I have been good about recognizing when to seek third party assistance. We’ve been in tight spots, deadlocked in marriage-threatening issues that we just couldn’t resolve on our own.

A professional Christian counselor can provide objectivity and facilitate communication, steering a disaster-bound marriage toward recovery.

Counseling has worked for us because we’re not embarrassed to ask for help. Sheri and I don’t think of counseling as a weakness. In fact, we’ve come through the experience stronger and more resilient.

3. Soften your heart.

Relationships are most vulnerable when disagreements escalate to the point of deadlock. If you let them, circumstances will quickly spiral to standoff stage—past disagreement, beyond raised voices to a point where communication stops and the only option seen through the helplessness and hurt is to walk out.

Before you give up, pause and look at yourself:

Do you need to ask forgiveness?

What are you angry about?

Do you need to forgive?

Is a headstrong attitude stonewalling your marriage?

How might you compromise?

Why did you get married in the first place? Remember?

Someone needs to give in. Someone needs to soften his or her heart and take a first step toward healing. Relinquish your need to “be right.” Stop the finger pointing, quit the blaming. Humble yourself and submit to the possibility that you contributed to the breakdown. Turn your focus from anger to negotiation and next steps.

What’s more important, your pride or your marriage?

4. Engage spiritually.

The catalyst for a loving, thriving marriage comes from God. It’s easy to disconnect from God—missing church services, skipping prayer, and avoiding close friends—when you’re deep in relational disorder. Yet, this is the time you most need to be spiritually connected. It might be time for you to turn toward God.

Without God, our tendency is to drift into self-sufficiency; we try to fix bad situations on our own. When we operate independently of God, we’re simply surviving, finding temporary fixes. To engage in marriage-saving activities like the ones mentioned above, you need God.

Begin with prayer. Prayer is simply talking to God. Find a quiet place alone and tell Him what’s on your mind. Prayer isn’t about being eloquent or using religious sounding words—remember, this is a conversation. Ask God to show you what you need to change about yourself. And then ask Him to help you do that.

Praying with your spouse can be awkward even in great marriages, but if you can take that risk, it will pay dividends. Suggest prayer to your partner. Begin by simply sitting together, holding hands and closing your eyes; you take the lead. Come prepared with notes if you need to. Keep it simple.

Has your church attendance been sporadic? Suggest to your spouse that you combine a church service with a breakfast or dinner. Make it a date. In small steps begin to re-establish your church presence. Make it a weekly priority to get in the car, drive to church, and walk in the door. Your hearts will soften and you’ll begin hearing God.

You may feel especially distanced from God during this time. Reach out to Him. He wants to have a personal relationship with you. That may be the critical missing link that is so essential to you and your marriage.

My friend and I talked for an hour the day he called my cell number. I thanked God and sighed a breath of relief as he wisely decided to give his marriage another chance.

Before ending the call, we set up a breakfast to discuss next steps. That next week Sheri and I met with this couple, our friends, whose marriage was on the line.

That was a grueling conversation—direct and challenging. But they listened and boldly accepted our counsel. Today there is much work to be done, but because they are steadily pursuing these “basics,” their marriage is different. There is renewed hope.

It is possible to reclaim your relationship. But you need to prepare in advance and be ready to deploy any or all of these steps before your marriage shuts down. These suggestions will not come naturally—they are not intuitive—especially during troubled times. The foundation you build now could make the difference between healing and heartbreak.

Copyright © 2002 Jim Mueller and Growthtrac. All rights reserved.

“My gynecologist told me six weeks after Kelsey was born that I could resume normal sexual relations with my husband,” said Beth, a twenty-eight-year-old first-time mom. “What a joke! Since the birth of my daughter, nothing in my life is normal, especially sex.”

From the moment she first cuddled Kelsey in her arms, Beth’s world changed. She loved the new sensations that greeted her—when she could comprehend them through the fog of exhaustion. Weary and sleep-deprived, Beth ranked her enthusiasm for sex right up there with mopping the floor. Even if she did desire to be intimate with her husband, where could she find the time and energy to enjoy it? Beth looked forward to the day when life would return to normal.

Like Beth, many new moms believe life will return to normal, “after I recover from my episiotomy, after my hormones quit ricocheting like a pinball machine, after the 3 a.m. feedings end, after I lose these extra twenty pounds.” The problem with this thinking is that once you have kids, normal is a misnomer. You are changed. Your husband is changed. Your home environment is changed, and your love life will change, too.

According to a survey of almost six thousand parents by Parenting magazine, 80 percent of husbands and wives agree that their sex life had suffered as a result of having children. In our new role as mothers, sometimes sleep sounds better than sex.

Creative home-cooked sex

To make sex a priority, you don’t have to run out and buy a romantic getaway trip for two to Hawaii. With a little creativity, you can plan innovative excursions at home.

1. Reclaim your bedroom for sex.

Liz and Samuel’s bedroom had become the “gathering place,” which was fine when thunder and lightning brought fears to little hearts. At first having the whole family under the covers felt cozy. Later on, it just felt crowded. Being kicked in the stomach by a pint-sized foot or knowing that at any moment a child would be in bed to snuggle put the kibosh on their sex life.

One morning over pancakes, they announced, “Kids, a new rule goes into effect today. No one is allowed in Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom except Mommy and Daddy. Our bed is our private place where we go to talk. You have your private place in your own beds. We can all play and have fun together in any other part of the house, but our bedroom is off-limits.”

If you feel Liz and Samuel went to extremes and you hate giving up cozy times in your bed, try restricting family gatherings in your bedroom to once a month. Or consider an alternative, like a family slumber party in the living room or a family read-a-thon in your kid’s bedroom. Do what is comfortable for you, but make certain your children understand the need to respect your marriage bed as a sacred place set apart for the two of you.

2.Bedroom rendezvous.

Now that your bedroom is your own again, plan a once-a-month bedroom extravaganza. Schedule the evening far in advance so you have time to plan and anticipate. Then take him to a place he’s never been before … right in your bedroom! Create an exotic Caribbean ambiance by spreading two beach towels on the floor. Surround the towels with beach paraphernalia: beach balls, sunglasses, and bottles of coconut-scented suntan lotion. Whip up some tropical drinks, purchase a grass skirt and an “ocean sounds” tape, and aloha the evening away.

3. Home dates.

Limited finances are never a reason to say no to dates. Receie and Alex, who have four sons from six months to five years old, schedule dates at home. Once a month they swap childcare with another couple who is committed to keeping romance in their marriage. Their date lasts from about 4:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Reecie explains how she pulls this off.

I feed the kids and get them all jammied up so we can tuck them straight into bed after we pick them up. I also prepare dinner before Alex comes home—usually something simple—so cooking and clean up don’t eat up our time together. We’ve had boxed macaroni by candlelight. What we eat is not the point (unless you’re talking “dessert”—our name for treating ourselves to each other).

Reecie says the hardest part about staying home for a date is the distractions. “I have to give myself a good talking to,” she says. “I say, ‘Reecie, this is not a time to play catch-up on household chores, but a time to concentrate on your lover.’”

4. Saturday morning fun.

Hire a babysitter to take the kids to the park for two hours while you and your husband enjoy time at home alone. Soak in a bubble bath together or give each other massages. It will be hard to decide who had more fun on this morning—the kids or you and your husband.

When you reclaim your bedroom for sex, when you schedule at-home dates and Saturday morning fun, you send the message to your husband: Loving you is a priority.

Can sex in Christian marriage be spectacular? See our online course!

Get me out of here!

“There’s no place like home” is a good theme song for lovemaking if we add a second chorus to the song: “There’s no place like away from home.” Extend the boundaries of physical passion beyond the walls of your home by regularly planning romantic getaways.

1. An anniversary escape.

With little ones underfoot, getting away for a weekend may seem impossible, but even couples with caregiver restrictions and budget limitations can get away once a year for their anniversary. All it requires is a bit of advance planning.

2. Triple trouble house swap.

If you are thinking, We could never get away alone; it’s just not possible, let us tell you about Kathleen. In less than two years, Kathleen had triplets and then another baby, giving her four children under two plus her five year old. (Don’t you feel tired just reading about it?) The triplets were premature, and when they came home from the hospital, they came attached to oxygen tanks and heart monitors.

Even still, a month later, Kathleen and Guy went away overnight to celebrate their anniversary. How did they arrange this? Nancy, a friend, came to Kathleen and Guy’s house for the weekend and baby-sat their children while the weary parents went to Nancy’s house and baby-sat her dogs. (Kathleen and Guy admit they got the better deal.) Did we mention that Nancy, in addition to being a loving and caring friend, was also a very capable registered nurse? Kathleen says, “Babies’ needs are important, but so is my marriage.” If Kathleen can make a getaway a priority, so can we.

3.Adult time-outs.

We send children to time-out to adjust their attitudes. Sometimes we need to send ourselves to “adult time-out” to adjust our attitudes. Schedule an adult time-out twice a month. Hire a baby-sitter, or if your budget is tight, arrange to “kid swap” with another couple. On your first time-out, go out to dinner someplace other than McDonald’s. Look your best and wear your husband’s favorite perfume, instead of Eau de Baby Wipes. Slip into a silk blouse without any drool marks. Revel in the freedom of being able to walk into a restaurant carrying a classy purse instead of a bulky diaper bag. Plan to do something that’s fun for both of you, but make sure you spend time looking into your husband’s eyes and talking about something other than the children.

When you schedule adult time-outs, when you plan anniversary getaways, when you kid swap and house swap in order to be alone together, you send this message to your husband: Being with you is a priority.

Be as flexible as Gumby

Children change. What works this week to give you and your husband time alone may be obsolete in two months. One couple we know nicknamed their children “wedgies” because whenever the parents tried to steal a kiss, the children would wedge between them, grabbing for attention.

You have to grab intimacy with each other, anywhere, anytime. Having young children underfoot requires that you make “Flexible” your middle name. It also helps if you make “Laughter” your first name. When your son gets up to go to the bathroom but misses the bathroom and goes in your shoe, what can you do but laugh together? When you plan a candlelit dinner just for two and your angel daughters appear saying, “We want candles too,” what can you do but smile, promise them candles the next day, and laugh together?

Adapted from Intimate Issues by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus. Copyright © 1999 by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus. Excerpted by permission of WaterBrook Press, a division of Penguin Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

When Tommy Nelson began his teaching series from an Old Testament book, his church in Denton, Tex., had about 700 people. Within a few weeks, attendance was up to 1,400. His service for college students grew from 300 to over 700.

And what Old Testament book was the focus of this pastor’s messages? Would you believe the Song of Solomon?

Many Christians have barely read this book (which is also called the Song of Songs in some Bible translations), much less understood it. It’s a story of Solomon and the woman who becomes his wife, and its poetic language is full of phrases like, “My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi” (1:14).

But in the hands of a skilled Bible teacher like Tommy Nelson, it becomes much more: a book full of godly wisdom about sexuality, marriage, and romance. His sermon series was popular, he says, because people were so intrigued with the idea that God’s Word had something to say on such a contemporary topic.

Tommy believes that romance is a discipline that should be learned and practiced … especially by Christians.

We long for marriages that are as romantic and passionate as the courtship, engagement, and honeymoon. And that’s the type of marriage described in Song of Solomon. But at some point many of us become lazy in romance—we stop pursuing each other, and in our selfishness we develop patterns of sin that damage the relationship. As Tommy says, we “settle into the habits that become grooves that become ruts that become graves.”

One of the best romantic disciplines a husband or wife can develop, he says, is putting down what you’re doing and listening to each other. “Listening is one of the most passionate things a human can do.”

Copyright ©2007 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Have you ever thought about what your husband’s day must be like?

The grouchy people he no doubt encounters each day, the problems at work, sitting in traffic. I bet many husbands can’t wait to get away from all that nonsense and just get home and be with the family.

So what does your husband come home to at the end of a hard workday? If he’s like a lot of husbands, I would imagine that many days, if not most, he comes home to a messy house, preoccupied children, and a grumpy wife.

Complete chaos … anarchy … madness … delirious fun … that’s our home while Daddy’s at work. I believe that a home should be a learning environment, full of activity. Sometimes that means things will be messy!

But when it’s almost time for Daddy to come home, that’s your chance to change the environment. Whenever you can, I suggest you teach your children the excitement of “Daddy’s home” and work together to ready your home, yourselves, and greet Daddy properly with unabandoned enthusiasm. The difference in your husband’s desire to hurry home from work will be swift and dramatic.

What does unabandoned enthusiasm look like? Well first, let me tell you what it doesn’t look like: It doesn’t look like Daddy walking in the door to a house strewn with toys, a kitchen laden with leftover, half-eaten food products, and a wife and children who look like they’ve spent the day in a wind tunnel.

What if your children learned from you that Daddy is so special and we are so excited for him to come home that we are going to do our very best to be ready to greet him with a tidy home, clean faces, and big smiles? You’d be amazed at what this will do for your man.

Training Your Children

God’s Word tells us that children are to honor their parents—it’s one of the Ten Commandments. Ephesians 6:2-3 tells us that “honor your father and mother” is the “first commandment with a promise”—that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on earth. Mom, this is your opportunity to teach and model for your children how they can honor their father … and it comes with a promise. It doesn’t get any better than that!

I’ve been fortunate to be able to stay at home with my children, and I admit I’m mostly speaking to other full-time moms here. But this idea is so easy that anyone can use it. All you need are a few large empty baskets strategically placed throughout your home, the ability to shout and encourage like a cheerleader, and one or more children eager to participate in a big surprise. And all children love being part of a surprise!

It goes something like this. Explain to your husband that it is very important for you to know his exact arrival time and request that he give you at least a 15-minute warning call. At the appointed time yell, “What time is it?” The children shout back, “It’s almost time for Daddy to be home!” That’s your call to action—you announce, “Okay kids, let’s see how fast we can get everything ready for Daddy!”

This is where the empty baskets come into play. The children are charged with scurrying around and placing all the toys and clutter in the baskets. Don’t worry if things get “mixed up”—you can sort it out after the little ones are in bed. (And let’s face it—it’ll just be mixed up and back on the floor tomorrow.) You concentrate on cleaning the kitchen.

As a team, scamper from room to room and be sure “all systems are go.” Shout, “to the bathroom” and everyone gets a quick wipe of the face, comb of the hair, quick change of a shirt if it’s laden with strawberry stains and various unknown substances. And if you’ve spent the day in a sweat suit and pony tail, now’s the time to put on a decent outfit, run a comb through your hair, and pull yourself together.

Be sure to talk to your kids about how much you love Daddy and that you want to look pretty and give him kisses when he gets home. They’ll giggle, and you may get a few “gross” comments, but trust me … they love that you love their Daddy! And you are teaching them something about the marriage relationship and meeting others needs and expectations.

Then it becomes a “waiting by the window” game, much like waiting to go check out what’s under the Christmas tree. When Daddy opens the door you all scream, “Daddy’s home” and you all run and smother him with kisses and hugs and tell him how much you missed him and how happy you are that he’s home. All the day’s strife will melt off of him and he’ll glow. And your children have just honored their parents.

In less than a week, they’ll have the routine figured out and be expectantly waiting to hear you yell, “What time is it?” Yes, this can be done daily; they won’t tire of the process. Remember, these are the same children who want the same book read to them fourteen times a day. If you teach your children that it’s a big deal when Daddy comes home, then it will be … for all of you.

I double dog dare you to try it!

© 2010 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

The word encouragement, literally translated from French, means to give someone else your courage. Courage, then, is like love—the more you give it away, the more you have.

Ladies, you may think that men have plenty of courage and they don’t need any of ours—but you’re wrong. I’ve made a discovery that will change the way you look at your strong, capable husband: Sometimes he still feels like a little boy.

When your hubby is rejected by a job interviewer who’s half his age, he feels defeated. If he’s told that his credit rating isn’t good enough to get the low-rate car loan, he feels like a failure. He needs to be reassured that you still think he’s wonderful, even if the rest of the world doesn’t.

We all need to be encouraged. If you help your mate in the following three ways, your home and heart will be a safe haven, and you’ll both look forward to being there—together.

Helping hands

Because Ron and I have learned to give each other our courage, we’ve weathered storms that might have drowned us. We had a financial crisis in the early 1990s. The California real estate prices went so low, they almost sank into the Pacific. We owned a vacant rental house that no one wanted to lease, and we watched our bank balance fall as our credit-card debt rose. We had some very lean years.

I learned to help with my hands by cutting back on luxuries like going to the car wash—I cleaned it myself—and instead of having my hair highlighted at the salon, I bought a kit at the beauty supply store. I also used my hands to clip grocery coupons so I could save money on home-cooked meals. My cooking is so awful, though, I think Ron would have preferred to just eat the coupons.

When Ron saw that I was doing things to help solve our problems, it made him feel like we were on the same team and encouraged him to persevere through that temporary setback.

A reassuring touch

Another way to use your hands to encourage is through touching. (No … not that kind of touching.) I’m talking about a reassuring touch when you’re driving in the car, sitting at church, or watching TV. Reach for your mate’s hand when you’re walking through a parking lot.

Men are human beings—trust me on that—and all humans need lots of contact with other humans. Women get to touch and cuddle with the kids, and girlfriends often hug each other, fix each other’s hair, and sit close together. Men, however, rarely get any contact from other men. And when they do, they usually just make grunting noises and slap each other on the back. Not very tender.

One woman came to talk with me because her marriage was boring. She said, “I don’t ever initiate a touch because he always thinks it’s a sexual advance.” I told her, “He’s probably starved for your touch and thinks the only way to get it is through sex. For the next week, touch him more, not less.”

She looked at me as if I’d just told her to shoot herself in the foot. “He needs to get used to your touch again,” I continued. “My advice is to hold his hand or kiss his cheek when you’re somewhere you couldn’t possibly have sex, like at a restaurant, in church, or at family gatherings.”

“Okay,” she agreed reluctantly. “I’ll do it for one week, but you’d better be right.” The next time I saw her she reported that they were both more affectionate and happier than they’d been in years.

Men are also encouraged by wives who understand them. The best way to understand our husbands is to listen to them when they do talk … when they talk about their childhood disappointments and triumphs, or their dreams about the future. Ask questions like, “What did you daydream about when you were a little boy?” or “What countries do you want to visit when we retire?” When we take the time to care about their answers, it shows that we care about them.

Crazy stories

Just the other evening I asked Ron, “What was the first movie you ever saw in a theater?”

He thought about it for a minute, laughed aloud, and said, “Well, the first time I went to a theater I didn’t see the movie; I just saw the bathroom.”

I was afraid to ask, but I forged on. “What happened?”

“There was a theater a few doors down from our house in St. Louis, and one summer afternoon I went there with my friends Jimmy Joe and Skidmark.”

I laughed, “Skidmark?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know how he got his nickname. The three of us tried to sneak into the theater because we didn’t have any money, but the manager saw us lurking near the back door and told us to leave. We were mad at him, so we decided to pay him back. So we stood on our tiptoes, peeked into the open bathroom window, and threw in a stink bomb!”

Ron was laughing so hard at the memory that he had to stop to catch his breath.

I was horrified, but didn’t let it show. “The three of us ran around to the front of the theater,” he continued, “and laughed our heads off as we watched the people tumble out of the door, gasping for fresh air.”

I was thrilled to see Ron so happy about reliving his childhood, so I said, “Tell me another story.”

He told me several crazy tales about his unsupervised childhood, and some of the silly—and dangerous—things he did with his cousin Larry. I’ve learned, through the years, not to interrupt him or be critical of his youthful tales of reckless antics. I just laugh, smile, nod, and listen.

Later that evening, when we were lying in bed, he held my hand and said, “You’re a good wife.” But I think he really meant, “You’re a good listener.”

Lip service: The power of a compliment

The Bible tells us to encourage each other—to build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11). One of the easiest ways to encourage someone is to give that person a sincere compliment.

Men and women have affairs for many different reasons, but a common complaint of both sexes is the lack of praise and the abundance of criticism from their spouses. If a person at the office is quick to compliment and a person at home is quick to criticize, which one would you be attracted to?

Florence Littauer, in her book After Every Wedding Comes a Marriage, devoted a whole chapter to “The Other Woman.” She tells the female reader to imagine what the woman who’s plotting to steal your husband might say to him. Compare that to what you say to him.

Bonus points

Another excellent way to compliment your mate is to praise him or her in front of someone else. You’ll get bonus points for this. Ron is proud that I’m a writer, and he often brags about my accomplishments in front of other people. “Did you know that my wife, the genius, has had another story published?”

I try to praise Ron in front of our son, Nick. “Did you know that Dad passed a really hard test and now he’s a Financial Planner? I’m proud of him, aren’t you?”

Barb, an acquaintance, admits that the downfall of her marriage began with the constant flow of criticism through her mind and out of her mouth. She now feels that if she’d made a conscious decision to turn off the negative cycle, her husband wouldn’t have chosen to find his solace in hours of peaceful conversations with the “other woman.”

Sometimes, of course, you need to talk to each other about problems or shortcomings. But if your attitude is usually one of praise, your spouse will be more likely to accept your constructive criticism.

Every marriage has problems and conflicts, but don’t be discouraged. Through prayer, God can give each of us His strength and comfort. He wants to build us up and encourage us as couples. You’ll have the strength to face uncertain times if you ask for the guidance of your certain Savior.

Taken from: Avoiding the Greener Grass Syndrome© 2004 by Nancy C. Andersen. Published by Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

For more information on the subject, check out For Women Only and find out what every woman needs to know about men.

My husband, Jim, and I have been married for more than 30 years, and we consider one another to be our best friends. Despite this, we have to intentionally keep our relationship and marriage on the front burner of life.

Finding time to be with just one another is important to Jim and me. But I confess, it’s not always an easy thing to do. And this isn’t just our isolated problem. It’s common in most marriages—regardless of age.

The following 10 ideas can help you and me intentionally make time for our spouse:

1. Cultivate a common interest.

Your spouse should be your best friend, and friends enjoy spending time with one another. If you and your spouse have different hobbies, find something that you both enjoy doing and do it together. You may want to go bike riding, walk together at the end of a long day, play tennis, or learn how to ballroom dance. Shared experiences enrich marriages and deepen friendship.

“I realized that our relationship had to be a higher priority than my hobbies,” says Dennis Rainey, cofounder of FamilyLife, of his early days of marriage. “Barbara and I had to decide what we wanted to be at the end of our lives—two people who had grown old together as partners or two people who had grown old alone.”

2. Have a regular date night.

If you don’t have a relative nearby who would gladly watch your kids, then consider swapping babysitting with a friend on a regular basis. For example, you would watch their kids on the first Friday of every month and they would watch your kids on the second Saturday of every month.

With a little imagination, you can also plan some great dates at home … not only while the kids are sleeping, but also while they are enjoying pizza or watching a special movie.

3. Try new adventures together.

We only live this life once. Try doing something different to force yourself out of the rut of normal day-to-day living. If you and your spouse would like to do something a little more daring, consider activities such as skydiving, scuba diving, mountain climbing, etc.

“When my husband, Jim, and I said, ‘I do’ 37 years ago, I never envisioned myself camping on a budget or whizzing through the countryside on the back of a motorcycle,” LaRue Launius says. “And Jim never imagined himself thousands of feet up in the air. But God has used these experiences, and countless others, to gradually knit our hearts together as best friends.”

4. Write love letters to one another and read them over a romantic dinner.

Writing letters is almost a lost art form today. You may want to redeem it by regularly expressing your love to your spouse in a letter. Then read it to your spouse over a romantic dinner.

You could purchase special wooden boxes for your love letters. Or, record them in individual journals as a lasting reminder to your legacy of your love for one another.

If you’re not sure how to begin writing your letter, read “Tips for Writing a Notable Love Letter.”

5. Go on overnight getaways—without the kids.

The possibilities are endless. Many state parks have great campsites and beautiful lodges. Staying at a nearby bed and breakfast can be a real treat. Also, hotels often have special weekend getaway packages.

After being married for 10 years, Bill and Carolyn Wellons discovered a secret that re-energizes their relationship—regular getaways. “We may relax at a friend’s lake house, camp at a state park, or book a resort condominium in the off-season,” Bill explains. “God has continued to teach us to step off life’s treadmill and examine the health of our relationship. When we evaluate where we are heading, we reap a fabulous return on investment.”

For ideas about how to make the most of your time away, read “Why It’s Important to Get Away With Your Spouse.”

6. Set aside regular time to talk with one another—without any distractions.

Make time to focus on one another and talk about the day’s events. When our children were young, my husband and I tried to visit together for 10-15 minutes before dinner each evening—just the two of us. You and your spouse may want to do this after the kids go to bed. The important thing is to share heart-to-heart and face-to-face.

If the kids are in school, you may want to have lunch together once a week. Put it on the calendar and make definite appointments. I read about a pastor who did this for years. He had a standing invitation for lunch one day a week that could not be broken—lunch with his wife.

7. Read a book together and discuss it over coffee at a local coffeehouse or bookstore.

Take turns choosing the books. If a movie has been made out of the book, read and discuss it together and then watch the movie. Compare the book to the movie.

You could also go through one of The Art of Marriage® Connect Series studies as a couple. Although these Bible studies are designed for small groups, you could do one with your spouse. Studies include Building Teamwork in Your Marriage, Improving Communication in Your Marriage, and Growing Together in Christ.

8. Be accountable to one another.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 tells us, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion.”

You may want to ask your spouse to keep you accountable in a certain area. For example, I have a habit of over-committing myself and having way too many things on the to-do list. My husband is great about bringing me back to earth and helping me establish a more balanced schedule.

Being accountable to our spouse requires one-on-one time—whether it’s over coffee in the morning or evaluating a to-do list together in the afternoon.

“Accountability gives each marriage partner freedom and access to the other,” Dennis Rainey writes. He adds that it means asking for advice and gives a spouse the freedom to share honest observations. “It means we’re teachable and approachable. We both need to be accountable to the other because each partner is fallible and quite capable of using faulty judgment.”

9. Pray together.

When we regularly pray with our spouse, our souls and hearts are uniquely knit together. Sadly, we’ll forget many of the ways God answers our prayers unless we write them down.

You may want to record how God answers your prayers in a notebook. Once a year or so, set aside some time with your spouse and review it together. Spend time thanking the Lord for all He has done.

10. Tune up your marriage at a Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway.

Attending a Weekend to Remember will help you get away from the distractions of life and focus on one another.

“We had a wonderful time,” one wife wrote after attending a Weekend to Remember. “Everyone was so welcoming. We didn’t come to this as a couple who was looking to save their marriage. We came as a couple who needed a tune-up. We’re running good and would like to keep it that way.”

Copyright © 2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Are you tired? I don’t mean just physically tired, but emotionally and mentally tired? I don’t know about you, but everywhere I go these days I see tired men. Just plain exhausted.

Two kinds of tired make their way into my life. Sometimes when I go home, I’m “good” tired. You know the feeling. You spent yourself in a worthy cause. You’re tired—but you feel great!

Theodore Roosevelt described “good” tired this way:

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly. Who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions. Who spends himself in a worthy cause. Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place will never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Don’t you just love that kind of talk! That gets me fired up! That’s good tired.

But that’s not the kind of tired most men are these days; most men are just worn-out tired. One of the greatest Christian fallacies is that we are not doing enough for the Lord. You’ve heard men say it, “I just wish I was doing more for the Lord.” It’s not that we are not doing enough, but that we are doing too much of the wrong things.

As a young Christian, I didn’t have a clue about God’s priorities for my life. I lacked the self-confidence to say no because I honestly didn’t know where the boundaries were. So I said yes to everything, and I wore myself out. Some people do too much out of guilt, but mine was out of ignorance of biblical priorities. I only knew enough to be dangerous.

One fall I went to a men’s retreat just to get a break from it all. Tom Skinner, the primary speaker, stunned me—totally and completely—with his teachings about biblical priorities. I was so impressed we invited Tom to come to Orlando to share his understanding of the Scriptures with some tired, worn-out friends. Tears of relief flowed from several of the Christian “workaholics” who attended.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29, italics added). Our emphasis always seems to be on doing. But God is interested in our rest. It is a priority with Him and, therefore, us.

Some of us worry so hard we get no rest. This rest Jesus offers isn’t just for the physically tired, but for the emotionally and mentally tired, too. “The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep” (Ecclesiastes 5:12). The “worry” tired may be the most tired of all.

Isaiah gave special attention to worn-out, tired men:

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40:29-31).

Work

Men need a forum in which to find their significance and make their contribution. That forum is work. Our propensity for work finds its origins at the very beginning of creation when God prescribed work as the manner in which we would occupy our days.

The purpose of work is to glorify God with the abilities He has given us. By pursuing excellence and by settling for nothing less than our personal best, we demonstrate to a world weary of Christian “talky-talk” that Christ can make a difference in a man’s life here and now.

Paul places such a high emphasis on work that he says a man who doesn’t work (if he is able) shouldn’t be allowed to eat! Paul himself often earned income as a tentmaker.

Good works

To have a faith without any good works is no faith at all. Our faith allows us to enter into relationship with God, not our good works, but “we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10, italics added).

In other words, God didn’t give us salvation for our benefit alone. Rather, He has a will, a purpose, and a plan for every man, which includes some good work He had in mind for us before we even knew Him.

The areas in which God wants our help are:

Introducing others to Him (Evangelism);

Helping others learn about and become like Him (Disciplemaking); and

Caring for the poor and needy (Matthew 25:37-40; Deuteronomy 15:11).

This is God’s agenda. We try to make it more complicated, but these are the three tasks God wants us to help Him with.

Different men can contribute to these three areas in different ways, depending on their temporal and spiritual gifts. Each of us must make an honest assessment of how we are endowed: in intelligence, wisdom, acquired competencies, and innate abilities.

The spiritual gifts we most frequently think of are serving others, teaching, encouraging, contributing to the needs of others, leadership (including administration), showing mercy, and preaching. Several passages of Scripture give us an inventory of the different spiritual gifts God gives to men:

1 Peter 4:10-11

Romans 12:4-8

Ephesians 4:11-12

1 Corinthians 12:1—12

Why not look these up and answer the question, “What are my gifts?”

We conclude about our task priorities that God wants us to work and provide for ourselves and our families, while at the same time working on His three agenda items using the different temporal and spiritual gifts which He gives us.

To summarize, five overarching areas of importance to God form the foundation upon which we are to prioritize our lives:

To love God,

To love others,

To rest,

To work,

To do good works.

To be a biblical Christian is to have these five priorities in balance. This all sounds so simple, but we know there is fierce competition with biblical priorities.

The competition with God’s priorities

Trying to keep up with all of our responsibilities, like an old farmer said, is like trying to put two tons of fertilizer in a one-ton truck! What competition do we face when we try to live by God’s priorities?

The world system, far different from the spiritual life, competes directly with biblical priorities. We are to be aliens and strangers here, pilgrims who are just passing through. “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15-17).

The slave master “money” indentures men to a bankrupt set of priorities. No slave master has ever been more cruel or ruthless than money. “No one can serve two masters …You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24).

This competition, the world and money, must be part of our lives. They must be our slaves, however, and we must be their master.

God knows we face choices more numerous than our time and money resources. That’s why He has so clearly outlined His agenda to us and has shown us what our priorities should be. Men frequently pine for direction from God saying, “If I only knew God’s will for my life.” We need look no further than the Bible—it has the answers.

Taken from The Man in The Mirror by Patrick M. Morley. Copyright © 1989, 1992, 1997 by Patrick M. Morley. Used by permission of Zondervan.

Among the most common excuses for not doing many of life’s most important things is a lack of time. Why don’t many of us have personal devotions (quiet time)? Not enough time. Why do good books just pile up on our shelves unread? Not enough time.

Are you wondering where your time goes? Let’s start with this question: How much time do you spend in your car?

In addition to driving to and from work, we often spend a lot of time in the car doing errands, going to church, and taking children to different activities. According to Time Power, a book by Brian Tracy, the average American car owner spends between 500 and 1,000 hours per year behind the wheel.

If you’ve ever wondered where all the time went, now you have a clue. If you’re anything like me, you waste many of the hours you spend in a car. My natural tendency is to immediately turn on the radio. It doesn’t matter much what is on…noise is filling my mind the entire drive. Then I reach my destination wondering where the time went.

Below are some ideas to help you use car time wisely. Instead of wasting time in your car, invest it.

Listen to

Good teaching. In addition to Christian radio, CD series are available from many pastors and Bible teachers. You can order broadcasts of “FamilyLife Today” on CD. Many ministries even offer their teaching on podcasts. There are countless hours of good, solid content captured in a format perfect for your car.

Solid music artists. Admittedly, there are a number of Christian musicians and recording artists whose music is not very different from listening to secular music. But there are many who write and record music that is good for the soul. Find one or two that you especially like, purchase their CDs, and listen regularly.

Books on tape. Reading while driving can be hazardous, but have you considered listening to books? There are a vast array of options available in the form of audio books. You could consider classics like Moby Dick, Gulliver’s Travels or Little Women. Or you could listen to contemporary novels or to non-fiction audio books intended to help you with your spiritual growth. This is a great way to help reduce that ever-growing pile of books you’d love to read…if you had the time.

Pray for

Your spouse. Pray for your spouse’s daily needs. But don’t stop there—pray for ongoing issues you know your spouse is dealing with. Pray for his or her personal and spiritual growth.

Your children. They have needs, desires, and issues—no matter what age they are. Pray for their health and for their intellectual and spiritual growth. Devote one day’s driving time to pray for one of your children. Then, another child on another day. Ask God to bring specifics to your mind and invest your time in praying for your children.

Your pastor. Pastors carry a burden that only other pastors fully understand. It comes with the position and there is little you can do to change that. You can, however, pray for his success and his protection. You can pray for his wife and children. Pray that he would remain faithful to the Word. Pray that he would have wisdom as he leads your church.

Issues of the kingdom. In the model prayer from Matthew 6:9-13, Christ suggests we pray: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” So, pray for the Kingdom. Pray that God’s will would be done, not just in your life and the life of your family, but also in your nation, in your office, in other countries, and in churches. Pray for the return of Christ. Pray that nations would turn to God and that He would receive praise from the earth.

Look for

God’s fingerprints in creation. We can find God’s fingerprints in a sunrise or a sunset. We can see them in a tree fully blooming. His creativity can be seen in the circling hawk, the growing grass, and the rain that hits your windshield. When we drive by the same things at the same time of day, we may tend to overlook them and not appreciate them. Invest your drive time in appreciating God’s creation.

