Marriage

Instruction Book For Marriage

Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Proverbs 16:3NIV>


Scriptures are such a blessing for believers because it is our instruction to fall back on when we need comfort and encouragement. That might be once a day or several times a day. Often times when we rely upon our own understanding we may accidentally do the wrong thing for our marriage. It is not that we mean to do the wrong thing, but that is usually what happens. But when we go to the word of God and pray about it, it seems that God gives us His trustworthy guidance almost within hours or days.

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Thoughtless or Thoughtful ?

Some people seem to have a genius for making others miserable! They are continually touching sensitive hearts, so as to cause pain. They are always saying things which sting and irritate. If you have any bodily defect, they never see you without in some crude way, making you conscious of it. If any relative or friend of yours has done some dishonorable thing, they seem to take a cruel delight in constantly referring to it when speaking with you. They lack all delicacy of feeling, having no eye for the sensitive things in others, which demand gentleness of treatment.

Thoughtfulness is the reverse of all this. It simply does not do the things which thoughtlessness does. It avoids the painful subject. It never alludes to a man’s clubfoot or humpback, nor ever casts an eye at the defect, nor does anything to direct attention to it or to make the man conscious of it. It respects your sorrow–and refrains from harshly touching your wound. It has the utmost kindliness of feeling and expression. A truly thoughtful person, is one who never needlessly gives pain to another.

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God Based Marriage Counseling

Do it yourself marriage counseling with God in the forefront is exceptional counsel because it really works! You just need to learn how to work it. Let me ask you a question. What are you now basing your marriage on? Where are you going now for the answers you may need to resolve your marital upheavals? The answer is most likely friends, family, pastors, books, ebooks, etc, or for very few of you, mainstream marriage counseling. Am I right?

We have to know WHO WE ARE before we can choose the right kind of counseling and marital guidance.

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Love is a Verb

I think most great marriages are based upon principled acts of love. What does that mean? Real love is a verb, which means to love others takes effort. Principled acts of love can actually grow deeper and richer with the age of the marriage, especially if the marriage has been led under the wisdom of God. A principled act of love is all about choosing to love the person you married and doing it with wisdom.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:9, 10 NIV

Some people have this preconceived idea that love is something that makes you feel all giddy and euphoric inside. In reality, how many couples after having been married five or ten years still share that euphoric feeling with each other? So in retrospect when that preconceived or learned idea gets squashed out in left field, which will happen, people tend to think they are not “in love” with their spouse anymore. And the next thing you know they are looking for a new partner. But if love is a choice, which I believe it is, and we choose to do those things that are loving it will make us feel more loving too.

What happens to couples in marriage who believe love should feel a certain way? Society has taught that

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Domestic Violence: Your Family & Friends

Every year 4,774,000 women in the USA are victims of physical violence.The number of American troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2012 totaled 6,488 However, the number of American women murdered by current or ex male partners during the same timeframe was nearly double that amount at 11,766.

Every nine seconds in the USA, a woman is assaulted or beaten. One of them could be your sister, your cousin, your neighbor, or your best friend.

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You Can Restore Your Marriage!

We can restore marriage when we come to realize that marriage must be based upon the design of who created it. What one creates, one also controls. It has always been that way. This means couples need to stop trying to control each other and give “it” to God. Stop fighting and learn to love. Controlling each other is improper behavior, but working with each other as a team is appropriate. First, before marriage can be restored, inner healing must take place.

Heal yourself! Are you spiritually stunted because of something controlling the person inside of you? Maybe you are addicted to drugs or alcohol, sex, food, negative feelings, emotions, or maybe you are too proud to see God. These things literally stunt us emotionally and spiritually. Only when we let the hurt stop controlling our thoughts and actions, can we finally let it go and give it to God. so then, it is God who actually heals us, we just allow it to finally happen.

God will actually take away our suffering if

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My Spouse Drinks at Home, How Can I Cope?

Question: What if you’re in a position where the only place your spouse can safely drink is in your home? I have tried the detachment thing only to have my drunken partner stalk me around the house and badger me with his stupid behavior. He’s not physically violent but mentally abusive and I would like to ignore it but the words hurt. The only thing I can think of is an ultimatum to not drink in my house. Any suggestions would be helpful… and yes I do ignore him when he’s drunk at least 99% of the time… I can’t always do this when I’m being verbally attacked or things are being thrown around the house.

Guidance: The home is usually the only safe place for an alcoholic to drink for obvious reasons. You’re doing the right thing by trying to detach from the alcoholic behavior. Here are seven more ways to detach from abusive behavior. The best way to get the most from this marriage column is to click on all of the links that will lead you to another article.

Understand that most of what an alcoholic says when drunk they don’t really mean. The alcoholic is angry inside-they are holding in a lot of resentment and emotional demons that come out in angry words of abuse to whoever happens to be in earshot. The alcoholic is

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Talking about Healing: Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.Ephesians 4:29


“Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?” by John Powell (Niles, IL: Argus Communications, 1969) is one of my favorite books.

Powell suggests that people are afraid to tell you who they REALLY are because you may not like them, thus, we reveal ourselves in “levels” or stages: According to him.

The lowest level is cliché.

“Hi, how are you?” “Whazzup?” When you met that special someone, did you really care who he or she was or was it because you had a hidden agenda and maybe did not even know it? Did that first conversation sound something like this? Do you come here often? So you’re a whiskey sour lady, let me buy you a drink. ‘I thought you was somebody else’.

This level is safe. There is no sharing of the human experience. You do not know anything about me and I don’t know anything about you. What you don’t know is she might be going through a heated divorce. He could have just got out of prison for armed robbery.

The second level is

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Loving Your Spouse With Wisdom

worksheet at bottom of article

There are two ways we can love our spouse. We can love under our own understanding of what we think love is, or we can love the way God has directed us to love. I think we all know how to love, but doing it is a whole different matter.

What is the difference between the two? The first way of loving is a condition and learned way to love, which is selfish and self-seeking. We don’t know we are behaving selfishly because we do not know any other way to love. It is a slow conditioning process where we learn to love for our own purpose. But marriage is designed for God’s purpose. God wants you to be happy in your marriage and the best way for you to be happy is by loving in the way God has directed us to love.

The second way of loving is what comes naturally because we have loved and accepted God into our lives first. The reason it’s so natural is because we have recognized and utilized the spiritual Christ in our lives, which makes loving a natural process of who we are.

It is very difficult to love another if we are only thinking about ourselves. Some examples of how we love our spouse selfishly are

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