Month: February 2015

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The #1 To Guarantee to a Failed Marriage

I have the key that guarantees your marriage will fail. It is the number one cause of divorce, division, and devastation to the average American family.
Be selfish.
That’s all you have to do. You may be wondering, “…Why would you blog about  failure? Can’t we keep things light and happy?”
Note that oftentimes, my blogs take a positive approach. It recommends what people should do. But this blog is to help people realize what they shouldn’t do if they plan to have happy, successful, long lasting relationships.
When you’re selfish, you will not care for the other person’s mental, physical and emotional needs.
Loving them in their love language? Nope. You’ll insist on loving them with yours instead. Also, you’ll focus solely on your own needs and when that person doesn’t meet them, you’ll start pondering who or what could satisfy.
Here’s the deal: marriage isn’t even about you. It’s not about your spouse either. Your marriage is a reflection and representation of Christ’s love for the church. Regardless of how you feel, you have an obligation to love your spouse passionately, unconditionally, and in a way that they receive love.
When you’re selfish, you won’t care about teamwork:
Let’s take house work for example. This can actually work one of two ways. The first way it could play out is if someone isn’t pulling their weight. When one is selfish, why would they help clean up around the house? After all, they’ve had a long day and they feel their spouse should understand!
The other way this could go is when someone does too much with the wrong intentions.
They may do all of the housework in order to have leverage in an unrelated argument later on down the line. They are just waiting for the right moment to say “I do this, this, this, this, aaaaand this! YOU OWE ME.”
Marriage works best when the two individuals are not just teammates but friends.
Constantly battling for power is a recipe for disaster. The husband may be the head of the household, but the wife is the neck that supports Him and makes things work.
 
When you’re selfish, you’ll get that feeling that you always need to be right…Every. Single. Time.
And you’ll make sure it happens by any means necessary. What’s worst is when you know something isn’t a big deal, but you desire to be right so much that you make it into a bigger deal than it ever needed to be. Your relationship will be categorized as one that is difficult and exhausting.
You may love one another, but you won’t like each other.
My pastor mentioned something profound once. He said, “I’ve never humbled myself and lost an argument.” The reason that many relationships suffer from selfishness is because of pride.
But whenever you approach things with humility instead of pride, you’re guaranteed to win. Sometimes winning is not about who’s right or wrong. Instead, it may be agreeing to disagree for the sake of peace.
How does your marriage compare?
Am I highlighting areas in your life that are hitting close to home? There’s no better time to evaluate than now. But evaluation doesn’t start looking at the whole. It starts with a different type of “self centered” approach. Begin with you, your relationship with Christ, and improving areas you can control.

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Engaged Home Marriage

Why I am Proud to be Married

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Dating/Courting Engaged Marriage

3 Biblical Truths about Submitting to Your Husband

1) Submission is about alignment
Every single time I have failed to submit to my husband, my plans have backfired. If I’m ever stubborn, or if I trust my own leadership, there are negative consequences. These are not always immediate consequences, but they’re consequences often times seen months later than the decision. This happens both naturally and supernaturally.
I have a small-scale example of this. Throughout our marriage, all 8 months of it, my husband has been asking me to wear a head scarf to bed. He’s asked this of me because it keeps my hair out of his face. I would never do it because I was too lazy to get out of bed, find the scarf and wrap my hair. I never would have imagined something so small making much of a difference in my life.
Lately, although, I’ve begun wearing the head scarf to bed. What have I found? Instead of having stubborn alfalfa hairs that stick up no matter what amount of heat or large helping of product can fix, and instead of taking 15 minutes on my hair in the morning, my hair takes 5 minutes, tops. My hair lays flat and is easily manageable.
My head scarf experience is also very symbolic of the scripture:

1 Corinthians 11:3-5 The head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. A man dishonors his head if he covers his head while praying or prophesying. But a woman dishonors her head if she prays or prophesies without a covering on her head, for this is the same as shaving her head. Yes, if she refuses to wear a head covering, she should cut off all her hair! 