Those in need. Take notice of ambulances and fire trucks. Take notice of law enforcement. These vehicles are on the road for a reason. They are traveling to people who are having a much harder day than you are. Pray for their well-being. Pray for the protection of the emergency workers.

Surprises. God may want you to pray for something very specific at a very specific time. Perhaps a name, place, or issue will suddenly come to mind and you are not quite sure where it came from. Consider that God may be prompting you to pray for it. Of course, you’ll need to be listening and looking for it. So, look for surprises. You may be very surprised when you see what God would have you pray.

When all is said and done, there may be very little you can do about the amount of time you are required to spend in your car. However, you can control what you do while you are driving. Consider these ideas. Create some of your own. In any case, do what you can to make the most of the time you have.

Copyright © 2008 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

I hate call waiting. I have it, but I still hate it. In the midst of a conversation the little “beep-beep” intrudes and I have a decision to make—to give in and put my call on hold, or to ignore it.

Webster defines “interruptions” as things that stop or hinder by breaking in. Interruptions steal time at work and abduct focus at home. Many a marriage has been swindled out of a romantic evening by this marauding, unwelcome thief.

Do you ever feel your schedule is burglarized by this bandit? I do. I looked over my schedule recently and found that I had been victimized by a series of interruptions beyond my control.

How do you view these inopportune disturbances that create turbulence in your schedule? If you’re like me, you can get irritated, exasperated, and frustrated at deviations in life such as …

A phone call from someone trying to sell light bulbs or newspaper subscriptions just as everyone is finally sitting down for dinner.

A 3-year-old interrupting a conversation with your spouse for the umpteenth time.

Your baby developing diarrhea just as you are about to leave for church.

The flu invading you or your children just when you don’t have time to get sick or be a nurse.

A fellow employee breaking your train of thought just as you were about to solve a gritty problem at work.

The toilet overflowing and demanding immediate attention.

A neighbor stopping by to visit when you have only 15 minutes to complete 30 minutes worth of chores.

God’s plan for our good

Delays, diversions, and distractions. Interruptions don’t have to be viewed as thieves who “take away;” they can be seen as divinely ordered construction zones that God adds to our lives. If you’re like me, however, you want a bypass, a paved freeway with no stoplights or traffic jams. I want a map that takes me around the construction zone.

But guess where God wants me to go? Through a chuck-hole infested, gravel-covered construction zone—exclusively designed by God for my character construction.

Over the past few years I’ve been interrupted enough that I’ve developed some convictions about interruptions:

1. God isn’t looking at the clock, but at my character.

God is not so concerned about how these interruptions affect my schedule, even if it is full of “doing His work.” He wants His will for my life, not my work for Him.

2. He has liberally used interruptions to chip away at arrogance in my life.

I can tell I’ve got a problem with self-importance when I’m confronted with an unscheduled problem and I think, I don’t need this! I shouldn’t have to put up with this—not now! Isn’t it easy to arrogantly assume that we are above it all?

3. Interruptions remind me I am not in control of my life.

Someone else is ordering my steps.

4. A life without interruptions would become too predictable—even downright boring.

God could have made it that way, of course. Only people who are dead have no interruptions. What if everything were 100 percent predictable? C.S. Lewis understood how to view interruptions and how they were a part of the real life God has for us:

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day.

Giving thanks

If we can’t eliminate interruptions, then what can you and I do?

Whether trivial or monumental, when our path is bent by these course-altering circumstances you and I have the responsibility to respond rightly—as God would have us respond. The Scripture teaches us how to handle God’s construction zones for our lives: “Give thanks in all things, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

By giving thanks in all things we affirm God’s rightful place—that of sovereign God, the One Who orders our steps, the One Who knows the beginning and the end, and all that’s sandwiched in between. Giving thanks in all things says to God, “You know what You’re doing and I trust You.”

When you give thanks in all things it helps you see interruptions through God’s eyes. As Romans 8:28 reminds us, “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”

Giving thanks is difficult enough for me—it’s the “all things” that makes it downright challenging. But some time ago my wife, Barbara, taught me a lesson in “giving thanks in all things” that I’ll never forget.

Three times since 1977 Barbara’s routine has been interrupted by an extremely rapid heartbeat caused by a congenital heart defect. At 250 beats a minute (four beats a second), her heart was just fluttering—an interruption of monumental proportions.

Getting our attention

Barbara was at home working in the kitchen when it began, and in an instant God got her attention. When her phone call came through two minutes later. He had my attention as well. God is sovereign, I thought, as I hurried home, stomping on the accelerator. He knows what He’s doing. Barbara and I had experienced this interruption before, but lessons in trust (when they involve your most valued friend) are still gritty and take time to process.

Arriving home, I found Barbara sprawled in a chair, ashen, cold, and clammy. Moments later, as we were on our way to the emergency room, Barbara confided, weakly, “I think I’m growing. My first response when my heart took off beating was to pray and give thanks to the Lord.” She admitted she hadn’t done that before.

Even though I was very concerned for Barbara’s immediate health problem, I was extremely proud of her response. It takes real faith and trust to give thanks in a situation that is beyond your control.

This was a dangerous interruption. And Barbara didn’t know what the outcome would be, but she still gave thanks. Humanly speaking, it seems silly, doesn’t it? But not if you take God at His word—”Give thanks in all things.” God is at work in the details of our lives.

Ninety minutes later doctors slowed Barbara’s heart to a normal rate by “re-timing” it with an electric shock. A few hours later she walked out of the hospital with me, shaken but grateful to God for the privilege of life.

Right now I have no idea what you are facing. Regardless, I’ve got a question for you:

Have you given thanks in all things?

Copyright © 2002 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Are you having fun in your marriage?

It sounds like a ridiculous question, doesn’t it? After all, most of us got married because we liked being with each other and we had fun.

But now, many of us don’t even think about fun. We are just trying to get through the day—cleaning up the next poopy diaper, finding money to pay that unexpected bill, figuring out how to be at two different ballgames at once … Who has time for fun in marriage, anyway?

My husband, John, and I have a little farm in the hills of Virginia. When we bought the farm years ago we inherited a delicious red raspberry patch which produced the most delicious red raspberries twice a year in July and October. Every season the kids and I would carefully weed out the honeysuckle and prepare the soil to ensure a good crop. And it did. We picked baskets of them and ate raspberry pancakes, raspberries on ice cream, raspberry muffins—raspberries in and on everything we could think of! It was great fun.

But as the kids got involved in more activities and life got busier, I just didn’t have the time to put into keeping the honeysuckle weeds out of my raspberry patch. I was sincere—I wanted a good crop. But too many other commitments took up my time. Slowly and subtly the honeysuckle took over and began to strangle out my raspberries. Finally the day came when we had to mow down the patch. What a sad, sad day.

As I thought about my raspberries I thought about my marriage. How easy it was to think, I’ll work on my marriage when life calms down. But the reality is that life doesn’t calm down. It just gets busier, more complicated. There are simply too many good options in today’s world for us and for our kids.

Our tendency is to put our marriage on hold—in fact, to neglect it—thinking, One day we’ll have time for us. But we’ll never have time. We have to make time, or the marriage may end up like my raspberries.

Oh how we need to recapture fun in our relationship. We need to laugh together. We need to try something together which we’ve never done before. It doesn’t have to be a big deal: Go for a hike in a new place … attend a lecture … take a dance class … go sailing or canoeing … light candles and take turns reading a silly book out loud … find a field and make love in a pasture.

I pray every week that John and I will laugh more together. I pray that for my children and their mates. When my sons were young I prayed that God would bring them wives who would make them laugh. (He did!) Now I pray that God would give all of us friends who would make us laugh.

Life is hard. We need to lighten up. We need to restore a little silliness in our relationships.

So here’s a challenge: On your calendar, set aside two hours in the next week for time alone with your spouse. Write it in ink, not pencil. Plan to do something crazy and fun.

Of course you don’t have time for this. But you can’t afford not to.

Copyright © 2011 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

For over a month, 12-year-old Daniel Daily complained of hearing a funny sound in his head. But his parents, Doug and Patty, didn’t take him seriously—after all, he was the type of child who seemed to notice everything—he could hear the sound of a florescent light bulb. Yes, he was suffering from headaches, but his doctor said they were just migraines.

Finally on a Saturday morning in April of 1997, while they were preparing to play in a soccer game, Daniel turned to his sister, Laura, and said, “See if you can hear this.” She put her ear up to his ear and said, “I can hear something.” And so, finally, could Doug and Patty—it sounded like water running intermittently through a crimp in a hose.

They called a doctor, who suggested that Daniel should sit out his soccer game. He said it sounded like an Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM), a tangled web of blood vessels that can cause hemorrhages or seizures.

This news, and the subsequent five-day wait for Daniel to have an MRI (magnetic resonance image), plunged Patty into a deep state of anxiety. She read up on AVMs, and wondered if Daniel might even have a brain tumor. In a way, she was already grieving the loss of her son.

She and Doug prayed together one night that week, and she felt like she was like Abraham in the Old Testament, giving her son over to God. “If Daniel has a tumor, and he has to go to chemotherapy, I’ll trust you, Lord,” she prayed. “If he dies and You take him home, I’ll trust you.”

Then Doug prayed, and to Patty his words sounded so indifferent: “God, please help us through this time. Give the doctors wisdom as they look at Daniel … ” When his prayer was finished he turned to her and said, “I don’t think we should get so worked up about this. We don’t even know if there’s anything to worry about yet. It might be nothing.”

Patty was livid. Was her husband actually telling her that she shouldn’t be emotional—when their son might be fighting for his life? Wasn’t this problem—the inability to share intimately with each other, to express their emotions—the very thing that nearly drove them apart early in their marriage?

She looked at him and said, “Doug, I am going through the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced in my whole life. I have never been so scared. Clearly, I cannot trust you with my pain. I have friends who will let me feel it, express it, and even feel it with me. I’ll walk through this with them and with God … but not with you.”

That moment remains seared in the memories of Doug and Patty Daily. It was one of those turning points in a marriage, when a husband and wife make choices that will lead them toward isolation or toward unity. But God had worked in their lives for many years to prepare them for those choices … and for the two extraordinary weeks that lay before them.

“The black hole of affection”

They met in 1975 at a Christian camp in Mississippi called King’s Arrow Ranch. Doug was camp director, and Patty was women’s director. “I fell in love with Doug immediately,” Patty recalls. “He was a strong, decisive leader.” Doug didn’t return her interest, however, until they served at the camp again the following summer. By this time he had joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ and she was in the process of doing the same. They shared the same commitment to helping reach the world with the gospel of Christ.

When they married on April 9, 1977, at Kings Arrow Ranch, they were convinced they had a lot in common. But as they began their ministry together—one more summer at the camp and then four years with the campus ministry at the University of Minnesota—they soon learned how different they actually were.

“I think the things that attracted Patty to me were the very things that began to annoy her,” Doug says. Yes, he was a decisive leader, but the flip side to this positive trait was that he often rolled over people in his eagerness to reach his objective. He didn’t listen well, and he didn’t care about her feelings.

Patty had always dreamed of a marriage in which she enjoyed a deep spiritual and emotional intimacy with her husband. And during engagement, Doug was all she desired—affectionate, thoughtful, focused totally on pleasing her.

Now, he would return home from a day on campus and turn on the television, or spend his evenings fixing up the home they had purchased. He wouldn’t talk with her the way he once did. She felt increasingly disappointed, lonely, and hopeless.

For his part, Doug couldn’t understand why Patty wanted so much attention and affection. Early in their marriage they took a test that measured how much affection you wanted and how much you want to give. They discovered they were exact opposites.

“That’s when I coined the phrase, ‘Patty is the black hole of affection,'” Doug recalls. I felt like a fly caught in the spider’s web after the spider has sucked out all its juice. After she and I talked, I felt like I was just a shell of my former self. She seemed compulsively driven to connect emotionally. I wondered how many of these intimate conversations she wanted to have.”

They enjoyed a fruitful ministry on campus. But as the months and years passed, a deep sense of disappointment settled into their home. They didn’t understand each other—didn’t even understand themselves—and had no idea how to connect with each other. “I know there’s a person in there that I love,” Patty would say, “but I can’t get to him. He’s hidden behind this huge wall, and it’s driving me crazy.”

“God, take one of us home”

In 1980 they moved to Dallas, where Doug began studying at Dallas Theological Seminary. They also decided something had to be done about their relationship, so through the seminary they found a solid Christian counselor. “I remember thinking that if Christianity works, it had better work in marriage,” Doug says. “But I couldn’t take it any further than that.”

Doug jokes that the counselor took one look at him and thought, “This one is going to take some time.” So he started meeting first with Patty. As she began to open up about her past and about her struggles in marriage, Patty began to understand that one of her deep-rooted habits was to stuff her emotions deep inside.

“In counseling, for the first time I began to feel it was a safe place to begin to let myself feel things, and the most significant was the hurt about not being loved the way I wanted to be loved,” she says. “It was the first time I let myself feel that much pain.”

For a time the sadness was too much to bear, and Patty allowed her pain to turn to anger toward Doug and toward God. “It was a crisis of faith for me. I remember saying, ‘If there is a God, how could He allow anyone to hurt this much?'”

She felt trapped. Doug was studying to become a pastor, and she felt like a hypocrite, like her marriage was a sham. “I just felt this sense of hopelessness, that the rest of my life was going to be miserable.”

Perhaps, she thought, it would be best if one of us could just die.

Doug, meanwhile, was entertaining the same thoughts. Patty’s seething anger toward him was unmistakable. To him, divorce was not an option. “I prayed, ‘God, take one of us home,’ so that the other could have relief.”

The Bungee Jump

When Doug began his own counseling, he and the counselor spent a few sessions talking about how Doug had repressed his own pain and anger in much the same way his wife had. Among other things, he feared being emotionally vulnerable to another person.

“Intimacy for me is like a bungee jump. It’s like I’m leaving this platform of stability, and I’m going to leap off and open myself up to somebody who has the potential of hurting me deeply.” Slowly Doug learned that the bungee cord is “attached to the hand of God, and He will not let me plunge to my death. Even today when there’s something I’m feeling that I need to tell Patty, it still feels like a bungee jump, even though I’ve now jumped off the platform hundreds of times. I have to consciously decide to take the leap.”

In a similar way, Patty learned to trust God in the midst of her despair. Even today she has trouble fully expressing the choice she made, because she doesn’t understand it. “At some point, I just decided there is a God, and that God is good, even though it sometimes doesn’t look that way. I had to accept that by faith.”

She also realized only God could completely satisfy her longings for affection, intimacy, and love. “The reality of living here on earth in this fallen world is there is going to be disappointment and longing for more. She says that Doug’s love is like an appetizer to whet her appetite for the real meal in heaven. Understanding this concept enabled her to accept her husband as God’s gift to her. (“So all I am,” Doug jokes, “is an appetizer to Patty!”)

To the Dailys, counseling helped them feel secure in verbalizing their emotions to each other—and that very process produced the oneness that God desired in their relationship. “Your feelings are who you are,” Patty says. “If we were to become intimate and get to know each other, we had to be honest about our feelings.”

They learned to name the emotions they were feeling in different conflicts, and they learned how to apologize and express forgiveness. “I can remember one time when Patty did something to hurt my feelings,” Doug says. “When I talked about it with her, she quickly said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’ I said, “You’re apologizing too quickly. You’re not letting me tell you how I felt, and you’re not feeling the impact of what you did.”

The changes have come slowly, but Doug and Patty can look back now and see how their marriage is being transformed. “If I ever have doubts about whether God really works in people’s lives,” Patty says, “all I have to do is think about Doug today and the Doug of the past. He is like a different person. He is an excellent listener. Of all the people I know, he is the quickest to admit when he is wrong. The things that I used to long for to change in him, many have changed.”

Between the Paws of Aslan

By 1997, Doug and Patty were living in Little Rock, Ark., where Doug was a pastor at Grace Church. When they discovered something was wrong with Daniel, and while they waited for his MRI, God’s Spirit began to move in both of their hearts. Patty realized that, no matter how differently they reacted, no matter how dangerous it felt to let Doug see her pain, she and Doug had to walk through this together. At the same time Doug realized he needed to let Patty work through her emotions with him; he needed to listen, draw her out, and acknowledge her pain.

By the time the day of Daniel’s MRI arrived, Patty had rehearsed the experience over and over in her mind. After the procedure, she predicted, they would wait for awhile in the neurologist’s office. Finally the doctor would come in and walk over to Daniel, avoiding eye contact with Doug and Patty. He would ruffle Daniel’s hair and say something like, “Are you doing okay, buddy?” Then he’d turn to them and say, “Can I talk with you alone?”

And that’s exactly how it happened. The doctor said the MRI had detected an egg-sized tumor in Daniel’s brain.

Doug felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. All the emotion he had contained for days came rushing out. He was so overcome that, when they went in to tell Daniel what was wrong, he couldn’t speak.

The neurologist didn’t know if the tumor was malignant or not. He didn’t know if it had invaded the brain stem; if so, Daniel probably wouldn’t live more than six more months. He could die from the surgery. And even if Daniel lived, he might face some sort of disability—in speech, balance, swallowing, or many other areas.

They had 11 days to wait for the operation. For all they knew, these might be their last days to spend with the son they knew.

Doug and Patty decided to heed the advice of their oldest son, Josh, and use those 11 days to do special things as a family. They went on picnics, played games, rode go-karts, and spent time reading the Bible and praying. “We delighted in Daniel as we never had before,” Doug says.

