GPS to a Joyful Marriage

I sat at our neighborhood pool the other day watching the children play. They were mostly five years old and younger because it was a school day.  Initially, five little girls swam in the pool, playing very well together and acting like sweet little angels.  They helped each other and shared their toys, quietly enjoying the companionship.  Then the boys arrived.  They carried large nerf squirt guns and ran around the pool yelling and squirting everyone, causing the girls to squeal and run. The noise level grew painfully louder, and I felt like the Indians had rushed through the fence to destroy the peace.  I remember when my children were babies.  I had a boy and a girl and swore I would treat them equally with no influence of gender.  How quickly I discovered the innate differences between them.  My mothering styles had little effect on their gender identity.  I believe our gender roles and identity were determined by the fall of m...

Genesis 2:18 says “and the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”   (KJV)  Other versions of this verse use the word helpmate.  The Hebrew word for meet is ezer which means – to surround, i.e. protect or aid – help, succor.    God created Eve to keep Adam company, to help him, and to procreate with him. They walked side by side in the Garden of Eden, on equal ground, sharing everything.  Neither was better than the other.  And then the serpent came to destroy the peace that God intended between man and woman. The sins of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit had a profound influence on the roles that would be deeply ingrained in men and women. After eating the fruit, Adam and Eve hid from God in the trees.  They were afraid because they were naked.  This is the first time fear comes into the world.  Fear is putting your faith in the devil and that is exactly what...

Our role changes started to accelerate in the sixties with the break from traditional life that was prevalent in the fifties.  The “me” generation began along with the popularity of drugs, rock and roll, carefree sex, and divorce.  The seventies brought “women’s liberation” which only served to escalate the acceptance of divorce and the alteration in the roles of women.  Soon to follow was the breakdown of the family, a growing epidemic that has caused a rapid downward spiral in our value system.  We all know that men and women are very different creatures.  We were made to be different and to have separate roles from each other.  As a teenager in the seventies, though, we were bombarded with the idea of “EQUALITY” for men and women.  That idea confused me for a long time and only magnified my dissatisfaction of my role as a wife and mother.   How shocked I was to discover that my husband and I didn’t think the same way about everything. ...

The most difficult time for married couples seems to be early in the marriage after the children come along.  Children change everything.  Rick and I went into parenthood thinking, “How much difference can one little baby make?”  Ha ha!  Mother Nature threw such a wrench into our fairytale life that we almost didn’t survive it.  Our lives changed dramatically, and with little help from my husband, the demands of motherhood and “wifedom” overwhelmed me. We suddenly became a typical married couple. This scenario is played over and over in almost every relationship with children.  The children and house take up an amazing amount of time and energy for the wife, which most husbands help very little with, and the husbands feel neglected.  He gets little attention from the wife (who barely has time for a shower) and so turns to his work for self-worth.  This is usually the time where men are establishing a career, anyway, giving it their full atte...

I’m getting off the path of marriage this week, but I feel compelled to share with you a recent experience that changed my life.   I know some of you out there may be affected the same way. I didn’t grow up in a church that talked about fasting, and so it’s been a new concept for me in the past eight years since first attending a church that practiced it.  I did the Lent thing as a child occasionally, but that usually meant giving up something I wasn’t going to miss anyway.  (I didn’t know the significance of Lent back then.) The church I now attend has been promoting a forty day fast. (Check out their website www.gwocag.net for Pastor Bob’s excellent “Forty Days With the Holy Spirit” daily devotional.)  After some discussion with other members, I jumped on the bandwagon and decided to give it a try.  In the past I’d fast for a day or two but never forty.  “My name is Sandee Lester and I am a sugarholic”.  I knew exactly what I needed to fas...

James 4:1-3 -  “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” These verses in James tell it like it is. If you seem to be caught in a never-ending cycle of fighting with your spouse, you may want to take some time to study these verses. Instead of blaming your spouse for everything, why not look at what is going on in your own heart. Are your problems that you continually struggle with traced to your own personal SELF-ish motives or desires? Do you feel entitled to something that may be unattainable or unreasonable or not part of God's will for your life? Do your desires become demands? Do you self-righteously judge others? Do you struggle to be free ...

God created us with free will, meaning we could make our own decisions and live life according to His way or our own way. Because of the fall of man, we have a bit of rebelliousness in all of us. We constantly struggle with SELF. SELF always wants it's own way, not God's way or a spouse's way. Our selfish and sinful nature interferes with God’s plan for us. When we give into our SELF, we jeopardize relationships and cause disruptions in society. Our society has fallen to an immoral state of ‘no right or wrong’ because the trend has been to think about ones SELF. If it feels good, do it. We no longer are taught to put the needs of others ahead of our SELF. We bring this worldly attitude into our marriage relationship. Conflict starts with the rising of that inner beast called SELF. When SELF feels threatened to not get it’s own way, ridiculed, or offended, it needs to strike in order to justify it's SELF. We are taught in the world to “Defend your SELF! Don’t let th...