Tag: life long marriage

Do You Have Anyone Praying for You?

Is there anyone praying for you? When you’re going through the worst battle of your life, is there anyone who is helping you hold it together? When you’re seeking for some answers and you need to know the will of God. Who can you count on to take your situation before the Lord?

I mean it is great to have others around you who love you and are willing to give you advice. But what should matter the most is having people around you who are actually praying for you. Because at the end of the day, getting advice is good and is sometimes needed.

But there is nothing better than knowing you are not alone. Knowing there are other people who have your back. And they are faithfully sending out prayers to the Lord on your behalf.

It is one of those precious treasures that will stay with you for the rest of your life. When you look back at your most difficult days and you remember the ones who stood with you. The ones who were actually helping you make it because of the prayers they prayed.

Like right now as I write this, I’m choking back the tears as I think of someone who helped me. More than I can ever know, simply by bringing my life and marriage problem before God. My uncle Dan who passed away almost three years ago was that someone for me. I knew without a doubt he was praying for me throughout the marriage crisis I faced.

Many times I went to him to talk about what I was going through. I knew his advice and encouragement was sincere and unbiased. He was in his third marriage. And after two failed marriages, he was able to share from a deep well of experience and wisdom. Read more

Should You Stand for Your Marriage

There are many of you who are in a difficult place right now. Your marriage is in trouble. And all you know to do is stand your ground and believe in the restoration of your marriage. You’re in one of the greatest challenges a person can face in life. And I know some of you ask yourself how much more you can take.

I want you to know Janet and I admire and appreciate every one of you facing this battle. It takes a lot of courage and conviction to take this stand. As many of you know I have been there, and I know too well how difficult it is.

Your story may be different from what I went through. But I understand the delicate balance you have to walk between heartache and hope. One minute your heart is so torn and broken you don’t think you can go any further. Then the next minute your heart is so alive with hope for your future. If you can just hang on a little longer. Read more

Is Your House Divided?

“If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” – Mark 3:25

Marriage is a wonderful gift from God. It’s the union of two unique individuals blending their lives together to become as the bible says, “one flesh.” This unity does not happen when husbands and wives become the same in every way possible. Couples establish and hold true unity in marriage by celebrating what they have in common. While at the same time learning to accept and embrace each other’s differences. Couples that strive to become “one flesh” know there is beauty and strength in both their similarities and in their differences.

But there is something seriously wrong when couples begin allowing their differences to create a divided home. Because when they accept and tolerate division in their relationship they open up the door for greater trouble in their marriage.

This Should Not Be Missing From Your Marriage

Truthfully, marriage is complex. It takes the complexity of many factors to make a marriage thrive the way God created it to. However, on this post today I want to discuss just one thing that should not be missing from your marriage. Because when it is missing, it makes the journey of marriage very difficult. At least it was for me.

The uncertainty that flooded my mind time after time in my marriage was torment. It reminds me of when I was a boy pulling petals off of flowers over a childhood sweetheart.

“She loves me, she loves me not; she loves me, she loves me not.”

The insecurity of not knowing if my wife would love me one day and then not love me the next was incredibly difficult to live with. It wasn’t that she was always giving me a reason to feel insecure. There was just always something missing in our relationship, something I didn’t know how to describe, but I knew it was missing.

As it turned out, it was the same thing Janet was always missing that made her feel so insecure about our relationship. And neither one of us knew how to fix the problem because we never really understood the problem. We had times when our love for each other seemed strong enough, yet we both lived with the nagging feelings of not knowing how long our love would last.

Should You Try to Save Your Marriage

There are many of you who are in a very difficult place right now. Your marriage is in trouble and all you know to do is stand your ground and save your marriage. You’re in one of the greatest challenges a person can face in life. And I know some of you ask yourself how much more you can take.

Your story may be different than what I went through trying to save my marriage. But I still know the delicate balance you have to walk between heartache and hope. One minute your heart is so torn and broken you don’t think you can go any further. Then the next minute your heart is alive with the hope of your future if you can just hang on.

Don’t Throw Your Marriage Away, Save It.

I’ll be the first to admit I have a problem deciding when to throw something away and when to save it. The struggle I have is when I look at something thinking I might throw it away, I then think to myself, “maybe if I throw it away now I will one day in the future wish I still had it.” Because what I’m really trying to decide is, has this lost its usefulness to me, or does it still have some form of value to me?

That’s the same problem I see a lot people have when it comes to their marriage. They are trying to decide if their marriage has lost its usefulness to them or not. If they determine that it no longer has the value that it once did, such as “makes me happy,” “fulfills me,” “completes me,” or “satisfies all my needs,” they are ready then to dispose of it.

Do You Get Tired of Holding On?

Do you ever feel like giving up because you just don’t know if you can take anymore? I know how you feel. You wrestle with the desire to quit, but your belief in staying committed to your marriage keeps you holding on. The heartache, the tears, the weariness, sometimes feels like more than you can bear. And there are times when you don’t see any hope of things getting better and all you can think of is running away. I get it, I have been there too.

I think if I were going through now what I went through before, one of my favorite songs would probably be, “Say Something (I’m Giving Up On You).” It’s one of those sad songs that captures the kind of heartache I used to feel. With tears blinding my eyes I would have been singing along with lyrics like, “You’re the one that I love and I’m saying goodbye.”

How Do You Relate? As Friends, Partners, Lovers, or All Three?

On our last post How Are You Two Related, I started talking about how in every marriage we have different and unique ways of connecting with our spouse. And that the important thing was to find your connection points and work from your place of strength as you work to improve other ways to connect with each other.

On this post I want to start taking a look at how we relate to our spouse in three major categories; friendship, partnership, and lovers. As far as I can tell, any connection we have with our spouse will always fit into one or more of these areas. But the challenge we face is understanding how to move in and out of each area and how to find good balance of all three ways of connection.

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