Daniel loved the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, and he asked Patty to read him the final book, The Last Battle. In the book Lewis paints a beautiful picture of heaven as he describes the “true Narnia,” where the book’s characters would spend an eternity with Aslan (the Christ figure in the series).

“At one point in the book three characters, Lucy and Edmund and King Tirian, were preparing for a battle in which they knew they would probably die,” Patty says. “King Tirian says to Jill, “Courage child, we are all between the paws of the true Aslan.’ When he heard that Daniel said, ‘Mom, that’s where I am.'”

Daniel was supported by the prayers of thousands around the country. On the day of surgery, Doug and Patty were surrounded by friends as they waited and started receiving periodic reports:

“They’ve opened the brain … ”

“The tumor doesn’t look malignant … ”

“We think we were able to get most of it, but we had to cut away a bit of his brain as well … ”

“He still may die in the next 24 hours.”

“There will probably be physical deficits.”

After surgery they went to see him. Doug had learned that a good sign would be if Daniel could stick out his tongue; that would indicate he could swallow and may not have suffered much neurological damage. But when he asked the nurse, “Have you gotten Daniel to stick out his tongue?” she didn’t know what he was talking about. Then Doug happened to look over at Daniel, whose eyes were open. With an impish look on his face, Daniel stuck out his tongue, and Doug started weeping.

Daniel was home within 36 hours. He has shown no after effects from the surgery, and follow-up MRIs have shown no sign of a new tumor. “We tasted the kindness of God in giving Daniel back to us,” Doug says.

“We tasted it in our relationship, in supporting each other and holding each other.”

And they tasted God’s kindness in not answering one of their prayers from the early days of their marriage. When their relationship was so hopeless that all they could think to pray was for God to take one of them home, He instead chose to show them His power. He brought their marriage back from the edge of destruction.

Copyright © 2000 by FamilyLife, all rights reserved. Adapted by permission from I Still Do, by David Boehi, Lifeway Books.

Proud people focus on the failures of others.
Broken people are overwhelmed with a sense of their own spiritual need.

Proud people have a critical, fault-finding spirit; they look at everyone else’s faults with a microscope but their own with a telescope.
Broken people are compassionate; they can forgive much because they know how much they have been forgiven.

Proud people are self-righteous; they look down on others.
Broken people esteem all others better than themselves.

Proud people have an independent, self-sufficient spirit.
Broken people have a dependent spirit; they recognize their need for others.

Proud people have to prove that they are right.
Broken people are willing to yield the right to be right.

Proud people claim rights; they have a demanding spirit.
Broken people yield their rights; they have a meek spirit.

Proud people are self-protective of their time, their rights, and their reputation.
Broken people are self-denying.

Proud people desire to be served.
Broken people are motivated to serve others.

Proud people desire to be a success.
Broken people are motivated to be faithful and to make others a success.

Proud people desire self-advancement.
Broken people desire to promote others.

Proud people have a drive to be recognized and appreciated.
Broken people have a sense of their own unworthiness; they are thrilled that God would use them at all.

Proud people are wounded when others are promoted and they are overlooked.
Broken people are eager for others to get the credit; they rejoice when others are lifted up.

Proud people have a subconscious feeling, “This ministry/church is privileged to have me and my gifts”; they think of what they can do for God.
Broken people’s heart attitude is, “I don’t deserve to have a part in any ministry”; they know that they have nothing to offer God except the life of Jesus flowing through their broken lives.

Proud people feel confident in how much they know.
Broken people are humbled by how very much they have to learn.

Proud people are self-conscious.
Broken people are not concerned with self at all.

Proud people keep others at arms’ length.
Broken people are willing to risk getting close to others and to take risks of loving intimately.

Proud people are quick to blame others.
Broken people accept personal responsibility and can see where they are wrong in a situation.

Proud people are unapproachable or defensive when criticized.
Broken people receive criticism with a humble, open spirit.

Proud people are concerned with being respectable, with what others think; they work to protect their own image and reputation.
Broken people are concerned with being real; what matters to them is not what others think but what God knows; they are willing to die to their own reputation.

Proud people find it difficult to share their spiritual need with others.
Broken people are willing to be open and transparent with others as God directs.

Proud people want to be sure that no one finds out when they have sinned; their instinct is to cover up.
Broken people, once broken, don’t care who knows or who finds out; they are willing to be exposed because they have nothing to lose.

Proud people have a hard time saying, “I was wrong; will you please forgive me?”
Broken people are quick to admit failure and to seek forgiveness when necessary.

Proud people tend to deal in generalities when confessing sin.
Broken people are able to acknowledge specifics when confessing their sin.

Proud people are concerned about the consequences of their sin.
Broken people are grieved over the cause, the root of their sin.

Proud people are remorseful over their sin, sorry that they got found out or caught.
Broken people are truly, genuinely repentant over their sin, evidenced in the fact that they forsake that sin.

Proud people wait for the other to come and ask forgiveness when there is a misunderstanding or conflict in a relationship.
Broken people take the initiative to be reconciled when there is misunderstanding or conflict in relationships; they race to the cross; they see if they can get there first, no matter how wrong the other may have been.

Proud people compare themselves with others and feel worthy of honor.
Broken people compare themselves to the holiness of God and feel a desperate need for His mercy.

Proud people are blind to their true heart condition.
Broken people walk in the light.

Proud people don’t think they have anything to repent of.
Broken people realize they have need of a continual heart attitude of repentance.

Proud people don’t think they need revival, but they are sure that everyone else does.
Broken people continually sense their need for a fresh encounter with God and for a fresh filling of His Holy Spirit.

Be sure to read Nancy’s article, “Brokenness: The Heart God Revives.”

Copyright © 2001 Revive Our Hearts. Used with permission.

January 2009

Tough economic times like what we’re going have their way of putting the death squeeze on marriages. So many couples find themselves just like Brenda and Eddie, the couple in Billy Joel’s song “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.”

They started to fight
when the money got tight
and they just didn’t count on the tears.

Unlike Brenda and Eddie, though, who “got a divorce as a matter of course,” many embattled couples today are finding that because of expenses, divorce is out of the question for the time being. Trying to sell the house in a depressed market, shelling out big bucks for attorneys, and then the prospect of trying to make it without the benefit of sharing costs on a home, groceries, and other things is often too daunting.

So, many couples are putting off the divorce until times are rosier … economically, that is. I even heard this week of a separated couple who started living together again, solely for economic reasons.

The same thing is happening on the front end with marriages, apparently. More couples are holding off on tying the knot because of the high cost of weddings (an average of $28,732 nationally). After all, who wants to start off married life with the added stress of being up to their eyeballs in debt?

On the surface, the situation seems pretty discouraging for marriage. But I’m thinking that just the opposite could be true

Believe me, no one who knows me well would ever label me an optimist — in fact, I’m often the first to point out what’s wrong in a situation. But that’s partly how I’ve come to this conclusion … by looking at the reason for today’s failing marriages. The current problem with many marriages today is that most people get into and out of them with too little thought.

Perhaps the biggest factor leading to the high divorce rate these days is how easy it is to bail out. Because of no-fault divorce laws and the disappearing cultural stigma on divorce, fewer couples find themselves having to persevere through difficulty. Rather than work through the problems, they bail out.

What about getting married? I’d say the biggest problems couples face in early married life is thatthey’re really not prepared for the difficulties in marriage. They think, like Brenda and Eddie, that they’ll be that one couple who avoids the trials, when in fact that denial is often the very thing that blindsides them a few years down the road.

Brenda and Eddie were still going steady in the summer of ’75
When they decided the marriage would be at the end of July
Everyone said they were crazy
“Brenda you know that you’re much too lazy
and Eddie could never afford to live that kind of life.”

Grab our new online course on Financial Freedom for Couples!

A couple who takes time to focus on the relationship and learn skills to navigate damaging behaviors and build strong ones is more likely to have a marriage that will go the distance. One resource that has proved itself over the years is FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember^® marriage getaway. Whether a couple is attending before the wedding or they show up at the conference as a last-ditch effort to avoid divorce, they will not only hear solid principles for growing toward marital oneness, but have the opportunity to practically work them into their lives. To find out more about the Weekend to Remember and other FamilyLife resource to help take a marriage to the next level, check out these links.

FamilyLife Weekend to Remember marriage getaway

Preparing for Marriage

Before the Last Resort: Three Simple Questions to Rescue Your Marriage (book)

© 2009 by FamilyLife, all rights reserved.

Financial bondage can result from a lack of money and overspending. It also can be caused from the misuse of an abundance of money. Some families have enough money to be undisciplined and get away with it (financially speaking). True financial freedom requires us to be good stewards and make the most of every dollar.

An essential part of obtaining financial freedom is living within your means, or spending no more than you make on a monthly basis. This was the normal way of living and thinking only a generation or two ago. Today, however, society, advertisers, retailers, and peers pressure you to live beyond your means and to use borrowed money to provide normal living expenses. If you have a significant salary and expect it to increase, it is hard to say no to easy credit.

But if you consistently spend more than you earn, then you are making your present financial situation difficult and your future miserable. After you consistently spend less than you earn, you begin to make significant strides toward financial freedom.

A budget is the best tool to help you spend less than you earn. It is rare to find a person in financial difficulty that maintains a budget. A budget is simply an income and spending plan. It is simple in theory but challenging in practice. Remember that a budget doesn’t constrain you; it helps you maximize spending in each area.

The three levels of spending

You must have the self-discipline to control spending and keep needs, wants, and desires in their proper relationship. Needs, wants, and desires can be incorporated into your budget.

Level One: Needs

“If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content” (1 Timothy 6:8).

Needs are the purchases necessary to provide your basic requirements, such as food, clothing, lodging, medical coverage. In our culture we easily mistake wants for needs: “I need that.” We must learn how to discern true needs and admit wants. We also must take responsibility for purchasing needs wisely. If your child has outgrown his or her shoes, you have a wide choice of styles, colors, and prices from which to choose. Find something that fits your budget.

Needs comprise the greatest portion of your budget. Commit your needs to the Lord, be obedient to His Word, follow His principles, and watch Him provide for your family.

Level Two: Wants

“Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:3-4).

It is not wrong to have material wants; rather, it is quite natural. The trouble comes from wanting too much, wanting too soon, and being unhappy if we can’t have all we want. Admitting wants is an important step toward creating a balanced, workable budget. Wants often involve choices about the quality of goods to be used, such as steak versus hamburger. If your budget allows, schedule for wants that would bless your family; but remember that external beauty and luxuries are not what bring lasting happiness!

Level Three: Desires

“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (1 John 2:15-16).

According to God’s plan, these are choices that can be made only out of surplus funds, after all other obligations have been met. Long-term goals and dreams should be committed to prayer and scheduled into the budget as possible.

See the following examples to clarify the differences between needs, wants, and desires.

CLOTHING:
Needs: New clothes from discount store or used clothing store
Wants: New clothes from department store
Desires: Designer clothes, custom tailored

FOOD:
Needs: Tuna
Wants: Shrimp
Desires: Lobster

TRANSPORTATION
Needs: Used family car or public transportation
Wants: New family car or used luxury vehicle
Desires: New luxury vehicle

God cares about the house you live in, the car you drive, where you work, whether your wife should work, where your children attend college, and even the food you eat. Have you ever prayed about those things? If you haven’t, how can you expect to know what God’s will is for your family?

Establish priorities with your family, particularly your children. When your children approach you with a request, help them understand the difference between needs, wants, and desires.

If it is a need, it should be supplied; however, if it is a want or a desire, perhaps your child should earn it or request it for a birthday. When children learn that they must earn some of their wants and desires, they make quick adjustments. Comic books are weighed against the value of a new baseball bat, a cheap plastic toy against a new bicycle.

Be consistent and fair but firm. Just as God will not grant you whims that work to your detriment, you must hold the same position with your children. As is true with teaching anything, you as the teacher will learn more about needs, wants, and desires for your own life than the student—your child.

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The big picture: the divisions of income

Before budgeting, you must first recognize the divisions of income.

1. The first part belongs to God. It is returned to Him as a tithe in recognition that He owns all we have. We are merely stewards (managers).

“Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings” (Malachi 3:8).

2. Then, of course, the government wants its share, in the form of taxes.

“He said to them, ‘Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).

3. The portion available after tithe and taxes is termed Net Spendable Income (Gross Income minus Tithe and Taxes equals Net Spendable Income). From the Net Spendable Income, you meet your family needs, such as Housing, Food, Medical, and so on.

“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).

4. Then, you must fulfill your commitments from past overspending. God says to pay your debts.

“The wicked borrows and does not pay back” (Psalms 37:21).

5. Faithful management will yield a fifth portion: a surplus. The creation of a surplus should be a major goal for the Christian. This is the surplus that allows us to respond to the needs of others.

“At this present time your abundance being a supply for their need, so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need, that there may be equality” (2 Corinthians 8:14).

Even if a family is not in debt, to maximize the surplus, their finances should be budget controlled. In addition to responding to the needs of others, it’s the surplus that provides the flexibility to meet emergencies without credit. That surplus can also be used to invest and multiply your assets.

Motivational reminders

Why is it hard to have financial self-control? Here are the obstacles to good planning and budgeting.

Social pressures to own more “things.”

The attitude that “more is better” regardless of the cost.

The use of credit to delay necessary decisions.

No surplus available to cope with rising prices and unexpected expenses.

Offsetting increases in income by increasing the level of spending.

Adapted from Family Financial Workbook by Larry Burkett. Published by Moody Press. Copyright © 1979, 1990, 2000 by Larry Burkett. Used with permission.

While visiting Alaska one summer, I met the man of my dreams. We began dating, and within a few months it became obvious to both of us that this relationship was for keeps. There were only two problems. The first was that he lived in Alaska, a place I never wanted to consider living full-time. The second was that my new love had about $17,000 of debt—student loan debt, which is actually considered “good” debt by financial experts because it is debt acquired to help you get ahead—but still debt. After a lot of prayer and some encouragement from my mom, I decided I would give Alaska a try and discovered I could actually survive the winters.

The debt was another story, a bigger hurdle than the darkness and rain that plagues southeast Alaska. We agreed we wouldn’t get married until he was debt free. He decided to leave his job at an airline for a far better paying job with the federal government. He moved in with his parents. He bought a 10-year-old car. This guy was serious, and it showed how much he really loved me.

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He cut back on lots of extras and began renting movies instead of going to the theater, cooking in rather than eating out, and buying simpler gifts during the holidays. Meanwhile, every free dollar went to pay off the student loan debts (and a simple but beautiful wedding ring). One year later—and approximately two weeks before our wedding date—he received the final notice from Sallie Mae. The loans were paid in full, and “he” became “we.” Within a month after our marriage, we received a letter from the same financial institute inviting us to apply for another low-interest loan. We promptly shredded it.

You can do it

My husband and I are convinced that going into marriage debt free was one of the best things we have ever done. It has prevented countless conflicts and lots of stress. When we look back, it seems incredible that he was able to pay off that much debt in one year. But when you are disciplined and determined, anything is possible.

So make it your goal to get out of your credit debt and pay back as many loans as you can. It takes determination and sacrifice, but if you can learn to live on less you can become debt free.

To get out of debt, you need to consider two schools of thought on debt reduction. Some advisors recommend that you focus on the highest-interest debt and pay that off first. It makes the most fiscal sense, but it doesn’t work for some people because the size of the loan is so discouragingly large. That’s why a second group of financial advisors recommends that you pay off the smallest loan first even if it’s not set at the highest interest rate. They believe that, like dieting, even a small success delivers a significant amount of satisfaction. So paying off one loan will provide the incentive and motivation to pay off more and serve as a reminder that becoming debt free is possible. Only you know your personal motivation style, so choose the plan that works best for you.

For financial coaching from an organization with integrity, visit Crown Financial Ministries, for free articles, budgeting guides, and live advice online from a trained budget coach. Crown also has trained volunteers around the country to coach you out of your financial messes. The best part: It’s absolutely free.

Room for reward

If you think getting out of debt means all work and no play, think again. Look for ways to provide yourself with little incentives and bonuses along the way so that you will stick to your budget. Paying off a particular credit card obviously shouldn’t be rewarded with a no-holds-barred shopping extravaganza at Neiman Marcus, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a reasonable purchase or treat! Rewarding yourself will help you stay strong for the journey of becoming debt free.

You may also want to get in the habit of giving yourself and your spouse an allowance—an amount of money you can use to buy anything you want each week. If you’re in a heavy reduction mode, you may want to limit this to $10 or $20, but if you have more disposable income, you may want to increase this amount to reflect your standard of living. For some, that may be as simple as having the house stocked with a name-brand soda or fresh flowers. Others may choose to use their allowance to eat out or go to a movie. You may save up your allowance for a trip or a larger purchase. Having money you can freely spend—even if you have other financial limits—will help you stay on the road to a five-star, debt-free lifestyle.

Once you are used to seeing where your money goes and you have a budget you can live within, you can relax a little. Start examining a different aspect of your finances from time to time. You may spend one month reflecting on your fixed expenses, such as house, car, and utilities, to see if there’s anything you can reduce. You may spend another month tracking the amount of money you spend eating out. Another month you may examine your work-related expenses. By focusing on one area at a time, you can hone your budget to a figure that truly works for you and your lifestyle.

