Our love story began when we started dating as teenagers in December 1960. We dated for nearly eight years before we got married as graduate students in August 1968. Fast forward fifty years and we now have a great story to tell about how God moved our relationship and marriage from good to great, built to last a lifetime. It has been a very long and difficult journey, but the rewards of persistence and perseverance are heavenly. This book is about our views on marriage, based on our experience and those of numerous people around us over all these years, from courtship, to building a resilient and Christian-based relationship, raising a family, parenting, managing family-career conflict issues, building and managing family wealth, resolving conflicts, confronting and surmounting numerous challenges, dealing with external interference, and preparing for our last years. Our message to the younger couples behind us is that God can write your love story if you would let Him.

Captivate Your Husband All Over Again More than 250 ways to WOW your man Does your marriage need a little help in the romance department? Has it grown ho-hum in the daily routine? If so, it's time to spice up your relationship and rekindle the passion with hundreds of creative ways to show your man just how much you love him. Bestselling author and conference speaker Sharon Jaynes offers heart-stirring inspiration and simple ideas that will put a smile on your husband's face and a spark in your marriage. Get ready to... wow your guy with simple acts of affection he'll treasure for a lifetime wake up the passion that was God's idea in the first place watch your marriage grow stronger and your love grow deeper Take the 14-Day Romance Challenge— and make your husband feel like the luckiest man on earth.

At some point in my life, I prayed to God, believing that one day, I would be swept off my feet by my prince charming. I remember praying at a young age to be married to a man that loves God and has the fear of God in him. I knew what I wanted, or at best, I thought I knew what I wanted. Most times, we wish and pray for things without understanding that our wishes aren't as simple as they seem and may probably have their implications. To pray for a prince charming, you need to be a princess beauty. The prince charming also has expectations of his bride and you need to fit that mould. Without knowing it, I carried a lot of baggage into my marriage. This load of baggage was capable of ruining my marriage. Wait a minute, did I say capable of ruining my marriage? Scratch that. This load of baggage almost ruined my marriage. In Proverbs 14: 1, the Bible says, "a wise woman builds her home but a foolish woman tears it down with her hands." Did you notice what the Bible says in that Scripture? The foolish woman does not need any kind of help pulling down her home. She can do it all by herself. Her own actions or inaction are enough to completely ruin her home. At some point in my life, I was this foolish woman. I know this probably sounds shocking but 'foolish' was what I was at that time. Sadly, there abound many foolish women who have destroyed their marriages and homes. Some others are in the process of destroying their marriages. Some marriages are being endured rather than enjoyed. Some married people are struggling to put the pieces of their homes together while some feel that it can't be put back together again. It is unfortunate that some women are completely at a loss of what to do to save their ailing marriages. Some others who know what to do to save their homes allow pride stop them from doing it. My journey in the early years of marriage was quite painful and enduring. Nothing I knew seemed to make sense anymore. All the seemingly harmless habits I got away with in the course of my life as a single became a challenge in marriage. When you marry a near-perfect man like I did, your flaws become so glaring. The sad truth is that before I got married, I never considered these habits as flaws. Have you ever found yourself saying things like: "This is how I have always been and people accepted and liked me"? Have you also found yourself saying to your spouse, "Hey, you met me like this; why is this now a big deal"? Oh, I said this a thousand and one times. I just couldn't understand how anyone will want me to change. Who I was had taken me so many years to become, so why was I supposed to change just because I got married. Hmmm, that was a difficult one for me to crack. In this book, I will be sharing my journey so far, what I had to learn in the process and who I have become through my experiences.