In our culture, we do not wear head coverings. Women’s wearing of head coverings was once a cultural religious practice that is symbolic of women’s submission to their husbands. But when I put my head scarf on at night, I put the symbolism into practice. I think of the act as saying to my husband: “I trust your leadership and I care about how well you sleep. I trust that even when I take and extra step to serve you, blessing is coming. I’m submitted to you.”
Now this is a very natural example. Other spiritual examples are too personal to share, but I’ve learned time and time again that blessings come, naturally and supernaturally, when a wife is in alignment with her husband, and her husband is in alignment with Christ.
2) Submission is for your protection
Women were designed physically weaker than men. We don’t have huge biceps, we’re often shorter and smaller in stature. Women were also designed emotionally weaker than men. Women are more prone to cry. They’re typically more sensitive. They can become hormonal around menstruation and during pregnancy.  Men are called to spiritual leadership because God has created women to be more fragile. God has created women to be protected.

1 Peter 3:7 In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.

Women are the weaker vessel. We are certainly equal. We are certainly powerful. We are certainly strong. But we are more at risk for attack while not submitted to our husbands. Satan will prey on the weak link in order to derail a marriage. He will most often not try to attack the head of a marriage first, which is the husband, but he will often take jabs at the woman to get to the man, in order to destroy the marriage.
This is why submission is so important. Submission gives your husband an opportunity to spiritually protect you. Satan can obliterate the spiritual life of a wife who stands independent of her husband’s leadership, because her stubbornness gives him an opportunity to attack while she remains uncovered by the protection of her husband. When a wife is submitted to her husband, Satan has to go through the husband to get to the wife. When a husband is submitted to Christ, Satan has to go through Christ to get to the husband to get to the wife. Submission ultimately protects you.
3) Submission is a display of power
Unity ultimately brings marriage its power. When the husband is in submission to Christ and the wife is submitted to the husband, a three-strand cord is created.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Wives, you have less power alone than you have with your husband and Christ. Submission ultimately strengthens the spiritual power that a marriage holds through unity. If you only remember one thing from this article remember this: Divided we fall, united we stand.

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Finding Love

There is no mistaking I grew up with a very distorted view on love. My parents divorced when I was only four years old & something went awry from there.
Without knowing their story I cannot blame them for what went wrong. But something did. Somewhere in their love story something was lost, and I inevitably went looking for it.
I didn’t go looking for what went amiss in their love story, but I went looking for a way to fulfill my own. I always ended up in the wrong place, but I kept looking anyway.

And, one day it hit me.

How do I even know there is more to love than what my parents showed me?
Why do I think there is more?
I had only ever known my parents as being divorced and logically I should have been okay with that. They were the ones who modeled what marriage was (or wasn’t) and that is what I should have seen as acceptable for my own life.
Except I didn’t.
It wasn’t until recently that I started to realize just what it means when God says He knew me before I was even born. As I began to recall back on situations that caused hurt in my life God started to reveal to me where He was in each of those moments.

When I was kicking and screaming in my bedroom doorway, “no one loves me!”, God loved me and in a very real way He was that doorway standing strong, framing my life.
When I was kicked out of my house at 13 I felt rejected and damaged; Yet God provided a safe place for me to go, and He accepted me in my brokenness.
When I lost my virginity at 15 I thought I had found love. But when my reality was crushed by truth that I had been used for a “game” I contemplated if life was worth living. And, it was then, as I sat on the edge of my bed with a piece of glass in my hand, that God planted a deep seed in my heart that stopped me from ever causing physical harm to my body.

So, ask yourself. How do you know there is more to love than what has been modeled before you?
What tells you that love is more than what you have ever experienced?
The day I decided to open my heart to God He showed me I was right all along to believe in a better love. And, ever since that day I have felt whole. I no longer feel like I am missing something because I know the creator of love, and He has fulfilled the void in my life that I so desperately wanted for 20 years. I am married now, but my search for love was completed before my husband ever proposed.
I encourage you today to ask yourself if you have ever experienced true love. And, not the kind of love they sell you in movies or books. The kind of love that no human can fulfill, but the kind of love that cannot be explained because it far surpasses all understanding.

