Tag: marriage

Faith and Love

“Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,” – Ephesians‬ ‭1:15‬ ‭KJV‬‬

What are you planting?

Your Life Speaks

This scripture from the Bible has stood out to me because of something that Paul says. While writing this letter to the church at Ephesus, he says that their faith  and their love are what he heard about. I’ve been thinking about this the last couple of days and I wonder if the same could be said of us. 

Your life speaks...what is it saying? #youspeakvolumes #livelife Click To Tweet

Does our faith speak? Does our love speak? They should speak to those around us. Our lives should be filled with faith and love. Everyone wants to make an impact, but how does real impact happen? 

Paul said that their faith and their love is what impacted him. The same should be said of our faith and love. One area that our faith and love can be seen is in our marriages. 

 

Faith in Your Marriage

 

Faith in your marriage can look like persevering  through hard times. It’s not always that you have to be on the brink of divorce for you to have faith in your marriage. Faith can look like praying for your marriage in the morning. It can also look like having peace in your day to day. Faith in your marriage can look like believing for a consistent date night. The point is that having faith in and for your marriage is more than waiting until your about to file for divorce. 

 

Love In Your Marriage

 

How does love in your marriage look? Do you picture it as your favorite rom-com movie? Or does it look like a relationship that you saw as a child?

 

Love in your marriage is two parts; how you give love and how you receive love. You need to know both. Does love look like handwritten letters or exotic vacations or even sitting on the couch watching your favorite show. 

 

So what does love look like for your marriage and what do you do to maintain it? Love has to continue to grow and develop. It’s a living part of your marriage and has to be treated as such. There are some practical things you can you like praying together, date nights, vacations together and communication are a way to get started. 

 

Building the faith and love in your marriage is what will speak to those around us.  Like Paul wrote to the believers in Ephesians ,their faith and love are what spoke to Paul. Your faith and love will also speak. 

 

Discussion Question:

What do you want your faith and love to say?

Consider that Quality Time in your marriage is more important than the Quantity of Time

We all would like to be able to get more time for the things that matter. What I’ve learned is that we all have the same 24 hours in a day. How to spend them is up to us. So everything can’t be about the quantity of time. We don’t have the ability to get more hours into our day. The difference is the quality of the time we do have. 

Your Most Valuable Asset


What is your most valuable thing that you have? Is it  money or the resources that you have at your disposal? Most of us know that time is the most valuable asset we have. How does this play into our relationships with our spouse?

I’m learning more and more that I have to be intentional with my time. I’ve had those moments where I sat down to do some work or read and ended up watching videos on YouTube or Netflix for  2 hours! 

I’ve also done this same thing when I wanted to spend time with my wife. The funny or ironic part is that my primary love language is Quality Time.  I’ve had moments when I wanted to spend time with my wife and we end up being in the same room together but not really connected. 

With my passion to  become a successful writer, balancing  my time can be challenging. I have a tendency to allow my time to be consumed by other things.

We all have the same 24hrs. How we spend them shows what we value Click To Tweet

Can We Get More Time?


We all would like to be able to get more time for the things that matter. What I’ve learned is that we all have the same 24 hours in a day. How to spend them is up to us. So everything can’t be about the quantity of time. We don’t have the ability to get more hours into our day. The difference is the quality of the time we do have. 

For a person like me whose love language is Quality Time, I can’t add more hours into my 24 hour day to spend with my wife. What I can do is make sure that we’re getting the most out of the time that we spend together. So it truly is Quality over Quantity. Especially when it comes to our spouses. We can think that that more time together will fix everything. How do we make sure we’re getting the most out of time together?

 

  1. Get Rid of Distractions

 

You don’t realize how much of your time is being wasted until you actually start to track your time. We waste time doing the things that we know we’re not supposed to do. Checking emails is one area where we can waste time. We check emails at work, we check them at home and pretty much everywhere in between. The key to quality time is to get rid of the distractions. 

 

  1. Be present

 

This goes right along with getting rid of the distractions. There are a lot of moments in my life where I’m in the room but not present. This can be true for a lot of men and that may be a stereotype. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or a stereotype, we have to do better at being in the moment. 

Our spouses need us to be present, as well as our children. Each relationship that we value needs us to be present. 

 

Doing just these two things will get us started with improving the quality of the time we have. 

Discussion Question:

In what areas can you make quality time more of a priority?

The Value of a Support Group

Be strong, be fearless, be beautiful. And believe that anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you. - Misty Copeland Click To Tweet

I am the oldest of five in my family. On my mother’s side of the family, I have five sets of aunts and uncles, who each have at least five kids. We’re all older now and have our own families and kids. As you know I have pretty decent size immediate family and a bigger and growing extended family.

Father and Kids
Loving Father

My immediate family is very close and we’ve all stayed close as we have grown up. At the time I didn’t know that every family wasn’t close. Going to college, making new friends, and working in the social work field, I came to know how fortunate I was to have this growing up. The support that I have received from my family over the years has been priceless.

Not everyone has that family support, but now that I have a family of my own I want to provide this type of support for my spouse, children. This family support is so important. Here are three ways that family support is valuable:

 

  1. Support is not always family

 

I mentioned it above, but it bears repeating. I had and continue to have a strong support system from my family. What I came to realize is that not everyone has their family as a support system.

When family isn’t an option you have to have the support system that is made up of friends. We sometimes think that our support system has to automatically be our family. That’s not a guarantee. Look at all of your family and friends and take an inventory on who is adding value to your life. Those that are adding the most value will be the ones who make up your support system.

 

  1. Support helps you cope

 

Life can be stressful. There are so many aspects, situations, and parts of life that can be stressful for us. It feels like the weight of the world can be on your shoulders. As close as we can think that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, makes us, it also isolates us. We may be on social media, but we tend to have more feelings of isolation than genuine connections.

This is where our support system is crucial. They are the people that will talk with us on the phone, counsel us, calm us, and help us to see the ray of sunshine when everything looks cloudy and dark.

 

  1. Support is Personal

 

When you don’t have a support group it can be hard to begin to develop one. Developing a support group requires time and effort. Both of which you have to carry the load of until the relationship is established. Establishing those relationships requires personable interactions. Commenting on posts is great, but for a lasting relationship and a support system to be established requires that you may have to go through hard times together.

Hard times and good times are what make the foundation of a support system. People that will celebrate with you when things are good, but will also be there when you need picking up are priceless.

 

Discussion Question:

How have you developed your support system?