• The power of intimacy
• The fundamentals of friendship
• Safeguarding your relationship
• Reviving romance
• Authentic love and acceptance
• Really connecting
Excerpted from Connecting With Your Wife
Copyright © 2003 by Barbara Rosberg
How is your prayer life?
The Lord is righteous in everything he does; he is filled with kindness. The Lord is close to all who call on him, yes, to all who call on him sincerely. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cries for help and rescues them.
Psalm 145:17-20 NLT
Then Saul said, “Let’s chase the Philistines all night and destroy every last one of them.” His men replied, “We’ll do whatever you think is best.” But the priest said, “Let’s ask God first.”
1 Samuel 14:36 NLT
The next morning Jesus awoke long before daybreak and went out alone into the wilderness to pray.
Mark 1:35 NLT
Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 NLT
The most universally practiced yet least understood of human experiences, prayer is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. Its simplest definition is communication with God. Yet so often we approach prayer like a one-way telephone conversation, forgetting that God also wants to speak to us. Prayer appears nearly on every page of the Bible as the very essence of a faith relationship with the living God.
How do you all like my new digs? In an attempt to fix my problem with the comments I had to pick a new template. I hope it works now. My computer “nerd” says it should! Thanks Mr. Computer guy!
Try to leave me a comment now and we will test it and see!
What Forgiveness is Not: Six Myths
• When I forgive, I must also forget
• The hurt is too great; it is impossible for me to forgive
• I don’t feel like forgiving, so my forgiveness can’t be genuine
• I can’t forgive until my spouse asks for it
• In order to forgive, I must pretend that nothing happened
• I must forgive right away, or it doesn’t count
Adapted from Healing the Hurt in Your Marriage
Copyright © 2002 by Gary and Barbara Rosberg
Virtual Reality Helps Calm 9/11 Anxiety
For months after Sept. 11, 2001, Fire Chief Stephen King had the same haunting dream: an endless wooden staircase spiraling into the clouds, his friends climbing ever skyward, always beyond his reach.
King was the battalion chief in charge of safety for the New York Fire Department on the morning when 343 firefighters died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. King, who was friendly with nearly half the fire department victims, barely escaped the north tower. His right knee was shattered.
The injured joint slowly healed. His shattered psyche took longer. The veteran of more than 30 years as a firefighter could hardly bear to visit Manhattan, where he had worked for years.
“I didn’t want to even stand next to any high rise building as long as I lived,” said King, 57, a second-generation fireman with a son now working for the department. “I didn’t even want to go over a bridge.”
King tried sleeping pills, anxiety medications and traditional therapy. But he didn’t get better until he tried virtual reality, pioneered by researchers at Emory University in the early 1990s.
For years, virtual reality has been used to treat common phobias such as a fear of airplanes, storms and speaking in front of crowds. Patients afraid of heights, for example, can learn to cope by putting on a headset with a small screen in front of their eyes, and finding themselves walking across a rope bridge nearly 200 feet above a canyon.
Dr. JoAnn Difede, director of the Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Studies Program at Weill Cornell Medical College, found the practice extremely effective and, after 9/11, thought it could be adapted to treat World Trade Center survivors.
She and other researchers developed a program for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder that incorporated animated 3-D images of the 9/11 attacks. She said she has been treating patients with it for more than a year with very promising results.
RANDOM DISJOINTED THOUGHTS:
*Had great lasagna dinner with friends on Friday night.
* Got a really bad “crick” in my neck Saturday and Sunday. (better today btw!)
* Weekend visit from Mother in law and sister in law and sweet nephew.
* Mexican Food
* Son’s birthday party
*I am liking my son’s new Newsboys CD alot.
* Psalm 29
* I heard “someone is causing a ruckus in the house AGAIN!” When will they learn!
* Thinking about praise!
* My son had football practice in full pads today!
* My baby turns 7 in 3 days! (boohoo)
Well, that is it for now I think! Thanks for all your comments! Even you Susan!
(Been thinking about this verse lately)
“Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God.” Hebrews 13:15 NIV
“God takes particular pleasure in acts of worship- a different kind of “sacrifice”- that takes place in kitchens and the workplace and on the streets.” Hebrews 13:15 The Message
So, what exactly is a sacrifice of praise? If something comes easy, then it doesn’t cost you anything therefore it’s not a sacrifice, right? So when I am lying in bed at 6 am after the alarm has woken me to get up for my quiet time with God and I am not getting up, that is not a sacrifice, right?
How do we praise God? We praise Him with our lips, we praise Him in song, we can praise Him in dance, we praise Him with our lives. What else? How else can we offer a sacrifice of praise to the Father.
Maybe you don’t feel like praising today, Praise anyway! Give God a sacrifice! Maybe you don’t feel like dancing. Dance anyway! Give God a sacrifice! Maybe in worship you are afraid to raise your hands or sing with all of your heart or to clap your hands because you don’t want anyone around you to think “you are strange”. Well, get yourself and your pride out of the way and do it anyway! Offer God a sacrifice of praise! Will you?
• Don’t be angry at the same time
• Don’t yell at each other unless the house is on fire
• Don’t resist yielding to the wishes of the other
• Don’t criticize unlovingly
• Don’t bring up mistakes of the past
• Don’t let the day end without giving your spouse at least one
compliment
• Don’t meet without an affectionate welcome
• Don’t let the sun go down on an unresolved argument
• Don’t hold on to pride - ask for forgiveness
• Don’t forget it takes two to make a quarrel but only one to stop it
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