Random and With Purpose

Hello Everyone,

Now that we have finished our series, Out-Love Your Spouse, Dineen and I will return to random posting. I am always surprised that God leads me to new discoveries and allows me to experience His unending love, grace and adventure and more amazing is I get to share them with you. So stay tuned as we adventure through the Holiday months of November and December. We have some great stuff coming up.

Soon, I will be sharing a video I recorded with a friend of mine that address a serious topic, childhood sexual abuse. This interview is not about the abuse but about how God has worked through this woman. And it all came about when she went to report for Jury Duty. You don't want to miss it. 

HALLOWEEN - What Do We Do With Halloween?  Link to the post I wrote last year.

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On another holiday note....

I also want to collect some of your stories to share in later in the holiday season. 

RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS ~ GIFTING MY GRATITUDE  

I share one of my random acts of kindness stories here, Gifting My Gratitude. If you have initiated, been the recipient of, or have witnessed one of these amazing displays of love, click here and share your story (This is our contact page at Winning Him Without Words). I find these are some of the most inspiring true stories of the goodness of mankind and the greatness of God.

I have gathered a few already and they will lift your spirits so that you soar above the clouds this holiday season. Please take 10 minutes and share with me your story or create your random story and then share.

I pray you are filled with the Holy Spirit this week and that you witness the outrageous, vibrant, passionate love of our Savior in wave after wave. Hugs, Lynn

Replenish Your Soul

 

Join me and some other fantastic speakers for an online marriage conference for women.

I will be expanding and recaping the Out-Love your Husband series and have a give away to offer at the conference. 

Other speakers:

Darlene Schacht of Time-Warp Wife

Teri Lynn Underwood of Teri Lynne Underwood

Ashley Wells of Putting God First Place

Betty Eisenhour of Peace Creek on the Prairie

Connie Hughes of Smockity Frocks

Tiana Krenz of God Made Home Grown

Rachel Martin of Finding Joy

Joy McMillan of Simply Bloom

Amy Roberts of RaisingArrows.net

Take a look at this. It is a screenshot of the virtual room. You login as a guest and then you enter the room. You will see:

• LIVE video and audio feed of the speaker
• Powerpoint
• LIVE chat and a place to ask questions and give feedback.
• Website addresses and more.

 

Space is limited and is almost filled. Sign up today at Replenish Your Soul Conference. Hugs, Lynn

Out-Love Your Spouse - The Final Chapter?

We are ending the last week of our “Out-Love” our spouse challenge. This is only the starting place. Our challenge is the beginning of a new way of life. An intentional effort to love our spouse with the love of Christ. 

I will never forget what Shelly shared with me months ago. It has forever changed my heart and how I love on my spouse. 

This is a never look back journey. Start down this road and commit to love your spouse and to love Jesus more than you love yourself.

Things can change and amazingly just as we end this focused time together, look what arrived in the mail as my husband was on a business trip. 

Two cards arrived. Randomly. For no reason at all.

One for me and astonishingly one for my teen daughter.

Who says a man can't change.

The timing of this is impeccable and I believe orchestrated by God just to say to me, "Lynn, see you do what I ask and I will move everything along just as it should be."

We serve an all-powerful God. One who listens to the prayers of His people. A God who loves us and wants the best for us. Our God wants us to out-love our spouse just the way He out-loves us.

So put your old way of thinking away. Continue on this journey and watch what our God can do in the lives of ordinary men and women.

BIG hugs, Lynn

PS. I will be speaking LIVE about this very journey ONLINE, November 3rd at 10 a.m. PT and 1 p.m. ET with an open Q&A following at Noon PT, 3 pm. ET. To learn more and to participate in this fantastic marriage conference from the comfort of your own home, Visit Replenish Your Soul Conference.

Still amazed.    

How has Out-loving Your spouse challenged you, made a difference in your marriage, changed you, changed your spouse. Talk to me in the comments. Lynn

Thankful Thursday - My Good Bye

Thankful Thursday is back here at Spiritually Unequal Marriage for the month of October. Next week visit Laurie at Women Taking A Stand for Thankful Thursday.

I have been a participant in Thankful Thursday since 2006. Whew, a very long time indeed. I have been a host for this online gathering for a very long time as well. And I LOVE sharing my thankful heart with all of you and reading your posts of thanks.

