Do you ever waste time with your spouse?
That may seem like an odd question. But your answer will get to the heart of what your relationship with your spouse is all about.
You see, some couples don’t do too well with “wasting” time with one another. Simply being together with no particular agenda and nothing to focus their attention on except their spouse is uncomfortable.
In other words, they have a hard time with intimacy.
Of course, couples can have intimacy in the midst of activity, but in far too many marriages, the activity itself becomes the point, not the relationship.
As you’ll hear on today and tomorrow’s broadcast, that was the case for Paul and Melody Westbrook.
Theirs is an age-old story. He was a driven man who found his worth and identity in his work. He felt comfortable in a room full of people, but not alone with his wife. Time with Melody had to have a purpose, a reason to be together other than simply enjoying her presence. He had never learned to appreciate her for her.
As the years rolled on, Melody felt more and more ignored and unimportant, and her resentment ate away at her love for Paul.
Their marriage finally hit a wall, and neither one was sure it could be saved. In a last-ditch effort to find common ground, they agreed to attend an intensive conducted by the National Institute of Marriage. A counselor asked them a provocative question, one I’d like to ask you if your marriage is in a similar spot as the Westbrooks’: “If God were to do a miracle in your marriage, would you be open to that?”
I encourage you to listen to our program today, “Healing Our Hurting Marriage.” The Westbrooks’ story is so compelling because of this one simple truth: God can bring the same restoration into your relationship as He did in theirs.
The path to recovery may not seem clear to you, but that slim thread of hope is why we brought the National Institute of Marriage (NIM) under the umbrella of Focus on the Family. Our goal is to help couples find the healing they can’t find on their own. And it works.
No matter how hopeless you feel, it’s rarely too late to save your marriage. That’s not just an empty promise. Most of the couples who contact NIM have reached the last knot in the rope. In fact, many of the couples have already filed for divorce.
But the percentage of people who attend one of their intensives and remained married is 85 percent.
So if you’re feeling hopeless and are contemplating divorce – or maybe you’ve even filed the paperwork – I encourage you to reconsider for a moment. With a little guidance from our team of experts, God can intervene and transform your marriage in ways that may seem impossible to you right now. Give our National Institute of Marriage a call at 1-866-875-2915 or visit online at nationalmarriage.com.
In the meantime, join us for our programs with Paul and Melody Westbrook on your local radio station. Or hear their story anytime online or via our free, downloadable mobile phone app.
Paul is the senior pastor of a church in Illinois that he and Melody planted back in 1991. I think you’ll appreciate their humility and vulnerability, and I believe you’ll find that small ray of hope you need to believe that God can rescue your marriage, too.
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