February 2017 - Sharing Redemption's Stories

Winter can be a tough time to keep our perspective in check. The days are short, the nights are long, the weather is cooler than we’d like. Many people find that their emotions to be rather out of sorts, and if you’re already dealing with personal difficulties, these additional factors can put a real damper on your life.

Following Jesus takes work - learning, studying, praying, combating the enemy and the spiritual forces that are at work in our lives. But sometimes, there are still those lingering feelings that we aren’t doing enough, we aren’t the best Christian that we can be, and while there may be areas where we need to grow, sometimes the problem isn’t spiritual.

Often, we try to work through our spiritual issues, seeking God’s help, as we should. But sometimes we need to listen to our bodies and seek additional help in working through physical issues. Sometimes the problem isn’t spiritual and we need help so that our physical bodies can be working well.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is something that many people struggle with. It’s a physical issue / depression that we often see in winter and is brought on by a decrease in sunlight. You might find yourself feeling down, with a lack of energy, and generally not interested in activities that usually provide enjoyment.

Dealing with SAD can impact most areas in our lives. We feel sad and discouraged, and that often carries over from our feelings into other areas of our lives. If this is something you deal with, or think you might be struggling with, you’ll want to see these 5 tips for dealing with SAD.

Remember that medical questions / treatments should be discussed with your doctor or healthcare provider first.

UPDATED March 1, 2017:
Hope for the Hurting Wife was a free resource that we offered for the month of February, 2017.
If you did not receive your copy, don’t worry! We’re planning something special!

Starting today, we’re working to expand the book into a full 30-day devotional!

Here’s how you can help:
If you received your copy, we are looking for reader feedback to use as testimonials for the new 30-day version.
If you’d like to submit your feedback, please email me at [email protected] and share how the book impacted you.

If you haven’t yet read Hope for the Hurting Wife, hang on for just a little while and you’ll start to see information on the new 30-day version, which will include content that has not been published before.

We’re excited about where God is leading us, and how He is using our stories to encourage others.

I’d like to take just a moment and share a little about the books being offered here and why it’s so important to me to share them with you.

I entered marriage having gone through premarital counseling, thinking I knew my spouse well. We communicated often and had those in-depth conversations that people need to have - whether or not we’d have kids, our goals and dreams, where we felt God was leading us as individuals and together.

Things were good - not always perfect, but they eventually got better. And such was the whole of my married life - a lot of good, some tough spots, and then things would work out.

Until one day when the bottom fell out. The knock at the door changed everything. Life changed from basically just going about my day-to-day life, to deciding whether or not I would (or could) stand up against the enemy’s attacks and the struggles my husband was now going to have to confront, head on.

Any of the marriage posts written on this site have come after the pain of that particular day - the day they knocked at the door.

God has really dealt with me in the past few years, teaching me grace, answering my pleas for mercy, and reminding me that all of life is to be held loosely because in the end, it’s all His.

Hope for the Hurting Wife is a compilation of writings from Jen and me. Jen blogs at Being Confident of This, and she and I have taken turns writing for each other’s blogs, mostly on the topic of marriage. We’ve both struggled in our marriages and we’re joining forces to offer a resource that we think is going to be beneficial to you. We share from our own experiences of when marriage is hard, as wives who have experienced the hurt, but are still fighting for our marriage.

You’ll find encouragement and support for the real-life problems that arise when marriage becomes difficult. You’ll find hope for the journey of standing for your marriage, an understanding of the times when you pass through the deep waters of discouragement and fear. And you’ll find that we aren’t perfect in our fight for marriage - we’re two women who share the hurt, but also the hope from drawing close to Jesus in this time. And you’ll be reminded that no matter what happens, God has a plan for your life.

It’s our desire that this book is a blessing to others who are in similar situations. To get this book, (and the ones below) for free, I simply ask that you sign up for the email list. I don’t inundate you with emails. In fact, you’ll only get an email from me if I have a new post to share, or sporadically in between posts if I have something to share with you.

To sign up for the email list and get 3 free books about marriage,
simply click this link.
(Hope for the Hurting Wife is not currently included in our subscriber freebies.)

Signing up for emails also means that in the future when I have freebies,
you’ll have access to them right away since you already signed up.

* * * * *

At the time I became aware of the problems in my marriage, I was writing for a larger website and the owner began to host these 31 day series on marriage. Ironically, I told God that I’d never write about marriage. There are so many other websites that cover that topic. But God kept laying it on my heart to participate and He hasn’t let me walk away from writing about marriage yet, though I do share a few other kinds of posts from time to time.

After each series, we, the authors, were each given permission to share these eBooks with our subscribers. So that’s what I’ve been doing with these eBooks - offering them in exchange for subscription to the blog here.

I know that being allowed into someone’s Inbox is a precious gift. The posts I write are often reflective of where my own heart is in this journey of trying to do my part to work on my marriage. I’m a work in progress, grasping for redemption in my own life when I thought I’d be content just telling others’ redemption stories.

As painful as it’s been, I’m grateful that God has dealt mercifully with my husband and me. Our story is not over, though I’m positive that the devil thought it would be the day I found out about our struggles. I don’t know what’s ahead, but we are both committed to our marriage, to pressing on for redemption and for what God will do through all of this.

These books are a wonderful resource and I hope they bless you as it blessed all of us who participated in writing it.

And just in case you need more resources right away,
please check the related posts at the bottom of this post.

*****

If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below, or hit the Contact page for my email address.

Thank you, friends! And if this is a blessing, would you consider sharing it with their friends? We would love to share the books with as many people as need it.

Sharing at Grace and Truth