But, I'm now following the call of the Lord as He moves my focus and time to new areas of service so today will be my last time to HOST Thankful Thursday.

I still plan to participate in Thankful Thursday as time allows but my hosting of the event is ending. I have LOVED to read your posts. I have walked through many seasons, struggles, triumps..... There have been births, marriages, adoptions, changing of the season, pumpkin butts, silly jokes, sharing of the Lord, miracles.......

There has been LOVE.

We have shared love and community with one another and I will alway hold a special place in my heart for all of you who offered praises to Jesus, who left words of encourgement, who wrote about your faith and your spiritual journey. These are the gems in my crown that I will one day throw at the Father's feet.

One day I will meet each of you face-to-face. I will hug your neck and celebrate the days we gathered over a computer and raised our voice, our written voice to give thanks to God. I can't wait for that day.

I am so utterly thankful for all of you my online community of believer in Christ. You are my treasured friends. 

Lord, I bring each one of these, your children, my brothers and sisters before your throne. Lord, bless them as they use their voice to bring glory to your son, Jesus. In His powerful and life-changing name, Jesus.

Here are some of the memories from TT posts and days gone by. Hugs, Lynn

 

The Chicken

The Pumpkin Butt

Does anyone have some pants for this big boy???

This is our season to shine.

 

 

And Well Done kiddo! These are only a few.

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES. Love and hugs, Lynn

And the Walls Came A-Tumbling Down

Lynn’s post yesterday talked about the walls we erect that keep our guys on the outside. I want to share with you how this translated into my life.

I walked into my marriage with the expectations I’d leaned from the pages of romance novels and movies. I’d bought into the fairytale. Everything was fine in the beginning but then the reality began to settle in.

My husband wasn’t perfect. He didn’t do the things I thought he should. He didn’t get that he had a role to play in the script I’d written in my mind and heart. He didn’t even know his lines!

How dare he let me down like that? How dare he not do the things around the house that seemed so obvious to me? How dare he not pull his weight in the relationship?

So what else could I do? I jumped in and did it. After all, these are things that have to be done and done right. You know the saying, if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself. So I did!

I did everything. I had to. No one else would. I took care of the kids, the house—everything. And I worked so hard to get things just right and either he didn’t notice or the kids just undid it all so that I had to do all over again.

Life wasn’t fair. Why didn’t he get that if he would just do things the way I wanted and was there when I needed him, life would be so much easier.

Let’s fast forward to a little ways into my marriage. We’d moved to Switzerland because of a work opportunity for my husband. Things started out great, then went from bad to worse. The weight of the world on my shoulders effectively doubled.

I walked into my new church one day and was approached by a soft-spoken woman. She handed me a piece of paper about a group called 1Peter3, a group for women married to unbelievers. I joined immediately and we studied the book Beloved Unbeliever together.

God began to open my eyes through this and another Bible study, Experiencing God. Not to see my husband’s faults and lack, but to see my own. I began to see how much I pressure I had put upon my marriage and my husband through my expectations. I backed off, reassessed, and started to painfully change the way I talked to my husband. I became aware of my words. My marriage began to improve greatly as God taught me to respect my husband.

Still, there was this pattern that seemed to show up. Things would go great for a while and then go down the drain again. Why? Why did this keep coming back? Why did we keep getting stuck in this place? I’d done pretty well in communicating my needs and helping to understand what I was saying without being condemning, so why did the same issues keep cropping up?

One day I was walking into my kitchen. Maybe I was praying, I don’t clearly remember. What I do remember was a very clear and sudden thought.

“It’s not him who has to change, it’s me. It’s not his perceptions that need adjustment, it’s mine.”

Like a light bulb bursting with light, this truth exploded in my head and did a number on my heart. I realized I had let go of my expectations of what I wanted and had replaced them with negative expectations. The kind where you expect your spouse to do what he’s always done, to disappoint you the way he always done, to let you down the way he’s always done.

I’d placed these negative expectations on my husband, ones he could actually meet, but never gave him a chance to do anything else. The problem was, each one added a brick to that wall around me, the one I thought would keep me from feeling the hurt of being let down. And my poor guy kept bouncing into it, feeling as if he could never do anything right.

