Archives for March 2017

I have something exciting that I’m eager to share with you! I love to be able to offer support to you as you’re walking through some of the darkest times of your life. It’s such an honor to stand beside you as you stand for your marriage. If you’re new here, or haven’t poked around much on the site, you need to know a couple things up front. I believe in the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, and I believe in redemption in marriage. That’s why I write, and that’s my goal in sharing my heart and additional resources with you.

Today I have a brand new (free!) marriage resource that I’d like to offer to you.

A couple months ago, I met another Christian blogger who writes about marriage, particularly from the angle of standing for your marriage. I was so excited to find someone else who shares my passion for this topic. As we got to talking, she invited me to join a group on Facebook dedicated to wives who are standing for their marriages. I joined her group and have been completely amazed at the strength and fortitude of these women who have endured some incredibly tough situations.

Since joining, and at the leader’s suggestion, I’ve offered this group to a couple of readers who have emailed me recently, just to see how they like it and if they have the same experience I’ve had so far. One sweet lady was ready to file for divorce - she had the papers, but didn’t feel that it was the right time. As she shared her story, I was so in awe of how God was working in her specific situation. It was simply amazing!

I’ve been asked to be a co-leader in this group because of my own background and because my marriage is basically restored - though we realize we will always be a work in progress.

After talking with the other leader, we’re ready to open the group to you women who are standing for your marriage.

This group is specifically for the woman who is struggling in a relationship with her husband.

**For the men who are here, feel free to skip ahead - there are resources for you listed below.

**For a woman who is legally divorced and whose husband has remarried - we recommend Rejoice Ministries. Our current group is devoted to women whose spouses have not yet remarried. We know that God can work in amazing ways - ways we can’t begin to understand - but we don’t wish to play any part in breaking up another marriage. We will pray with you and for you, but we have to know the limits of what we feel is appropriate for us to deal with, and what we need to hand off to people with a greater background in counseling.

Stand for your marriage - together.

Here are the details to be added to the group, ladies:

1. Click this link and fill out the form. Your responses are private and will stay with me.
*The response to this group has been so overwhelming that we’ve felt the need to be sure we’re adding people for whom this group is a good fit. This is a good problem to have!
We’ve also had a few people request to join and they simply don’t fit our model of wives standing for their marriage, or trusting God to work in their life and their husband’s life.

2. Once I’ve seen your response come in, I will reply to you with my Facebook url. You will need to add me as a friend in order for me to add you to the secret group.
*This is the only way to be added to a secret group on Facebook.

3. Once you’re in the group, I will delete you as a friend so that you can keep your privacy.
*You will remain in the group, we just won’t be connected as Facebook friends.

For those of you who are not on Facebook, or who struggle with using Facebook due to hurtful things you see posted by your spouse, please consider this option to be able to join us in the group:

Use the app that is just for Facebook Groups so that you don’t have to get into Facebook to find the group and risk seeing anything that will cause hurt. We have a few women in our group who join us this way and they’ve said it makes a big difference since they don’t have to see the regular happenings on Facebook.

Questions?

Feel free to comment or email me - seems many people are choosing email to communicate now and that’s perfectly fine. I can certainly appreciate the desire to keep things a little more private.

You can also find a list of some of my favorite resources here.

Resources for men:

And, gentlemen, I didn’t want to share this post without having resources for you as well.

I just learned of Jason’s blog from my friend, Beth. He shares the journey he and his wife, Tiffani, have been on. He shares their story and offers hope and encouragement from a man’s perspective. You’ll find the links to their social media accounts.

I reached out to Jason and Tiffani last night and was pleasantly surprised to get a quick response. I’m adding in this message from Jason -

“When new folks ask me which post tells our story in the most direct way possible, this one is definitely it. In the early days of SongSix3, there were things I definitely wasn’t ready to share yet. It had to cook for awhile in my heart before I could open up and tell certain parts.” Read - Keeping Short Accounts

In exchanging messages with them, Jason asked me to let you know that you’re welcome at their Facebook page, and he’d be happy to interact with you on the page or through Facebook messaging. You can also find them on Twitter.

I think this is an excellent opportunity for you to interact with someone who knows the journey from your perspective, men!

You can also find a few of my favorite resources here.

