Everyone wants a happy marriage, and happy marriages are very good! However, happiness is not what makes marriage most beautiful. This may come as a shock, or you may know exactly where I’m going with this. Either way, I hope you learn something as you read on. Selena and I have been through plenty… plenty good and plenty bad. We’ve experienced both because of things we did (we’ve…
Reclaiming Real Romance: 3 Reminders for Valentine’s Day This Year
This year we’re trying to do something different. We’re not too different from most folks in that we’ve exchanged thoughtful cards, I’ve given Selena roses, and on a few occasions, jewelry. But this year, our entire focus has changed to treasuring each other. My tendency is to wait until the last minute, buy something to make up for lost time, and hope Selena feels loved. As…
5 Indispensable Habits for Rock-Solid Communication
There’s such security knowing that we’re both in this marriage thing for the long haul. Selena and I are far from perfect…FAR. In fact, we’ve had two significant arguments in the past 15 hours, and that includes 7-8 hours of sleep, hanging out with friends for 3 hours, and about 2 hours of work. That leaves about 2-3 hours where we’ve been alone together and we…
Eliminating “Should” from Your Marriage
I don’t really like the word “should,” especially when it comes to marriage. That’s probably because I use it regularly… And whenever I get a case of the “shoulds”, I always feel like I’m not measuring up in one way or another. I’m left feeling insecure, frustrated…. overwhelmed. It feels like swimming up a raging waterfall. It’s hopeless, exhausting, and fruitless.
Trust Your Gages: Navigating Storms in Marriage (part 2)
In my last post I explained how I was flying home late one night and the foggy weather coupled with darkness made it impossible to see where the plane was landing. I got a little nervous but had to remember that the pilots have a whole suite of instruments (gages) that tell them everything they need to know for a safe landing. Many times in…
Tragedy, Community, and the Church Being the Church
Tuesday night I visited the family of a high school friend, Matt, in the hospital. Matt was hospitalized the Sunday prior because of an unknown congenital heart defect that resulted in catastrophic heart failure. I got to visit him in his room that night I went to visit. We prayed with him briefly and just stood beside the bed trying to make sense of everything. What…
The Truth About the Lies We Believe
The other day, Dela brought her little children’s Bible over for me to read to her. She loves looking at the colorful pictures. Her and I started reading about original sin in Genesis and about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As I was reading it to her, and we came to the part where God was confronting Eve about her sin (eating the fruit from the…
5 Things Having a Daughter Has Taught Me About Loving My Wife
Having a daughter has taught me more about being a good husband than I ever thought possible. The idea is simple: what if I saw my wife through God’s eyes? How would I change how I treated her? Loved her? Cared for her? As you can imagine, seeing your spouse through God’s eyes changes everything. Everything. This post will hopefully show you just a few of the…
Ignored Convictions
Lately, God has been convicting me about my convictions (if that makes sense?). Primarily, what convictions I’ve been ignoring and why.
Her Story: God’s Redemption After My Abortion
The videos released about Planned Parenthood on social media are disturbing for reasons we are all aware of. Ryan and I have been praying (a lot) about how to respond to you; the readers, our FM community…on a marriage blog. We’ve questioned if should respond on social media or would we be adding to the noise? However, as Christians, Ryan and I can’t be silent, because in the…