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Engaged Home Marriage

Four Things A Wife Should Hear From Her Husband Every Day

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FREE Giveaway! Ticket to the "Steve Harvey Act Like a Success" Conference

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It’s March 6-8, 2015 in the Washington, DC area and people have already registered from all across the country and Canada. Don’t miss your opportunity to network and connect with powerful people and set yourself up to achieve your biggest goals this year.
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Dating/Courting Engaged Home

What God Said to Me When I Was Single on Valentine's Day

I know today is Valentine’s Day, and I remember how it was for me on Valentine’s Day when I was single. I would always go to God and ask Him if this would be my last Valentine’s Day without a Valentines.
Nothing wrong with being honest with God! He loves when we pour our heart out to Him as long as we are ready for His response.
Well, each year I would get the same reply from God,”Let me do my job, and you do yours”.
Well, my job was to continue preparing myself to be the best me that God had destined me to be for my future wife. And, that is exactly what I did. I did intentional things to prepare myself for marriage.
It is easy for us to think we don’t play a part in the season of waiting on our spouse, but we play a major part.  Believing and trusting God is step 1, but taking action and preparing is step 2.  The bible says in James that faith without works is dead.
Everything you do before you say, “I Do” is preparation for marriage. 
Preparing for my marriage was one of the best decisions I made because now being married I am seeing the results each day as I grow to love my wife more and more each day.
In honor of Valentine’s Day I want to offer you my Amazon best selling book, 25 Ways to Prepare for Marriage Other than Dating half off the regular cost. This book was written straight from the things I did to prepare myself for marriage.  It has helped thousands become intentional to maximize their season of singleness for the glory of God! 
This deal is ONLY GOOD FOR TODAY! At midnight I will take this offer down. So don’t miss out!
Go now and prepare yourself for one of the most important decisions you will ever make in your life.

Click Here to see the special offer! 

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Marriage Physical Intimacy

Romance Your Hubby This Valentine's Day With the 5 Senses

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Dating/Courting Home

Why You Should Stop Waiting?

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Why You Should Stop Waiting?

It seems like the dawn of day will never come, well at least with me it does when the agonizing diminishing minutes of waiting in the Starbucks line drag on for what seems like an eternity. You scroll through the news feed, you check your Instagram, you take a selfie or two (don’t even try to deny that you haven’t done this its just sad) and sweetly jam to whatever blasts its way into the speakers of your car. Waiting.
Then you finally reach the glorious window to grab the drink you just felt like you went through a marathon of tribulation to get! It tastes just as good as you thought it would and you realize you carried on with life in the waiting. You continued to be. The drink came just like you knew it would without a second thought. And all the while you carried on living life in its entirety because of one great assurance; the reward for the wait would be there in the end.
Now I know that is an infinitely grand symbolism to relate the relationship woes of singles to the steamed Starbucks lattes we savor, but stay with me I promise I’ll whip up a delight for you in the end.
WAITING
Webster’s states the word waiting as a period of time spent inactive or stationary. For many singles the ideology behind being in the season of waiting means being inactive or dormant to life. We should just await the arrival of his or her significant other, or the the next season of life when in reality Jesus came to “give life and life more abundantly.” Jesus didn’t sacrifice himself in hopes that during the “waiting” season of our lives we would expel ourself from living it.
In 2 Peter 1:2 it states, “Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God.” God wants us to have peace in the grace of the season He has us in. When we are celebrating in the season of our singleness He means for us to stop waiting in the literal since of giving up life and wait in the beauty of His assurance, the assurance of the great reward awaiting in the end of our season.Whether that is moving into a new season of singleness, a new relationship, a new place to live etc. When we stop looking to the next season to make life better and start seeing Jesus for all He has and is in the now. We settle in the peace of the grace of the present. 
SEEING SINGLENESS
Singleness is to be lived. Not waited out in agony of finally being done like a math test or credit card application. Singleness isn’t about the pursuit of “finding the one.” Singleness is to be savored like a Starbucks frappe on a hot day. It’s to be lived in its fullness to grasp the great grace; knowledge and truth the Lord wants to extend to us.
When the choice to choose forever with the right person does come, (if marriage is even the end result for what God has for you) that its viewed through a season which was lived out in love and light not one waited out in disillusion and depression.
Singleness isn’t to be viewed with bitterness and sarcasm such as, “All good things come to those who wait”, I sure hope so because if I’m waiting for bad this is going to suck. “Why are you still single”, because becoming a magician was taken? Singleness should be a place on the journey where books are read, road trips are made at midnight, community is at your core, relationships with sisters or brothers in Christ are deepened, laughter is abundantly more, where dreams are drawn up and accomplished by the droves. Stop waiting for life to start or force people into a place which hasn’t yet been established for them in your life because you are so tired and exhausted of the process we’ve deemed waiting.
STOP WAITING
Hear me out please, I am not saying throw in the towel and go completely off the cliff of your foundations and cornerstone of standards. I am saying though stop claiming singleness as a dead, dormant dry season meant to be the end of all ends until you get to the mountain top. Instead change the viewpoint of singleness to be lived out not waited out. Let life be enjoyed, let God become more savored and let love most of all nourish and grow in the living out of the waiting.
“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully? Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians 3:16-19
This verse to me is the motto us as singles should be holding onto in a season where Christ longs to make His home in our hearts and bring us to trusting in Him even more for filling the space where our future mate will capture one day. But in the mean time letting God’s love grow deep in us to keep us faithful and strong. And this is the very best part so we can have fullness of life! A season of waiting isn’t death. It wasn’t meant to wait out with dread and expectations of lack. It is meant to be lived in the fullness of life, to be enjoyed to the utmost all the while increasing our faith and hope in the assurance of the end result that God is ever faithful in His promises to us!

