5 Ways to Center Our Marriage in Jesus

Our greatest hope in marriage is to center it in Jesus.

My love story with Christ began when I was sixteen as I gave my life and heart to Jesus.

Then, my love story with my husband, Mike, began when I was twenty. He heard me share my Jesus story at a college event. We were also in a sociology class together, Marriage and Family. I know—crazy!

Since we were both Christians, we became friends. After a few months, we went on our first date and dated over the next three years. We had a long engagement before we said, “I do.”

But there’s one thing I’ve learned in marriage over the years. The only thing that gives marriage real hope is to center it in Jesus Christ.

When we accept Jesus as Savior, He desires we center every area of our lives in Him. So it makes good spiritual and biblical sense to keep Jesus center in our marriage too.

Here are 5 ways to keep Jesus center in our marriage.

(1.) Run to Christ for deep and wide and high love.

Jesus Christ is the only source of authentic love. We may know this truth, but we often forget to go to the source of real love. And then we find ourselves looking to other things, especially our spouse, for what only Jesus provides.

Going to Jesus helps us live satisfied with love from our Savior. The love in our marriage becomes a by-product of a much deeper and more authentic love.

“May have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:18-19 (NIV)

When Wit’s End is Not the End: Real Peace

When we’re at wit’s end, it’s not the end, but an opportunity for Christ to show Himself as the beginning and the end.

Because Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, real peace begins with Him.

Plenty of times in my life, I felt anything but peaceful. And I desperately wanted to refocus my mind and redirect my heart.

I desired to embody the peace Christ makes available to me.

Still, I felt nothing but frustrated and overwhelmed in the circumstances.

Yet, in an uncertain world, there is an undeniable peace, an unshakable anchor for our soul.

Even when bad things happen, the peace of Christ never changes and remains constant.

It offers security strengthening the weariest of souls.

Christ speaks words of peace over us. He applies the Spirit’s soothing balm to our deep wounds and restless minds. Jesus calms our last nerve.

So here are five ways to refocus our heart to find P.E.A.C.E when we arrive at wit’s end.

P-Pray

Sometimes we pray as a last resort. Which is the place we find ourselves at wit’s end. Perhaps if we started out our day by praying instead of diving into our daily routine and checking our phone and email, our heart would prove more peaceful. And our mind becomes more thoughtful about what lies ahead and how to ask the Lord for help.

Take time to pray first before thinking too much or talking too much with people other than God. And ask God for His peace, real peace.

Overflowing: Giving up Half-empty and Half-full

Overflowing.

It paints a picture of filling and fullness spilling over in our lives.

Whether our current days of uncertainty rob our joy.

Or, we scramble for resources we fear are not available.

And even in times of abundance, when life seems good and our source secure.

The Lord wants us to remember, He is our true source. 

Our battle cry in this world becomes: “Lord, fill me.” 

But do we remember to go to the true source of everlasting joy and peace? Are we confident the Lord fills us with good and true things? Have we realized God’s fullness seeps into every corner and crevice of our empty places?

To answer these questions, let’s look at 3 points to keep us overflowing in God.

(1.) Remember our cup’s not half-empty or half-full but overflowing in God.

We no longer need to live with the perspective of the half-empty or half-full cup. And we no longer do just enough to get by until more is required to fill our own cup. Instead, we ask the Lord to give us the strength to run to Him for everything we need. Because these are promises found in His Word.

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows” (Psalm 23:5).

“For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things” (Psalm 107:9 NIV).

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Psalm 81:10).

Break Free From Spiritual Captivity in King Jesus

Let’s break free!

Neither prison itself or the clothes prisoners must sport appeal to this girl. And no doubt the entire experience proves undesirable. 

Like confinement to a small space, lack of freedom, prison food or no food, missing my family and friends, and dreaming of a future.

Likewise, Jeremiah 52 recounts this kind of story with an evil king of Jerusalem, Zedekiah, who rebelled against God, and also rebelled against the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar (don’t see those names listed in baby-name books).

