Encouragement ...

I love reading books on marriage!  Especially the ones that drive me to a new and deeper place with the Lord.  When this happens, my husband is always blessed to find a new and refreshed wife waiting for him when he comes in the door.

The latest book I just finished is "Alone in Marrige" by Susie Larson.  It is so good that I couldn't help but put a few of my highlights from the book below. 

Underneath our anger is a certain mistrust of God.  Somewhere the way we stopped believing that God is a God of love and justice.  If we truly believed that our lives, our hopes, and our dreams were in God’s hands, we wouldn’t be quite so shocked when imperfect people hurt us or let us down.

Our ultimate goal is not our happiness or even getting our way; our goal is the high calling of becoming more like Christ.

Our spouses are married to women who need Jesus’ refining in our lies just as badly as they do.

Be real.

God never changes and He’s not going anywhere.

Whenever I took the time to take my thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ, I found clarity, peace, and even motivation to do something about my circumstances.

Refuse to allow your thoughts to control you.

Lead me on.  Amen

An undisciplined, self-willed life is puny; an obedient, God-willed life is spacious.  Proverbs 15:32

The way to grow through pain is going thru it, not around it.

To engage in self-pity is to make an idol out of our self-adsorbed viewpoint.  When we give more weight to our perspective of our spouse and our marriage than we do the promises of God, we make an idol out of what we think we know.  Making this mistake offends the heart of God and will keep us from posessing the best of what God has for us.

You are set apart by God to affect the world around you.  Ask for the mind of  Christ – ask for a perspective that matches His.

Instead of clenched fists and low perspectives, bow low, open your hands and look up.

A woman wrapped up in the love of God will be a vessel used by Him no matter where life finds her.

What I’m actually called to do is to take this Sword and cut everything out of MY life that offends God.

To survive is to completely wrap ourselves around the Vine and hang on for dear life.  When we resolve that we will be Christ followers in everything, something rises up within us and declares that Jesus Is Lord of even our circumstances – He is Most High God – high above our perspective – and this is when our disappointment becomes direction.

Stand up and fight!  Get your land back!

He will turn your disappointment into a dance floor!

Run toward women friends who challenge your faith and tell you the truth.

The heavens are pregnant with promise. God wants to establish us as a people who know Him well enough to trust Him and wait for Him.  The problem is, we are so busy grabbling for ourselves, we never give God a chance to give us His best.

Lean, wait, listen, expect.

Ask for a renewed perspective and a fresh wind of faith to blow thru your home.

It’s all too easy to lose sight of who we are and what we are called to, but we must not. Even when we simply feel like wives who are overlooked, overworked, and in need of a good haircut, even then we are representatives of the Most High God.

Anyone can seem holy alone in a cabin up in the mountains away from anything that is living and breathing. But to walk along with imperfect people who personally affect your life, and to love them when it is easier not to, is to follow in Christ’s footsteps.

There are limits to what our earthly eyes can see, but the horizons cannot contain the awesomeness of God! Lift up your heads. Look up! DARE NOT TO walk through this earth as a bruised beggar, when you are armed with heaven on your side!

At some point we have to settle the issue that God is good and He wants to bless our lives more than we can imagine.

Go on a frantic search for God and His promises.

We were made for love. And when we look too long at ourselves or our spouses, we despair, because instead of love, we find selfishness there.  But when we look to the Lord, we see something different. We see a Servant-King, one who depleted Himself that we might be filled.  He didn’t fight back. He didn’t grab for His rights, He laid Himself down for love.

Love will change us, heal others, and fix what’s broken. 

You are held, loved, guided, and protected!