Staying connected when life gets full is really hard. I want to be my husband’s best friend, but that is really hard to do when we work, our kids play sports, and we have a big family that requires a lot of time and attention. A lot of days, we barely make it to the end…
As beautiful and wonderful as Sarah is described in the Bible, it seemed she had a moment of parental misdirection, thinking she had come up with a way of solving her and Abraham’s childlessness by giving her handmaiden to him to fulfill God’s promise of a son to her husband. Sarah’s seemingly parental misdirection didn’t…
Attending a Bible college, I saw people getting engaged and getting married. From a young age, my college friends were taught the importance of getting married and how much their lives needed to center around marriage. Women are often taught that our worth is linked to marriage. If a person is married, people treat them…
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Philippians 4:6 NLT When you’re upset with someone or you feel hurt by them, the last thing you typically want to do is pray for them. Our human nature when someone hurts you is to…
The apostle Paul knew that believers can be different in personality, expectations, past wounds and experiences, and how they express themselves, so he provided helpful instruction for how to maintain unity. I find his instruction especially helpful when it comes to the different ways family members grieve. In Philippians 2, he told believers to make…
After studying more than 3,000 couples in his Love Lab, Dr. John Gottman has discovered that the most important issue in marriage is trust. Can I trust you to be there for me when I’m upset? Can I trust you to choose me over your friends? Can I trust you to respect me? Couples that…
If you are newly engaged, congratulations! It is such an exciting time, but it can be stressful as you plan for your deepest commitment. For years, I’ve been a relationship counselor and have had the opportunity to see many different couples. From premarital couples looking to plan their big day to couples who have been…
Contempt is the worst of the four horsemen. It is the most destructive negative behavior in relationships. In Dr. John Gottman’s four decades of research, he has found it to be the number one predictor of divorce. According to Malcolm Gladwell in his bestselling book, Blink: “If Gottman observes one or both partners in a…
The third horsemen in the Four Horsemen is defensiveness, which is defined as self-protection in the form of righteous indignation or innocent victimhood in an attempt to ward off a perceived attack. Many people become defensive when they are being criticized, but the problem is that its perceived effect is blame. It is usually a…