Quotes from Gary Thomas

Married life, offered in service to God, is such a good and rewarding life. Let's give ourselves fully to it; let's keep building our "marital house" until we die, pursuing each other, forgiving each other, loving each other, and growing together through the years. If we do this, we will, like Anne, be richly blessed with a lifelong love.

I bought into the lie," she said, "that because Darin has a strong, masculine personality he must be the manipulator and I must be the victim. God showed me that it was really more the other way around. By withholding affection, respect, and communication, I often played the role of the manipulator.

If you're trying to find your primary refuge in your husband, if you've centered your hope on him, if your security depends on his approval, and if you will do almost anything to gain his acceptance, then you've just given to a man what rightfully belongs to God alone.

To grow in the midst of difficulties, we must rip open the bags of grain and seeds and pour them out wherever we see fertile ground.

Ultimately, it's a matter of spiritual nutrition. Many Christians have never been taught how to "feed" themselves spiritually. They live on a starvation diet and then are surprised that they always seem so "hungry.

We never slept together until our wedding night, so the honeymoon was a rather intoxicating experience, but once the honeymoon was over, reality immediately set in like a dense Seattle fog.

If we learned to float in sorrow rather than thrash about like a drowning emotional victim, We might find that it can be used to set us free.

Don't pass over this thought, because it's crucial: Isaiah 40:29 assumes that God will call us to various tasks for which we lack enough power on our own.

He planted marriage among humans as yet another signpost pointing to his own eternal, spiritual existence.

Don't run from the struggles of marriage. Embrace them. Grow in them. Draw nearer to God because of them. Through them you will reflect more of the spirit of Jesus Christ. And thank God he has placed you in a situation where your spirit can be perfected.

Start these conversations with questions that seek understanding, not with accusations that seek submission.

If we live without an eternal perspective, earthly trials become larger than life. Without the hope of heaven or the sense of the importance of a growing character and refinement, there is nothing to prepare for, nothing to look forward to; it is like practicing and practicing but never getting to actually play a game. Life gets boring, tedious, and tiresome.