Taken from: Five-Star Living on a Two-Star Budget. Copyright © 2006 by Margaret Feinberg and Natalie Nichols Gillespie. Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR. Used by permission.

A numbing economic winter has fallen on our land. But unlike the normal temperature fluctuations that are part of any thriving economy, there’s no sign that this present freeze has any intention of thawing soon.

There’s hardly a family that hasn’t experienced some frostbite. Savings and retirement accounts languish as the Dow hits new lows while unemployment hits new highs. Across the country people are driving away from mortgages in cars they can no longer afford. Probably the most telling sign of how bleak things may be is the number of head hunter executives who are out looking for jobs … for themselves!

I can’t think of a better time to be raising kids for true greatness.

Nor can I think of any time in my lifetime when families have been handed such a golden opportunity to represent the heart of God to the people who surround them. Our homes are called to be the headwaters of every low spot in our culture.

To support my point, I invite you to leaf to the front pages of your Bible—and learn from a man who knew what it was like to be thrown headlong into an economic, relational, and emotional winter … without a coat. His name was Joseph (Genesis 37-50). Let me set the scene for you.

Great kid, father’s favorite, a dreamer who was envied by his older brothers. His brothers rejected him, abused him, and ultimately sold him into slavery. He was purchased by an Egyptian official who happened to have a lonely and unfulfilled wife. Joseph spurned her advances. She reacted by falsely accusing him of sexual assault.

He was pink slipped, unemployed, and thrown into prison all at the same time. Through a series of events, he got a chance to use God’s insight to interpret a dream for one of Pharaoh’s handlers. But he was forgotten in prison for two more years until Pharaoh had a dream that stumped his own wise men.

Things moved quickly. Joseph was taken from the prison, given a bath, a shave, and a change of clothing before he was whisked into Pharaoh’s presence to see if he could interpret his dream. From this humble position, Joseph heard the dream and then immediately gave its interpretation from God. And what a revelation it was! Egypt was going to experience seven wonderful years of bounty and blessing. But these were going to be immediately followed by seven years of abject famine that would be so severe that Egyptians were going to forget any of the blessings they once enjoyed. Sound familiar?

Now here’s where we need to pay close attention to the story. What happened next revealed the heart of Joseph as well as the true face of grace. Joseph had endured a prolonged season of back stabbing, rejection, humiliation, and pain from his family as well as the Egyptians. He’s just hear that God is about to destroy his oppressor’s economy and possibly see the bulk of their population die of starvation. Based on the way they’ve treated him, it would be easy to be excited that they are getting their just desserts.

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But Joseph was ruled by the power, presence, and compassion of God, which gave him an immediate concern for the Egyptians’ welfare. Once he explained the meaning of the dreams, his superb problem solving skills, as well as his sophisticated administrative skills, kicked in as he volunteered a plan that would enable Pharaoh to leverage this news in a way that could save his people. It’s what you do when you live your life for others.

You probably know the rest of the story. Pharaoh made Joseph the equivalent of Prime Minister of Egypt. He gave him a beautiful wife who gave him two fine sons. And in the process of all of this, it put him In a position to save his own family from starvation as well as relieve his brothers of the heavy weight of guilt that they had been carrying for selling him into slavery so many years before. When he had the chance to even the score with them, he instead offered grace.

“Don’t be afraid, for am I not in God’s place? And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them (Genesis 50:19-21)

Economic winters are not excuses to show fear but opportunities to live by faith. Our response can’t be strategies that only take into consideration our own survival. These are not times when we lessen our commitment to the spread of the gospel but rather ramp it up. These are not times when we limit our concern for the poor, the lonely, the sick, the helpless or the hopeless but compound them many fold. During economic summers we give from our surplus. These are times to give from our sacrifice.

These tough times are perfect opportunities to step forward and speak up with a clear hope; to roll up our sleeves and get involved in bringing substantive help to the hurting; and to give our children a walking, breathing example of what God’s grace looks like covered in compassionate sweat. Your commitment to practicing grace in the midst of this harsh economic winter may be the only warmth the people closest to you will be able to enjoy.

The good news is that the coldest winters set up some of the most abundant spring times.

So let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

© Copyright 2009 Dr. Tim Kimmel and Family Matters.

Say you’re in Kansas and you want to see the Pacific Ocean. You pack your bags, gas up the car, and grab your morning cup of coffee at the drive-thru. Moments later you’re on the interstate, breezing along with the day’s first rays of sunshine in your eyes.

Sunshine in your eyes? Wait a minute—that’s not right! A quick glance at the map confirms your suspicions. You re heading east, toward the sunrise. To get to the Pacific you will need to turn around. And the sooner you do it, the better.

That’s how it is with our finances. We may have a goal on the horizon, but if we’re not headed in the right direction, we’ll never get there. And if we don’t change our course, we’re apt to wind up someplace where we never wanted to go.

Changing your financial direction is a four-step process: You need to spend less than you earn, avoid debt, build liquidity, and set long-term goals. To omit even one of these steps is to miss the mark—you might make it to Las Vegas, so to speak, but you’ll never get through California to see the ocean.

Spend less than you earn

Most of the people who rely on our firm for financial and investment counsel genuinely want to handle their resources wisely. Many of them, however, make the very same mistake most Americans make—and it’s the biggest obstacle there is to financial freedom. It’s a consumptive lifestyle. By consumptive, I mean a lifestyle in which we spend more than we can afford to—or more than we should, given our goals and priorities. It’s not what you choose to spend your money on, it’s how much you spend.

Why is overspending such a significant problem? Simply put, it’s because we have limited resources to use on unlimited alternatives, and living within our income means that tough choices must be made. We think in terms of what we could do or buy with 100 percent of our income—but after taxes, giving, debt repayment, and savings are taken out, we really have only about 45 to 60 percent left to use.

In order to spend less than we earn (or, as my son Tim puts it, “spend less than your dad earns”), we need to start thinking in terms of how we can use the 45 to 60 percent available to us. These decisions are part of your personal budgeting process. Once we begin living within our means, we create a positive cash flow. A positive cash flow is a critical prerequisite to building liquidity—step three in the direction-changing process—and ultimately achieving our long-term goals.

Of course, as with any worthy endeavor, the decision to spend less than we earn demands commitment, discipline, and time. To get from the Kansas wheat fields to the California coastline, you must pass exit signs pointing toward any number of interesting sights and attractions. Your commitment to seeing the Pacific Ocean is what will keep you from venturing off the highway. At other times, on those long stretches of road when the scenery never changes, you may get tired. You’ve been driving for what seems like forever; wouldn’t it be easier to just turn around and go home? At those moments, discipline will carry you forward.

Spending less than you earn is just like the westward road trip. Like roadside attractions, material desires will arise to distract your focus. Like the seemingly featureless highway, the attempt to live within your means can leave you weary or bored. But if you recognize that your goal will take some time to achieve, you’ll be better equipped—emotionally and mentally—to stay the course.

Avoid the use of debt

Borrowing money is not the problem. Failure to repay it is. Nowhere does the Bible prohibit borrowing—but as Psalm 37:21 says, “The wicked borrow and do not repay.”

Borrowing money is always easier than paying it back. Interest payments and income taxes conspire to make repayment a difficult process. Suppose, for example, you use a credit card to take your family on vacation, or to get some living room furniture, or to buy some fancy electronic equipment. Let’s say the tab comes to $2,000—a debt you figure you can afford because you can afford the payments. Other than making monthly payments, you have no real plan for retiring the debt.

At 19.8 percent interest, by making the minimum monthly payments on your card (and assuming you do not charge anything else), it will take you 32 years to repay the $2,000 debt. Thanks to the interest charges you’ll incur during that time you’ll actually wind up spending a total of $10,000. And thanks to the income tax bite, you’ll need to earn about $15,000 just to have the $10,000 you need. That’s $15,000 of your hard-earned money that can’t be used for anything else because you have to make the monthly payments! And by the time you finally get out from under the debt, your $2,000 worth of vacation memories will have faded, your living room couch will be popping its springs, and your once-fancy electronics will be relics that you no longer have any practical use for.

There’s no question that debt repayment can be a long and difficult process. My book, Taming the Money Monster, offers a detailed analysis of the steps you can take to get out of debt. In a nutshell, you need to 1) stop going into debt, 2) figure out why you went into debt in the first place and solve that problem, 3) set up a workable repayment plan, and 4) hold yourself accountable to someone. Organizations such as Larry Burkett’s Christian Financial Concepts, the Consumer Credit Counseling Service, and others can work with you and your creditors to create a repayment plan and ensure that you stick with it.

Build liquidity

The Boy Scouts have a motto we need to adopt: Be Prepared. When the unexpected occurs, it pays to be ready. When you spend less than you earn and build a margin of savings into your budget, you’ll have the financial fortitude to meet whatever comes your way. A medical emergency, an expensive car repair, or even the loss of a job will not threaten your financial security.

Likewise, when you build liquidity you have the freedom and flexibility to take advantage of life’s opportunities. Setting up a 401(k) retirement account, investing in the stock market, or even buying a new house or a car all become possibilities when you have a cash reserve—and when you have the money in hand, you’ll be equipped to make wiser, less pressured, financial decisions.

Let’s review. When you spend less than you earn, you create a positive cash flow. When you avoid debt, you free up your future income so you can use it on something other than repayment. Together, these two steps generate liquidity: the tangible resources you need to secure your financial position and take advantage of the opportunities that come your way. Now what?

Set long-term goals

Goals are the things that provide direction in your life—just as a desire to see the Pacific Ocean dictates that you have to head west. Goals are the philosophical underpinnings of your actions; they are why you do what you do.

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As you set goals, remember that the longer-term your perspective is, the better your current decisions will be. Living in Atlanta, we were privileged to be part of the city that hosted the 1996 Summer Olympics. I marveled at the planning that went into the event. A giant time clock hung over the interstate, counting down the days until the world would arrive on our doorstep. As time passed, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games handled everything—inviting athletes, selling tickets, drafting new transit routes, and even planting shade trees and designing water fountains to provide relief from the city’s sweltering summer temperatures.

It was an amazing feat, eclipsed only by the accomplishments of the athletes themselves. In the months prior to the start of the games, we watched athletes from all over the world running or cycling through Atlanta’s streets, tackling the hills over and over again. As I saw their speed and stamina, I could only imagine the conditioning and competition that had brought them to the Olympics. Think about spending four to eight years training for a race that would take just fifty seconds to complete!

Yet if you want to win a gold medal, that’s how it is. You can’t set your goal a week before the competition begins; you’d be doomed to failure if you did. Likewise, if you want to send your kids to college, you need to start working toward that goal years in advance. If you take a short-term perspective, waiting until your college-bound child is a junior in high school, you may never be able to afford the tuition payments. Extend your time horizon, though, and a whole lot more becomes realistically possible.

So what are your long-term goals? In addition to funding your children’s education, you might want to set yourself up for a comfortable retirement or provide for the special needs of one of your relatives. Maybe you want to pay off your mortgage, or purchase a larger home. Perhaps you want to increase your giving.

Regardless of what they are, your goals must be measurable. Sit down and make a list of your goals. Quantify each one in terms you can measure, and set a date by which it should be accomplished. Then, make a habit of reviewing your goals on a regular basis. They are not destinations in and of themselves; instead, they are the signposts, the markers, on your way to financial freedom. They are your cross-country map.

To solve your financial problems—to eliminate anxiety, to get out of debt, to be able to give more—you need to go through each of the four steps: Spend less than you earn, avoid debt, build liquidity, and set goals. My book, Master Your Money, offers strategies, worksheets, and more information to take you through the process, if you need help. For example, if you don’t have a budget (or if you have one and it isn’t working), Master Your Money can show you how to figure out how much you need to live on, and how to allocate your resources to create a positive cash flow.

Adapted from Generous Living by Ronald W. Blue. Copyright © 1997 by Ronald W. Blue. Used by permission of Zondervan.

A bright Colorado spring morning found me pecking away in my quiet workspace, seven months pregnant with our first child and blissfully unaware of the character development churning in my future.

My supervisor leaned into the cubicle and asked if I’d follow her. Seated in a meeting room with my supervisor and her boss, I reeled at the shocking news.

It’s a layoff. Your position has been eliminated.

I felt stunned. Betrayed. Embarrassed. Expendable. Insignificant. Angry. Terrified.

During the long drive home I prayed in sobbing gasps, crying out to God and absorbing our new reality: layoff. No benefits for the baby’s birth—without paying through the nose for it with money I’m not earning … I made two-thirds of our income … His job’s over next month … Not much chance of me getting a job two months before the birth and an upcoming move … We have a mortgage.

Helplessly, I conceded, Lord, You know! You know.

Godly, concerned friends brought lunch that day, and I know we chewed over the words of Job: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” (Job 1:21). They specifically prayed Job 2:10 for us: “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

Learning to rejoice through a layoff

But the layoff was just the beginning.

We learned we owed $500 in taxes that year. Then there was the frightening car crash in my 37th week of pregnancy that sent me overnight to the hospital. Three weeks later, I experienced unrelated but considerable complications with delivery. My husband and I began a long-standing joke: “There’s no one I’d rather get [insert severe circumstance] with than you!”

At the end of that year, the two of us reflected on those painful layoff months. In a time when we were holding on by our fingernails, God showed Himself more near, more sovereign than ever. He was profoundly both great and good. Our faith, too, was more tangible, more real than before:

… In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. (1 Peter 1:6-8, NASB)

But during those first few days and weeks, it was no small battle to respond in faith rather than fear—a moment-by-moment choice—taking “every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). God used that time to alter the fabric of our family’s spiritual DNA with several heartrending, precious truths.

1. Forgiveness plays out the gospel.

Very few layoffs are completed with perfect love and justice. But our ex-coworkers, and our children, are witness to how we react to devastating news, to feeling slighted.

Will God’s power and goodness be greater than our disappointment? How little will it take to make us “curse God and die,” as Job was tempted to do (2:9)? Recall Christ’s example on the cross for us: “not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead” (1 Peter 3:9, NASB). How will we speak to our children about our workplace, our superiors? Spouses, will your choice of words encourage toward disdain, as Job’s wife did, or godliness?

2. God has purposes for work even in a layoff.

It’s hard to walk away from a layoff without feeling like your gifts and contributions are dispensable. Valuable work empowers. It dignifies.

But worth, purpose, and identity can’t be encompassed by a job. Just as God has purposes in employment, He’s got purposes in unemployment. We’re His workmanship, created for good works He prepared beforehand (Ephesians 2:10).

Don’t choose to let a non-eternal entity step into God’s place of defining you. Instead, believe His purposes for you are good, superior, and fulfilling. Fill your now-vacant schedule with the “good works” opportunities you wouldn’t have had otherwise—even if that simply means a long-needed sabbatical, or the time to enjoy your children.

Spouses, this is your chance to compassionately empower, to speak life-giving words. It’s an extraordinary occasion to affirm your spouse’s value and your unconditional love and commitment, to give him or her special honor (1 Corinthians 12:23-24). “I respect you” and “I’m proud of you” have particular importance now.

3. God is unendingly faithful.

It’s one thing to glibly acknowledge, “God’s got a plan!” It’s another to witness that plan unfolding … and even some of its terror.

Our wreck totaled our car. Yet that insurance check paid our mortgage for the summer. And we didn’t need that car since I didn’t have a job! (Thanks, layoff!)

Also, my husband’s insurance allowed me more expensive but better benefits—like having a baby with virtually no copayment (phew). His internship was graciously extended, which granted me irreplaceable time at home with our new son.

God isn’t sporadically good and loving; His thoughts are simply higher. Taking my daughter to the dentist isn’t a hiatus of my love; it is loving her—and watching her in pain rends my heart. Would I withhold necessary dental work from her, when every day I’m sacrificing myself for her needs? Similarly, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

God’s plan may mean building character of far greater worth than money. It may mean protecting me from what I can’t see. It may mean freeing me to finally attempt something I wouldn’t have otherwise. It may mean a form of good I can’t appreciate until eternity.

If my 3-year-old asks to run out into the street to get a ball in front of an oncoming car, there’s no way I’ll let him do it. No matter what kind of fit he pitches. I love him too much. Likewise, God is the all-seeing authority on what’s best for my family.

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4. This, too, is a time for gratitude and generosity.

After the layoff, We wrestled with questions like, “Should we tithe if we don’t expect to be able to pay our mortgage?”

God answers in Malachi, “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse … and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need” (3:10).

Even in that time of holding my breath while I balanced our checkbook, our family had more than the vast majority of the world: A comfortable home, full stomachs of fresh food, clean clothing, a vehicle, medical care, a college education, a safe neighborhood and nation, our health, and even more intangibles, like a thriving marriage. In our stricken state, our cup still overflowed.

Author H.U. Westermeyer remarked, “The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.” Even times of utter poverty are times of praise and thanks—in fact, some of its purest forms (see Job 1:21).

5. Faith is highly prized by God.

God exalts people who trust Him despite their circumstances: Noah, who assumed the expense and labor to build a boat for an unseen flood. Abraham, who was asked to sacrifice his son. David, who surpassed the faith of the Israelite army as a child, defeating the giant Goliath and his army. Mary, who upon hearing life-altering news of her unwed pregnancy, replied, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Will I have such an attitude—and such a reward—when God’s plans and timing for my family detour vastly from my own?

