What Do You Think About Your Marriage?
This week in the Dispatch:
Successful Quotes
Trivia Fun with Really Hard Questions
“Hooked” in Books
YV “Distractions Part 2”
Jess Connolly on the AM Podcast
“Anne With an E” in Streaming
Insights: “It’s The Three of You!”
Three doable “Challenges!”
A “Next Step!” where you choose!
This Week’s Quick Hits:
Quotes On Success
"If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time." - Steve Jobs
"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him." - David Brinkley
"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary." - Vidal Sassoon
Trivia For Fun
What is the fear of long words known as?
In Florida, only on Sundays, it is illegal for a single woman to do what?
In California, you can’t legally buy a mousetrap without having what?
In Texas, it’s illegal to swear in front of what?
The first hockey pucks used in early outdoor hockey games were made of what?
What was Marilyn Monroe’s natural hair color?
What Benedictine monk invented champagne?
How many bricks is the Empire State Building made of?
On average, what is the thing that Americans do 22 times in a day?
What was the first fruit that was eaten on the moon?
Read, Listen, Watch
Book:
Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions by Michael Moss
Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Michael Moss uses the latest research on addiction to uncover what the scientific, medical and food manufacturing communities already know: In some cases food is even more addictive than alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Moss takes us up close to legal battles, insidious marketing campaigns, and cutting-edge science that have brought us to our current public health crisis as he seeks to find the true peril in our food.
YouVersion Plan:
Distractions In Your Marriage: Part 2
Last week we looked at Part 1 of this plan. This four-day plan continues looking at things in life that can distract you from your marriage as well as ways to nurture your marriage and it from these distractions.
Podcast:
Awesome Marriage Podcast: Ministry and Marriage with Special Guest Jess Connolly / Ep. 466
Don’t miss this week’s podcast this week with Jess Connolly. Jess is the author of Breaking Free From Body Shame as well as a Bible teacher, a coach, and a certified barre instructor, and helps lead Bright City Church along with her husband, Nick. Listen in as Jess shares some great wisdom, encouragement, and very practical ways to work together in your marriage.
Streaming:
Anne With an E
Most of us think that we watched every Netflix series ever made over the past year but if you missed this one, go back and take a look. Anne With an E is an adaptation of the classic Anne of Green Gables series. Anne is a redheaded orphan girl adopted by aging siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert living on Prince Edward’s Island in the late 19th century. The story is powerful and entertaining. Check out the review on IMDb to make sure it's a fit for your family.
Insights:
What Do You Think About Your Marriage?
Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? I went through a season of depression in the summer of 2018, and during that time Lauren Daigle released the song You Say. It’s probably too much to say that song saved my life but I hung on to it and kept it playing in my mind day after day. Through the darkness of depression, it gave me hope. I needed to hear the truths the refrain proclaimed over and over again.
You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing / You say I am strong when I think I am weak
And You say I am held when I am falling short / And when I don't belong, oh,
You say I am Yours / And I believe, oh, I believe / What You say of me / I believe
Last week, I had a different song experience. Garth Brooks is one of my favorite entertainers. In part because he is a fellow Oklahoman but also because I just love his music. For a few days his song The Dance played over and over in my mind. It’s a bittersweet song of love lost and love found. Yet, the message of the song is that if he would have missed the pain of lost love, he would have also missed the love he found.
And now I'm glad I didn't know / The way it all would end / The way it all would go
Our lives / Are better left to chance / I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss / The dance
What rolls around in our minds is powerful. These song examples had a profound effect on me. You Say kept me going through a tough time. The Dance always reminds me of marriage.
What’s rolling around in your mind today? Are your thoughts healing and hopeful or negative and harmful? The more we think about something, the stronger it grows in our brain and the more influence it has on our thoughts, words, and actions. Our thoughts impact the health and quality of our marriage. What thoughts do you have about your marriage today? Are they positive or negative? What do you do with those thoughts?
Our thoughts are real things. When we think of something we build it into the structure of our brain. It is a physical entity that changes the environment of our brain and body. When we choose to allow a thought to grow inside our brains, feeding it with attention and time, it will affect the cells in our brain and body and impact our future thoughts, words and actions. It is therefore incredibly important to monitor what we allow in our minds, taking every thought captive and making sure the things we think about are good and wholesome, not toxic and harmful. We are what we think. Our marriage becomes what we think. Negative thoughts pull us farther and farther apart, while positive thoughts draw us closer together.
Over the next few weeks I want to look at how our thoughts affect our marriage both good and bad. Also, a big thanks to Dr. Caroline Leaf and her work on the brain that inspired me to look deeper into how our brain affects our marriage.
Challenge:
What have been your predominant thoughts today?
What are your thoughts about your marriage today?
How are your thoughts affecting your marriage?
Next Step:
Think of three positive things about your spouse. Think about them often today. Anytime a negative thought enters your brain, replace it with a positive one.
Answers to Trivia
Hippopotomostrosesquippedaliophobia
Skydive
A hunting license
A corpse
Frozen cow dung
Red
Dom Pierre Pérignon
10 million
Open the fridge
Peach
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