“They Didn’t Even Smell of Smoke!”

1 Reply

SmokeDaniel 3:27 (NLT) ”Then the high officers, officials, governors, and advisers crowded around them and saw that the fire had not touched them. Not a hair on their heads was singed, and their clothing was not scorched. They didn’t even smell of smoke!”

One thing we encounter a lot when helping couples get through their marriage troubles is the feeling of despair. Very often we will hear a husband, a wife, or both express to us that they just don’t see how they can ever get past what has happened to their marriage. There may have been affairs, abuse, or some other type of betrayal that has cut them to their very core and it has made it nearly impossible for them to believe that their marriage could ever be whole again. And even though they are attempting to save their marriage they are also wrestling with the agonizing question of, “will I have to live with this pain for the rest of my life?” Continue reading →

Just Say No To Naysayers

14 Replies

1195551_50578947“Will anyone support my decision to try to save my marriage?” That was the thought that run through my head time after time as family and friends continued to discourage the position I had taken to save my marriage. I was believing for a miracle turnaround, but most of my loved ones thought I was being a fool.

I understood that they were only concerned for my well-being and they did not want to see me hurt more than I already been. And the truth is if I had been wanting to end my marriage I would have appreciated their support for that.

Continue reading →

Love Is The Cure For Envy

2 Replies

1004641_987540161 Corinthians 13:4 (NET) ”Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up.”

1 Corinthians 13:4 (NASB) ”Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,”

Depending on which translation of the bible you prefer you will often see the words jealous and envious interchanged with the other. The reason of course is both words can have similar negative meanings.

Continue reading →

Love Redeems

2 Replies

1354974_23334619John 3:16  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

John 15:12-13  “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

1 Peter 1:18-19  ”knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

Continue reading →

Amazing Grace- Redeeming Love

Leave a reply

Today’s guest post for Stories of Redeemed Marriages comes from Wendi. We hope her testimony brings hope to many who read it.

 

 
Hell is real. It’s a real place of torment that the unredeemed go for eternity and it’s also a place here on earth that some of us have visited, wallowed in and become more than acquainted with before being washed in the precious blood of Jesus….

I lost custody of my children due to some bad choices on my part in ’97.  I had opted for a tubal ligation after the birth of my second daughter in ’96.  I must start with this because it plays a big part in some horrible decisions that I would make in the years to come and add to the pain I would come face to face with just a few short years ago.

My husband and I met in the summer of ’98. I was in the middle of my second divorce, a 28 year old mother of 2 beautiful girls (that didn’t live with me). My husband was a 21 year old bachelor still living at home with his parents. We had an amazing courtship – many would refer to it as whirlwind.

Continue reading →

What Forgiveness is and What it is Not

Leave a reply

Today’s post is a guest post from Alecia at Marriage Life Ministry. It is a follow up post of her Worth the Work post she shared last week on our Stories of Redeemed Marriages.

 

ID-100104436I’m sitting here thinking about forgiveness…yes, still…and it always leaves me feeling amazed and awed at the capabilities of the human spirit when we’re willing and more importantly all that my Savior has done for me.

It’s such a big word, isn’t it? It encompasses more than we can humanly fathom. My favorite definition is “A choice one makes that says “I give up my right to hurt you for hurting me. “ It means I give up my control of the situation and more importantly let go of the results. Until we let go, we are bound by the hurts and choices of other people. In our situation, I finally got to a point where I had to make a choice to make room in my heart for the things that truly matter and not let unforgiveness take up space any more. Through that process Clint and I learned some valuable lessons about what forgiveness is and is not.

Continue reading →

Worth the Work

Leave a reply

IMAG0389Secrets are an ugly thing. They tear apart, they ruin, they lie, they fake, they turn things completely upside down. And our marriage was built on them.

When we got married we were most definitely not ready. We’d been dating for 6 months, had gotten pregnant and said what we’ve heard so many other couples say, “Well, we were going to get married anyway, we’ll just do it now rather than waiting.” I mean, why wait? We’d had sex, we’d gotten pregnant. The rest was just a formality. Or so we thought. The foundation that we went into our marriage with was so cracked and faulty it is a wonder that we were married for 12 years before we imploded.

The truth is, that we were slowly imploding little by little over the course of those 12 years. But, you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge so we just kept gimping along.

Continue reading →

Is Your Patience Running Thin?

Leave a reply

ID-10060606For many years I struggled with loving my wife. I could always say it and most of the time I felt it, but the challenge for me was knowing how to show it in a consistent way that made sense. Even when I thought I was showing love in one way, my other actions would contradict me and cause Janet to question if I really loved her or not.

One of the problems I had with loving my wife and my children was the way I would lose my patience with them. They just never knew when my patience would run out and I would turn on them in some sort of harsh demanding way. I didn’t want to treat them badly and I had no excuse for it. So I just blamed it on my lack of patience.

Continue reading →

A Win Win Proposition

Leave a reply

ID-10069370Have you ever been caught in that place where you feel if you keep giving your all to your marriage and loving your spouse with unconditional love, you might end up wishing you hadn’t. You find yourself thinking, “this could help my marriage, but then again what if it doesn’t?” You don’t want to get hurt by putting your all into the relationship and then it doesn’t work out. You feel you have to hold back, just in case. After all, if you did everything you could do, to really love your spouse and invest in your marriage and then turn around and you still end up loosing your marriage, wouldn’t you look like a fool.

Or maybe you find yourself in a battle with your spouse and your afraid of what might happen if you don’t win the argument or get your way in the situation. You don’t want to come across as the weak one in the relationship, so you take your stand and you remain strong through everything. Don’t let them see you cry. Don’t ever let your spouse think they got the best of you, right?

Continue reading →