love

Relaunch your marriage!

Squadron of Sisters (Debbie Chavez) Leave a comment

Some of you have had a rough couple of months or couple of years in your marriage.  You may have a mountain-size load of resentment toward your husband.  Perhaps your husband also holds a gigantic amount of resentment toward you.  If this is you….if you find yourself in the pit of despair regarding your marriage, I want to encourage you to blow up that marriage.  Yep.  You heard me right.  Blow up your marriage in order to start fresh and build a better one, with the same husband!

Sometimes, we just need to start over when something in our lives has gone terribly wrong.  However, our first impulse is to throw out the whole thing; to discard the thing that has brought heartache and disappointment.  But that doesn’t give God any room to work, and that attitude basically lets both your husband and you off the hook in terms of making any changes in how you do relationships.   If you toss out your existing marriage, you’ll just bring the same dysfunctional patterns into your next relationship.

So, how about completely resetting your marriage?  Listen to what God says in Isaiah 43:18-19 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland”.  What if you were to apply those words to your marriage?  The devil wants to keep you focused on past hurts.  That way you will be forever stuck.  Don’t fall for his evil plot against you!  Starting today, stop dwelling on the past, sit down with your husband and ask him if he would be willing to start afresh, with BOTH of you putting actual daily effort into blessing the other, serving the other, speaking the other’s love language, and showing care for the other.  This attitude shift can accomplish absolutely amazing things!

Learning to truly love God

Squadron of Sisters (Debbie Chavez) Leave a comment

Many Christians are familiar with the verses in Matthew 22:37-38 where Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment.   Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 

Well, I’ve been asked lately about how to develop this actual love for God.  You see, it’s very difficult to truly love someone you’ve never experienced.  You and I must experience the Lord’s power and love for ourselves in order to truly fall in love with Him.  Otherwise, we have head knowledge from the Bible, but no heart knowledge!

Looking back at my own journey with Christ, I realized that I’ve grown to truly love Him as I earnestly sought His help through prayer and then saw Him answer those prayers in loving and powerful ways. I experienced God!

 So, I urge you to begin seeking the Lord with your whole heart.  Come to Him with your deepest needs, but make sure you’ve done your best to obey Him first.  After all, God says in James 5:16 that the “prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective”.  So, in other words, God powerfully responds to the person who truly seeks to obey His commands and follow His promptings.  After you’ve done all you can do to obey the Lord, pray earnestly for His help.  When He shows up, take notice!  God just connected with you and allowed you to experience His love, power and help!  Now, you have heart knowledge of the Lord!  Now you see how amazing God truly is and you start to really fall in love with Him!

Love language mistakes

Squadron of Sisters (Debbie Chavez) Leave a comment

Many of you are probably familiar with the 5 love languages as explained by Christian counselor and author Gary Chapman, but I’m pretty sure that many of us are making some mistakes when trying to use the “love languages”.

Before I go any further, let me explain the theory of the love languages and give a brief description of each one.  The idea is that every person has one or two prominent ways that they receive the message they are loved by the other person in the relationship.  Also, if the other person fails to communicate in your dominant “love language”, you may feel unloved. The 5 love languages are:  word of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, physical touch, and gifts.

Here’s where a lot of us make a mistake.  We tend to try to communicate love to the other person in the love language that we prefer….the particular way that makes us feel loved….even though that may not be the other person’s love language at all!  It’s a natural tendency to want to give love in the way that seems meaningful to you.  However, it may not mean much of anything to that other person if that’s not their primary love language!   The Bible tells us in Romans 12:10 Be devoted to one another in love.  But that doesn’t mean devote yourself to showing love in the way YOU want to receive it!

I had that light bolt realization the other day.  I was feeling kind of frustrated because my attempts to show love to my husband seemed to fall flat, to go unnoticed, and to be totally unappreciated.  What?  Then I stepped back and realized I was trying to show love in my love language, not his!  Duh!  I also realized that I was expending a lot of energy trying to communicate love in a way that really wasn’t important to him.  Have you been doing the same thing?  Maybe it’s time to talk with the other person about which love language is most meaningful to him and then start actually speaking that particular love language instead of your own!  It will save you time, energy, and frustration, and it will bring the message of love to him!

Perspective can change your marriage

Squadron of Sisters (Debbie Chavez) Leave a comment

I’ve noticed something really interesting as I’ve interacted with hundreds of wives over the years.   The women who typically have the strongest, longest-lasting marriages are the women who CHOOSE to focus on what is right with their husbands instead of what is wrong.  These women also seem to have the most joy and contentment.  Wow.  Wouldn’t we all like that?!

Obviously, if your husband has a pattern of sinning against you, Jesus instructs you to lovingly but firmly confront him and request changes.  If your husband doesn’t repent, you’ll want to bring others into the situation to put loving pressure on him to change.  If he stubbornly refuses to stop the pattern of sin, God may instruct you to even separate from him until he shows a willingness to change.  By the way, all these instructions are found in Matthew 18:15-17.

However, my main point is this.  Often, our husbands aren’t actually engaging in a pattern of destructive sin against us. They’re just annoying us, or disappointing us, or failing to make us feel loved in the way we want them to!  At that point, we get to choose our perspective.  We can either dwell on the way our husbands disappoint and frustrate us, or we can focus on their good qualities.  Philippians 4:8 comes to mind.  I also find Proverbs 19:11 to be instructive.  Here it is in the Amplified translation:  “Good sense and discretion make a man slow to anger, and it is his honor and glory to overlook a transgression or an offense [without seeking revenge and harboring resentment].”

Focusing on what is “right” with your husband will not only bless him and bring strength to your marriage, but it will also bring peace, joy and contentment to your own heart.  It’s a triple win!

** or view this topic as a 3 minute VIDEO BELOW

What men need to feel loved

Squadron of Sisters (Debbie Chavez) Leave a comment

You’ve probably heard of the “Five Love Languages”. It’s something Christian author and psychologist Gary Chapman figured out about how people are wired in terms of receiving love. The love languages are: words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, quality time, and gifts. Well, here’s something I’ve learned after talking with many wives whose husbands have completed the love language assessment. Almost all men have “physical touch” as one of their top 2 love languages.

Ladies, this means your husband craves not just sex, but little signs of physical affection throughout the day. When you do these small things, he feels loved by you. So, why wouldn’t you give him the physical affection that you know would bless him? By purposely withholding what he needs to feel loved, could it be that we’re actually sinning? Listen to what God says in James 4:17: “If anyone knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” Oh my.

Here are several ideas on how you can communicate love through physical touch. Reach out to hold his hand as you walk through the store. Give him a 20 second neck and shoulder rub as you’re walking by. Pinch his tush as he walks through the kitchen. Lean over his shoulder while he’s on the computer and give him a kiss. Rest your hand on his leg while you’re sitting together on the couch watching TV. Run your fingers through his hair. These small acts of physical touch are totally easy and yet they mean so much to most husbands. Try it!