6. “The things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Even in staggering setbacks, our daily lives are still simply a vessel for the true, lasting reality of eternity and of God’s great purposes. We will likely not remember in eternity whether we were able to keep our gym membership, continue on a career path, keep up with the Joneses, take a vacation, or go to the grocery store without biting our nails.

We will, however, see eternal results of financial stewardship, of allowing God to dictate His place and plan for us, of building family relationships whatever the occasion, and of trusting that God will care for our needs just as He feeds the sparrows or clothes the lilies without their striving (Matthew 6:25-34).

Your family will witness your response to hard times. Will you leave a pattern of righteousness, a home secure in love apart from performance—and a legacy of faith?

After all, the lessons for our families from a layoff can be, well, priceless.

© 2020 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

September 16, 2011

I was surprised this week when I read about the comments Pat Robertson made about divorce and Alzheimer’s on The 700 Club. On Tuesday, in a segment where he answers questions from viewers, he was asked the following question:

I have a friend whose wife suffers from Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t even recognize him anymore and, as you can imagine, the marriage has been rough. My friend has gotten bitter at God for allowing his wife to be in that condition, and he’s started seeing another woman. He says that he should be allowed to see other people because his wife as he knows her is gone … I’m not quite sure what to tell him. Please help.

Robertson obviously felt a lot of compassion for the man. “I hate Alzheimer’s,” he said. “It is one of the most awful things, because here’s the loved one, the woman or man that you have loved for 20, 30, 40 years, and suddenly that person is gone, they’re gone. They are gone.”

The next words were disappointing and controversial: “I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but, to make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her.”

His co-host broke in and asked, “But isn’t that the vow that we take when we marry someone, that it’s for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer … ?”

Robertson answered, “Yeah, I know, if you respect that vow, you say ‘til death do us part.’ Well, this is a kind of death. … I can’t fault him for wanting some kind of a companionship, and if he says in a sense she is gone, he is right. It’s like a walking death.”

The importance of your wedding vows

This is an issue I’ve thought about the last few years as I’ve watched different people cope with similar situations. As you grow older, you view your marriage vows through a different lens. Most young married couples, with stars in their eyes, have little idea what they’re saying when they vow to remain together for a lifetime, “for better, for worse … in sickness and in health … ‘til death do us part.”

But after two or three decades of marriage, you begin to understand in a deep way how important those vows are. You realize there will likely come a day when one of you will devote much of your time and energy to taking care of the other.

That’s the normal course of marriage, and of life. Nowhere in Scripture can you find justification for divorce because of old age, illness, or memory loss. And I’ve got to say that it gives you a great sense of comfort and security to know that your spouse is totally committed to you and will never leave, no matter what happens to you.

Caring for a patient with Alzheimer’s may be one of the greatest tests of a marriage. But I think we need to be telling the church today that God will give us the strength to fulfill our vows no matter what situation we find ourselves in. There are ways for a caregiving spouse to meet his needs for companionship without starting a relationship with another woman.

A marriage marked by unshakeable commitment is a beautiful picture of Christ’s relationship with the church. Here are some great comments that blogger Russell Moore made yesterday:

Marriage, the Scripture tells us, is an icon of something deeper, more ancient, more mysterious. The marriage union is a sign, the Apostle Paul announces, of the mystery of Christ and his church (Eph. 5). The husband, then, is to love his wife “as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). This love is defined not as the hormonal surge of romance but as a self-sacrificial crucifixion of self. The husband pictures Christ when he loves his wife by giving himself up for her.

Moore points out that when Christ was arrested, “his Bride, the church, forgot who she was, and denied who he was. He didn’t divorce her. He didn’t leave.” Moore goes on to say,

A woman or a man with Alzheimer’s can’t do anything for you. There’s no romance, no sex, no partnership, not even companionship. That’s just the point. Because marriage is a Christ/church icon, a man loves his wife as his own flesh. He cannot sever her off from him simply because she isn’t “useful” anymore.

Someday you or your spouse will likely be faced with this type of test. For your sake and for the sake of your legacy, may I suggest that you choose today how you will respond. Look your spouse in the eye and say:

“No matter what ever happens to you, there are two things you need to know: First, God will never leave you or forsake you. And second, neither will I.”

One of the most moving stories we’ve told on FamilyLife Today is about Robertson McQuilkin and how he cared for his wife after she developed Alzheimer’s. Click here to listen.

© 2011 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

March 21, 2011

Like many of you, I’ve watched the news from Japan in trepidation and amazement over the last two weeks. The home videos of tsunamis raging through Japanese villages—tossing boats and cars about like toys, uprooting buildings from their foundations in seconds—are like nothing we’ve ever seen. And then the disaster grows even worse with the ongoing crisis at the nuclear plants.

If it seems more than I can comprehend, just think of what the Japanese people have experienced. Overnight, a prosperous nation was rocked to its core. As one reporter noted last week, “Torn up and terrified by a disaster that keeps on getting worse, Japan has transformed … from one of the world’s most comfortable countries into one of its most distressed.”

Disasters like this always seem to remind me of how powerless I am in life. In our modern, affluent culture it’s easy for me to put my faith in the Great Modern Myth that “I am in control”:

I can create my own private world of peace and harmony …

I can build a solid marriage in my own power …

I can raise my kids so that they will not make mistakes or wrong choices …

I can control myself so that I won’t pay the price for overindulging in life’s pleasures …

I can be captain of my soul …

And then I read about a 9.0 earthquake in Japan and I remember that my existence is far more fragile than I am willing to admit. I think of Proverbs 16:9, which tells us, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” I need a firmer foundation for my life than the philosophy offered by the world.

In a post on an old FamilyLife blog called MomLife Today^®, Barbara Rainey wrote:

Watching the 24/7 news channels can make one depressed. The images are beyond comprehension, unimaginable tragedy, though our eyes tell us it is all too real. Truly the foundation of the entire nation has been shaken. So as you pray for rescues, the recovery of the wounded, the restoration of a nation, I want to encourage you to think about the strength of your own foundation.

Jesus spoke of getting ready while it is still day, for the night is coming. How are you preparing your heart and life for the darkness that will come? I’m not a prophet, but Jesus did say, “In this world you will have trouble.” That’s a fact. So while it may not be an earthquake or a tsunami, a future death or disease could be just as devastating.

Like you, I watched in disbelief the images of houses being lifted off their foundations and washed away with everything within smashed to bits. Gone in an instant. Literally.

But for those who are believers, there is hope. If Christ lives in your heart, no natural disaster or political upheaval or economic crisis can rip Him away. If His word is hidden in your heart, it is safe. Forever.

Barbara’s words evoke the imagery of the story Jesus told in Matthew 7 about the wise man who built his house on the rock—a foundation of knowing and following God’s Word. Floods and winds could not shake the home built on the rock. However, “everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (verses 24-27).

This passage reminds us that the storms of life are inevitable. You and your spouse cannot control or prevent them. But God provides a rock of stability and refuge.

You may not understand why God allows you to experience sorrow or hardship. But you can cling to the truth of His Word. And you can turn to Him for strength and wisdom.

I can’t help but think of the classic hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.” These are words every couple, every family, should take to heart:

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.

“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

“The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”

I’m not sure I fully understand why, but those final lines touch me deeply every time I read or sing them. What a comfort it is to know and serve a God who loves us that much!

© 2011 by FamilyLife, all rights reserved.

Life changed forever, on September 11, 2001, for Brian and Mel Birdwell.

Mel was home-schooling her 12-year-old son, Matt, when a neighbor called to tell her the World Trade Center in New York City had been hit by a plane. “We turned the TV on,” she says, “and watched it for a few minutes. And, very uncharacteristic for me … we turned it off.”

Mel assumed that her husband, Army Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell, was safe at the Pentagon. He worked on the second floor of the outermost ring (E Ring) of the building, overlooking the helipad.

Brian, too, had heard of the attack on the World Trade Towers. After watching live coverage of the events in his boss’ office, he stepped into the men’s room. As Brian was returning to his own office, a tremendous explosion threw him to the floor and a fireball engulfed his body. American Airlines Flight 77 had slammed into the Pentagon, and he was only 15-20 yards from the point of impact.

He felt excruciating pain from burns that would cover 60 percent of his body. He tried to navigate his way out of the hellish nightmare, but couldn’t. “One minute I’m standing in a very clear corridor and I know what direction I’m walking,” he remembers, “and the next moment it’s fire, and smoke, and darkness around me.”

Feeling hopeless, Brian thought there was no way out of the inferno. He says, “I faced the finality of my life; I knew that I was dying at that moment. I thought about Mel and Matt. I thought, What a terrible way to go. Shortly after that realization, I cried out, ‘Jesus, I’m coming to see you.'”

Brian gave up and collapsed to the floor just before the building’s fire sprinkler system activated. The water extinguished the flames on his clothes, back, and arms, and he stumbled down the hall. He was seen by an officer and taken to a triage area where he called out to one of his friends. Brian says, “He had to look at my nametag to recognize me.”

Mel was oblivious to the horror her husband was experiencing until she received another phone call announcing, “The Pentagon has been hit!” She and Matt quickly turned the television on.

“As soon as I saw that the hit was by the helipad, I knew we were in big trouble,” Mel recalls. “It was really, really tough for Matt because he knew where his dad’s office was and he did not want to admit that … I knew if he were in his office that he was standing at the throne of God.”

While on a stretcher outside the Pentagon, Brian pleaded, “Call my wife, call my wife” to people nearby. A woman, who had been praying over Brian, wrote Mel’s phone number in her Bible. When the woman called her husband, she asked him to call Mel, and he did. Mel had waited two long hours to hear if her husband was alive. “Matt and I were almost doing cartwheels,” she says. “We were so excited. It was just the greatest moment to get that phone call!”

Mel asked a neighbor to drive her to Georgetown Hospital, where Brian had been taken. As they drove, she could see black smoke from the Pentagon billowing in the distance. When traffic reached a standstill on a bridge, she left the car and began walking … running … frantically trying to reach her husband of 14 years. She finally flagged a policeman down, and he drove her to the hospital. “I just remember being anxious and nervous,” she says, “I felt like I could never get there. I kept thinking … This cannot be happening.”

When Mel finally walked into Brian’s hospital room she said, “Okay, God, I don’t know how I am going to get through this.’ ” As she recalls, “It was frightening to look at him. It felt like I had been hit in the gut with a baseball bat.” She was allowed in the “sterile” room for only a minute or so before she was whisked away-doctors wanted to prevent any possibility of infection on Brian’s burns.

Mel slumped into a chair, wept, and asked for a Bible. A few short hours later Brian was taken to Washington Hospital Center’s regional burn unit, where he spent the next three months.

A painful healing

Visiting hours at the hospital were from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Every morning, at 8 a.m. sharp, Brian would look for his bride—and she was always there. “In my eye contact I had locked on my helpmate,” he says. “I always saw Mel first thing at 8 a.m.”

Brian says that Mel’s faithfulness “was a confirmation of our wedding vows … in sickness and in health.” He and Mel were married on May 16, 1987—a hot, Oklahoma day. Mel had always felt that marriage is for life. She says, “I watched my mom suffer through a tough marriage.” Her mom’s commitment to her dad came to Mel’s mind time and time again during Brian’s hospitalization.

Brian was not sure what the future held for him, but he knew Mel would be in that future. He says, “Mel was the constant for me. … She was the communication hub for everything going on in that hospital.”

While recuperating, Brian was awarded the Purple Heart and also received a memorable visit from his commander-in-chief. He had been prepped for surgery just before President Bush’s visit. The flesh from his arms was gone and only muscle could be seen. “The President comes in [the hospital room] and says, ‘Col. Birdwell,’ and he salutes,” Mel recalls. “And Brian attempts to return the salute, and the President sees that he’s returning the salute and stands there and holds his salute with tears in his eyes.”

Over the next months, Mel watched her husband suffer the greatest pain imaginable on earth. Yet she never felt bitter at God. When asked if God had forgotten her, she replied, “Oh, no, no … not [for] one second.”

She says, “If you don’t have God in your life, you have yourself to depend on. … Without God, you have to go out and do battle on your own. It’s hard … to understand how much easier life can be when you do not have to worry about fighting for the outcome of it, because God has a plan.”

Instead of choosing bitterness, Brian and Mel have chosen thankfulness. “The thing that we have always done,” Mel says, “is thank God for the grace and mercy that He showed Brian that day for sparing his life.”

Brian adds, “When I came out of the men’s rest room, had I made it back to my office, I would have crossed the path that the plane entered the building. So without question, the Lord was guiding my actions that day.”

Sharing their faith

God had a plan for Brian Birdwell on September 11, and it wasn’t time for this soldier to go home to the Lord. After more than 25 surgeries, Lt. Col. Birdwell went home to his family on December 14, 2001.

After Brian came home from the hospital, Mel watched their wedding video. As Brian’s stepfather performed the ceremony he had said, “May God guide you in the bad that may darken your days and the good that may light your way.” Although neither Brian nor Mel would have chosen the catastrophic events of September 11, they have seen much good from it. “What Mel and I and Matt have with our relationship with God and each other far exceeds the physical aspects of the scars and the inability that that carries,” Brian says.

Before September 11, Brian was reserved about sharing his faith. Today he says, “Now I don’t have any problem with that. The Lord has given me quite a basic load of information, so to speak…

“I did not enjoy … the day of having the finality of my life in front of me, in darkness, burning. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have God Almighty tell you, ‘Depart from me, I never knew you.'”

The story of God’s faithfulness to the Birdwells has appeared in newspapers throughout the nation and on network television news shows. Mel said on ABC’s “Nightline,” “We want [our son Matt] to know that through everything that has happened that Brian has been cradled in God’s hands through this and that nothing has touched his dad that God has not sifted through His fingers.”

In 2003, Mel was presented with the Robertson McQuilkin Award, given annually by FamilyLife to a spouse who demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to keeping their marriage covenant. “FamilyLife Today” co-host Bob Lepine introduced the Birdwells to the audience at an I Still Do™ conference that day. He said:

“We are honoring the courageous love of a marriage covenant-keeper. … We thought of Mel really as a representative of the men and women who this year have been affected by the tragedy of 9/11–those who are married to firefighters or rescue workers and those men and women who are married to people in the military who have been deployed and are now sacrificing on our behalf.”

Dennis Rainey, president of FamilyLife adds:

“In an age that has become a culture of divorce, Mel Birdwell has shown a watching world commitment to Brian and to her marriage covenant. Mel is a special woman who has persevered and loved well, despite some very difficult circumstances. I applaud her faith, courage, and commitment to real family values.” Mel’s actions demonstrate her belief that marriage is meant to glorify God. She says, “He [Brian] is a gift that God has given to me twice-May 16, 1987, and … again on September 11, 2001.

9/11 was no ordinary day-for the Birdwells, our nation, or the world. It was a day that saw the cruel consequences of evil and the merciful hand of a loving God.

© 2003 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

On April 9, 1999, my pregnant wife Lisa returned from a prenatal doctor visit, pulled into our garage with an ashen look on her face, and delivered the crushing news. “We’ve lost the baby,” she said, collapsing into my arms and sobbing.

Confronted with an immediate rush of emotions ranging from deep personal sorrow to husbandly compassion, I followed my first instinct. By God’s grace, I carried Lisa into the house and laid her onto the bed … knelt down beside her … and prayed. My words were few, but they were heartfelt and they set our course. “Lord, I don’t know what’s going on. I am very confused and hurt. But we want to proclaim right now, regardless of what happens, that we will not grow bitter and we will not not worship you. We refuse to give the enemy the satisfaction. Please give life back to our son. If not, please stay close and carry us through this. Amen.”

A follow-up visit with a second doctor confirmed that our little Timothy Sterling Mitchell, six months into the pregnancy, had died from a fetal cord wrapped several times around his neck. After an induced delivery and a few days of rest, we buried our firstborn.

We then started the long journey toward emotional and spiritual recovery. Reflecting on that difficult process, I recall a number of key decisions we made that set guardrails on our grief and helped carry us down the road to better days. Here’s what we did:

1. We rejected fixing and embraced being.

We longed for God to “fix” the problem, or at least remove the pain quickly. When He didn’t, an amazing phenomenon began to occur. By necessity, prayer became less about leveraging something from heaven and more about connecting with the Lord and casting our anxiety upon Him in the midst of the pain—God the Companion rather than God the Problem Solver.

When asked “Why pray?,” C.S. Lewis once replied, “Why breathe?” Addressing this same question in his book Prayer: Does It Really Make a Difference?, author Philip Yancey answers, “Because Jesus did.” Both men describe what we discovered, that the value of prayer lies essentially in the “surpassing value of knowing Christ,” including “the fellowship of His sufferings” (Philippians 3:8-10).

God did eventually heal some of our sorrow on His timetable. But He never left us alone. He entered into the pain and opened up His inner life to us (John 14:21).

2. We rejected deism and embraced Jesus.

Deism is the belief that God created the world but has since remained indifferent to it. The Bible presents a very different picture, of course, showing God in human flesh and intervening directly into the affairs of men. But sitting in a hospital delivery room awaiting a stillbirth, or carrying your son’s body to the grave in a shoebox-sized coffin, has a way of blurring a person’s vision.