So, as a result, Nebuchadnezzar sieged Jerusalem; its king, city, and people fell to this utter destruction and despair:

• Imprisoned King Zedekiah until his death.
• Burned down houses and the house of the Lord.
• Broke down all the walls of Jerusalem.
• Plundered items from the temple.
• Killed the chief priest, keepers of the threshold, and men from the king’s council.
• Took thousands of captives from Jerusalem as exiles to Babylon (seventh and eighteenth years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign). Then, hundreds of captives from Judah (twenty-third year of his reign).

Yet, when we arrive at the final four verses of this last chapter of Jeremiah, we meet Jehoiachin, king of Judah. Exiled to Babylon and imprisoned when he was a young (Matthew Henry Commentary suggests at eighteen-years-old).

Break Free – Captivity Turned to Freedom

But here’s the rest of the story in God’s Word when despair turned to joy and captivity turned to freedom. It’s also my story.

10 Things I Wish I’d Known on My Wedding Day

A floral veil cascaded past my waist.

Lace sleeves extended in a V-shape across my hands.

My neckline sported a delicate strand of pearls from my maternal grandmother. 

I walked down the aisle to the hope of always and forever. 

Altough our pastor completed pre-marriage counseling with us, nothing really prepared us for marriage struggles. 

So come along as I take a look back to discuss what I wish I’d known the day I said, “I do.”

And see if any of these resonate with you or offer you hope.

(1.) I wish I’d known to communicate in an authentic and vulnerable way. 

Men and women communicate differently. And our temperaments and past relationships have shaped us.

Learning all the differences is key. But I wish I’d also realized the importance of learning to be authentic by showing a vulnerable side.

After “I do”: Share how you are vulnerable at work, in other relationships, online and with your marriage. Get it all out in the open and be the real you.

(2.) Ask for and give forgiveness. 

I wish I’d known how forgiveness releases us from the shackles unforgiveness places on us. “Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” Colossians 3:13 (ESV)

In Jesus, forgiveness has been freely extended to us for our sins and missteps against God.

After “I do”: We ask our spouse to forgive us for our missteps and freely offer it when our heart bears wounds.

(3.) Pray over my marriage. 

Fully Trusting God Without Hesitation

Is trusting God difficult for you? Or, would you prefer to place your trust in yourself or others? And have you ever wondered:

How will I get through this?

Where do I turn?

What are we going to do?

Several times in my life, it felt as if I were free-falling. Like an amusement park ride, the bottom fell out from under me.

Such as the times my husband or I lost a job, our livelihood. And when I miscarried our second baby and hoped to have another child. Also, when my father passed away. In all those cases, insecurity locked arms with me as my unwelcome companion.

Because I not only panicked about our financial situation with a job loss, but I also wondered: what do we do now?

And honestly, I struggled to believe and trust God would get us through this and bring about our good in some way. Even though my trust waned in the past, we had indeed made it through the same hardship before.

After the miscarriage, the Lord blessed us with another child. But, if I never carried another baby to full term, would trusting God seem futile? When a loved one passes away instead of receiving a healing, is trusting God still possible?

While we may desire to place our full trust in God’s care, power, control, purpose, plan, and believe He has our best interest at heart, it’s not an easy thing. In fact, it’s super hard.

So is it possible to fully trust our heavenly Father, without hesitation, no matter our circumstances?

Oh, sure, I trust God when life is going along without a hitch. But what about when life isn’t good?

I’m realizing the Lord grows my faith and trust in Him more when life seems unknown than when things are going as planned. He’s growing in me a trust without hesitation.

Here’s what I’m learning.

4 Ways to Free Our Heart From Difficult People

Above all else, guard your heart….

At some point in life, we all deal with difficult people. Perhaps it’s in the workplace, neighborhood, church or community.

Or, difficult people in our family.

And our hearts, oh our hearts, they take a beating. Seriously, don’t difficult people make your heart ache?

Often, a difficult person carries a troubled soul. They are hard to reason with and deal with, sometimes on any level, and especially on an emotional level.

So when I’m around difficult people, I strap myself in and try to prepare for a ride where my heart turns flips, plummets from soaring heights, and comes to a screeching halt.

And if I interact with this person on a regular basis or even on occasion, I pray to just make it through. 

