i Ascribe

In my recent delvation into marriage advice, the subject of forgiveness has come up to some questions, so i thought i would do a spot on what forgiveness is.  And to get the best information, we have to go to the one who knows how to forgive:  Jesus. Jesus, God's Son, paid the physical penalty for our sins, the sins of all man, when He died on the cross, paying in advance, for every sin YOU and I would ever commit.  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, and you have accepted His payment for your sin and agreed to live a life submitted to Him, then you are obligated to forgive those who sin against you. For the sake of some limited entertainment value, i'm going to paraphrase the parable of the unforgiving servant, told in Matthew, chapter 18. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ King Kindly and like a Gobillion Dollars There once was a king, (we'll call him King Kindly 'cause names are helpful when telling a story), and he has a lot of servants, and apparently he...

Somewhat recently, i had a conversation with a 65-ish year-old friend of mine at work, at the end of which, she told me that my husband and i should consider being marriage counselors. Well, after 13 years of marriage, i'm confident we aren't qualified to be marriage counselors. But "on the other hand," sang Tevia, i look around me.  I talk to people.  More often, i listen to people.  And i observe that the marriage my husband and i have is significantly healthier and happier than 60% of the marriages around me, young marriages and old marriages alike.  So i wonder if i could be helpful. Then "on the other other hand," well, maybe that's too many hands...but marriage has been on my heart a LOT lately.  I want to have a way to influence people's ideas about marriage.  I think the world has had way too much influence on the concept of what it means to be married, and there are so few of us left who think marriage is forever, that we have to ...

There are many musings in my mind today.  We will see if i can wrangle any of them in to something worth reading. ". . . Marriage, that blessed arrangement, that dream within a dream . . . Love, true love, will follow you forever. . . " (quote from "The Princess Bride," minus the pronunciation changes)  Sadly, i don't know too many people who think so positively about marriage these days.  It seems like the most complicated situation in anyone's life.  So much so that only something like 50% of people who marry stay married, and of those, well, i haven't heard any actual stats on happy marriages. . . but i have encountered people, and so have you, so we can probably infer some conclusion from our experiences. ". . . a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Ephesians 5:31   When i first got married, it was absolute bliss, right up until we both had to go back to work and life a...

I don't think i have time to post all that i want to say here, but maybe i'll share a snippet. Yesterday, my work-lunch hour with co-workers in our break-room, turned quickly into kind of a man-bashing session by a few women who, from all reports, did not have a lovely weekend with the men in their lives whose main flaw was having been "born male." Now, i quickly assessed the situation and concluded that the odds of my survival in that room, should i pipe up with reports of a wonderful husband, were not great.  The girl who "thinks she has a perfect marriage" just doesn't fair well in that situation, and there is no appreciation for her happy life.  So i kept my mouth shut and ate my soup. Beautifully, on the very same day, a co-worker (one who was not a part of the man-bashing ceremony in the break-room) came up to me and expressed to me (i'm not bragging, just reporting) with near-tears, how refreshing it had been for her to see my hubby and ...