GPS to a Joyful Marriage

'Tis the season - the season for many to struggle financially, emotionally and physically.  Christmas brings high expectations of an experience that many of us may never achieve. That “Hallmark moment” we see on television is not the norm for most families. With dysfunctional childhoods, divorce, loss of family members, and difficult financial times, this celebration season brings depression to a large number of people.  Rick and I always see an increase in our counseling sessions at this time as marriages are pushed to their limits. We’ve propelled this once humble holiday into a money-making, commercialized, stress-filled time of pursuing the perfect Christmas.  Meanwhile, the true meaning of Christmas has been subtly pushed aside. Now I know there are naysayers about celebrating Jesus’ birth on this day that started as a pagan holiday.  I say if we keep our focus on Jesus, the rest just doesn’t matter.  I choose to be thankful for the birth of our Sa...

Since this is the week of the year that we focus on being thankful, I want to share with you my thoughts on just that. I’d heard it said numerous times, through the years, that we should thank God especially when times are tough.  Feeling down and stressed and upset is not usually a time we choose to praise God.  At times when I felt distressed in the past, I would try to be thankful but always came up with a thought to counteract my gratefulness. I might thank God for my wonderful house and then immediately think “Although this isn’t exactly where I want to live.”  Or, I might give praise for my amazing husband just to remind myself how angry I felt with him the night before. Why did I struggle to find something to be sincerely thankful about at times when life would get the best of me? (I guess I’m gonna have to blame this on sugar – the usual culprit for my self-pity times.)  Trying to give thanks during the storms seemed superficial to me – but I kept ...

“Among all emotions there is one which, more than any other, accounts for the presence or absence of stress in human relations: that is the feeling of gratitude. [Take every opportunity you can to express your gratitude to others for them being who they are and for what they do for you and others.]”  Dr. Hans Seyle Pastor Garcia talked about Thanksgiving at church and brought up Dr. Seyle’s words about gratitude.  “Gratitude is the absence of stress.”  Dr. Seyle is known for his introduction of the concept of stress in a medical context in the mid-1970s.  He also says that gratitude is the most important of all human emotions. This “most important of all human emotions” seems to be way down on the list of significance in our present society except for the one day of the year when we celebrate Thanksgiving. We all state our obligatory “I’m thankful for” around the table on this food gobbling day, but other than that we seldom stop, in our hectic pace, to ...