Love Is More Than A Feeling, It’s Also A Choice

On a previous post, I Want To Know What Love Is, I talked about love as a feeling and how difficult it is to describe that feeling. In that post, I said, “not one time does the Bible refer to love as being something you feel.”

But after saying that and reading in the word this week I had to go back and edited that line. It now reads, “Not one time does the Bible refer to love as something you only feel.” The important change I made was adding only.

I had to make that change because to be honest love has to also be a feeling. It is that thing inside causing us to say, “I love you and I want to marry you.”

And when we do something that shows our love we explain, “I did it because I love you.” Read more

Learning To Accept Your Spouse

Our spouses are unique in their own way. Individuals who have their own taste buds, their own thoughts, how they view the world through their own lenses, how they feel about circumstances, situations, sadness, pain, their past and the way they were brought up. All of these things are ingredients that have made them who they are today. Not everything they say or do is wrong just because we say it is. We have to learn to accept them just as they are.

When my husband and I first got married, his palate was not as diverse as mine. I grew up eating everything but the appliances. My mom is an awesome cook and so was my grandmother. We were expected to eat whatever was put before us with no grumbling or complaining. No matter who cooked it or what it was.

Prophetic Eyes for Your Spouse

I remember the day we married like it was yesterday. We said our vows and the next thing you know the man pronounced us husband and wife. We knew the pronouncement made our marriage official. But we had no idea how much we needed prophetic eyes to understand what had just happened.

I was a wide-eyed Nineteen year old who thought he knew everything there was to know about being a husband. After all, my only dream in life for the previous six years was to be a husband.

Now looking back on that day thirty years later, I see a clueless young man and woman that knew very little about being husband and wife. We had the titles; by name, we did become husband and wife with those few spoken words. But we had no idea how much we would have to grow into the shoes we just put on. Read more

I’ll Admit it; I’m Selfish, You Should Be Too.

Every time our marriage looked like it was over. I found myself fighting to hang on and I began to examine myself for what I did wrong. I would remember the things I did to hurt my wife. And whether it was in some small ways or in something major I had done, it all came back to one thing. I was selfish.

My selfish ways were toxic to our marriage. I hurt my wife with stupid things just because I was so selfish. I neglected our marriage and caused her to feel lonely and desperate. Simply because I was too selfish to give her and our marriage the best of me. Read more

Tips to Keep Your Marriage from Drifting Apart

Couples sometimes need some help to keep their love from fading and their relationship from drifting apart. Drifting apart is all too real for so many couples and I would go so far to say, it is something that happens to all couples at one time or another.

The key is knowing why it happens and what you can do to change it.

Why do we drift?

The bible teaches us, (Gen.2:24) that marriage requires for a man and a woman to be joined together, and they become one flesh. The KJV bible uses the word cleave for joined together. Other translations use the words embraces, united, and cling. The picture here is that the covenant marriage relationship is to create a bond of oneness that is so tight there can be no separating what used to be two.

Is Your Behavior Sabotaging Your Marriage?

My dream was to be married for life; I had made that life decision when I was thirteen years old. Yet, I kept finding ways to sabotage my dream. My behavior toward Janet and toward our marriage was destructive.

I remember once when I was seeking the Lord in order to save my marriage and I heard the Lord remind me in a gentle way, that I had reaped what I had sown.

I knew right away that He was not putting the blame on me for anything Janet was doing wrong. He was simply letting me see how I had destroyed our marriage with the hurtful ways I had treated her.

Those words broke my heart and gave me hope at the same time. I needed to know that our marriage problems were not all Janet’s fault. Just because she had chosen to give up on our marriage, the Lord would not let me get away with pointing all the blame at her. And at the same time, I felt hope, because I knew that sowing and reaping could work for my good as well if I would start sowing good seeds of love. Read more

What if You’re the Only One Holding On?

If you are in the lonely position of holding on to save your marriage while your spouse says it’s over, then there is a good chance you’re seeking some help. But, you’re feeling frustrated with your desire to get help while your spouse doesn’t want to participate.

You asked to see a counselor together, attend a marriage class or a marriage retreat. But, your requests are met with cold hard rejections. And you probably heard some cruel words like “I don’t love you and I have never loved you.”

There are times when you can’t sleep and there are times when you want to sleep all day. There are times when you’re alone and you feel desperately lonely, and there are times you are thankful to be alone so you can fall apart without your spouse knowing it. And then there are times when your spouse is near and yet the loneliness you feel grips your heart so tight you find it difficult to even breathe. Read more

Becoming Best Friends for Life

How did we go from having a really bad marriage for twenty years to a marriage that has become everything we had hoped for? Well, first of all, it took God’s grace, some counseling, and a lot of work. But along the way we discovered something very powerful, something we had lost through all of the fighting and communication breakdowns. We discovered how to be friends again. And the truth is we discovered how to be friends in a way we had never been before.

A funny thing happened along the way as we were making plans to split up for the last time. It was the night before Thanksgiving when we had our last big argument that ended with “we will just get a divorce.” But by the next day, as we worked on the details of what we would do, we made a plan to wait until after Christmas and our son’s birthday in late December. It was then that we started behaving like mature adults. We were both hurting and we were sad, but we started to cherish our last remaining days together.

A Wrecked Car and a Valuable Marriage Lesson

There is something special about your first car, especially if it was a car you could be proud of.

My first car was a 72 Plymouth Duster with a V-8 engine and a stick shift in the floor transmission. Sky blue with two flat black hood scoops and white racing stripes on each side. It was not the fastest car around but it sure was fun to drive. It was the only one around and anyone who knew me knew how much I loved it. The car seemed to be made for me. My car didn’t look as good as the one in this picture. But to me it was real close.

I was sixteen when my Mom bought me that car and I was still driving it a year later when Janet and I started dating. During the eighteen months we dated I even taught her how to drive it. She had always been afraid of straight drives.