Marriage is good but you need God's favor and blessing to build a great marriage resilient enough to last a lifetime. Nothing good ever comes easy: blessings and burdens are soulmates. The road to well of happy and successful marriage passes through well of conflict, well of argument, well of persecution, well of opposition, well of temptation, well of obstacles. Expect joy and happiness, difficulties, trials and tribulations as you navigate the tortuous journey through all the changing scenes of life. Be determined to surmount all obstacles at all costs, and you will reap lots of fulfillment, rewards and blessings at the end of the tunnel. In order to build and grow a great marriage that will last a life time, couples need God's grace and mutual, unflinching commitment to their marital vows to navigate the long, exciting, tortuous, tumultuous, and mined road to a resilient, happy, lasting marriage: "to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance". Work together with intimacy, passion and commitment, build a Spirit-filled/Spirit-led marriage and the ultimate rewards are heavenly. Your partner is ridden with faults, so are you !! Look a little closer and you will see a large reservoir of assets that can be nurtured, (with your help, understanding and support) to bring out the best in your partner. When God created Eve, He did not set out to create another Adam, (otherwise He would have molded her in clay), rather, He created a partner to compensate for Adam's deficiencies and make up for what he lacked. He wanted to create something different, yet equally a masterpiece. Clearly, Eve was deliberately designed for different tasks which require patience, resilience, multi-tasking capabilities, and many other assets that she would need to cope with the onerous assignment of child-bearing and raising, and managing the home front while still contributing to the household economy. God gave Adam dominion over all His creations including his helper, but if He had thought that Adam could cope effectively, creation of Eve would not have been necessary. A good team is never made up of members with similar competence and instincts, and the last thing you want in marriage is another you. Unfortunately couples spend a lot of useful time and energy trying to re-mold their partners in their own image. Two magnets of the same polarity repel each other and compatibility means compatible opposites. Couples who are duplicates are boring, self-centered, bringing nothing new, exciting or innovative to the relationship. Marriage becomes great when couples can develop a partnership with shared family responsibilities, help to nurture each other's virtues and assets, adjust to and accommodate each other's deficiencies. Selfishness (I, me and myself) has no place in a great marriage. God appointed the husband as the head of the wife. However, headship does not imply authoritarianism (military governance). Leadership by competence and example commands respect and compliance. Headship is not so much authority expressed as a chain of commands as it is an acceptance of a vital chain of responsibilities. Key values in growing a resilient marriage include strong partnership, communication and conflict resolution skills, mutual respect, tolerance, empathy, perseverance, and willingness to meet each other's deepest needs. Marriage is a lifetime project, for better for worse but, often, the worse comes before the better and only perseverance gets you to the better.

Here is a compilation of sermons by Christopher Love, which reveal Loves gift of applying doctrinal truth practically and experientially. Some of the sermon titles include Christs Prayer the Saints Support (John 17:15), A Divine Balance to Weigh all Doctrines By (1 Thess. 5:21), and A Description of True Blessedness (Luke 11:28).

Ryan and Selena Frederick were newlyweds when they landed in Switzerland to pursue Selena's dream of training horses. Neither of them knew at the time that Ryan was living out a death sentence brought on by a worsening genetic heart defect. Soon it became clear he needed major surgery that could either save his life--or result in his death on the operating table. The young couple prepared for the worst. When Ryan survived, they both realized that they still had a future together. But the near loss changed the way they saw all that would lie ahead. They would live and love fiercely, fighting for each other and for a Christ-centered marriage, every step of the way. Fierce Marriage is their story, but more than that, it is a call for married couples to put God first in their relationship, to measure everything they do and say to each other against what Christ did for them, and to see marriage not just as a relationship they should try to keep healthy but also as one worth fighting for in every situation. With the gospel as their foundation, Ryan and Selena offer hope and practical help for common struggles in marriage, including communication problems, sexual frustration, financial stress, family tension, screen-time disconnection, and unrealistic expectations.

It’s easy to say we trust Christ for everything, but are we living that truth? We’ve been given clear instruction in a powerful promise for parents. God tells us in Deuteronomy to “teach our children diligently.” This passage and many others give us great insight as to how to do that and enjoy the promised blessing that always accompanies the mandates we are given. Learn the practical view of discipleship parenting, what God expects from parents, and how to put these truths into actionSee how parenting with the vision of teaching them diligently will intentionally bear fruit and affect change in your own life as wellMove beyond giving lip-service to what you believe, and make the conscious choice to rely on the wisdom of God’s holy instruction for your life and parenting. So, why are we as Christian parents still uncertain? Why do we live in fear? Why are we losing our children in record numbers? What can we do about it?