Category Archives: Blog

Marriage Matters—Remember

It’s so easy to forget. When the warm glow of “just married” turns into the “iron sharpens iron” of everyday life together, we forget two important truths about our spouse.

They’re human…

Weak. Broken. Flawed. Perhaps still carrying wounds from a less than ideal childhood. Prone to doing what they know better than to do. Sometimes (maybe more times than just sometimes) they are self-centered and self-serving. They walk in pride, or maybe it’s shame. They have bondages yet to be broken. They don’t always play nice with others.

Basically, they’re just like us, and God remembers that.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:13-14

Who they really are…

In the heat of a moment of stress and frustration, it’s easy to forget who we are really married to.

We forget they were created in the image of God and He loves them completely. If they are saved, then we are married to a new creation in Christ, still being sanctified. If not, then they are someone God desires to draw near, someone He wants.

To us, they may be the person who is making life difficult or at least driving us crazy with frustration.

But to God, they are the reason He gave His Son up to crucifixion.

Don’t forget to remember. Take a step back. Show mercy. It can make a difference.

When It Was New

Those early days of walking with Jesus. Where have thirty-five years gone? Sometimes, it felt so hard to keep following, but that’s because trust was so hard for me then.

Following gets a whole lot easier when you trust the one you’re following.

He laid a track record for my untrusting heart so that I could find my way to His faithfulness. Comfort in the hard places, answers to prayers I said in desperation, little by little shifts of my heart toward Him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to follow Him, or didn’t want to give Him my whole heart and my whole life – I just didn’t know how and I didn’t know what He would do with what I was giving.

Thirty-five years of learning to trust Him more than I trust anything else in this world. Discovering that He is more than I ever could have imagined He would be – more loving, more kind, more merciful, more trustworthy. Once I discovered the goodness of God, I mean really tasted it, it was game over for anything else that would fight for my affections.

God has no worthy opponent for my heart.

I remember the newness of discovering His voice. That God would speak and I could hear Him in my heart, well, that never gets old, I’ll tell ya that. Today, He is still speaking. Through His Word, but also through a still small voice in my heart, and often through pictures. From time to time, He has grown quiet, but never silent.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

John 10:27

I remember the hunger of when it was new. The insatiable desire for more of Him. To just sit with His people in prayer and worship for hours sometimes. I only wanted to talk about Him, nothing else. Every other topic of conversation became frivolous. I had a death grip on the hem of His robe in those days, wanting to just attach myself to Him and never let go. Some people, mostly family, just didn’t get it and thought I was off the deep end, but you know what? God planted me in a church full of people who got it. People who were hungry with me, and when you have people around you who share your hunger for Jesus, man, nothing can touch that. But I have also experienced the opposite, and it’s heartbreaking. Being part of a community of people who are content to stay where they are, not really interested in knowing Him more, in changing, or in walking out what the scriptures describe as the life of a follower of Christ. They like the company of fellow Christians, but they aren’t hungry for anything more than what they have. That’s a hard place to be for anyone who hungers for God.

Find hungry people and be with them. There’s nothing else like it.

When it was new, I wept over His Word, wept in worship, wept in prayer. It wasn’t the whipping up of emotions, it was a born again spirit responding to a realm I had never experienced. People get so scared of being emotional in church, but when you come to the realization that God is near, that His Spirit is living on the inside of you, that Jesus is real and His love is real and His goodness is real… I mean, how can you have all of that swirling around you and remain stoic? Unmoved?

Thirty-five years have changed a lot of things about my life. But I think what prompted this post is realizing that today, I’m as hungry as I ever was. I still want to be with Him every minute of every day. I still long for hours of conversation about Him, and prayer with His people. I still long for Him to change me, teach me, and lead me into the things and places that I have yet to go. And I still weep over Him, and I never want that to stop. Walking with Jesus has never felt old. Not once.

There is no other love that is worthy of being our first love, and first love never grows old.