The truth is -

Whether you’re brand new to a struggling marriage, or if you’ve walked this path for a while, we all need support.

I hope you’ll take this opportunity to get involved in accepting support from others who have walked this road. You might even find that you can encourage someone else.

It’s a tough road, but we’ll make it together!

Sharing with Crystal Storms at #HeartEncouragement, Susan B. Mead at #DanceWithJesus, Arabah Joy at Grace & Truth, Jennifer Dukes Lee at #TellHisStory, Holley Gerth at #CoffeeForYourHeart

Do you have a favorite verse about hope?

A few friends and I shared some of our favorite verses recently, and I want to share some of them with you. It can be refreshing nice to have a reminder of how God is at work.

Many of us are experiencing struggles right now - some in their marriage, some with regular day-to-day life, others with job and family issues. In some cases it seems these struggles are due to the enemy ratcheting up the spiritual warfare that people are dealing with.

These verses will encourage you as you walk through your various struggles. Let’s remember that no matter what happens, God is in control and He has our best interests at heart.

This post is different than the usual posts because I just want to share these verses of hope with you. I’m not sharing any stories this time, no great insights, rather I’m giving you something better - a fresh look at God’s Word!

As I compiled this list of hope verses, I realized several verses were in the book of Psalms, so this list is focused on just a few verses from Psalms.

At the end of the post there is a way to sign up for subscriber freebies that I share. I’m including a free printable of these psalms of hope. You guys, this is the first one I’ve ever created, so *if* for some reason, it doesn’t work well, please be gracious! 🙂

If you are already signed up, you should get the link to download the printable in your email. (Be sure to check all your folders as sometimes emails don’t show up in the Inbox as they should.)

Psalms of Hope

Psalm 25:3a

No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame….

Psalm 27:14

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Psalm 71:5

For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth.

Psalm 71:14

As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.

Psalm 91:2

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

Would you like to be able to print all of these verses and keep them with you?

I’ve created a printable for you to do just that!

Be sure to sign up to get the posts delivered to your email. Along with the free eBooks about marriage, you’ll have the link to download the printable that has all five of these verses. The image below shows you what it looks like.

When you sign up you will get an email back from me to confirm your subscription. That email has the link to download your freebies, including a pdf file of these verses.

I hope these will encourage you!

Click this link to fill out the short form for the Facebook group.

This post contains affiliate links. See the disclosure policy here.

Do you believe one person can make a difference?

Don’t just say yes - really take a moment and think about it.

Do you truly believe that just one person can make a difference in their world?

One of my favorite articles talks about making a difference. The article is the text of the commencement address by Naval Admiral William H. McRaven to the University of Texas at Austin Class of 2014. I have referenced this article before, and I’ll tell you, it’s one that I re-read several times each year.

Why?

Because I want to believe I’m making a difference.

In his commencement address, Admiral McRaven tells the almost 8,000 graduates that -

“…if every one of you changed the lives of just ten people—and each one of those folks changed the lives of another ten people—just ten—then in five generations—125 years—the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 800 million people.

800 million people—think of it—over twice the population of the United States. Go one more generation and you can change the entire population of the world—8 billion people.

If you think it’s hard to change the lives of ten people—change their lives forever—you’re wrong.

I saw it happen every day in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A young Army officer makes a decision to go left instead of right down a road in Baghdad and the ten soldiers in his squad are saved from close-in ambush.

In Kandahar province, Afghanistan, a non-commissioned officer from the Female Engagement Team senses something isn’t right and directs the infantry platoon away from a 500 pound IED, saving the lives of a dozen soldiers.

But, if you think about it, not only were these soldiers saved by the decisions of one person, but their children yet unborn—were also saved. And their children’s children—were saved.

Generations were saved by one decision—by one person.

But changing the world can happen anywhere and anyone can do it.

Individually, we aren’t going to impact 800 million lives. But we may never fully know how our choices will impact generations to come, even eternity.

My husband and I were talking about this exact thing recently.

That right there - that sentence - is one way that my decisions are changing a life.

My marriage has been through pretty much the very worst that could happen. For a long time, I did not know what to do. God kept speaking, reminding me of redemption. My choice to stay has impacted my family forever.

My choice to stay has impacted my life, the lives of the 4 others in this house, and our extended family. If we follow the Admiral’s speech, I can tell you that my choice has impacted more than 10 people.