It’s a vicious cycle. It destroys marriages. It destroys people.

I had to tear down the bricks and it would take a while. First, I had to break this habit of negative expectations that I’d developed and see in my husband the potential God had created in him. Until I did, my husband would never become the man God had fashioned him to be. And two, I had to rebuild trust in our marriage. I had to show my husband I believed in him, that I truly supported him, and trusted him. Respected him.

My desire to change my husband shifted to a desire to change me. I wanted to change. I needed to change. I was desperate for freedom! I prayed for God to change me, to change my heart, to change my thinking, and to help me love my husband the way Jesus loves him.

God took my pain and desire and used it to tear down the walls I had built around my emotions. He freed me from lies and bad habits and showed me how to affirm, appreciate and out-love my husband.

Friends, this is not easy to share with you. I have no shame admitting my path because I know God has forgiven and redeemed me and my past. But to write this out brings me tears. It’s not been an easy journey. It’s been painful but so worth it!

God is gracious, kind and faithful. I shared in our Weekend Devo what my husband did for me last week. That is not how it’s always been. It has taken work and time to reach this place of where I can love him without expectation and the more I do—the more I love my husband through Jesus—the more our marriage has healed and thrived.

For so many years I wanted my guy to fit a mold that I had created for the perfect husband. To finally release him from that and to just love and appreciate the man he is, and then to out-love him as we’ve been doing here, brought something from his mouth I thought I would never hear. He actually referred to a task that needed to be done in our home as a “job for him, a husband’s job.” Something I never would have imagined I’d hear him say.

I still stumble at times and God is quick to show me and pick me up so I can apologize to my husband. The results of this journey are still coming in. I’ve changed dramatically and my husband has responded in so many unexpected ways. Now he’s starting to out-love me. That was never my motivation for out-loving him. I wanted only to be obedient to God for the sake of my husband’s future salvation, to show him Jesus.

The world will tell you that your perfect mate will meet your every need. God will tell you that He is all that you need and will show that He’s already met your every need in His Son Jesus. When we live in this truth, we are free to love Jesus and everyone He puts in our path. We truly love because He first loved us.

God sees your desires and efforts, your pain and struggles in your marriage. He wants to show you a better way. Ask him. He’s just waiting for you to make the first move.

Praying and believing,
Dineen

Out-Love Your Spouse - The Result

Why?

Why make the effort to out-love my husband. Why must it always be me to make the first move? Why can’t he change for once?

Why?

Several months have passed since I first met Shelly Weaver. She has been used by God to inspire many of us here at Spiritually Unequal Marriage to live outside of the norm and to love our spouse with the love of Christ and to trust Him to transform our marriages.  

But the most profound part of this journey that Shelly shared with me is what I am going to share with you today. This is it:

Our husbands are trapped. And, we are the ones who have them tied down in an endless bumper-car ride.

You see, over the years out of our insecurities, pain, our past failures, our selfishness, we have erected many walls. He forgets our birthday, construction begins. Cinderblock is placed down in thick blankets of cement. He works late to many nights; piles of bricks are added to that fortress forming about our tender core. Over the years, with a precision that surpasses the finest architect, we build walls of protection, defenses, higher and higher.

Until eventually, the walls are insurmountable. Your husband isn’t allowed in. In fact, even Jesus at times can’t get through because we are sealed off completely.

The walls have names; bitterness, resentment, cynicism, distrust, unforgiveness , anger, apathy, hatred, loathing, .........

And here’s the thing, our men keep bumping into these walls and bouncing away. They don’t even know they are strapped into this menacing bumper-car cycle and are at a complete loss on how to undo it all.

It’s no wonder they continue to behave and react the way they do. They don’t have anywhere else to go. It’s the same old ride, the same old reaction, the same and familiar responses.

But that all changes when we truly begin to out-love our spouse. When we choose to place Jesus on the throne of our lives, to lay down our “self” and let the Lord release our spouse from our insidious carnival ride.

When we purposely choose to forgive our man when it doesn’t make sense. We win. When we offer love in the face of anger, we win. When we live to have a Christ-centered marriage and not a spouse-centered marriage that is where our spouse discovers freedom. And the best part of this, so do we. We discover freedom.