Adding to our sense of God’s indifference were those “insult to injury” times, the things that just seemed beyond the pale. For us, it was the memory of a Sunday morning altar call only a few weeks earlier where Lisa and I had joined hands and prayed to become great parents. Or the unfortunate moment when a nurse, uninformed that our baby had died, asked excitedly, “What are you having today, a boy or a girl?” It’s hard to explain, but these acerbic moments felt almost more unjust than the tragedy itself.

But Jesus, the One who had also endured senseless injustice, hovered close. He gently reminded of the time when He hung on the cross, exhausted and thirsty from His torture, and asked for a drink of water. Receiving a sponge full of vinegar on the end of a stick instead, He cried, “It is finished!” He then “bowed His head and gave up His spirit” (John 19:30), a sour exit for the King of Kings.

Rejecting a distant God and embracing a personal Savior who is well-acquainted with both our injury and our insult would allow us to echo the words of the disciples, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Only you have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

3. We rejected fatalism and embraced the future.

Fatalism is the belief that all events are the inevitable result of fate. Rather than the indifferent being of deism, fatalism offers an impersonal force. In our case, because God appeared to sit on His hands as our baby died, we were tempted to look ahead in fear and assume further pain lay just around every corner.

The best remedy we found for that empty worldview is to resolve whether there is any real purpose behind such tragic events. If you asked me today to explain why my son died, I would reply with the words of Jesus. When asked to explain why a certain tragedy at birth had occurred, Jesus said plainly, “That the works of God might be displayed” (John 9:3). This short but robust statement by Jesus is the only one we’ve discovered that works, and it allowed us to move ahead in hope for better days.

It also protected us from the emotional ambushes that lay ahead, like hearing the popular restaurant commercial at the time featuring the unforgettable melody, “I want my babyback, babyback, babyback, babyback, babyback, babyback, ribs … I want my babyback, babyback, babyback …” The commercial seemed to play every time we turned on the television, and it cut deeply. We wanted our baby back, too! But he wasn’t coming back.

Fatalism would have had us believing that there was no purpose and that the future should be feared. Had we followed that viewpoint, we would have missed the joy that has followed, as C.S. Lewis concludes in the movie Shadowlands, “The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.”

4. We rejected negotiation and embraced trust.

Those who have experienced the death of a child can probably relate to the unspoken agreement that we made with God. In our hearts we agreed to accept the pain … once. But God had to ensure that nothing that bad would ever happen again. Unfortunately, God never makes those agreements.

This was especially difficult four years later when another pregnancy ended in an early miscarriage. Through it all, we found that a sovereign God cannot be trusted to negotiate, but He can be trusted.

5. We rejected platitudes and embraced mystery.

As the bad news spread, family and friends offered their consolation and comfort. The kind words and even the sympathetic silence sustained us. However, a few felt compelled to try to explain the tragedy. Here’s a short list of ideas that surfaced:

“God is preparing you to help others in the same situation someday.”

“He must have needed your child in heaven more than you needed him here.”

“You are already really strong people and God knew you could get through this.”

“We may never know why this happened, but God will make you better from it.”

“It will be easier when you have more kids.”

No doubt these people cared deeply for us. But frankly, their well-intended words were not helpful. At times they even offended us at a profoundly personal level, a place deep within that was craving real answers from heaven. In the process, we discovered a strange paradox—trite and easy answers don’t satisfy, but the deep and mysterious sovereignty of God settles the soul. When things were out of our control, they were never out of God’s control.

Yes, the idea of God being sovereign over Timothy’s death raises questions that we may never fully resolve. For us, though, the alternative is far more unsettling. Life experiences like the one we were enduring, untethered to God’s control, have no meaning at all. We rejected that notion.

6. We rejected melancholy and embraced hopeful grieving.

Immediately following the death of an infant, time loses its meaning. Moments seem to last for hours and hours for days. Things that were important before look trivial and petty. A suffocating dullness can settle onto the heart and shrivel it inward upon itself as you discover that not only is your baby gone, but so are the dreams you had for him. That’s a tough void to fill.

These were the moments when I felt the strongest sense that a real spiritual battle was being waged in the heavens between God and the enemy. Not a battle for my soul, but a battle for the direction of my life, and especially my thought life.

The battle was won by grief, of all things. We learned how to truly grieve in those days and months. There were times at night when Lisa and I were just too tired to offer much support and we just laid there listening to one another cry. We cried a lot, day and night it seemed. But we clung defiantly to hope for better days, and grief can be a powerful ally when accompanied by hope. “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Specifically, we grieved with hope at the graveside as we sang, “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.” We grieved with hope on Father’s Day as I stood proudly with the other dads at church even though I had no son there with me. We grieved with hope on Mother’s Day with no son to offer Lisa her corsage. We grieved with hope as the medical bills arrived from the hospital and doctors. We grieved with hope as we wondered whether to return the baby shower gifts to the givers or to the store for future credit. We grieved with hope as the memory of Timothy’s little face began to fade and we had only the prenatal pictures. In a way we still grieve with hope, though we long for the day when neither grief nor hope will be necessary. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 12:12).

7. We rejected “Goodbye” and embraced “See you soon.”

Although there is no consensus among Bible scholars as to the fate of children who die, we believe that Scripture tells us we will one day see Timothy again. And next time, his eyes will be open and full of wonder and glory!

For this reason, we have chosen never to speak again of the death of our son as a “loss.” We didn’t lose our boy—he is absolutely safe in the arms of Jesus.

8. We rejected heroism and embraced weakness.

As a man, this was probably more my struggle than Lisa’s. I had to come to terms with the fact that I am not a superhero. I hurt deeply inside and there were things that brute strength and determination could not overcome. I had to learn that although I am weak, God is sufficient.

I also learned how much of God’s comfort and strength come through my wife. Scripture says that God “will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able” (1 Corinthians 10:13). However, in a marriage, God has joined two into one (Genesis 2:24). Might there be times when God allows more than either spouse can handle alone, but that both can overcome together? He did for us.

I would offer a special word of counsel to husbands whose wives have recently experienced the loss of a child: She needs you now and she will need you for years to come. She needs your hand, your ear, your heart, your compassion, your tears, your attention, your encouragement, your faith, your courage, your love, your leadership, and your understanding (1 Peter 3:7). And you need hers, too.

In case you’re wondering, God has blessed us with more children: a precious daughter named Grace and an energetic boy named Evan. If you’re in the midst of an experience similar to ours, though, my heart goes out to you. I know it feels like the fight of your life and you can’t imagine ever recovering. In a lot of ways, you won’t. But that’s okay. Because He lives, better days are still ahead.

© 2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

The hot puffs of air turned to vapor around Chuck’s head as he jogged back towards his apartment. Brick and steel skyscrapers twisted the crisp breeze off of Lake Michigan into a maze of offsetting currents, updrafts, and biting, contrary winds. It was a tough way to start a day, but when you worked in Chicago, it was the best way to prepare yourself for the gun-to-the-head nature of the marketplace. Chuck braced his chin down closer to his chest and leaned into the wind. As he ran down the last quarter of a mile to his building, his mind ran down the list of contacts, appointments, and phone calls that needed to be made as soon as he got to work.

His wife and children were still asleep two time zones and a couple thousand miles away. They weren’t on his mind. They hadn’t been for a long time.

The blow came from somewhere within the long shadows made by the flat rays of the dawn. Solo. Pointblank. Powerful. Delivered with pinpoint accuracy. It crushed in the side of Chuck’s skull and put his lights out. It also snapped his head so severely that it smashed the third vertebrae at the base of his skull. Chuck’s legs crumbled beneath the force of the blow and his momentum hurled him headfirst down a cement stairwell into the basement landing of the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Chicago.

Some time the next day, his mind stirred from deep within a black hole of unconsciousness and allowed him to detect the beeps and muted groans of the life-support equipment that surrounded him. But it was several days before he understood he was wearing the head halo of a broken neck victim and was going to be a long-term resident of the Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Hospital and the Chicago Rehabilitation Institute. It took even longer to piece together the events that put him there.

If you put everything on a time line, the false alarm that brought the fire trucks racing to the curb next to the stairwell had to have been turned in a minute or two before Chuck was attacked. Because of the height of the fire truck and the fact that some of the firemen were actually riding up on top, they were easily able to see the man lying in the pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs.

They immediately called in a paramedical team from the fire station a block away. It’s a good thing. Chuck had received the feared C-1 break to his neck. This is the same kind of broken neck that actor Christopher Reeve received when he plunged headfirst from his horse. This injury stops the respiratory process. If he hadn’t received help within a few minutes, he would have suffered irreparable damage to his brain. The emergency team saved his life.

And so began the restoration of an assaulted man’s brain, a broken man’s body, and a stubborn man’s heart. Sitting across the table from Chuck two and a half years later, it was hard not to think that he was pulling my leg with the story he was telling me. It was beyond belief that a man who had sustained those kinds of injuries could walk, let alone speak coherently, write legibly, or draw the conclusions from the ordeal that Chuck now draws.

I had known Chuck for almost a year, but only casually. He attended a men’s Bible study that I teach with a friend every Tuesday morning. I had heard that he had been whacked on the head a few years back, but I had assumed it was your average, run-of-the-mill Chicago street mugging that leaves you with a splitting headache and an empty wallet. But when Chuck slipped into the seat across from me at CoCo’s that morning to tell me his story, he took me on an unsuspected odyssey through a life punctuated by repeated acts of personal irresponsibility, countered by generous doses of God’s grace.

Chuck had been born and reared on the Dakota prairies in the 40s and 50s by a loving mom and dad. His father was a German Baptist pastor who had found Christ through the ministry of the Pacific Garden Mission of Chicago. Chuck had enjoyed grace on a platter as a child. But sometime during his second year at Moody Bible Institute, Chuck decided he had a better plan for his life than God did. He threw his faith aside and chased pipe dreams littered with money, influence, power, and self-gratification. His first marriage didn’t last long. His second wife gave him two beautiful children, but he was so preoccupied with himself and his own ego needs that she had long since turned brittle and indifferent to him. She was the woman who was far from his side and his heart the morning a blow out of nowhere sent him hurtling to the bottom of that stairwell.

Chuck told me, “You know, Tim, wives are like trees. Trees need fresh air, sunlight, and water in order to grow. When I came home, I sucked the air out of every room I entered. I kept my wife in the dark by never letting her know what I was up to or allowing her to be a part of my daily life. And I kept her thirsting for affirmation and encouragement. All she heard from me was the whining and groaning of an overgrown spoiled brat. I didn’t blame her for serving me papers in the middle of my therapy. I’d given her no reason to stick by my side.”

Two and a half years after being clubbed beyond recognition during a morning jog, Chuck now walks among his fellow man humble and grateful to God for His mercy. He’s developed a close and tender relationship with his two kids. He and his former wife are enjoying civil conversations and bright moments together. He’s a careful student of God’s Word and a faithful encourager of the friends God has surrounded him with. It’s all the result of a broken neck that God used to rescue a wayward heart.

I asked him, “Have you been able to forgive the person who cracked you over the head?” “Oh yes,” he said, “I did it shortly after I learned what happened to me.” I leaned forward in my seat, “So they caught the guy that nailed you?” This is where Chuck’s eyes danced and he got a slight grin on his face. “No, they never caught him. They have no idea who did it.” And then he dropped his voice to a whisper and looked around the restaurant before he said his next statement. “I don’t think they could have caught him even if they were there when it happened. Who knows, he might even have disappeared right after he struck me.” I didn’t budge but just stared into his eyes trying to figure out where he was going. “You see, Tim, whoever it was did me a favor and brought me back to God. And if it took God snapping my neck to get my attention, it was better than the destructive path I was going down. So for all I know, it might have been an angel dressed in black. Regardless, I’m a different man … a better man because of the ordeal.”

Later on, as I watched Chuck shuffle to his car, I wondered how many times God has used catastrophes in our lives to redirect us from a path of self-destruction. Who knows but that some of our worst moments were nothing more than the work of angels dressed in black sent from a loving God who cares for us enough to get our attention and keep it.

© 2004 by Tim Kimmel, all rights reserved.

My cellphone rang on Monday morning while I was working at a client’s office. “Lori, can you meet me at home? I’ve just been let go from my job.” I packed up and got in the car and started to drive, my heart pounding, my mind racing…then the tears started, and I began to pray.

Just the previous Sunday afternoon, Del and I had been talking about his job. Over a period of time there had been significant leadership changes in his company, resulting in increased stresses and frustrations that hindered him from being able to do his job well. Many times Del would come home with a bad tension headache after a long day at work, not to mention the extreme fatigue he was feeling. He told me he wasn’t sure if God was trying to tell him it was time to find another job, or whether He wanted him to persevere in this job. We decided he should update his resume and start sending it out to some recruiters, and we would see if God would open any doors. Then the decision was taken out of our hands.

When I arrived home, Del was sitting in a chair in our living room just staring into space. I have never felt so inadequate in all my life! I sat down in his lap and we both started to cry. After we shed our tears (at least for that time) we prayed together. We acknowledged God’s sovereignty and plan for our lives, and we asked for His peace in the midst of all the uncertainty.

Thus began our journey – one that would change us both individually and also our marriage forever. So as the wife of a man who no longer has somewhere to go everyday, where do you start in showing your support?

1. Teach him how to do the laundry.

We both recognized that, for the foreseeable future, Del would be available to help out more at home. He was always very willing to help me in whatever way I needed him – he just wasn’t always available.

So he asked me to show him how to do the laundry since he now had the time. I’ll always remember, during his first week at home, him leaving the dinner table upon hearing the dryer buzzer and announcing that he needed to go and “fold his towels!”

Del was also able to help with the groceries, the morning school drop-offs, and with dentist and orthodontist appointments. I was so grateful for his willingness to help with my load. One caution in this area, though – do not give him so many things to do that he doesn’t have time to look for a job!

On a more serious note….

2. Encourage him.

There were many days when Del needed me to be his greatest encourager, while he struggled with thinking that he was not good enough to get a job to take care of his family. I needed to remind him how important he was to our family, how proud we were of him, and how much we loved him. He needed to be reminded that, just as we had prayed and acknowledged God’s sovereignty in those first few hours, it was God who was in control and He was worthy of our trust. God would open that door of employment for him when He knew best – which is also why it was so important to….

3. Pray for him.

What greater gift can I give to my husband than to pray for him; to commit him to the protection and care of the One who knows him more intimately than me, and who loves him even more than I ever could? Many times I would not know what to say to Del when he was feeling down or frustrated. I knew that his feelings were real, but I also knew that Satan wanted nothing more than to keep him feeling that way. Psalm 145:14 says “The Lord helps the fallen and lifts up those bent beneath their loads.” I often had to ask God to meet Del ‘s needs, because I knew I couldn’t!

But you know, Del losing his job affected the whole family, not just him. When there are children in your home…..

4. Communicate with the kids.

When Del lost his job, our children were 11 and 15 years of age. Any time that Del or I wanted to spend money, our 15-year-old son Ryan would tell us not to. He would say “I know it – we’re going to be living in a cardboard box!”

Recognize the need to let the kids know how you are doing, as it is appropriate to their age. Tell them when Dad has a job interview, or even when he gets a call for a potential opportunity. And most of all, pray with your children.

There were many nights we gathered as a family in our daughter Lauren’s room as she climbed into bed and prayed together. We would thank God once again for His provision and care for us, and ask again that He provide a job for Dad. On more than one occasion I heard Del thank God in prayer for doors that the Lord had closed when he was not chosen for a job, even after several interviews that looked very promising. Del was able to model to our kids the scriptural principle that “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

As much as I needed to support my husband, his job loss did have its affect on me as well…

5. Be willing to adjust.

Having had the privilege of being a stay-at-home mom while the children were younger, and running my own accounting business as they got older, I am used to having time at home – by myself! All of the sudden I had my husband around constantly. Yes, it had its advantages with regards to his help, but it was just not normal.

I was used to my routines: getting lunches made, children to school, household chores done, getting out the door to see clients – all the things I had been doing for the past 17 years. But now Del was home in the mornings, and it always seemed we’d get into conversations about things right when I should have been heading out the door.

And then I’d come home later in the day prepared to go about my usual routine (reading the mail/e-mails, making some phone calls, or exercising on the treadmill), only to find Del in our home office, working away on the computer. So I would spend some time with him and then start dinner early, as we no longer had to wait for him to get home. I found myself longing for time on my own. It’s not that I didn’t love him and enjoy being with him, but I needed some time to myself once in a while.

I found I was beginning to resent the fact that he was there all the time. But I also had to recognize and be sensitive to the fact that he did not want to be at home either. We both had to be willing to consider each other’s feelings in this matter, which is only possible if you…

6. Communicate with each other.

As a wife, a lot of my security and stability came from the fact that I had lived in the same place for the 20 years we had been married, my husband went to work everyday and earned an income to pay the mortgage and the bills, my children were happy in their schools, and I had family and friends all around me.

Now it became apparent to me that all of that might change! Not only that, but I found myself wondering what Del was doing with his time – how hard was he looking for that job? Was he allowing other things (church involvement, household tasks, etc.) to interfere with his job searching? It was critical that we communicate with each other, so he knew how I was feeling and I wasn’t creating expectations for him that he did not know about.

More than anything, though, the most important change that came for the both of us was learning to…

7. Seek God together.

Praying together as a couple was always a sporadic thing for us over the years. But when God brought this change and uncertainty to our lives, there was no question that we needed to draw together and especially pray together if we were going to make it through this.

