I’m not saying you are crazy.

But I am saying that your thought patterns affect your marriage. I remember sitting at the dinner table with my daughter in her high chair and my 2-year-old son, watching the clock. Tick tock tick tock. These thoughts ran through my mind, “Why is my husband 20 minutes late? He knows the kids are hungry and can’t wait.” Tick tock tick tock. “He is 30 minutes late and hasn’t even called. If he loved me he would at least call”. Tick tock tick tock. “This is so boring just sitting here with 2 children who can’t even carry a conversation–why is he doing this to me?”

Finally, the garage door went up, and how do you think I greeted him at the door? Since I had spent 30 minutes brewing angry thoughts, guess what came out of my mouth? Angry words.



The good man brings good things out of the
good stored up in his heart, and the evil
man brings evil things out of the evil stored
up in his heart. For out of the overflow of
his heart his mouth speaks.
~ Luke 6:45

Imagine you had a cup of hot tea in your hand and your husband bumped your arm and it spilled onto the table. What came out of the cup? Hot tea. If you had coffee, then coffee would have spilled out.

In the same way, if you are filling your mind with bitter thoughts towards your husband, then when your “cup gets bumped” what’s going to spill out? Bitter words. But if your mind is filled with good thoughts, then when your “cup gets bumped” what is going to spill out? Compassion and forgiveness.

What have you stored up in your heart towards your husband? Are your thoughts of him good? They were when you were dating! Many of our marriage problems begin in our heads–in our thought patterns. If we play a recording over and over of selfish and bitter thoughts then we can expect to have a bumpy ride in marriage.

Here’s how this dinner scenario went once I matured and learned that getting into “World War III” with my husband is more miserable than eating dinner alone:

It’s dinner time, tick tock tick tock… ”He’s late again. He knows I hate this so he must have something really important to finish up. I am so blessed to have a good man who works so hard. We have food on the table and warm beds because of him. There are widows eating alone tonight. They don’t even know where their next meal will come from. I will wait peacefully for my husband to come through the door.”

And when he arrived he was greeted with warm hugs, kisses and the promises of warm intimacy in bed. Extreme, you may ask? Not at all. It’s disciplining our minds to stop evil thoughts and create good thoughts.

When a plain ordinary wife spends her day thinking thankful, loving and respectful thoughts about her plain ordinary husband, they can have an extraordinary marriage. Start today to weed out bitter thoughts in your mind and begin to plant seeds of thankfulness. In no time your marriage will be extraordinary too!

© Courtney Joseph, 2010


I’m taking a couple of days off of blogging to spend time with my husband who’s on Christmas vacation this week. But while I’m away, we’re blessed to have a visitor.

My guest blogger today is Courtney Joseph from Women Living Well. She has been married to her high school sweet heart for over twelve years, home schools her son and daughter and is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute. [Psssst: She’s also a good friend of mine!] Courtney’s passion to see women living well landed her on the Rachael Ray Show in November, 2009. Since then, she blogs regularly about marriage according to God’s Word. And that’s exactly the kind of marriage we want, right ladies?!

For comments or questions, contact Courtney through her blog at: Women Living Well