Let me give you an example. Shelly shared this story with me about a time she went against everything within her heart and mind and chose to obey God. You be the judge.

Shelly has a teenaged daughter. I also have a teen daughter so I know the angst of living with a teen. If we could harness the emotional power of a teen girl, we would never experience an energy crisis again. With that said, I will I also tell you that as a mother, we share the emotional journey of our girls to a great extent, right along with our kid.

Shelly told me that her daughter and her best friend of many years somehow landed in a place in their relationship where their friendship was rocked to the core. Hurtful words were said and emotional wounds were inflicted and a permanent tear in their relationship resulted.

Now I will tell you that when your teen daughter has been hurt like this, you are hurt like this as well.

The girls no longer talked to one another and the life-long friendship was over. And Shelly, as most moms, was hurt, devastated and like her daughter, likely to never speak to that “mean” girl again.

However, through the transforming power of Jesus Shelly decided to be different. And in fact, ran into her daughter’s “no-longer best friend” at school. It would have been easy to speak a casual greeting of “Hi” and walk away but Shelly who was living to out-love people with the love of Christ, purposely took her emotions to the cross and decidedly started a conversation with the girl.

She complimented her and her new hair style. Exchange a smile and a kindness that certainly surprised the youth. Shelly recounted this story to me to say everything in her actions was the opposite of how she would have reacted in the flesh. But Shelly decided she was done with the walls. She was willing to take a chance of more pain and remove the walls that were recently constructed.

Shelly went on the tell me this: Lynn when I stepped out and offered kindness instead of a stoic response it opened a door. This young girl felt safe that Shelly wasn’t mad. There wasn’t a parental barrier now to deal with and that within a week the two girls had mended their relationship and it was back to where it once was. BFF’s and happy as two pees in a pod.

Shelly said: This is exactly what happens with our men. They keep bumping up against these walls we have erected and have no other choice but to respond (bounce back) in exactly the same way they always have.

BUT, when we remove those walls and allow them FREEDOM to move closer, to experience a different reaction, to see a part of us they haven’t glimpsed in a long time, it changes them. They are free to make moves toward our heart and discover what you have both been missing. They will make mistakes and it’s easy to put up those walls again but that is where our relationship with Jesus changes everything.

We can trust Christ with our pain. We can love our imperfect men out of a vast reservoir of Christ’s power. We don’t need to keep score or always be right or win. We truly can trust Christ with it all and that is out-loving our spouse. That kind of love moves mountains, it unties men who are stuck in a bumper-car night ride and it releases women to love with an open heart.

To be vulnerable, to be authentic, to be a wife that a man adores and is honored to have on his arm.

It’s about Jesus. It’s trusting Him to out-love us so we can out-love others.

This week our challenge opportunity is to trust God with the walls we have constructed. To tear them down with intention and put God to the test. Let us become so secure in our relationship with Christ that we can love others with authenticity and transparency. THAT kind of love changes everything. Husbands, wives, daughters, sons, neighbors and mostly it changes us. That is the freedom described in scripture. It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Galatians 5:1

Today, ask God about this. Ask Him if it’s true that if you actually let down your walls that there is freedom. Ask Him to pour His supernatural love into you so that you have the courage to walk where you haven’t in a long while. I realize this is really, really difficult to truly step back, forgive and trust but ask God to help you. He will.

Stop back during the week and share with me how you found the walls, tore them down and how the people around you reacted. I’m praying for a mighty change for you and your marriage, hugs, Lynn

Weekend Devo — Don't Give Up!

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. — Hebrews 12:1

It's been an overwhelming week and one night I was pretty grumpy with my hubby because I didn't feel like he was doing enough to help me. Glad I kept that thought to myself and took it to God. My guy was kind and listened to me vent my overwhelming to do list. And I apologized for being grumpy.

In the meantime, God showed me "WE" would get it all done (I'd left God out of my list, imagine that? ;-) and we did get it done, which taught me again of God's faithfulness. Thank you, Lord!

