With Instagram, Tik-Tok, Youtube, and everything else in between taking up our family time- it can be hard to pause and bond in real time. But the truth is, there’s no app that can replace real face to face conversations. That’s why we wanted to help you with 3 tips to cultivate connection with your family!
I’d propose that numerous people have been seduced by things that masquerade as love but are just cheap imitations of the real thing. In fact, I have a growing concern that many within the Church associate God’s love with a version that looks noble on the outside but leads people into deep vortexes of emptiness and bondage.
Choosing counseling takes humility as it exercises the belief that there is always room for growth and improvement. It’s showing yourself and your significant other that you’re willing to grow as an individual while also growing together- this kind of mindset helps build a steadier foundation of trust for your future marriage. The number of sessions you choose to invest in prior to the wedding date are up to you and your counselor, but we recommend anywhere from 5-10 and definitely incorporate counseling into your normal married life routine!
Here’s the thing: Jesus doesn’t say that “life abundantly” starts when we get married….he says it starts when we enter relationship with Him. For the believer in Christ, life abundantly is happening right here, right now, in this very moment – no matter what your relationship status.
If you live around single Christians who want to please God long enough, you’ll run into this conversation a few times - or maybe experience it yourself. We completely believe God cares and is invested passionately and intimately about our lives and speaks to us about our relationships. We also realize that there could be some other areas and beliefs influencing how you hear God.
Basically, we realized that the box of relational tools we’d been handed by our parents and families was a box of broken tools. We were both the recipients of a legacy of multiple broken marriages and family breakdown.
Before you’re married it’s easy to see marriage as the grande finale. It’s the thing we dream of and live for. It’s the force propelling us forward into this destination we call life. And then it finally comes! Now what?
Our sex drive allows us to connect with our spouse and create a bond for life. It’s the glue that seals together. As much as we’d like to think we’re rubber and people can just bounce off of us, the reality is that when we have sexual encounters, we’re being glued together.
Many marriages and relationships are suffering right now due to the prolonged effects of this pandemic. Patience is wearing thin and ironically, even though we are spending considerably more time together than ever before, our loved ones can still experience surmounting loneliness.
Once punishment is off the table, however, how do we move forward? First, we need to establish that both people in the relationship have the goal of restoration and are ready to do the challenging work of restoring connection and rebuilding trust. If the offending party is not repentant, or the injured party is not willing to forgive, they won’t be able to move toward each other.
As stress happens in your brain, it will turn off the relational part of your brain and send it into problem-solving mode. You and your husband may have different ways of solving the problem but because your brain has “turned off” the relational mode, it’s difficult to appreciate his strategy. You both just want the problem to stop! Whatever the challenge, remember that relational problems need relational solutions. Wait, pray, and talk through things once you are in a good emotional state and can see your husband as a resource and a teammate.
When someone is happily married, society has taught us to just give it time. Someone will fall out of love. Someone will screw up. Someone will decide marriage no longer suits them. Just give it time. And when we meet a couple who has been married for quite some time and they are still happily in love, we treat them like an anomaly- a unicorn of romance that must be documented and studied closely. This is the world we live in.