And I want that for you, whoever you are. I want you to be crazy about Jesus no matter how long you’ve walked with Him. He is so worthy of a hunger that won’t quit, a desire for His nearness, and emotions that run free in His presence.

I pray that for you, and for us all, walking with Jesus will always feel like when it was new.

Marriage Matters—Criticism

One of the most difficult things for me to do in my own marriage is to not try to change my husband. I used to fool myself into thinking I was pointing out flaws, or correcting him for his sake, but that just isn’t true. I’m doing it to make me more comfortable with who he is. The truth is, my correction (criticism) rarely has the desired outcome. It makes him defensive, not compliant, because he, just like me, is human and humans balk at being changed by someone through critical words.

Only God can truly change us, change our hearts so that our behavior and our thinking changes. I remember the day I learned this lesson (a lesson I am still struggling to learn well!). It was the day God spoke something to me that cleared up any misconception I had that I was doing something good by pointing out my husband’s flaws and mistakes.

“I have a Holy Spirit, and you are not Him.”

It is not easy to just let someone, especially someone we share life with, to just be who they are. But we must be honest enough with ourselves to realize that we need to change just as much as they do, and then we have to turn our attention back to God, the One who changes a person without criticism. I promise you, life with your spouse will get much easier, more peaceful, and more fun if you will stop trying to do what only God can do.

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 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.” (Matthew 7:3-5)

Then there’s that.

It Was A Good, Hard, Free Lunch Today

Texas Roadhouse was offering a free lunch for veterans today, so I took them up on it, since they hold the number one spot on my “places I like to eat” list. I knew I could anticipate a delicous meal, college football games on every screen, and country music. In the words of some Christmas song, these are a few of my favorite things.

What I did not anticipate was the emotions that would come up and spill out during this lunch. As my husband and I sat outside on a bench, waiting for them to text me that it was our turn to be seated, I watched the veterans coming up to the little table the restaurant had set up, to get their free lunch voucher. It was a steady stream of old men, not so old men, and women. Some of the oldest of them were wearing their “Vietnam Vet” ball cap. Some wore “Desert Storm” hats. One man wore a jacket that had all of his medals pinned on it. It was a sight to see.

As I looked at all these men and women converging on the restaurant, my heart just swelled. I come from a military family, and served in the Army in the early 80’s, so it’s in my blood, as they say. But today, it wasn’t just the nostalgia of being in the midst of a very large group of soldiers again, although that alone felt wonderful. I can’t speak for what the military looks like today, but when I grew up, and then served in it, it was a world unto itself. A community. A family. It is one of the things I miss about being around it. As I sat in a restaurant that was literally filled with vets, I felt the bond of comraderie with people I had never met.

But, what literally brought me to tears was the knowledge that many, if not most, of these men and women served because they believed their country is worth the sacrifice, and they, like me, are wondering what, pardon my french, the hell happened to that country.

For the love of this nation, many of them went to war. But even those, like myself, who didn’t serve in wartime, carry within us a deep love, and sense of pride and protection for our country. As I fought back tears, I wondered how many of them grieve, like I do, over the tearing down of so much of what we love, and what so many gave their lives to protect.

Thankfully, my grief is tempered by hope, because I know the sovereignty, power, and greatness of God over all of His creation. I know that He can, and that He will bring an end to evil, and until then, we raise our shield of faith, and we war in prayer for the nations of the earth.

And in the natural, we shake our heads over what we see around us, and take a free lunch when it’s offered.

Today was good, but today was hard. To all of those who have served, thank you. And to all who currently serve, thank you. You are necessary, you are appreciated, and you are prayed for.

P.S. – BIG shoutout to Texas Roadhouse for supporting veterans, and for the kindness and respect they showed today.

Marriage Matters—Stop Apologizing

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who apologizes for the same thing umpteen times? (Umpteen is just shy of a gazillion, in case you were wondering.) After a while, their apology just doesn’t mean anything anymore.