The blessings didn't stop there though. I asked my hubby to grab a few things from the store a couple nights ago. He came home with five bags of grocers with items to make my life easier. Included in those items were a wedge of my favorite cheese, two jars of apple cranberry butter from Trader Joes and a gorgeous bouquet of fall flowers. I was floored, surprised and humbled. My guy had out-loved me that night.

One of our Facebook readers shared that a simple act of respect had brought a kindness from her husband that she hadn't seen in a long time.

If you're struggling with this challenge, friends, please keep going. God is faithful, always! He sees your efforts and blesses us in unexpected ways.

Praying and believing,
Dineen

Who Are You Fighting With? Out-Love Your Spouse

I have been writing about walking the Christian walk in a spiritually mismatched marriage now for a long time. One thing I have discovered is that when we take on a challenge here at SUM it is met with enthusiasm and hope by many of you. 

…..at the beginning. 

Here we are in week three. Guess what? Many of you have already thrown in the towel. You have given up because you don’t see immediate results. You say to yourself, “Well Lynn, this is all very well and good for you but you don’t know "my" husband. You don’t know what I live with every day of my life.” 

That is true. 

That is also a lie. 

I don’t know the details of your life but I do know that if you are a child of God, you have every resource available to you to live in victory. So, I’m talking to all of us who may be camped in the village of discontent and living in the house of discouragement. It’s time for a refresher course in exactly what is really going on here. 

Hold on to your hats because God has given me a word today and it’s going to shake a few people up and work some change in these houses of gloominess. 

The Accuser has been busy of late. Have you heard any of these voices in your head lately?

• You’re no good.
• You’re a terrible wife.
• You’re not a good Christian
• You’re a bad mother.
• No one will ever love you.

Guys:

• You’re not good enough.
• You don’t do anything right.
• You aren’t man enough.
• You are a terrible dad. 

These voices are NOT of God. They are straight from the pit of hell. 

Ephesians 6: 10-12 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 

It’s at exactly this point in a challenge that you can and should begin to discover something new in your relationship with God and your spouse but this is exactly when the devil moves in to do his work. 

What is his work? Look at verse 11. The word -schemes. These are strategies to deceive you. Now let me be clear here. The spiritual realm is REAL. There is an invisible realm that is all around us. Let me take this a step further, it is a realm that is at war. Either we are a pawn of the devil in this war or we are living out of victory through the power of Jesus Christ. It’s one or the other. 

It’s precisely now that the enemy will do everything in his power to bring strategies to bear to deceive you, to draw you away from God and to fill your heart with partial truths and lies. And let’s be clear here again, our struggle is not against our spouse. Our struggle is against what? See verse 12. 

We are involved in an invisible war with eternal consequences and that war primarily plays out in our head. 

2 Corinthians 10: 3-5 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 

The war is largely in our mind. 

But now get this. What happens when we resist the devil? James 4:5  You don’t need to be afraid. It’s true, you need to know what you are doing and you need to pray but you need not fear the serpent. As believers in Christ, we do not fight for victory we fight from victory. 

Write these scriptures down and memorize them.

1 John 4:4

1 John 5:4-5

James 4: 7-8 

It is our intercessory prayer for our spouse, our kids, and our life that makes every difference and can change the eternal destiny of many that our life touches. So right now, pick yourself up. Bind the belt of truth around you, put on the shield, tie up the shoes. Tell the devil, out-loud, that he MUST flee and begin again to pray with fervor and fierceness for your spouse that God will open his eyes. Pray for fresh filling of the Holy Spirit. Pray against the plans and schemes of darkness and live out of the victory that is yours. 

Now repeat after me: I resist the devil and he must flee.

I resist the devil and he must flee.

I RESIST THE DEVIL AND HE MUST FLEE. 

By the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Amen. 

Catch up here again on Monday as we talk about the next step in our challenge and discover the pivotal point of this journey. 

In the comments, leave your prayers of power and victory. Pray for your husband by name and Dineen, Shelly and I will pray along with you. 

For me: I pray Mike is overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit and his spiritual eyes are blown wide open to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. In Jesus name, Amen 

(Thanks Pastor Chip Ingram, I am inspired)

Thankful Thursday -

Thankful Thursday is back here at Spiritually Unequal Marriage for the month of October. Woo Hoo!

Achoo! Sniffle, sniffle. 

