GPS to a Joyful Marriage

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that 2015 is over.  It was a difficult year for me.  Looking back, it has made me question a lot of my expectations of life.   I’m one who likes to know what’s coming.  I will keep on until I figure it out.  Unfortunately, this past year seemed to be full of too many unknowns which lead to ‘I don’t understands.’    I don’t understand why my list of friends I pray for, with cancer, continues to grow rather than diminish. I don’t understand why God would take a healthy baby girl from its mother in her fifth month of pregnancy and leave such a hole in our hearts. I don’t understand why one of my best friends from high school died unexpectedly.  I didn’t think I was old enough to be losing classmates already, but it’s happening too frequently. You start re-evaluating life when people your own age begin to die. I don’t understand why my closest friend, who is more like a sister than a cousin to...

I remember very clearly, as a young adult, struggling with the dilemma of should I make decisions according to my heart or to my head.  I always questioned the best advice to follow, my emotions or my head knowledge.  I wasn’t following God at that point, but I possessed a strong sense of right and wrong.  I knew that God would have a plan for me if I chose to accept it, but I ignored Him at that time.  Looking back, I realized He never ignored me.  He was there all along skillfully guiding me without my awareness of His hand on my life. As a young adult working full-time in an insurance company, I dreamed of touring around the country performing music. I hated the confinement of an eight-to-five job that I despised doing. After the divorce of my parents and leaving college with only one year under my belt, I didn’t have a great deal of confidence in myself.  The desire to play music, though, overpowered any doubts I had about my abilities.   ...

Proverbs 15:1 “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a hard word stirs up anger.” If we could learn to always answer in gentleness, we would not become stirred up in anger that causes fighting and leads to problems.  How do we begin doing that if our response is frequently a hard word?  We act in love.  We act like we’re not angry.  We speak gently even though we don’t feel like it.  It will eventually become a habit. Ephesians 5:1 says, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.”  KJV The Greek word for followers in this verse is mimetes , which means - to imitate someone or to mimic what you see someone else doing.  Mimetes was also used to describe actors on a stage and to represent the modeling of a parent, teacher, champion or hero.  When someone is know for there outstanding moral character, others were encouraged to emulate or copy that person. Paul is telling us in Ephesians to be followers of God, to act like him, to ...