"Trust Leads to Romance"

  Trust Leads to Romance

What stirs the embers of romance deep inside you?

·         Loving Words

·         Touch

·         A Night Out?

Maybe you haven’t thought about romance lately because of busyness, fatigue, disillusionment, or hopelessness.

I’ve been there too.

But romance with the man you love may not be as elusive as you might think.

Though we all desire romance—every woman longs to be

noticed, pursued, and adored—few of us realize that…   

our  words  and  actions  may  serve as stumbling blocks rather than invitations for the man in our life to woo us romantically.

If this is true, then we’re sabotaging the very romance we desire. Reminds me of the saying,  

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

Do you like what you’re experiencing in regard to romance?

If not, ask yourself if you’re more likely to trust OR control your husband.  

You’ve seen the controlling type.
Most women on TV sitcoms struggle with control. They walk all over the men they’re with and it bothers us.

It’s easy to detect control in others, but are you guilty of similar actions? 

Let’s look deeper and find out.

1. Do you correct your husband?

2. Do you instruct your husband?

3. Do you improve your husband?

Do you correct your husband’s pronunciation or perhaps the

telling of a story when you know he’s got the facts mixed up?

When you correct your husband you’re telling him he did something wrong.

In this position you’ve become his mother. And that’s a romance killer if there ever was one.

Do you instruct your husband when he drives, performs

tasks, or helps out with the kids?

When you instruct your husband, you’re sending the message, “You don’t know how to do this.”

In this position you become the teacher who highlighted his ineptitude. Exposed, he’ll either shrink or strike back, rather than pursue.

Do you improve your husband?

In the past, I’ve tried to improve Tom’s appearance whenever possible. Once, when dressing for dinner at an elegant restaurant on vacation, I wore a vintage cashmere jacket with pearls and heels while Tom wore an improbable, wrinkled ensemble worthy of an episode of What Not to Wear. Yet, I didn’t say a word! (Some of you may be appreciating the restraint that required!)  If I’d shared my fashion-improvement advice with him, I would have sent the romance-spoiling message, “You could have done better.” 

In what areas do you try to improve your husband?

When we correct, instruct, and improve, we justify our actions by saying we’re just trying to help when, in reality, the measures we employ have more to do with fear—the fear that we won’t get what we want or we’ll get it too late.

Whenever our actions are borne of fear, the results we experience will be disappointing at best!

Give your fears to God and trust your husband with new words and actions…

Inviting him to romance.
 Trust Leads to Romance is courtesy of Amy Lathrop and the LitFuse Publicity Group

Want a Growing Marriage?

Want a Growing Marriage?

My husband and I were reading a financial book about how to make your money grow when one of the principles jumped off the page at me:

What you focus on grows. 

Because it’s such a simple principle, I couldn’t get it out of my mind and began applying it to all areas of life, especially relationships.

Most women have the desire to grow a more intimate relationship with their husband

yet  few  focus  their  desire  long  enough  to  do  anything  about  it. 
Thus, nothing changes.  

• Ignorance, 
• Distractions, and/or
• hopelessness are often to blame.

I should know. Just 19 when I said, “I do”, I was ignorant about how to grow my marriage.  Our pre-marriage counseling consisted of one two-hour meeting with my pastor and that wasn’t enough to prepare me for the emotional, spiritual, and verbal abuse my husband doled out on a regular basis.   The abuse produced pain and grief.
I could think of little else than surviving. 

Hope for our future crumbled.

Over time, I began sharing my pain with a few trusted, godly women.  Venting my pain and hearing their honest feed-back helped me see that the abuse I was suffering wasn’t my fault. 

I  began seeing a Christian counselor who gave me tools that helped restore me to a place of strength and dignity. 

The best choice I made was to dig into God’s word and find out what He wanted to say to me about my marriage.  In the Bible I found the following verses which applied to my situation:

·          “…Your godly lives will speak to them [husbands] better than any words.  They will be won over by watching your pure godly behavior.” (I Peter 3:1,2)  In place of preaching to my husband, I began entrusting my difficult situation to God through prayer—listening for His instruction.

·          “Instead, we will hold to the truth in love…” (Ephesians 4:15) I began to exchange preaching for speaking the truth in love—in as few words as possible.

·         “See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good…” (I Thessalonians 5:15) On my new path, I chose to respond in kindness and enforce healthy boundaries in place of angry retaliation.

When I dug into the word, I learned that my husband wasn’t the only one sinning.  My responses to Tom were often sinful and my response was the only thing I was responsible for. 
(What I wanted was to change my husband but I couldn’t find a biblical reference to support my desire and neither will you)!    

Focused on God and His Word, I was able to reverse negative behavioral patterns in my life which had long plagued me. 

When I did what I could do—keeping my focus on God, HE DID WHAT I COULD NOT!

He healed me and ultimately my marriage—to the praise of His glorious grace!

What you focus on grows. 

Are you focused on growing your marriage? 

Want a Growing Marriage? is courtesy of Amy Lathrop and the LitFuse Publicity Group

"Eye of the Sword" by Karen Henley

Trevin and Melaia love each other, but Trevin serves King Laethan. When the king sends him on a quest, they are separated and Trevin sets off to find the missing army captains the King seeks. When he sees competition for Melaia's love, Trevin decides to go in quest of the missing harps Melaia seeks. But there is so much more to this story! Time is definitely against Trevin at times, he is accused of a horrible crime, and he feels Melaia slipping from his grasp. Can their love survive the battles and tests? Will Trevin be found guilty or innocent of the crime he is accused of committing? Will he find the captains and the harps? 

This is the second book in the Angelaeon Circle series by Karen Henley. While I enjoyed reading it, I think it would be better reading the series in order so that you get the characters and plot correct from the beginning. This YA fantasy series will make a great gift for the YA (or older adult) reader in your life.

"From the Chrysalis" by Karen E. Black

Love can be so very complicated. That is what Liza and Dace found out. As cousins their love wasn't approved of, but the attraction made them want to fight the obstacles placed in their way. But that isn't the biggest problem facing this couple. Dace loves trouble. He gets into enough of it to land him in prison. Liza, in her desperation to be near him, goes to college near the prison. It doesn't matter that they don't have much time. It only matters that they have some time. When his "friends" decide to try to break out during a riot, what will Dace do? There are many poignant moments in the story, especially during the summer they spend together when Dace is paroled.  But how will Liza handle Dace's return to prison? Did they ever really have a place of safety together, their own chrysalis?

I had a little difficulty getting into the story at first, but once it grabbed me, I didn't want to put it down. The seventies were complicated years, and this story fits in this time frame perfectly. The characters were lifelike and the storyline intense. It is a story that will captivate readers and cause them to think.