What If Feeling Bad Isn’t Always a Bad Thing?
Who wants to feel bad? I certainly don’t. There’s a whole list of feelings we usually consider “bad”: anxiety, anger,…
responsibility
The Key to Filling Your Empty Soul
How do you deal with your empty soul? Do you retreat into a hole, waiting for someone to pull you…
Becoming Who Your Relationship Needs You to Be
What do you need to do in order to bring your best self to the people who matter most? What…
When Your Relationship Isn’t Working
There’s little if anything that makes a greater difference in your sense of wellbeing than the quality of your closest…
You Didn’t Choose Your Trauma, But You Can Choose Your Healing
Nobody wakes up one morning and says, “Today I think I’ll mess up my life and the lives of those…
The Battle for Your Brain: Technology and Spiritual Formation
Mental/emotional wellbeing and spiritual formation are not two separate things. Our sin problem is deeper than simply wrong acts that…
Disentangling Messy Relationships: People, God, and Your Heart
People. Need them. Can’t stand them. Messy relationships seem to be the only kind available. The push-pull of your true…
From Rupture to Repair: Working Towards Healing in Your Relationship
Every relationship experiences ruptures. Husband/wife, parent/child, good friends – we are all sinners, and that means some rupture in relationships…
Your Fragrance: How Your Inner Life Affects Others
You are not an island. You have an impact on other people whether you realize it or not, and whether…
This Relationship Won’t Fix You
You are wired to need people. You can’t get away from that even if you try. But many may find…
Your Body: Friend or Foe?
Your body can be a touchy subject (no pun intended). Is your body a friend or foe? Many if not…
Imagine the End: Relate Better Today, Regret Less Tomorrow
It’s a principle Jim Collins talked about years ago; begin with the end in mind. It changes what you do…
Why Selfishness Doesn’t Work, and What to Do Instead
Being unselfish is in many ways quite “selfish”. That is, unless your goal is to live isolated and miserable for…
What’s the State of Your Heart?
Think of someone you love to be around. How would you describe their heart? Chances are their inner being is…
Who Do You Want to Become This Year?
Imagine it’s this time next year. What would you like to be true of you then? You could drift along…
Boundaries and Freedom: Embracing What You Can and Can’t Do
You are not God. You are not all-powerful. Sometimes that’s a revelation; you are not the center of the universe.…
3 Steps to Loving Others When They Don’t Love You
Every human being needs love. And sometimes we get love from others, and sometimes we don’t. In spite of that,…
The 3 “C’s” of Growing in Sexual Wholeness
Time for a reality check. If you haven’t sensed it already you soon will; your growing in sexual wholeness (or…
How Sex Has Lost its Glory: Intimacy Gone Wrong
God created you for something good, a level of goodness we can only begin to imagine now. He built into…
When Nothing You’re Doing Makes You Satisfied
I would add something to one of the lists in Proverbs: “Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough”:…
How to Give a Great Christmas Gift to Your Marriage
Getting a toaster? A cordless drill? A bathrobe? A Weathertech cup holder? Ummm, not likely to create that warm fuzzy…
Parents, Kids, Technology – and Sex
At its best kids and technology seem like a match made in heaven. But too often it seems more like…
How to Plan Your Way Through the Holiday Blues
I love the Christmas season, but it hasn’t always been that way. Some Christmases have been really really hard. I…
How to Navigate the Power Dynamics in Your Marriage
Who’s got the power in your marriage? Where does that power come from? Can you find more power? What if…
Three Keys to Dropping the Insanity in Your Marriage
Doing the same thing and expecting a different result; isn’t that the definition of insanity? You’re not a failure if…
Five Warning Signs Your Marriage is Headed for an Affair
Breaking your marriage vows, especially for a follower of Jesus, doesn’t begin by waking up one morning and deciding to…
It’s Time to Let Your Husband Off the Hook
This is not what you signed up for. When you said Yes you thought you were getting friendship, intimacy, even…
To the Husband Blindsided by Your Wife
You’d have given your marriage a 7 or 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. You might prefer more…
How Managing Your Anxiety can Transform Your Marriage
You know you’re not at your best when you’re stressed out, anxious, or afraid. And your internal state doesn’t just…
Are You Using Your Influence to Help Others?
You have influence. You may not consider yourself an “influencer.” You may not have millions of “followers.” But there are…
Deciding Whether to Leave or Not Leave Your Marriage
“Should I stay or should I go?” I hear that from married people all the time. Emotions, memories, trauma, disappointment,…
Getting Rid of the Trash Your Marriage Has Accumulated
Each week the trash truck hauls off the debris you accumulate in your home and most of us rarely if…
Five Enemies of Your Marriage (Your Spouse is Not One of Them)
It’s no surprise that marriage is under assault. Younger marriages end when one or both feel unhappy or unfulfilled. Longer-term…
How to Become the Spouse God Needs You to Be in 2022
How would you grade your marriage today? There are few things that make a bigger impact on your sense of…
How to Criticize Your Spouse in the Way that Actually Works
Snide remarks. Eyerolls. Angry outbursts. Constant correction. Your spouse deserves that, right? After all, they’re messing up over and over…
What Has God Given You Executive Authority Over?
God is in control. How many times have you heard that? Said that? And of course it’s true! But the…
How to Strengthen Your Marriage While Navigating Midlife
Midlife is a season of change. As a woman, you’re approaching or going through menopause and everything seems disrupted –…
What Life do You Want Five Years from Now?
We’ve all heard stories of people lost at sea, left to the mercy of the currents. While there’s a remote…
How to Navigate Your Marriage Through the Messy Middle
So your marriage is in the messy middle. You’ve been drifting, and things aren’t headed to where you want your…
Three Difficult Dynamics that Make Your Midlife Marriage Messy
If marriage is a marathon, not a sprint, perhaps you’re at mile 10, or 15, or 20. The initial fireworks…
How Your Marriage Gets Better When You Get Better
There’s something healthy and satisfying about coming through when someone else is counting on you. Perhaps you’ve been in a…
The Dangers of Rule-Based Christianity
Rule-based Christianity is dangerous. Doubt that? Surely at some point you’ve had a parent or teacher or boss or leader…
Four Questions to Help Diagnose Your Painful Marriage
Where on the spectrum of happy-to-unhappy is your marriage? What’s really the problem, and how serious is it? How can…
HELP! My Spouse Doesn’t Love Me Anymore!
You want to be loved. You need to be loved. You thrive when you’re loved and you wither when you’re…
Five Steps to Building Better Intimacy in Marriage
God built into you the need, desire, and capacity for intimacy. It’s part of how you are created in His…
Where to Start if Your Marriage Lacks Intimacy
You want intimacy with your spouse and it’s not happening. You’re living as roommates, as if passing as ships in…
How to Build Connection Needed for Healthy Intimacy
God created you with the need, desire, and capacity for intimacy. But intimacy doesn’t just “happen” even if you and…
When Praying to Restore Your Marriage Isn’t Working
It’s dangerous to even imply that prayer isn’t enough. That seems to go against what any “good” Christian believes. And…
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”…
10 Resolutions that will Revolutionize Your Relationship in 2021
The only helpful thing about New Year’s resolutions is that they get you to focus on what you can do.…
