What do you do to escape the stress in your Christian Marriage? I’ve asked that question to countless women and I get a wide array of answers. Which was your first mental response?

• Denial – Claiming there’s no stress in her Marriage.
• Diversion – pointing out all the ways God grows us through stressful situations.
• Derision – Angry outbursts about how it’s really none of my business to ask such personal questions.

Let me be real with you for a sec. I am not the friend you sit and chat about shopping and meal planning about. Nope, I am the friend who asks the real questions; the personal questions, even the hard questions.

Do you have a Real friend in your life who will ask you those tough questions?

I ask the hard questions because I care about you. We live in a society of wives pretending to be fine. We tell the world around us that we are fine, even our friends at church get that wrong answer.
But if someone looks deeper would they see pain, misunderstandings, confusion or hopelessness inside your Marriage?
It doesn’t matter how you label that marriage. It could be a Christian Marriage, a Biblical Marriage or anything in between. We are a culture where 1 out of every 2 Marriages ends in divorce.
How have we come to accept that as a normal way of life?
Can we change that statistic? I believe we can!!!!!! It begins by being real about the real issues in our lives though. So I’m going to ask you that question again. This time I want you to let it settle into your heart and really listen to your answer.

What do you do to escape the stress in your Christian Marriage?

Stress is inevitable when two sinful people share a small space for years on end. Hurt happens, life happens, chaos happens. And if we don’t tackle each thing head on, it can build up leaving us to wonder why we ever got Married to begin with.

All the enemy needs is a sliver of doubt to get a foothold in your Marriage. We have to hold onto Hope.

For years I turned to entertainment when stress set in:

• reading
• movies
• social media
• Candy Crush (raising my hand)

Others have a hobby they pour themselves into or they direct attention to their children or friends.

I created distance when I turned to other things to manage the stress in my Christian Marriage.

God put a deep desire in my heart to Pray for our marriage (I love The Power of a Praying Wife). There is a scene in the book where she is imagining her life without her husband… and I realized my life would not be affected much if my husband left.
So much of my life had been built apart from him that our paths rarely needed to intersect.

Things had to change or our Marriage would not survive. We needed Hope!

I began to Think on Hope to Escape Stress in our Christian Marriage. It took time to change my thinking. To think the way (Philippians 4:8 NASB) calls us to think. Find out how to apply each word here:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Honestly, it wasn’t enough to just change my thinking, I had to change my habits to match.

1. I learned to forgive my husband for the hurts (Need help with that? Check out the Forgiveness Challenge)
2. Also, I had to step away from most entertainment.
   • TV, Reading Novels and most of my social media had to go for a season.
     • That may sound drastic but, I am here to tell you that we now talk and interact like we had not done in years. We are getting to know each other again and are committed to that.
3. We go out alone at least 2 times each month.
   • This is a great way to just enjoy each other – without the distraction of kids.
4. Last but not least, we study the Bible together.
   • For us, this looks like a study group (you may call it Sunday School). We study together and connect with other couples through it!

Stress still happens in our Marriage but now we have Hope

When I think Hope instead of turning away to ignore the stress we can work through it together! When I think hope, my behavior reflects Hope.
And even when our situation is hard and I can’t think lovely things or honorable things about my husband, I can think those things about the One True Hope – Jesus Christ. And that makes all the difference!

Are you longing for Hope and Joy in your Marriage?

God took me on a journey of re-learning how to live as a wife with a Biblical Worldview. It is a joy for me to teach and mentor locally and I am thrilled to launch this new Online Course.
In this 9 week Course, we will dig into the Bible and find out how to restore our Marriage – rebuilding it to Last a lifetime!

This Christian Marriage Course will include:

• 10 Self-paced video lessons
  • Love
  • Forgiveness
  • Desires Vs. Preferences
  • My Mouth
  • Appreciation & Admiration
  • The Leader
  • Understanding Men
  • Respect
  • My Priorities

• 9 weeks of personal study
  • 5 days each week that should take 10-15 minutes
• 45 Days of Prayer prompts

I am excited to giveaway 1 spot in the course! Enter Below.
in HIM,
Tiffany

Enter This Awesome Giveaway Here!

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About HopeJoyInChrist

Hi, I'm Tiffany; a wife, mom and Jesus Girl with a passion to Equip and Encourage moms and wives through Biblical Discipleship. If you are a wife who could use some Hope and Joy infused back into your Marriage I welcome you to join me for a Free Online Bible Study in January. More details here http://bit.ly/2AAKMt3