Category: Love
They are just feelings — dark thoughts that spring forward when my hormones rage. I don’t ask for them. I don’t want them. I don’t seek them. I don’t even think about it the rest of the month. It just comes upon me out of nowhere – hits me upside the head, and for about 72 hours I struggle, desperately, to not let them surface and to not let anyone know how utterly destructive and how terribly desolate I feel.
Pin ItMarriage is a favorite topic of study for Gregg and me. We have read the books, watched the videos, attended online seminars, listened to sermons, read the Bible, and have garnered a lot of psycho-babble inspiration on what makes a good marriage.
As this is Valentine’s Day, February 14th, and the last day of National Marriage Week, I thought I’d give you our top 5 ways to have a healthy, successful marriage (and these are by no means exclusive) .
Pin ItWith this focus on marriage this week, culminating in Valentine’s Day with a focus on sweethearts and love, think about your marriage and your relationship with your spouse. Is there anything you can do special this week to make him feel special? To let her know how much you appreciate her?
Pin ItI thought chapter 6 of Nancy Leigh DeMoss’ Lies Women Believe: And the Truth that Sets them Free, just kind of brushed on the issues about marriage and the lies that can trap and hurt women. It seemed to just skim the surface. I don’t know if the author was trying to stay non-controversial or if she just didn’t want to get bogged down in details that could each one make up their own book.
Pin ItThe conflated argument Evans puts forward stands on the proposition that it “should make no difference” whether a wife maintains stewardship over her subjective appearance — that such stewardship or lack thereof ought to have absolutely no impact on her husband’s daily battle with sexual temptation.
While Pastor Challies starts his article by pointing out the red herring Evans cooked up — that if wives slouch off on their appearance, husbands will cheat on them — that isn’t what he chooses to focus on in the main thrust. Challies makes the case that while YES appearance counts in marriage, he dispels the notion that becoming a slob absolves your spouse of any sin. Further, he draws the distinction between naturally growing old and living life with what he calls inward and outward appearance.
When a wife rejects or belittles her husband’s sexual needs, she very obviously HARMS his ability to avoid improper sexual impulses. But that isn’t entirely what either of these cited truth claims state. The truth claim in each of the above cases expands on that accepted fact by stating that when a wife ignores (a) her appearance and (b) her husband’s sexual needs, she is NOT HELPING him to avoid sexual temptation.