Marriage Without Regrets , livre ebook

Harvest House Publishers, Inc. - Kay Arthur

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116 pages

English

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"This book isn't about how to have a perfect marriage, or to change our spouses," says Kay. "It's about having the kind of marriage where you can stand before God and say, 'Lord, I was all that You intended me to be.' Only when we make that kind of commitment can we truly have a marriage without regrets!"Speaking candidly about her first marriage, her conversion to Christianity, and her longtime marriage to Jack, Kay offers practical advice on effective communication, security and significance, difficult relationships, parenting, and God's guidelines for divorce and remarriage.Readers will discover what the Bible says about...resolving conflictunderstanding each partner's roleimproving the sexual relationshipbecoming financially wiserespecting and keeping marriage vowsThis rerelease with a fresh new cover (more than 110,000 copies sold) contains the marriage-building and life-changing material Kay has presented to enthusiastic audiences worldwidehelping thousands of people in many countries experience supportive, Christ-centered marriages.

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Publié par	Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Date de parution	01 juillet 2007
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736938549
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0692€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Kay Arthur
A Marriage
Without
Regrets
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS EUGENE , OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture verses are taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture verses marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture verses marked AMP are taken from The Amplified Bible, Old Testament, Copyright 1965, 1987 by The Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified, New Testament, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Cover photo Royalty-Free / Corbis
Cover by Koechel Peterson Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota
A MARRIAGE WITHOUT REGRETS
Copyright 2000 by Kay Arthur
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon, 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-7369-2075-9
ISBN-10: 1-7369-2075-7
The Library of Cogress has cataloged the edition as follows:
Arthur, Kay, 1933-
Marriage without regrets / by Kay Arthur.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-56507-451-4 (Hardcover edition)
ISBN-10: 1-56507-451-3 (Hardcover edition)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7369-0440-7 (Trade edition)
ISBN-10: 0-7369-0440-9 (Trade edition)
1. Marraige-Religious aspects-Christianity. 2. Spouses-Religious life. I. Title.
BV4596.M3A78 1999
248.4-dc21
99-14080
CIP
All rights reserved . No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any for or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 12 13 / VP-CF / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This is dedicated to our precious family-
Our sons and their wives our grandchildren and their children to come
With the fervent prayer that your lives and your marriages will give a true estimate of the One from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name ..
Remember, precious ones, His grace is sufficient and His power is perfected in our weaknesses.
May you say with Paul, By the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace was not poured out on me in vain but I labored more than them all- Yet not me, but the grace of God in me.
Acknowledgments
God never intended us to do it all by ourselves, to do His work all alone.
He gives us spiritual gifts, but not all of them.
We are not complete in and of ourselves and that is why He placed us in the body, one member among many and only One receiving the glory, our precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
How thankful I am for my Harvest House family and for all each one of you do to help me produce a book and get it to the bookstore. Bob Hawkins, Jr. sets the standard as a man of integrity, a man true to his word-and his example permeates throughout the organization.
Carolyn, LaRae, dear brother Larry Libby, Stella, and my patient husband, Jack-thank you-each one of you-for your time, gifts, talents, and abilities that contributed to this book. You were with me all the way, encouraging me in my writing. My prayer is that many marriages and homes will become lighthouses of truth in these dark days as a result of your labors of love.
John 15:16
C ONTENTS