Now we pray about everything, whether it’s a decision to be made, or just about whatever we are feeling; we bring it before God together. We also pray together for one another. It’s a tremendous way to demonstrate our love for each other, and to feel like we are tackling the challenges of life as a team.

A few months after Del lost his job, God gave me a verse from the Bible that became my promise for this period of time we were going through. Hebrews 10:23 says, “Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have, for God can be trusted to keep His promise.”

I can’t say there weren’t tough days. It wasn’t always easy to keep trusting and believing that God had a plan for us. But in the end I knew God could be trusted and that He was faithful; that His plans were for our good and not to harm us. One of the greatest blessings that we have found in our journey of the last three years is that God has taken what we both knew to be true in our heads and has now embedded it in our hearts. Sometimes the most important lessons in life are learned through our hardest trials.

Used by permission of FamilyLife Canada. Copyright 2003

The rain pelted hard against my face as I leaned into the wind and made a turn toward the south. It had been pouring steadily all night. When my alarm had gone off a half-hour earlier, it seemed to my sleepy body that circumstances dictated I should ignore my scheduled morning run and sleep in. But somewhere along one of life’s back roads, someone had convinced me that people who let circumstances rule their day usually end up letting consequences rule their life. Besides, the kids would be getting up for school soon. If I rolled out and got after it, I might have time to actually eat breakfast with them before they left.

I didn’t recall the Nike company mentioning in their advertisements how much heavier their shoes felt when they got soaked. Streetlights glistened off of the streams of water that were often deep enough to swallow me up to my ankles. What a way to have to hold back the effects of middle age. Today was Wednesday, my “distance” day. The other three days of the week that I ran were nice, manageable jogs. Wednesday was when I put serious mileage on my tennis shoes. And each Wednesday I fought the same three enemies: getting started, keeping my body going, and combating the thoughts that consistently encouraged me to quit. Rain, wind, and darkness multiplied my anxiety by three.

Distance running. I don’t do it because I want to. In fact, I hate it. It’s just something that has to be done to achieve certain goals that I feel are non-negotiable. It’s part of a bigger picture that seldom takes into account my personal tastes or private plans. It just insists that you put a double knot in your tennis shoes and slip on out into the darkness. And so I slipped on out … and there I was … making my way down side streets with rain running down my back.

There’s a point in just about any distance run where you’ve gotten so far from home that the only way back is to keep going. It’s at that point when the loneliness of distance running can really get the best of you. I had just rounded the corner of that point of no return when three other distance runners padded out of the darkness and slipped into rank around me. I knew them all well, but hadn’t seen two of them for some time.

One of them was a mother. She started distance running back in 1920. That’s when she took her first breath, and ten months later took her first steps. She grew up in a village that hugged a bend in the road in Pennsylvania. Her parents knew very little about parenting and a lot about poverty. But she survived their lack of knowledge of the first and their expertise of the second. It gave her the grit and the grace that she needed to endure the steep hills that waited for her as an adult. She ran hard and steady through the first months of marriage and the year she spent waiting for her husband to come home from fighting a world war. Once he was back at her side, the two of them went into the miracle business. In fact, they performed six miracles over a 17-year period. Five of the miracles were boys, one was a girl. This mother not only gave these six kids life, but she devoted each waking moment of her adult days to giving their lives meaning. She did it without pedigree, graduate degrees, or who’s-who friends. Just a well-groomed tenaciousness that didn’t quit when her circumstances suggested she should. She kept leaning into the wind and running through that point in the distance run where the only way home is to keep going. She died of cancer at 63, but not before she’d finished her race. And not before she’d gone the distance.

One of them was a pastor. I remember the first time meeting him was at an airport just outside of Washington, D.C. My father had dragged me along to be part of the welcome committee for this new candidate for our church’s pulpit. I was 13; he was about 24. There were only a few things I remembered about that first encounter. I remember that his clothes were out of style. And I remember that his Bible was already worn out. My father belayed my concerns about his clothes with some statement about my own clothes. And this young preacher belayed my concerns about his tattered Bible when he climbed into our pulpit a few days later and gave us a sample of what he learned from his Bible while he was wearing it out. We became close friends. He was my mentor; I was his understudy. He was my Paul; I was his Timothy. I’d planned on the dynamic lasting longer than it did. But a freak motorcycle accident cut it short. I remember the day I stood behind his pulpit and preached over his casket to his brokenhearted congregation. He had run well, straight through the front gates of the heaven he had hoped for all of his life.

The other distance runner was a Savior. He’d squeezed through a crack between time and space, slipped on His running shoes, and started jogging the back roads of humanity looking for other distance runners to join Him. He taught them how to go after their day, how to endure the hills, and how to keep reaching towards the finish line long after everyone else had hit the snooze button and chosen to sleep in. It took an agonizing cross and an empty tomb to prove His point. But it worked. And a couple of millenniums later, when He slipped along side me on the back side of a distance run, He reminded me of the precious power of a well-run race.

A mother, a pastor, and a Savior kept me company until I turned that final corner and picked up the silhouette of our house in the distance. The mother and the preacher peeled off and disappeared down a side road in my memory. The Savior joined me for breakfast.

And so it goes. Dear friends, I have a feeling you might be doing some distance running, too. Maybe it’s a new job or a new baby, an old regret or an ongoing challenge. Whatever it may be, I hope you can find the will to keep going. And when you hit that critical point where the best way home is to keep going, I hope there are a couple of good examples and an old friend you can pull alongside you to keep you company.

© 2004 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

In the summer of 1996, rheumatoid arthritis raged through my immune system like a dragon aroused from slumber. Without warning, pain overwhelmed me; I couldn’t even dress myself without help. Red welts and violent itching accompanied by high fevers made it almost unbearable.

My husband, Mike, put his own needs on hold to be there for me. He desperately wanted to protect and help me, but there was little he could do. The doctors gradually got the worst symptoms under control with heavy doses of medication, but for months I was left with debilitating fatigue. Sometimes the only thing I could accomplish in a day was to take a shower.

I remember one night when the pain was too much for me, and I lay in bed crying. Gradually I became aware of God’s presence. I thought of Christ weeping in John 11, and now I could almost feel His tears falling on me. It was amazing, almost unthinkable-God crying because of my pain.

The Psalms offer a beautiful picture of God gathering our tears as we suffer, and saving them in a bottle in Heaven (Psalm 56:8). I believe the Master Craftsman tirelessly works to transform those tears into heavenly treasure. Second Corinthians 4:16-17 tells us that our momentary affliction is “producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.”

Through this Scripture, I realized that by lying in bed, sick and unable to accomplish anything, I was actually achieving what I wanted most! I learned to fix my eyes on the eternal, and passionately desire those things for myself. Compared to eternity, our pain here is just a blink, like ripping a Band-Aid off, and the result is a glorious, eternal happiness that is outrageously out of proportion to our suffering here.

Perhaps your own struggles are much worse than mine. It doesn’t matter. You can rest in the goodness of God. He never wastes one drop of our suffering.

© 2008 by Cyndi Warren. All rights reserved.

A few weeks ago I found myself with my forehead on my bedroom wall, portable phone to my ear. It was one of those brow-creasing, gut-wrenching, I need wisdom please, Lord! conversations with a friend whose voice was breaking from the yoke of stress.

For nearly a decade now, she had braved a marital rollercoaster. Her husband did acknowledge Jesus. But from the sound of it, his desire for Christ collided with significant dysfunctions from his past and present. He ultimately had a hard time transferring his faith into his marriage. She knew she wasn’t guiltless; we chatted at length about her own contributions to the tense, complicated situation. But it seemed that for her husband, the responsibility of cherishing and nourishing his wife like Christ does His bride—the church—wasn’t on his radar screen yet.

As I stood there, now hand to forehead, praying out loud for her into the receiver, my thoughts became consumed with the magnitude of her daily burden. Yet I was transfixed by her staggering opportunity. She wielded the chance to constantly showcase the gospel to her husband, to her kids, to a watching world, and to a Father who sees what is done in secret (Matthew 6:4,6). In her I was reminded of the God who ardently watches and cares for her, as He did for a discarded Hagar in the Canaanite wilderness.

I began to digest what the gospel in this particular pair of jeans looked like. I thought of the choices she would be making over and over in the nitty-gritty moments of life: when she was asking about his day, for example. Or disciplining their boys. Or folding his socks again. Or agreeing on a movie. Or assembling dinner. Or when one of them had a bad day.

In a thousand decisions, she’d be resolving to love her husband as God has loved her. While she (and I) were still His adversary, God loved us—chose our lives in place of His own. He set aside His rights, status, all the love and honor He deserved, and wrapped himself in every reality of serving us … to the point of death.

My friend remembered well the fractured home she’d come from. And for the sake of her young boys and their future marriages, for the love of her husband, and for sheer obedience to God, she’s going to rise every day to shed what was easy (if divorce can be truthfully so named) for what is eternally and presently better.

She may well not be able to thrive in the harmony of teamwork with her husband, and she may be infrequently respected and appreciated. Her needs and longings may not be met, and her dreams may not unfold to reality. She will be offering her body to a person with whom she doesn’t feel wholly connected or known. Unless God chooses to change the heart of her spouse, she’s looking at a long, slow obedience.

But I trust it won’t stop there. I’m praying that she’ll love this man with her heart, not out of sheer compulsion. Because that’s how we were loved by God. I’m praying God will saturate her with devotion to the husband He’s given her. That she will look out for her husband’s needs, bear his sorrows, hail his triumphs. I’m asking God that just as Jesus served us because “God so loved”—her husband will be served; be so loved.

Any marriage offers occasions on an everyday basis to say, “I choose you. I set aside what I need—or want or deserve—for you.” But I think God must have a unique, filling love and strength for those who, day following day, immerse themselves and their wills in less-than-loving marriages.

He knows intimately their spiritual singleness in the middle of marriage. He witnesses—and intervenes—in the challenges of single parenting of the spiritual sort. He grasps the loss of well-kept hopes for true marital partnership: collaborating for a higher purpose, honing one another in a race toward the Cross.

I trust that in the cavities created by my friend’s marriage, God will be her more-than-sufficient husband, loving her. Buoying her. Empowering her. He’s been where she is, and He drew her with His relentless kindness.

© 2010 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Perhaps you’ve heard people use the phrase, “It’s a God thing.” They’re talking about experiences where they’ve seen God move in the hearts of His people … or answer specific prayers … or bring unbelievers to the point where they understand their need for salvation. I love hearing stories like that, and here’s one I found recently from Kent Hughes, now the senior pastor emeritus at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois. To me it’s not only an example of a “God thing,” but it also offers a few lessons about marriage.

When Kent and his wife, Barbara, moved into a new home over 25 years ago, they met James and Debbie, who lived across the street. To Kent, they were a “very wealthy 30-something couple with very few needs—at least they looked that way to us.” Barbara began a friendship with Debbie and took her to a women’s Bible study, which was a new experience for Debbie.

James and Debbie accepted an invitation to attend an evangelistic luncheon at a local country club, but James was not open to the gospel. He later said, “I distrusted the born-again types. And besides, I had been chairman of the board of elders at my church, so wasn’t I religious enough?”

But Debbie wanted to know God. Soon after the luncheon she prayed to Him, “I’m going to go out in my yard the next day and when I go outside, I want you to have Barbara come outside so we can talk about my soul.”

Sure enough, when Debbie walked outside, Barbara also came out. During their conversation, Debbie asked Christ to be her Savior and Lord.

So now James and Debbie found themselves mismatched spiritually. James believed as so many others do today—that if you live a basically good life, and your good deeds outweigh your bad ones, you go to heaven. Debbie had come to recognize it was impossible to earn salvation on her own; she needed to receive God’s forgiveness for her sin through Christ and give her life to Him.

As James said later, “I was trying to be understanding and patient, but I often found myself resentful and angry. I felt lonely in my own house. I had my own views about God based on I know not what.

“I figured I had a reasonable shot at heaven because I was a pretty good person. God graded on the curve, no doubt, hopefully a generous one … Debbie refuted my arguments based on Scripture. She spoke of salvation through faith and God’s grace.”

You can imagine how difficult it was for Debbie to see that her husband’s eyes were blind to this truth. But she resolved not to judge James but to pray for him and love him. And James noticed. “For all that I had resented about our new lifestyle, Debbie had changed positively in many ways,” he said. “For openers, she was at peace with our relationship. I was the one in emotional distress. She definitely was a stronger, more independent person, but she was less argumentative and more forgiving. Irony of ironies, she was somehow more romantic through this period of marital tension.”

James’ heart began to change. He met with Kent for a Bible study, and eventually his eyes were opened to the gospel and to his need for Christ. Kent says that if he’s ever discouraged about the impact of the gospel, “all I’ve got to do is pick up my head and look out the window across the street at their house, because there’s a miracle living across the street from me.”

As Kent explains, Debbie could have badgered and lectured her husband about his need for Christ, but instead she allowed God to work in and through her. God changed her life, and as a result James began to realize she had something that he didn’t.

No matter what your problem in marriage—whether you and your spouse are at different places spiritually, or whether you are experiencing any other type of conflict—a story like this reminds us that God is the One who changes hearts … and He answers prayer.

Copyright © 2007 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

The following comments were given by women when they were asked, “What ‘no-no’s’ do you have for a man about relating to his wife?” You might also enjoy reading the article “6 No-No’s for Relating to Your Woman.”

Don’t be passive or lazy.

Don’t be condescending.

Don’t procrastinate.

Never say, “Have you taken your medicine?”

Don’t let your mother cause conflict; leave and cleave.

Don’t assume your wife knows you love her; tell her.

Don’t get too busy with your job to have time for your family.

Don’t get too busy for sharing with your wife.

Don’t let home repairs get behind.

Never embarrass her in public.

Never think that it’s not your job to help with chores or the kids.

Don’t come home from work and think your job is done.

Don’t let your co-workers or business-related things take priority during times together with her.

Don’t assume you know what your wife is thinking or how she does something.

Don’t bring up past faults.

Never spend more time with the TV than with your wife.

Never tell your wife she looks fat.

Never put her down.

Don’t tell your wife to stop nagging. Nagging was a term created by a man to accuse his wife when she has to ask him to do something he promised to do six months ago.

Don’t treat your wife as though her opinion doesn’t matter.

Never forget to praise something about her often.

Don’t make the expectation of sexual intimacy the only time you do something special for her.

Don’t forget to pray for the desires of her heart.

Don’t expect her to do all the care for the children.

Never stop being affectionate to your wife.

Don’t patronize her.

Don’t speak harshly to her.

Don’t assume she is not daily working on herself and changing for the better.

Don’t act as though you are too good to do household chores.

Be quick to forgive and forget.

Never belittle or make her feel less than what God created her to be.

Never stop cheering for her.

Never forget to romance her before sex.

Never forget to offer help around the house.

Never forget to touch her “just because.”

Never forget to pray for her and lift her before the Lord.

When your wife is sharing a problem, don’t tell her how she should solve it before she’s even finished sharing.

Don’t neglect taking pride in how the home looks physically.

Don’t forget to plan for creative date nights.

Don’t forget to compliment her appearance.

Don’t forget to notice her care of husband and family.

Don’t stop listening, even if she goes on and on.

Don’t tell her how to feel or not feel. For example, “You shouldn’t be afraid/worried about that.”

Look at your wife when you are talking together. Eye contact is important to women. Otherwise she may feel like she’s intruding/interrupting/being ignored/bothersome—even if that is not the case.

Don’t interrupt while she is talking.

When your wife is trying to respond to your love language by providing physical touch (in non-sexual ways), don’t try to turn it into a sexual experience.

When your wife is sharing with you why she’s upset, don’t tell her how she should be feeling because that is how you would feel in that situation.

If your wife is trying to share a hurt that you are responsible for, don’t dismiss it. Really listen and be sensitive to her feelings and be willing to apologize.

Don’t walk in front of her through a door or when you are walking. You will make her feel insignificant unworthy of respect.

Don’t shift blame to your wife. If you made a mistake, be a man and admit it.

When you are in a group setting, don’t wander around talking to everybody else except her. Take her hand or arm tenderly and meet and greet together.

Don’t tell your wife you want her to share what’s on her mind and when she starts telling you, before she can finish, you start in about all of your issues.

Don’t let her come home to a dirty house.

Please, no crumbs in the butter or peanut butter.

When your wife may have been hurt by something you said, did, or didn’t do, don’t assume she will overlook it without hearing you sincerely apologize.

When your wife is sharing how hard her day was, don’t share how hard yours was like you’re trying to prove whose is worse. Just listen.

Don’t discount your wife’s feelings by chalking them up to hormones.

Never stop the romance.

Don’t look at other women … it makes her feel like she isn’t enough to keep your attention.

If you want to have an active sex life, don’t stop the romance or look at other women.

Don’t spend more time on your hobby than you do spending time with your wife.

Don’t assume your wife knows how much you need her. She needs to hear it from your lips as much as humanly possible. For example: “Honey, you are the love of my life. But not only that, I need you like the very breath I breathe.”

Don’t try to use logic to explain away her feelings. For example, something makes her nervous and he says, “You have no reason to feel that way. XYZ is under control, calm down.” Or she feels anxious, “You worry too much” or something hurts her feelings, “You’re too sensitive.” It makes her feel dismissed, unheard, and unimportant.

When you get home from work, don’t forget to hug, kiss, and say something encouraging to your wife before you ask about dinner or open your computer or sit down in front of the TV.

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