Tag: hope

Who Told You Your Marriage Is Over?

Marriages end every day because men and women believe a lie. Circumstances vary from one couple to another, but the lie is always the same. What lie do they believe? The lie they believe is that their marriage is over. And everywhere they turn they seem to always find voices that support the lie.

This happens when husbands and wives with troubled hearts going through tough times in their marriage reach out for help. And the people in their lives who try to help say things like, “it’s too late, your marriage is over. Your marriage is too damaged, you should just move on.” And “you deserve better than this. God has a better plan for you.”

Do You Trust God With The Assignment You Give Him

Have you ever given God an assignment? You’re probably thinking no way, I would never do that. And you would be right to reject the idea if I was talking about demanding Him an order. But that’s not what I mean. I would never give Him an order or demand. However, I do believe our Father wants us to give Him assignments. I believe He wants us to trust Him with whatever assignment we give Him.

Let me explain by telling you where I first got this idea.

A few years ago when we were in a meeting with a ministry team. One of our pastors held the meeting after she had been out of the country for a few months. She wanted to share with us her experiences and to catch up with what she had missed. While she was away, Janet and I handled a few extra responsibilities in the ministry. Read more

How and Why You Should Encourage Yourself: 7 Reasons Why

Anytime your marriage is in trouble it’s easy to get discouraged. It’s easy to get down on yourself and let regret and fear overtake you. But for your marriage to overcome this trial you have to take a stand against discouragement. For you to take that stand I want to share with you some thoughts on why and how you should encourage yourself.

I remember when I was a young boy in school just learning to read. One of my favorite books was “The Little Engine That Could.” Though I don’t remember the full story, I still remember it was about a little engine pulling a train up a steep hill and how he kept repeating the words, “I think I can, I think I can.” Those words were what the little engine needed to encourage himself to climb that hill.

When to Hold On and When to Let Go

A marriage breakup is one of the worst crises a man or woman can face. So many emotions to work through. So much confusion to deal with. Trying to navigate it all is extremely difficult. Knowing when to hold on and when to let go is a bigger challenge than anyone else can possibly imagine.

If this is where you are today, I understand what you’re dealing with. I know the pain and confusion that is trying to consume you. You don’t want to be in this situation, but you are. So you’re searching. You need some answers. And you need some guidance. Read more

Marriage Covenant is NOT a Weapon to Use Against Your Spouse

Your marriage covenant is not an entitlement. And you should not take it for granted. You don’t get to say vows before a minister and expect that to be your guarantee to lifelong marriage. It takes more than that.

I believe many marriages are a lot less than they should be because people treat their marriage covenant as an entitlement. Their chase is over. They have what they wanted. Now they don’t have to give their marriage the same work they did when they were dating. When their former boyfriend or girlfriend had the freedom to walk away.

We believe in covenant 100%

Don’t Run From the Pain

I came to the place in my life that I could no longer run from the pain. My life was a mess and I needed help. I had stuffed all my pain and hurt deep inside from the wounds from others and wounds that were self-inflicted. So I turned to a counselor to help me out of my prison.

I was dealing with abandonment issues from both my mother and my father. I had been abused from early childhood through my adult life. Three different men molested me from age 6 till 11. One of the men did it more than 20 times. I was date raped twice when I was a teenager. I was physically abused by my father and a couple of times in my first marriage. And I dealt with emotional abuse from my father, my first husband, and in my marriage with Jack. Read more

You Can Become Better or Bitter, the Choice is Yours

The challenges we face in life are tough sometimes. Challenges with our health, our job, our children, or our marriage are the type of challenges almost everyone will have to deal with at one point or another. But in every challenge, we face we have to make a conscious decision. Will we choose to let the situation make us better, or will we let it make us bitter?

I’ve seen the importance of this choice time after time. Not only in my own life, but also in the lives of many others. And every time a person allows themselves to become bitter there is always a severe price that comes with making the wrong choice. Let me share a few examples. Read more

Do You Believe Your Marriage Can Be Healed

Believing your marriage can be healed is tough sometimes. The separation between you and your spouse is so far apart it feels hopeless to close the gap. You can’t undo all the things that went wrong. You can’t undo your history. And so now you look at your situation and all you see is a mountain that feels impossible to climb.

I’ve been there and I know how it feels to want with all my heart to see my marriage healed. While at the same time I had to face a very tough situation that made what I was hoping for appear impossible. But the one thing that kept me from being overwhelmed and discouraged was I dared to believe God and what His word teaches me.

You see, I believe God has a completely different view of your situation than what you’re capable of seeing right now. Jesus made this same distinction between what we see and what God sees when He said these words.

Matthew 19:26 And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Read more

Are You Trying to Change, or Are You Just Smoothing Things Over

Do you want to know the reason it took 4 times of almost getting a divorce before our marriage straighten out? Do you want to know what had to change before we could have the marriage we both wanted? The thing that had to change was I had to stop trying to just smooth things over.

There was a cycle we were going through and it was because of the things I kept doing wrong. Time after time I kept finding a way to undo all the previous good I did to fix our marriage. Each time after we reached our breaking point I would begin to do everything I could to become a better husband. I didn’t want our marriage to end so I tried to change and I thought I was making some serious progress. But in the end, all I was doing was going through my own cycle.