GPS to a Joyful Marriage

From my second favorite book, "Jesus Calling": May 25 "THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH YOU, My child.  Your mind leaps from problem to problem to problem, tangling your thoughts in anxious knots.  When  you think like that, you leave Me out of your worldview and your mind becomes darkened.  Though I yearn to help, I will not violate your freedom.  I stand silently in the background of your mind, waiting for you to remember that I am with you.   When you turn from your problems to My Presence, your load is immediately lighter.  Circumstances may not have changed, but we carry your burdens together.  Your compulsion to "fix" everything gives way to deep, satisfying connection with Me.  Together we can handle whatever this day brings.  Isaiah 41:10, Zephaniah 3:17, Psalm 34:19

My life has been in quite an upheaval for me the past few weeks as my son-in-law and brother are both in the hospital fighting infection in their bodies.  I spent a week in Miami to help my daughter and to be there for the surgery on her husband.  I came home last Monday evening via train, in which my hotspot on my phone refused to work so I didn’t get to my blog last week.  When I picked up my brother on Tuesday for a urology appointment, I was surprised to see how ill he was.  I then took him home to stay with me, after his appointment, as he had become too much for my eighty-three year old mother to handle. (He’s 6’5”, 250 pounds and handicapped – she’s 5’3” and 130 pounds.)  He has been in the hospital since Friday now, after an ambulance ride to the ER, and will be having surgery this week when a blood infection clears up. One thought that has jumped out so clearly to me this past week is that the little stuff just doesn’t matter when you have a family member, or two,

We live in a crazy time of electronics where many of us spend the entire day in front of a computer screen of some sort.  Although we can now do almost anything at the touch of our IPhone, we are jeopardizing relationships because of the attention we give to those screens.  Hours quickly pass before we know it, and we’ve neglected our spouse and family.  Here are a few suggestions to keep this from happening. 1.  Find a time to rationally discuss the issue.  Don’t do it when you’re mad because your spouse has neglected you for the third night in a row, or when you have had a rough day dealing with the kids or work, or when either of you is tired, hungry or not feeling well. 2.  Agree to set boundaries for computer time and to work on not getting offended when your spouse asks you to turn off the electronics. As for the spouse doing the asking, watch your tone of voice.  You could try putting your hand on their arm and saying, “Honey, when you have a minute, I have something