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Pikesville Marriage Club is a part of the Family Life Department and exists to help celebrate the wonderful institution of marriage. We help to preserve the family by coming along side, encouraging, providing resources, events and an environment where families can thrive despite the many challenges we face today.
The club is very careful to respect confidentiality. We reach out to hurting people and draw from the strength of stronger and more experienced relationships as we following biblical guidelines for successfully marriages and also for those contemplating it. Once a month, the club meets and hosts a special guest speaker or reviews a book or watch a media presentation. Plans are in process for special outings and events of interest to married folks. We attend conferences, help to organized Family Life events and provide useful literature and material.
Email the Pikesville Marriage Club your comments, questions and suggestions or if you would like to be added to the confidential distribution list for notices: PikesvilleMarriageClub@gmail.com
We hope you will join us some time and encourage you to love your mate deeply.
-Pikesville Marriage Club-
Force Me Not
by Dr. Gary Chapman
Ever wonder what motivates your spouse's behavior? The answer lies in the hidden self - those inner physical emotional needs.
For example, the need for freedom. God designed us as decision makers. He could have made us puppets, but He didn't. Something deep within us says, "I should not be controlled by another. If I choose to serve you, fine, but don't force me."
There is a vast difference between service freely chosen and slavery.
In marriage, it is extremely important to keep this truth on the front burner.
If you wonder why your spouse gets defensive or angry when you announce that the two of you are going fishing this weekend, you now have your answer.
No one likes to be forced. Far better, to ask your spouse if they would like to go fishing with you this weekend. This doesn't violate their need for freedom.
When your wife wants to spend an evening shopping with her girl friends, and you get defensive and say, "Go ahead, leave me here alone again. You don't want to be with me anyway," you are failing to understand her need for freedom and she is failing to understand your need for love.
Today's article is based on the book, Desperate Marriages: Working Toward Hope and Healing in Your Relationship. For a complete listing of Dr. Chapman's books and resources, click here.
Bettering the Situation
by Mary Ann Cook
Once you've agreed to accept the changes that an at-home spouse brings and have begun to form a partnership with him, you're ready for the next step - Bettering.
Bettering means looking at the problems you face and deciding how to fix them.
Of course, you can't fix a problem if you don't know what it is. So at this point you need to ask yourself what it is about your present situation that really bothers you. "My spouse" is not an acceptable answer. You need more specifics.
Chances are that it's not your spouse you're unhappy with - but his habits, or the fact that he's around all day. One woman complained to me, "It's like having a two-year-old around again. He follows me everywhere, asking, "Whatcha doing? Where ya going?"
Once you determine what's really bothering you, make a list of the problems. Then choose two or three that you consider top priority and work on those.
What about the others? Try to ignore them. Dr. James Dobson's child-rearing advice applies to spouses as well: "Choose your battles carefully." Don't let an insignificant irritant ruin your relationship with your husband.
This article content is taken directly from Honey, I'm Home for Good! by Mary Ann Cook. Published by Tyndale and Focus on the Family, copyright 2003. Used by permission.
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| August 24 Are You My Mother? Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. Psalm 27:10 Many of us have read the old P. D. Eastman book Are You My Mother? to our children. But not many of us have had to grow up asking that question over and over again, to one person after another, growing increasingly convinced that no one was . . . or at least no one wanted to be. Yet that was life for Mattie. Born to a substance-abusing, unmarried teenager, she fell out of the nest at an early age after police stopped her mom’s car and found drugs inside. Both Mattie and her sister were placed into state custody and deposited in foster care. When the last family decided they didn’t want Mattie and her sister anymore, she finally decided—somewhere between eight and nine years old—that the mother she longed for was nowhere to be found. That was before Jenifer came into her life. With a family already bustling with two sons and a daughter, it would have been easy to ignore the nudge she and her husband were feeling from the Lord to adopt. Life was complicated enough without adding a new dynamic and personality type to the fold, with all the potential baggage the child would likely be bringing with her. But somewhere a little girl was toughening her heart against a question she had grown tired of asking—”Are you my mother?”—only to be told no every time. Mattie’s life is now filled with safety and stability and camping in the summer, with an extended family gathered around to give love and support to a young girl and her sister who once had neither. “I thank God every day that I was adopted,” she says, “because now I know who my mother is.” Discuss What could you and your church do to help orphans? Pray Pray for orphans in need . . . and for godly men and women who need to come to their aid. |