Build with Boundaries ~ Blended Family Ministry

One of the first things blended families need to do is establish boundaries within the home. Without them, chaos will ensue.

Establish the House Rules:

Before you blend families (and now, if you have already done so), establish the house rules. These rules should apply to all members of the household, regardless of how often the children are present.

Marriage Works ~ Forgive One Another

It's easy to see greener grass when your spouse looks burned out. Brown and wilted, dead under the weight of...your unforgiveness.

It's never easy to forgive someone for whatever they've done to rock your world, warranted or not. Some feel that if they forgive another, they excuse the sin. What they don't realize is that they hold that person captive in their heart. No one lives free when one of you is working as a jailer. The person

Taking the High Road ~ Blended Family Ministry

Fellow step-parenting friend Gayla Grace asked this question on her Twitter feed this morning:

I can't tell you how many times during the first five years of my marriage to Vic I wanted to take the easy road. I wanted to all-out quit. I wanted to walk away and not look back on the anger, frustration, accusations, and silent rebellion I faced as a step-mom.

Marriage Works ~ Never Go To Bed Angry

"Oh, forget it. You couldn't care less."

I'd interrupted my husband, and this was his reply. In all honesty, on occasion I could care less about what he's saying. Because I'm truly not interested in the topic (like gun stuff - I want to know how to shoot one accurately, not how to trick it out--that's his job), and I try not to intrude on his time with topics I know he could care less about (like how to scrapbook). However, I loved our current topic of conversation. Writing.

How many times a day/week/month/year do you face similar situations in your own marriage? Ones where you're misunderstood, where your spouse appears less than interested in your concerns, where

5 Signs of Isolation in Your Marriage

Proverbs 18:1 says, “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; He rages against all wise judgment.”

There are two keys to this verse: He seeks his own desire. He doesn’t care if it’s wrong.
Isolate: quarantine; to separate from another substance to obtain pure or in a free state; insulate (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Isolation will be a marriage killer, if a husband or a wife won’t do something about it. When we marry, two people become one. It’s difficult to walk in that unity if one spouse has isolated themselves from the