Heaven Ministries
July/Aug 2007
Issue 47

Marriage Alive! Newsletter

What's New?

New Weekly Email Column

Marriage Support by Phone

Marriage Articles

How To Apply Productive Communication 
Into Your Marriage

Other Articles

How Should We Pray?

Joke of the Month

A Lawyer and Newfoundlander

A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers.
Ruth Bell Graham

 

 

Preview or buy Love The Woman You Married

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Preview or Buy Love The Man You Married

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The Alcoholism Trap

Book_Cover1.jpg (595331 bytes)

Do you feel trapped with the alcoholic? Do you feel like you are married to a Jekyl and Hyde? You're not alone. You can break free when you stop trying to rescue the alcoholic and rescue you instead!  Preview Chapters

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Journey on The Roads 
Less Traveled

Book Description
Journey on the Roads Less Traveled is a spiritual journey providing an avenue for people to change their lives through Jesus Christ in a way that is not commonly understood. The less traveled roads take the reader down a comprehensive and well-rounded foundational understanding into the biblical world of acceptance, beliefs, spirituality, feelings, marriage, children, family, forgiveness, temptation, faith, and finally prayer while applying the power of “real love” into all of the above elements.   $17.95

Order Journey on the Roads Less Traveled

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What's New?

 

Weekly Marriage Column 

I am starting  a weekly marriage column that I will be sending out every Wednesday. This column will be a short column related to marriage. Each week I will choose one of the questions that a reader writes in with and I will answer it in detail. 

I am automatically signing up all the pre-existing newsletter subscribers to this weekly column as well. So, if you 
do not
want to get this weekly column delivered to your inbox each week, please let me know and I will take you off the list. Thanks. 

Contact us Here

Marriage Support and Guidance by Phone

I am now offering marriage support and personal counsel, for women only, over the telephone for donations to our marriage ministry. I will continue to give free guidance thru email, however. For the times and hours you may call in, please see the website. 

 

How To Apply Productive Communication 
Into Your Marriage

In the past few months I have done some due diligent research into the troubles associated with marriage. Not to my amazement, I have discovered that in eight out of ten marital qualms, negative emotions, feelings and attitude, played a big role in the outcome of a couple’s marriage. Am I surprised? Not really.

I know somewhat about how emotions can wreck havoc in marriage because I have been there and done that already. The good news is that through proper self expression, both husband and wife can learn to not allow their negative emotions to control the outcome of the marriage.

Couples get defensive, emotional, argumentive, and controlling with each other when they aren’t being listened to! How can they listen to each other properly? Acknowledge and validate each others feelings. Let your spouse know that their feelings are ok to have. Don’t tell them how emotional they are, or don’t tell them they’re feelings are wrong. Instead listen to what they have to say.

Many men feel that women are too emotional, and that may be true, but so what? Work with her feelings by being understanding and tolerant of those feelings. After you have validated her feelings, then if you have a second opinion or something else to add, by all means, do so. But don’t run away from her, or don’t tell her how emotional she is. She doesn’t want to hear that from you. Be productive in your expression and communication.

Women feel that men clam up or become distant and negative when they are emotional. How can we help our man? By being our man’s right arm. This is what God intended for the married woman. God gave us women the insight and talents to be our husband’s helpmate. A man’s talent lies elsewhere, like providing for financially and protecting his family from harm.

So how can we not let those pesky emotions control the way we think and feel? By being positive and productive with how we are feeling.

1. Don’t become chameleons of each other

It is so easy to turn into a couple of chameleons with each other. Your husband comes home in a bad mood, and what do you do? Lash back with the same attitude. Now what do we have? A pair of bulls with bad attitudes butting heads with each other.

Next time your spouse decides they are going to have a bad attitude, go ahead and let them have a bad attitude, don’t fight it. You certainly do not need to have one too. Try instead to be understanding of your spouses negative emotions by applying kind expression. Ask them how you can help? Remember we are not a mirror of the person we married. We can allow negative attitudes to bounce right off of us and turn it into something productive. Try it! You’ll see that it works.

We women are the right arms to our husband’s. That’s what we were created for. That means we’re to help our grouchy husband’s to see that they really did marry a kind-hearted woman who cares. So, how do we show him what he can do to improve the marriage on his end? That’s easy, through our own nice attitude and not by trying to change his. How productive is that? Very!

2. Communicate feelings properly

Ironically, we communicate feelings improperly when we have a bad attitude. With the bad attitude comes improper emotions’ controlling the outcome of our communication. Now we have a communication breakdown taking hold of the marriage, and this is when marriage gets derailed from the positive outlook it needs for proper nurturing and care.

