Singleness & Marriage

  • Redemptive Relationships,  Singleness & Marriage

    Resources Beyond Ourselves

    If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that Fred and I went through a surprising and frighteningly isolated/lonely/despair-filled season of marriage around our fifteenth wedding anniversary. (I say “surprising” because if you had asked me years ago if we would ever feel so distant from each other and struggle so much in our friendship and marriage, I would’ve said no. When we met and fell in love, during grad school, I don’t think I was naive enough to ever presume that we wouldn’t have some level of struggle and suffering as a couple, I just never thought it would get SO BAD. But it…

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  • Perfectionism & Shame,  Singleness & Marriage

    I had no hope because my eyes were on ME …

    Last week*, Fred and I had one of the most disturbing — fights? difficult conversations? “opportunities”? future peacemaker seminar illustrations? — of our lives. The — let’s just call it a fight — the fight itself was nothing new. Seriously — it was fight #24 or something in our marriage. But here is the truly frightening aspect of it … Unlike most of our “challenges” (fight just sounds too strong), at the end, we usually reconcile rather quickly. We may be hurt, but we readily confess, forgive, and begin to move on. That didn’t happen last week. In fact, I became extremely, extremely sad. I was grief-stricken. Overwhelmed. Disturbed in…

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  • Hope in Suffering,  Perfectionism & Shame,  Redemptive Relationships,  Singleness & Marriage

    How Fred Responded When I Asked Him Last Week if I Had Ruined His Life

    Last week was a particularly hard week for Fred and me. At one point, seeing the marks of searing pain on Fred’s face (again), I was overcome by the sense that all of his worst suffering in life was because of me. (Maybe not entirely because of me, since, sure, I know my theology and I know we have three real enemies: Satan, the world, our flesh. I know we live in a fallen world that truly is not the way it’s supposed to be. I can pass the Sunday School test. But in that horrible moment of overwhelmingly self-critical thinking, I forget what I “know” [gnosis] because I don’t really “know” [epignosis] it.) So there I sat, feeling…

  • Singleness & Marriage,  Teens & Technology

    I love this! “I Will Wait”

    Two of my favorite people, Carolyn McCulley and Pastor Anyabwile, pointed me to this video years ago and it is still a favorite. I do SO urge you to watch it all the way to the end. It may not be your culture. Poetry reading may not be something you take part in often.   Listen anyway. This is excellent.  

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  • Grace in Daily Life,  Singleness & Marriage

    (Very!) Wise Counsel in Just Four Words

    In the dark, quiet hours of the early morning, my mind was already whirling away as I considered everything on my plate for the day. I was so happy when Fred was finally awake and we could talk and pray together. He began to move into his day and I was still a little paralyzed by the size of the task before me. So I asked him a simple question and man! Did he bless me by a wise response. This was our exchange: Me: “Fred? Do you really think I can do this?” Fred: “Can you do what?” Me: “Everything on my to-do list.” Fred: “Not all at once.”  And…

  • Hope in Suffering,  Relationships & Peacemaking,  Singleness & Marriage

    An Abuse Survivor Learns to Show Mercy to Her Abuser

    A friend emailed me today asking for trustworthy resources on how an abuse survivor can persevere in wise, godly, appropriate responses to her abuser. This friend was particularly interested in persevering in love and mercy toward her abuser because he is repentant and also because all of the other civic authority and ecclesiastical authority issues associated with his abuse are also being wisely and appropriately addressed. So I did what I always do when someone asks me for biblical, trustworthy counsel on complicated issues. I first looked at The Journal of Biblical Counseling and all of the CCEF resources available online. I was not disappointed with the results: An Abuse Survivor Learns to…

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  • Perfectionism & Shame,  Singleness & Marriage

    The Sexy Wife I Can’t Be (& Confessions of a 25 Year-Old Virgin)

    Cap’n Dave just sent me an email to tell me that our RedeemingChurchConflicts blog made the top ten list for The Aquila Report last week. How fun! To quote Dave, “Some pastors must be concerned about exactly what is their greatest spiritual danger.” I’m so glad Dave’s posts are there to help out. I was also intrigued by a number of the other “top ten” entries for the week and I clicked through to one that was particularly poignant for me, having just LiveBlogged Ellen Dykas’ excellent teaching on the topic of “Courageous Compassion for Relationally and Sexually Broken Women”: The Sexy Wife I Can’t Be It is definitely worth the…

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  • Sin & Repentance,  Singleness & Marriage

    Marring the Landscape with the Grand-Scale Deceit of a Marital Affair

    I very much appreciated Challies‘ link to this sobering, but extremely well-written, honest article on the allure and devastation of marital unfaithfulness: A Roomful of Yearning and Regret (And from the New York Times, too! I was quite surprised.) The author speaks from her own experience of having cheated on her husband and having been cheated on by her husband. She has many beautifully phrased illustrations that help us to picture and experience what she is describing, but here are just a few of my (tragic) favorites: “I’m not saying these feelings aren’t legitimate, just that they don’t legitimize what you’re doing. If you believed they did, your stomach wouldn’t drop on your way…