marriage Archives

Sharing Your Faith with Boldness

In 2014, brothers David and Jason Benham were considered the next stars of the HGTV cable channel. Their show Flip It Forward was expected to be as successful as Chip and Joanna Gaines’ show, Fixer Upper.

However, five weeks into a 10-week film shoot – and just months away from airing the first episode – David and Jason were fired. HGTV executives said activist organizations had begun confronting the channel and targeting advertisers. The reason?

The Benham brothers are unabashedly vocal about social issues related to marriage and pro-life values.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, marriage, pro-life October 22, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Friends Helping Friends: Identifying Abuse in Marriage

There’s a good chance that you know someone at church or at work who feels trapped in an abusive marriage. Three-quarters of Americans know someone who is a victim of domestic violence. According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 1 in 4 women experience severe physical violence from an intimate partner.

As that person’s friend, you’re in a natural position to help. A lot of people in abusive relationships won’t seek out a counselor, but they will talk with a trusted friend.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: marriage October 20, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Keeping Your Family Healthy

On our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Keeping Your Family Healthy,” we’re talking with Dr. Scott James, author of the book, God Cares for Me: Helping Children Trust God When They’re Sick.

He’s a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. He’s also a member of Focus on the Family’s Physicians Resource Council, a great team of physicians and medical professionals who volunteer their time to advise us about medical issues that are most relevant to families.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family, marriage October 15, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Breathe Spiritual Life into Your Marriage

As followers of Christ, we believe that marriage is a symbol of something spiritual and sacred. In Ephesians 5:32, the apostle Paul calls marriage a “mystery” and compares it to Jesus’ relationship with the Church.

So why do so many of us allow ourselves to be distracted by the busyness of life instead of plumbing the depths of relational intimacy. There’s so much to do that we put our marriages and our children on autopilot while we tend to more “important” matters.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, marriage October 7, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Sharing the Load with Your Spouse

According to Psychology Today, 63% of people who say they feel lonely are currently married. Two people drive in the same car, sit at the same table, and sleep in the same bed … yet they feel worlds apart.

My colleague, Dr. Greg Smalley, discovered how lonely his wife, Erin, was after he spent a few weeks during the pandemic cooking family meals when their adult children moved home for a few months. Erin quickly wore out from trying to work and cook for the entire family.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family, marriage September 27, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Hope for Every Marriage

Jeff and Cheryl Scruggs were married for ten years.

The first time.

In their mid-twenties, Jeff and Cheryl moved to Los Angeles and lived a stereotypical California lifestyle. They were successful at their jobs. They made a lot of money. They even had an ocean-front home with all of the right stuff to fill it. Yet, their marriage was mostly empty.

Cheryl thought their lack of intimacy would eventually correct itself.

It didn’t.

She thought the birth of their twins would fill their emptiness.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: marriage September 21, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Thriving in the Early Years in Marriage

Most newlyweds view their marriage as an empty canvas. It’s a perfectly clean, white surface where a beautiful portrait of their marriage will appear.

The reality is usually quite different. Each of us enters into marriage with color already splashed across our canvas, colors that reflect a set of expectations we may not even realize we have. The influences on our marriage begin not during the dating phase or at the wedding, but with assumptions about relationships that are formed from childhood.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: marriage September 8, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Loving and Leading Your Strong Woman

Fire can cook you a juicy steak. Or it can burn your house to the ground. The difference lies in how well you harness the power of fire.

It’s the same with a strong will. There is a lot of good that comes from having what LeRoy and Kimberly Wagner describe as a “fierce” personality. But a strong-will gone wild can also wreak havoc.

If a woman isn’t in control of her strength, she can emasculate her husband.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: marriage August 24, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How Differences Strengthen Your Marriage

There’s a buzzword in culture that supposedly reveals the secret to a happy marriage.

“Chemistry.”

Successful relationships, we’re told, ultimately boil down to two people who naturally share common beliefs and interests, without effort.

Obviously, the more points of agreement between a husband and wife, the better. But in God’s economy, the secret to a thriving marriage isn’t in a couple’s similarities, but in how they handle their differences.

The same differences that so powerfully draw couples together when they’re courting or dating often drive them apart in marriage.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: marriage August 19, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Better Ways to Communicate with Your Spouse

“Mayday! Mayday!”

You recognize that distress call, don’t you? Even children have a rough idea of what it means. And the fact that they do reveals something important about effective communication.

The “mayday” distress code was designed to be simple and easy to understand. It was created in 1923 by Frederick Mockford, an airport radio officer in London, after his boss challenged him to devise a distress code that would easily be understood by pilots and ground staff in an emergency.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: marriage August 13, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura