Marriage

A Fine Linen Belt

In Jeremiah 13, God tells Jeremiah to purchase a linen belt and tie it around his waist. Jeremiah does as God instructs him. Then God speaks a second time, telling Jeremiah to bury the belt in a crevice. Many days later, Jeremiah unearths the belt at God’s direction and finds it ruined and completely useless.…

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Resolved: I will aspire!

At the New Year’s Eve party that my daughter Em gave for her friends, my son (age 12) was asked if he had any New Year’s resolutions. He thought a moment and then said, “Yeah. Eat a high fiber diet!” Wait a sec. Unless Pop Tarts are now considered a health food, I pretty much…

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How Did We Get Here?

It’s the question we all dance around. The one we sometimes want to ask but don’t. The one we dread being asked. The one we know the person’s dying to ask us when we tell them why our spouse doesn’t share our faith. “Did you know he wasn’t a Christian when you married him?” (I…

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The Devil and the Angel

I screwed up again. And amazingly, I felt entitled to. (Insert yucky “ew” sound here, please.) So here’s how it played out. Months ago I agreed to let go of our cleaning service, because we had to cut costs. Now if you’re a busy mom (If? Yeah, I heard that snicker.), sometimes that can be…

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I Can’t Fix This

Women are Fixers. We are always kissing boo-boos, resolving arguments, combing out tangles, and feeding our hungry little people. We run forgotten lunches up to school, and help glue things onto posterboard for projects that should have been started much sooner than the night before it was due. We know how to smooth over hurt…

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The Marks of Marriage

Time again, I run across some interesting patterns in marriage. Just recently I spoke to a woman whose marriage suddenly ended after 14 years to her surprise. My heart broke for her and my alert bells went off as I found another piece to the pattern. I’m not an expert, but I put my observations…

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What All Guys Want

Recently, a simple question started a great conversation with my husband on a long drive one afternoon. I was preparing to share with my Bible Study Group on the topic of building a foundation of peace in your marriage. My thoughts had turned to Prov. 31:11: “…the heart of her husband safely trusts her.” In…

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Piece by Piece

Usually when I write a post, I find a picture after the fact to suit what I’ve written. But this time the picture came first. I love this image because it speaks of how we give away pieces of our heart, how we can walk around with gaps and holes (sometimes literally!) in our hearts,…

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The Great Hope Maker

Two weeks ago, I posted about enduring hope. At the end of the article, I included this verse as part of a prayer. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans…

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Hope That Endures

How do we keep hoping when everything we see tells us there is no hope? The very definition of faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrew 11:1). But how do we apply that to situations that leave us hope-less? So often I see the…

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