Back to the conversation my husband and I had, because we discussed another way we’re impacting people who are impacting people.

Our oldest son is 16, almost 17 years old. We both chuckled last night as we agreed that he’s “an old soul”. He is not your typical 16 year old. He graduated high school last June, just after his 16th birthday. He worked hard, had almost all A’s (just one B in high school) and he discussed his plans with us.

He is a pianist. He attends a local university where he is a Piano Performance Major. He attends classes, he does his homework, and then he practices piano. He practices some at school, and some at home. On days when his schedule is very full, he tries to get in at least 4 hours of piano. So he’s certainly not just sitting down to practice a piece once, and then walking away. He’s got an astounding work ethic.

Our choice to help him pursue his dreams is impacting those around him. He’s tackled a piece that is very recognizable to most of us (you may know the tune to Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody even if you don’t know the name). The problem is that while we all probably know the tune, apparently what we know varies greatly from what Liszt actually wrote. So our son has gone back to the foundations of the piece - playing what the composer actually wrote.

His reward? Well, one of his professors said that yes, the tune is very recognizable, and it’s a large, grandiose piece. But, he also said that he finds it very refreshing to hear the piece as it was written, rather than in some variation that is available today, and he’s impressed with our guy’s work on it. Our son’s own Piano professor has said something similar, but just yesterday, after a makeup lesson, he said that the piece is ready to be performed. He said that the piece needs to be out for public consumption and that people need to start talking about it.

Our son’s hard work is impacting the people he interacts with, and in turn, they are heaping encouragement upon him - what a reward for his day-to-day hard work and effort!

But how about us, those of us struggling in our marriages?

Well, first of all, please know that I’m not promising that fighting for your marriage is going to bring your spouse back, though I sincerely hope it does!

What I am saying, though, is that the process of fighting for your marriage, or even wrestling with God to determine His will for your life, is going to impact someone. It’s going to impact you.

And it’s going to make a difference in the lives of the people in your inner circle.

No one comes away from this kind of battle unchanged.

But that’s just it: no one - no one - comes away from this kind of battle unchanged. They stand with us, they watch our choices and actions, and then they have an opportunity to go bless and impact more people, and they carry our story with them. Perhaps, ultimately, our story doesn’t end in the redemption of our marriage, though we pray it does. But it ends with God’s faithfulness to us, His leading us through the storm, and His perfect plan for us, despite how others may fail us.

These choices are part of the legacy we leave - for our children, our family, our friends, our co-workers, our acquaintances.

I want to leave a good and godly legacy, don’t you?

My friend, Leah, has re-released one of her Bible studies after a massive redesign. Not only is the book beautiful, it’s full of great lessons on leaving a godly legacy. These are truths that we can apply to our lives as Christians, but even more - as women who are drawing a line in the sand and letting God know that we stand with Him. What an awesome legacy to be able to pass on!

I’d encourage you to take a look at her Bible study.

“When all is said and done, the legacy you leave for those who come after you will be a result of the choices you make each day…choices regarding your faith, character, and holiness.” -Leah C. Adams, author

Please check out Legacy - I think you’ll find it’s a great encouragement for this journey! Click here: Legacy - or click the image below.

Can one person really make a difference?

The answer is simple - the answer is yes!

Just consider a few examples from the Bible:
Elijah, taking on the prophets of Baal (I Kings 18)
Naomi, allowing Ruth to go with her after the loss of Naomi’s sons and husband (Ruth 1)
Mary, carrying the baby who would save the world (Luke 1:26-38)
Paul, who endured so much and penned the words we’re familiar with in Philippians 3:14.
Jesus, sent from heaven, fully God yet fully man, enduring death on the cross for our sins.

Friend, one person can make a difference. Yes, these are big examples, but there is no reason our faith cannot be as big as that of Elijah, Naomi, Mary, Paul and countless others in the Bible.

Consider your situation and look ahead to the legacy that you can leave, because your life truly does make a difference!

Click this link to fill out a short form for the Facebook group.

Sharing at Grace & Truth, with Alisa Nicaud at Salt & Light, Holley Gerth at #CoffeeForYourHeart, Jaime Wiebel at #SittingAmongFriends, Jennifer Dukes Lee at #TellHisStory, with June at Wise Woman Linkup