I leave lights on. I enter a room, flip on the light, and for the life of me cannot remember to turn it off when I leave the room. So my husband, who pays the electric bill every month, is constantly asking me to turn off the light, which is my cue to say “Oh. Sorry.” and then go turn the light off. It may seem like the cute routine of an old married couple, but it occurred to me just recently (hours ago) how flippant my “Oh sorry” must seem to him. Like just words I say on cue, but don’t really mean.

Because if I really was sorry, I’d start turning the lights off.

Lights are a small thing in light (no pun intended) of some of the issues that many couples deal with. Someone somewhere has apologized to their spouse one too many times for their infidelity. For their wild spending habits. For their inattention. For their hurtful words, bad temper, yelling, or too much drinking. For leaving the lights on again. But an apology that is given on cue, no matter what it’s for, still rings hollow after a while.

So, stop apologizing. Instead, do something about the behavior that you keep apologizing about. Make what is important to your spouse important enough to you to stop giving them hollow apologies.

And for crying out loud, turn the lights off.

Marriage Matters—What Are You Thinking?

A woman kissed her husband as he left for work, and then went about her day. As she did, her thoughts began to wander, and before she knew it she was thinking about something hurtful he had done last week. She replayed the incident in her mind throughout the day, and by the time her husband came home from work, her mood was very different than when he left that morning.  She was irritable, and eventually, it turned to anger. And neither of them understood what had happened.

Sound familiar? It does to me. For years I allowed my thought life to run the show, and not only did it make me miserable, it brought misery to my marriage.

 “You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.” –  Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

We cannot spend our day thinking negative thoughts about our spouse without it affecting how we treat them. Allowing our mind to dwell on all the reasons they are unlovable will not result in actions that display unconditional love. Our thoughts can lead us to be for our spouse, or against them. Much is won or lost in the place of our thought life.

Part of my problem all those years was that I was often unaware of my own thought life, unaware really, that my thoughts mattered all that much. And like many people, I was ignorant of the fact that my thoughts were something I could actually have control over.

But our thoughts do matter, and we can control them.

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,

and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2Corinthians 10:5

“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

 We have the ability to take control of our thoughts, or God would not have instructed us to do so. It takes awareness. It takes practice. It takes effort. It takes making a choice.

Today, choose to think about whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–whatever is excellent or praiseworthy about your spouse. Take every other thought captive.

Your thoughts matter. Think the ones worth thinking.

Marriage Matters—When I Am The Why

I had been asking God for so many years to change my husband. Begging God, really. But I saw little to no movement over almost two decades. Makes a girl weary, you know? Finally, God made a change, and that change was in me.

During the very difficult beginning of our restoration season, God allowed me to see things through a very different lens. It was the lens of heaven, seeing my husband with eyes of love and compassion over his brokenness. Seeing him as God sees him…as a child of God, hurting, and in great need of the Father’s healing. For his sake, not mine. And that is where the change came. In the motive of my prayer.

I realized that all those years I wanted my husband to change so that my life would be easier, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with his anger, and his verbal abuse. I wanted him to change so that I could relax and maybe be happy for a change.

You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:3)

This was the verse that God first used to address my prayer life, specifically my prayers for my husband. This is where I began to learn that motives matter to God, and my motive in prayer was me, more often than not.

As my view of my husband changed, so did my motives. As I saw what God saw, my heart broke for my husband more than it broke for me. And when I began to pray out of a genuine desire to see him free, to see him know the deep love of His Father, to know his worth – the changes I had prayed for began to happen. Little bits at a time for sure, but they were there.

Discovering that God is my source of happiness and peace, not my husband, was a shift I needed that enabled me to begin to pray with Godly motives rather than selfish ones.

If you are weary in prayer for your spouse, let God call out your motives. It will be hard, but so very worth it.