Good day every one and pass the Kleenex. Where's the Nyquil? Do you feed a cold and starve a fever or feed and fever and starve a cold? 

Sheesh! 

Yep, cold number four this year. Thankfully, I don't need to use my voice for blogging because I have laryngitis as well. This morning I reached down to pet my dog and say, “Do you want some breakfast?” And my voice came out sounding like a cross between a drugged up bear and a Giant South African Bullfrog. 

The dog freaked out and ran away. 

Mercy! 

I don’t look much better than that bullfrog either *grin.* 

In spite of the dramatics (too much Nyquil is my guess) and the cold, I’m still filled with joy. It’s Thursday and I love Jesus. That is all I need. But God has given me so much more than I could ever dream. 

I’m thankful for so much my heart could explode (or could that be my sinuses?). 

My Top Ten:

1. Daughter’s play opens tonight ~Break a leg Caitie. I know you will ROCK it.
2. Husband is home from business trip.
3. The dog warmed up to me by two in the afternoon *grin*.
4. My BFF, Pam, covered for me at Bible Study.
5. Enjoying this beautiful fall day, even if it’s from the view of my kitchen window.
6. God is still on the throne.
7. My sins are at the bottom of the sea.
8. Jesus is the answer to every problem.
9. I have a hope and a future.
10. I will live forever. 

Can I get an AMEN? 

What’s your Top Ten? Achoo and God bless you my friends, Hugs, Lynn

Spouse-Based or God-Based?

What is the difference between a spouse-based marriage and a God-based marriage?

This is the question my Sunday school leader asked our group this past weekend. We’re currently doing Gary Thomas’ video series, Sacred Marriage, which goes with his book by the same title. It’s a great course, and I have loved hearing different perspectives on marriage and how God works in our marriages and uses them to refine us.

The answer to this question also fits into our “Out-Love Your Spouse” challenge. So here it is:

A spouse-based marriage is performance based. In other words, I’ll do something nice for him if he does something for me. Or, why should I do that for her? She never does anything for me? And how about this one: He was grumpy last night. No way am I going to be nice to him today.

Basically, as long as our spouse is performing to our standards, and meeting our needs, we will love them, help them, and be a good spouse in return. As soon as they stop meeting that standard, we withdraw our affection, love and help.

In a God-based marriage we love our spouse because that is what Jesus has asked us to do—love one another. We love our spouse whether they are grumpy or happy. We help our spouse without the expectation of getting something in return. We serve our spouse as an act of serving God.

See the difference? I know this challenge to “out-love” our spouse isn’t an easy one, especially if you’re in a difficult marriage. Especially if you’re in a situation where there is hostility and rebuff. But I want to encourage you to persevere, because I am confident of two things:

1. When we love our spouse from the motivation that we are serving God—being obedient to God—God sees our efforts. Our spouse may not, but God sees. And He is faithful!

2. In some way, our spouse will be affected on some level. They may not respond right away. They may not respond in a way that you’d expect. But when we are loving our spouse from the motivation to serve God—in essence, if we are loving our spouse from a place of loving Jesus—we become a conduit for the love of Christ to reach our spouse. That’s powerful!

Look at Hebrews 10:23-24:

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

My friends, we heard what Shelley shared with Lynn in the video about what her pastor told her. Our calling to love and serve begins right in our own homes. God wants us to start there before He can bring us out into the mission fields of our workplace, our neighborhood, or even our friends and extended family.

Don’t give up. God calls us to love even the most unlovable. Even if that defines our spouse at the moment. And if we’re totally honest here, we aren’t always very lovable either, are we?

Last week, I did small things for my hubby, like sitting on the couch with him instead of the chair I usually sit on. I looked for little things that would make his life a little easier and his home a haven to return to. God put this on my heart as away to comfort my stressed out guy. One night, this poor guy thanked me for making dinner—twice in one meal. I didn’t ask for that appreciation. I only sought to do what God was showing me to do.

And finally, let me say that just because our spouse isn’t a believer (yet) doesn't mean we can’t have a God-centered marriage. You are the conduit to bring God into your marriage. Keep the faith and remember that through that very same faith, your spouse partakes in your sanctification (read “Sanctified Unbeliever” here) and God’s covering.

Praying and believing,
Dineen