What it Means to Trust God With Your Marriage
Your marriage is struggling. You pray (and you should!). But when you pray it’s easy to fall into one of…
emotions
Recovering from Spiritual Abuse
When you’ve been harmed in the name of God, the path to wholeness is long and slow. Last time we…
When You’ve Been Harmed in the Name of God
It’s not just a salacious news article or one more statistic when it’s happened to you. When “God” is used…
10 Proven Ways to Connect With Your Spouse
You want to feel connected. That’s what you expected in marriage. The hormones and pheromones and all the other “mones”…
Caring for Your Heart When Your Spouse Won’t Connect
You were created for intimacy. You probably got married expecting that doing so would fulfill your needs for connection, love,…
Overcoming the Fear of Dealing with Your Sexual Stuff
There are good reasons for you to hold back. Fear is a big part of why you keep hiding. Getting…
Hiding and Intimacy: They Cannot Coexist
Are you aware of how you are hiding? You are hiding, you know, whether you think you are or not.…
Sex Before Marriage: What I Did Right – And Wrong
I did it right. I made it. I didn’t have sex before marriage. And it was a long wait, too.…
Ignore This if Your Love Life is Perfect
Your love life is perfect? Great! You can ignore the rest of this message if: You’re experiencing beautiful regular intimacy,…
Uprooting Why You Feel Unhappy in Your Marriage
Every marriage has challenges. It wouldn’t make sense to expect the union of two different human beings to proceed without…
How Detachment from your Spouse Makes Your Marriage Better
As with everything good that God created, the enemy has marred and distorted God’s statement, “they shall become one flesh.”…
How to Stay Resilient During a Blue Holiday Season
Holidays are supposed to be “happy and bright,” right? But every year I hear from people for whom the holiday…
How to Strengthen Your Marriage Through the Holidays
The holiday season is always stressful. In spite of the joy, for many people the holiday blues are very real.…
How to Choose to Be Thankful Anyway
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. I love this day. Without the commercialization of most other holidays, we…
How to Fight the Sense of Powerlessness in Your Marriage
There’s little that impacts your wellbeing more than the quality of your closest personal relationships. Your marriage in particular, as…
Finding Breakthrough from Guilt as a Parent
When you’re hoping and praying for a breakthrough for your child, most parents struggle with a measure of guilt. If…
How to Fight FOR Your Marriage Not AGAINST Your Spouse
Your marriage is important. It means everything to you. Anything that important requires investment of time and energy. But the…
Five Things You Can Do to Hear God’s Voice
Last time we talked about some important characteristics of God’s voice, that will help you distinguish when it’s Him who…
Dealing with Triggers in your Marriage
The only people who don’t get triggered are those who are perfectly healed and completely mature. And neither you nor…
The Power of Going First in Your Marriage
If your marriage relationship is great, you already understand what I’m going to talk about here. But if your marriage…
When You’re Not “Feeling It” With Your Spouse
In our modern culture most people would not get married without “feeling it” with your spouse. The emotional sense of…
Living Well through Long-term Trauma
Things are not as we want them to be. They are not as God wants them to be. For the…
Is God Disappointed in You?
How does God feel about you? (We’re using human words to talk about God; that’s troublesome. But stick with me.)…
Solid Ground in Times of Change
A wise professor told me once, “You can never step in the same river twice.” Each time you step in,…
12 Things Your Spouse Needs to Hear You Say During This Crisis
Stress can make people prickly. Crisis can uncover both the worst and the best in people. You need some grace,…
Three Ways to Pray During the COVID-19 Crisis
Praying is a good thing. Always! For the believer prayer should be the first thing we go to. And yet…
Battling Fear Over the Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Within the past few days life for those of us living in the US has changed. In some other parts…
When You’re Questioning Your Salvation
You said Yes to Jesus. The honeymoon of your spiritual journey was wonderful! But now God seems far away. Those…
How I Learned to Love Well
While learning to love well is a life-long process, loving well was something I was privileged to deeply experience with…
Love is NOT All You Need
If you’re over a certain age perhaps you can hear it in your head even now: “All you need is…
How to Deal with What’s Under the Surface
What’s under the surface in your heart will continue to define you until and unless you deal with it. All…
Brain Science, Porn and Human Trafficking
Why is porn so addictive? What’s the connection between porn and human trafficking? I’m thrilled to present this guest post…
Single at Christmas
Christmas is only a few days away – and you’re alone. Well, not really alone, not totally. But you’re single.…
Holidays and Relationships: It’s Complicated
This week in the United States many families will gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving. And Christmas is just a few…
How to Confront Your Spouse’s Bad Behavior
Micromanaging, criticizing, and fault-finding are toxic to a relationship. But problems don’t go away by ignoring them. What do you…
How Your Mood Affects Your Spouse
The honeymoon is over. You’ve settled into the routine of life. Small irritations and disappointments seem all too common. Life,…
How to Keep Your Faith When Things are Bad
Jesus promised His followers two things: trouble – and peace. “I have said these things to you, that in me…
Are You Spiritually Healthy?
I hope you are. I really do! Hopefully your spiritual practices bring you joy and growth, you feel connected to…
The Key to Healthier Thoughts and Feelings
GI-GO. Any old-time computer person will recognize that acronym; Garbage In, Garbage Out. If you want better output, change the…
Five Ways to Help Someone who is Depressed or Anxious
If the statistic is even somewhat true that one in four of us struggles with a mental health challenge, you…
When Your Spouse Hurts You
You will be wounded in your marriage. It’s not a question of if, but when your spouse hurts you. But…
A Response to Suicide Prevention Day
What does it look like to heal from being broken-hearted? Is it possible? Last week, September 10, the world honored…
Dealing with the Roots of Sexual “Stuff”
If you’ve been mowing the weeds of troubling, unwanted, or ungodly sexual thoughts or behaviors and they keep growing back,…
When You Feel Distant from God
God created you and me for intimacy with Himself. Intimacy with God is possible! But that feeling of being close…
Characteristics of a Sound Mind
One of the Scriptures many Christians know well is 2 Timothy 1:7. In the KJV it reads: “For God hath…
Why God Invented Sex
How is intimacy going for you? It is good, healthy, nourishing? Or have your attempts at intimacy resulted in only…
When Your Spouse is Negative
Keeping a positive outlook on life brings many benefits – both to your own experience and to your marriage. But…
25 Good Things to Think About
Thoughts control actions. Thoughts come before emotions. Thoughts impact how other people see you, and how you react to every situation you come across. Choosing what thoughts to think can go a long way toward making you well or sick, happy or sad, lonely or connected, desperate or satisfied.
If you feel challenged to know what to think about, here’s a list to get you started. When you find yourself rolling negative things around in your mind, choose one of these items instead. You can think about:
Is your Digital Diet Causing Anxiety?
Feeling overwhelmed with life. Distracted without a sense of purpose. Overstressed and overanxious. Lonely, without close relationships. Unable to focus,…
How to Come Out of Hiding
How we love to hide! It’s been that way ever since the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3:8-10) Wounds create shame.…