Still, the most troubling difficult person is a family member who makes our lives miserable since they are miserable within. Because this is someone who is supposed to love and care about us and our heart, we wish things were different.

Then, we second guess ourselves about our part in causing it, question what we did to deserve this treatment, try to change them, and wonder if our heart can experience real freedom.

To cope with these people, I learned to hold back tears and swallow sighs. Or, I’d attempt to get myself together and shake it off for the sake of the occasion.

But a few years ago, I experienced a breakthrough in dealing with the difficult people in my life. So, I want you to know, I found a glimmer of hope. And that’s all it took to move forward in freeing my heart.

Here are the steps I took for my breakthrough that I hope encourage you. 

(1.) Change How and Who Prepares Your Heart.

What Hallmark Movies Taught Me About Marriage

Eyes glued to the screen, another Hallmark movie captured my heart’s undivided attention. 

It’s what my heart was tempted to stay hooked on: A storyline of love beating the odds, while fulfilling many of my own desires and dreams about love.

These Hallmark movies are a kind of escape from reality, even if just for a few moments.

But here’s the big difference between the movies and our own reality: There’s always a happy ending on Hallmark movies.

Always.

Soon, if we aren’t careful, we compare the happy endings with our own reality and the result is disappointment. 

Since I wanted an even closer look at what happened in my heart and mind as I watched these near fairy-tale films, I decided to view a Hallmark movie and made some mental notes of how it affected me.

And this is what I found.

All’s Well in the Hallmark Universe

In this particular film, a young couple planned their upcoming wedding at a beautiful venue. While there were glitches in the wedding plans, extended family issues, and miscommunication between the bride and groom, all was finally good in the universe as they worked out each issue. 

I couldn’t help but think about the message this sends to the many couples experiencing or who will experience glitches in marriage or family. Such as a miscommunication between our spouse and us. And if it doesn’t end well? What then?

Also, I discovered my heart getting caught up in the beginning stages of romance, first love. Ah, sweet love. Then I remembered when my husband and I were young, in love, and in the initial stages of our blossoming relationship.

So are we different today? A resounding Yes! We’ve been married over three decades, of course our relationship is different than in the beginning. Because different is often better and sweeter.

How to Take Ownership of My Response

While I can’t control the response of others, there are some ways to take ownership of how I respond.

Whether it’s our spouse, our children, extended family or friends, we often respond in either inappropriate ways or at the inopportune time.

You know that saying, “Open mouth and insert foot.”? 

Because we all have times we let our mouths run ahead of us. Or, we think we must say the first thing that pops in to our head. Or, we assume we are right and the other person is clearly wrong. 

But we can’t physically see or determine what is going on behind the scenes—what underlying issues may contribute to the other person’s words and responses.

So let’s unpack three ways we take ownership of how we respond.

(1.) Realize I can never control the responses of others; I only control my response through help from the Holy Spirit.

I’ll never control the words or responses of others. I only control how I respond. And I possess the power to control my good and godly response when I’m walking in the Spirit. 

Hang-ups About Love and Recapturing the Truth

Hang-ups about love leaked from emotionally expensive experiences. ~Jo Ann Fore

Often, we hold misconceptions about love from personal experiences.

Maybe we formed wrong ideas about love from our childhood. 

Or, somewhere along the way, we experienced a lack of love, abandonment, abuse, neglect or broken promises and a broken heart. 

But if we uncover the misconceptions, hang-ups, emotionally expensive experiences caused in our hearts regarding love, we discover the truth.

Hang-ups: Overuse and misuse of the term love. 

We use the term love to describe affections for everything from possessions and food to our favorite sports teams and music. 

You might hear me say, “I love cinnamon rolls, chai tea lattes, sunsets, boots or pasta.” Likewise, we may use “hate” for things we don’t like.

Even if the good Lord never intended our overuse and misuse of the word love in this way, it’s a part of our culture. 

And when I love and I hate are so carelessly thrown around, our hearts may not distinguish between when love’s attached to emotions and people and when it’s not.

Hang-ups: When love is missing.

How many kids have made statements like: 

“My dad worked a lot to give me the world, but all I wanted was for him to love me.”