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Standing Firm: What to Do When Asked to Yield a Conviction

Standing Firm: What to Do When Asked to Yield a Conviction

We find ourselves standing at a crossroads when our beliefs and values are tested. Yielding a conviction can be tempting, especially when faced with pressure or the enticement of personal gain.

Christian Life

What Can Genesis Teach a Wife about How to Encourage the Struggling Businessman?

What Can Genesis Teach a Wife about How to Encourage the Struggling Businessman?

It’s amazing how often our search for answers to conflicts and situations we are dealing with in the twenty-first century ends up taking us back to the beginning of Genesis.

Why She Shares, and What He Hears

Why She Shares, and What He Hears

When a wife dares to share her hurt and negative feelings with her husband, she does so hoping he will humbly apologize and make efforts to do things more lovingly next time. Her goal in addressing her concerns is to get rid of her hurt, be energized, feel positive, and respond to him in caring ways.

3 Steps to Reigniting Your Husband’s Love for You

3 Steps to Reigniting Your Husband’s Love for You

A wife who has been married for twenty years to a loving, goodwilled husband and father (her words!) found herself suddenly struggling to understand how their relationship had gone south.

Standing Firm: What to Do When Asked to Yield a Conviction

Christian Life

What Can Genesis Teach a Wife about How to Encourage the Struggling Businessman?

Why She Shares, and What He Hears

3 Steps to Reigniting Your Husband’s Love for You

Letting Go Of Expectations For A Perfect Family

Letting Go Of Expectations For A Perfect Family

One day in conversation with my oldest son Jonathan, he said, “Mom, you wanted a perfect family, and you didn’t get it!” I was stunned. I had never said that, but I obviously had communicated it without words. Having come from a broken home and determined to do things differently, I realized at that moment I had wanted something that was impossible to attain. Tears later came as I was alone and reflected on his words. No perfect family!

Parenting

Three Central Questions

Three major questions are addressed in the Love and Respect Message. One, why do we negatively react to each other? Two, how can we energize our spouse to respond more positively? And, three, what can we do when our spouse continues to be negative while we are trying to be loving and respectful? Will God help?

Three Central Questions

Do Men and Women Need Both Love and Respect Equally?

Do Men and Women Need Both Love and Respect Equally?

We all need love and respect. I preach this and I teach this. I am not dogmatic in suggesting that a husband does not need love. I am not dogmatic in suggesting that a wife does not need respect. However, because Ephesians 5:33 reveals that a husband must love his wife and a wife must respect her husband, we see a distinction that is full of significance. Maybe we can answer this way: though we all need love and respect equally, like we all need water and food equally, a wife has a felt need for love and a husband has a felt need for respect. Said another way, she feels hunger pains for her husband's love more often in the marriage and a husband feels more thirsty for his wife's respect.Why does this felt need surface?

Research Reveals that “Love And Respect” is the Key

Research Reveals that “Love And Respect” is the Key

The findings are in. Love and Respect is the key to a successful marriage! Research reveals that during marital conflict a husband most often reacts when feeling disrespected and a wife reacts when feeling unloved. We asked 7,000 people this question: When you are in conflict with your spouse or significant other, do you feel unloved or disrespected? 83% of the men said “disrespected.” 72% of the women said “unloved.”

My Husband Is a Mysterious Island Around Which I Paddle

My Husband Is a Mysterious Island Around Which I Paddle

“Talk to me!” commands the wife. She and her husband are having a conflict. The husband retorts, “I don’t want to talk about it.” He exits the room. She follows him to talk. He does not give her access to his heart. He closes her off. It is as though he is an island around which she paddles but he does not permit her to land. She is in disbelief. She is seeking to do the loving thing by communicating but he lacks interest in responding. She thinks, “How can he be so unloving?” She is hurt, confused, angry and frightened.

The Wounded Human Spirit

A husband can wound his wife's inner spirit when he comes across as unloving. A wife can wound her husband's inner spirit when she comes across as disrespectful.When my son David was in his 20’s he went to Harlem where he umpired Little League baseball. One day a father of one of the little boys showed up drunk at the baseball field. It so happened his eight year old son lost a lens from his glasses in centerfield and was searching for it. As the father wandered onto the field nearing his boy, he began screaming at his son for losing the lens.

The Wounded Human Spirit

Christian Life

Repeatedly Flipping A Broken Light Switch

Repeatedly Flipping A Broken Light Switch

Feeling overweight after the holidays, Michelle complains to Adam, her husband. He listens quietly. The next day at the bookstore, Adam sees front and center the book, Dieting for the Christian Woman: Post Holiday Menus. He purchases it. When he brings it to Michelle she goes ballistic! "I can’t believe you! This is unreal. You don’t love me for me but only if I look nice. You’re despicable!” Browsing the titles in the marriage section of the bookstore, Kelly is drawn to the book, Talking: the Key to Marital Bliss. She buys it.

Not Wrong – Just Different!

Not Wrong – Just Different!

As a wife, you notice a man and a woman walking hand in hand. You see a couple sitting together in the park, talking face to face on a bench. You beam all the way through your friend's wedding. As you pass the hospital, you see new parents coming from the maternity ward, and your mind races back to the birth of your child and what you felt as a couple.