Acknowledgments
A Fresh Challenge
1-A Marriage Without Regrets
2-Is It Possible to Live Happily Ever After?
3-What s the Glue That Holds a Marriage Together?
4-I Didn t Know Marriage Was Going to Be Like This!
5-What Does God Expect of the Husband?
6-I m a Woman! What Is My Value?
7-Your Home: A Little Bit of Heaven?
8-What Happened to Love?
9-Communication: The Great Priority
10-Sex God s Way
11-Raising Godly Children: Where Do You Begin?
12-Raising Godly Children: Our Hope and Responsibility
13-God Help Us It s Money Again!
14-What God Has Joined Together
A Final Word
About the Author
A F RESH C HALLENGE
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1, 2).
H AVE YOU EVER DRIVEN AT NIGHT ACROSS the wide prairies of the American Midwest? Maybe you re somewhere in the middle of Nebraska, or crossing the dark, lonely miles of Montana or South Dakota. Sipping black coffee from an insulated cup, you drive for what seems like hours without seeing a light. All you have is the soft glow from your dashboard, the pool of your headlights out front, and maybe the glint of stars up in that great empty sky overhead.
You feel swallowed up in the darkness, like a little rowboat out alone on the wide Atlantic. Then, way, way off to the left or right of the highway, you see something.
A tiny glimmer.
One little square of light in a sea of inky blackness.
It s so far away it may be no more than a winking pinpoint, but it attracts your attention and interest. After miles and miles of weary darkness, it draws your eyes like a magnet. (What else is there to look at?)
As you draw nearer, you conclude that it s coming from a little farmhouse, surrounded by acres and acres of open pastureland. Staring at that little fleck of gold on the bosom of the dark night, you find yourself wondering:
Is someone up late, going over the farm s financial status, bills, or balancing the checkbook?
Is the family watching an old movie on TV?
Is there a croupy child in the home needing attention?
Is Grampa up late, drinking a glass of warm milk because he can t sleep?
Is there a teenager out on a late date somewhere in town, and Mom and Dad have left a light burning to guide the homeward journey?
You can t help but feel a sense of longing as you drive by. No one on that little farm realizes you exist. If they could even hear you across the miles, it would be nothing more than the faraway drone of a passing car. All too soon, you leave that welcome little light behind and the mystery remains unsolved. You ll never know who lives within the bounds of that light. The night swallows you up again in a darkness so complete you begin to wonder if the light had really been there at all.
Dear friend, I believe that happy Christian marriages and homes can be just like that farmhouse light on a midnight prairie. If you build a loving marriage and a home with light and laughter brightening everything inside its walls, there will be those who see. There will be those passing by in the darkness who will note the contrast. And they will want what you have found.
As our world grows darker every day before our Lord s return, many in our culture scorn and mock Christian family values. In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Paul clearly warned that difficult times were coming in the last days. People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. These are people-many of them our neighbors, our associates at work, even members of our own extended family-who have no time for God and no desire to understand His commands and precepts.
Yet even so even to these folks, the darkness can grow oppressive. And there is something wonderful about a Christian marriage, something that draws a curious eye in this cynical age. There s a radiance there a light that shines through the hard-edged darkness of a skeptical culture. No matter how humble the Christian home, there s something about the light shining through its windows that creates a longing in weary hearts. Despite themselves, people are attracted by a home that radiates the love of Christ.
You may never know who observes the light shining from your home. The observers may seem as distant and anonymous as cars driving by on the highway at night.
Yet there are those who watch.
There are those who wonder.
There are those who catch a glimmer of the light that is Jesus Christ-and it creates a wistful, wondering hunger and yearning deep within them.
A Culture Within a Culture
Sometimes in my teaching, I describe marriage based on the precepts of God s Word as a culture within a culture. We are living in a day and time when marriage is devalued, minimized, trivialized, and even scorned. It is an era of history when marriage vows are shallow and fragile and may be quickly abandoned for any vague, emotional reason-or for no reason at all. We are living in a world where the truths and principles of God s eternal Word are rejected, mocked, belittled, or just plain ignored.
That s the culture.
That s where you and I live today.
In years past, preachers and Bible teachers used to warn that our nation was entering twilight-that the light was beginning to fade. Now it seems more like we re in the pitch-black of midnight.
Nevertheless, a Christian marriage based on the precepts of God s Word can become a mini-culture of its own that refuses to be conformed to the larger culture. It resists being assimilated or swallowed up by the darkness, no matter how great and prevailing that blackness may be. It is so strong, so resilient, so compelling that it both impacts and influences those who observe it. Those who drive by on the dark highways see its light from afar and wonder what it s all about.
Rather than being swallowed up by the darkness, that marriage, that home, becomes a radiant, shining light.
Those who create such homes declare, The world around us may be going in this direction, but we re going another way. It may be fashionable-even the expected thing-to have both parents bringing home income, for the woman to work outside the home from the time her child