A good marriage needs understanding, acceptance, trust, and giving. But improper communication mixed with bad attitude and emotions halt these productive actions from happening.

I highly encourage couples to take hold of their marriage by learning proper techniques to control their emotions and express themselves productively for improving the marriage.

Healthy communication during an argument should always be directed towards self and not directed toward your spouse. Give each other time to express what they have to say without interrupting. Do not finger point and blame. Don’t run away or act like the victim. Be thoughtful and accepting of your spouse’s faults. Stop trying to control the person you married. Learn to be productive with your feelings, using them in positive ways rather than negative.

We all have the capabilities of being productive and fruitful in our marriage; it just takes a little bit of effort on our part to work at those areas that need a little extra TLC. Try to not base the marriage upon the negative of what you see in the world but on the positive and beautiful of what God created for us.

Feed your marriage with godly wisdom and it will grow and blossom into what God meant for marriage to be. You and your spouse are the two legs holding up the marriage, when one leg falls, work on what you can do to repair the broken leg and support the marriage upon the design of the Master.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. James 1:19-20

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How Should We Pray?

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This then is how you should pray:  (Matthew 6:9 NIV)

Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name (Matthew 6:9 NIV)

God is our loving Father and is not only majestic and holy, but also a personal and loving God. God is in Spirit everywhere and to all people all the time. When we become believers, we are making a personal commitment to honor His holy name in everything that we do. It is not our achievements but the workings of God in us.  

Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven. (Matthew 6:10 NIV)

When Jesus says, “Your Kingdom Come” He is referring to His spiritual reign right here and now on earth! God’s Kingdom was made known as far back as the covenant with Abraham. (Matthew 8:11 NIV) And is present in believers hearts and minds today. Jesus Christ is King right now!

“The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” (Luke 17:20,21 NIN)

When we pray “Your will be done on earth as in heaven” we are putting forward God’s purpose for our lives to be done on earth as well as in heaven.  We are praying that God take over and direct us and we’ll follow. We are essentially praying to God that He fulfill His purpose for our lives. We trust in God with all of our being and are ready to do what He thinks is best for us, and not what we think is best for us. As Christians we should behave like God’s children and carry out His will and not our own.

Give Us Today, Our Daily Bread (Matthew 6:11 NIV)

Where do you get your answers to life’s problems? When you’re hungry who do you turn to? Does God sustain and provide for your spiritual needs or do you go to some other source? Where do you get your daily bread? In this verse, we are asking God to give us His direction for our lives. Gods loving goodness should sustain all believers.

Forgive Us Our Debts, As We Also Have Forgiven Our Debtor’s (Matthew 6:12 NIV)

This is referring to not just monetary debts but our sins. Jesus speaks of daily forgiveness, which is necessary to reinstate broken relationship with God. The basic theme of the NT is on learning to forgive and forgive others, and is something we need to do on a daily basis. Jesus is our example to follow on how to forgive others.

And Lead Us Not Into Temptation, But Deliver Us From The Evil One. (Matthew 6:13 NIV)

God certainly will not lead us into temptation, but sometimes he allows us to be tested by temptations.  As believers, we should pray daily to be delivered from temptations and from Satan’s destructive ways. All Christians struggle with temptations at times. Sometimes it is so subtle that we don’t even realize that we have sinned. But God has promised us that we will never be tempted beyond what we can bear. (1 Corinthians 10:13) We should earnestly pray to God to give us the strength to overcome our sins and choose Gods way instead.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have seen their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  (Matthew 6:5,6 NIV)

 

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. A Lawyer and a Newfoundlander

A lawyer and a Newfoundlander are sitting next to each other on a long flight. The lawyer asks if he would like to play a fun game. The Nflder is
tired and just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and tries to catch a few winks. The lawyer persists, that the game is a lot of fun. "I
ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me only $5; you ask me one, and if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500."

This catches the Nflder's attention and to keep the lawyer quiet, agrees to play the game. The lawyer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" The guy doesn't say a word, reaches in his pocket pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer. Now, it's the Nflder's turn. He asks the lawyer, "What goe
s up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?" The lawyer uses his laptop, searches all references. He uses the Air phone; he searches the Net and even the Library of Congress. He sends e-mails to all the smart friends he knows, all to no avail. After one hour of searching he finally gives up. He wakes up the guy and hands him $500. The Nflder pockets the $500 and goes right back to sleep.

The lawyer is going nuts not knowing the answer. He wakes the guy up and asks, "Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?" The Nflder reaches in his pocket, hands the lawyer $5 and goes back to sleep.

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I hope you enjoyed the Heaven Ministries Marriage Alive Newsletter! 

Take care. God bless!

As always, comments and questions are welcome.   

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