 If we are just waiting to wait out the waiting we are waiting our life to death.

And when we finally start living the waiting fades in time and we soon realize the reward came just at the perfect time and we arrive to the window of goodness, exceedingly abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. A future full of promise and the reward of all that our sweet heavenly Father promised us. And it just so happens to beat out a good Starbucks drink any day. Don’t you think?
 
Written By: Angela Groce

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Dating/Courting Engaged Home

Set the Foundation for Love with Honesty

My husband and I met in person at Central Park. Our business conversation quickly turned into a conversation about everything else. As he walked me to the train (after his attempt to kiss me) he stared at every movement my large lips made. I kindly asked him not to do that because it made me uncomfortable as most full-liped ladies would know. Now that I think back to that encounter, I wonder if he was looking at my lips or mesmerized by the things I said to him.
As I said in a previous article, he told me he loved me just days after meeting me. Thinking back now, I know that we were at the most vulnerable points in our lives and were able to be honest. Honesty is most important when trying to develop a relationship with someone. It is even more important than having things in common and spending quality time. It’s definitely more important than playing the so-called game of “trapping the man.”
We’ve all done it: try to find ways to get him to put a ring on it. But it is impossible to make him want you if you aren’t being yourself. The best way to show him who you really are is by the words you use. Don’t be afraid to voice what you are looking for in a relationship. You don’t want to run him off with your long list of demands but be candid about the type of relationship that you want. Make sure that you are clear that you want a monogamous relationship that can possibly lead to marriage. Why waste time? In the past, I’ve told guys that I just want to keep it casual when I really wanted to say, “I want to have your babies.” Although, God allowed me to be fearless enough to say that to my husband on our first date, I could have kept that to myself. The thing that I did let him know, which was the right thing to do was that I was tired of mindlessly dating. Yes, I was young (20) but I was tired of having a broken heart. I made sure to let God know and let him know.
I was honest but I wasn’t demanding—not at first anyway. I simply explained to the man I knew I wanted to marry, that I don’t casually date and that I hoped that the next man I was monogamous with was going to be the last person that I was with. I assured him that I was not pressuring him into anything but I wanted to be open with him. I didn’t want to date him under false pretenses and I didn’t want him to do that to me either. He appreciated my honesty and felt like he could be honest as well. It turned out that he was tired of just dating too. He was actually considering marrying someone else if he didn’t meet the right one by age 30. He appreciated that he met me before he made the mistake of marrying the wrong one.
Though it may be early in a relationship consider that the early days are your building days. These are the days that you are constructing the foundation for a long-lasting love. Love can only exist in an honest place. Its foundations must be biblical in order to thrive. “The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.” (Proverbs 18:21) You have the power to speak life into your relationship by being honest so be mindful of the words that you speak to your potential spouse. Also, be careful not to be demanding; that is a good way to run him off. Don’t think that as soon as you talk about your intentions for your future that you should start planning your wedding. “4Love is patient and kind…6 It does not demand its own way.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-6) It just means that you’re not wasting anymore time in relationships that aren’t going in the right direction.