Is He "The One"?

Emily Wilson talks about some of the things she saw in her husband during the dating phase that convinced her that he was "the one" for her. Emily noticed that Daniel wasn't a man who just tolerated her values in life, he had the same values as her. She also discovered that Daniel was a selfless man who wasn't afraid to give of himself and serve others. He wasn't self-serving.


Emily also talks about having a deep awareness in her heart that she wasn't settling as she was choosing Daniel. She could see that being with Daniel helped her become a better person and her presence in his life made him a better person too. Emily knew that she needed her future husband to be a man of great character and integrity and she found both of these things in Daniel.

Mixed Signals From Men

Ashley Brown from the youtube channel Ashley Empowers gives her best advice on what to do when you are getting mixed signals from men.

Relationship Goals

It's been five years since my husband and I got married and every year we keep learning new things about marriage and love. It's our aim to keep growing in love every year and get better at being a wife/husband. One of the main things that help us succeed in our marriage is learning from other people who have successful and healthy marriages. Nobody grows in isolation, as we open up our marriage to other people who can speak their advice and wisdom into our lives we keep seeing growth every year.

I've personally learned a lot about love and marriage from my parents who have been married for 32 years. But whether we have good role models in our parents or not, we can all learn about love and marriage if we seek wisdom. I knew already before I got married that around 50% of marriages end in divorce, so I wasn't going to be passive in my marriage. Knowing what it takes to build a healthy marriage and then applying the wisdom we've learned is crucial to success.

Every time I argue with my husband I can spot a few areas in my own behavior where I know what to do, but I've been avoiding applying the wisdom. Knowledge is key, but applying what you've learned is equally important. Unless we apply what we've learned about relationships we continue to be stuck and keep repeating our old mistakes.

In part 5 of the series Relationship Goals at Transformation Church pastor Michael Todd interviews married couples, single people and a few couples who are dating. Each couple gets transparent and share wisdom that helped them build a healthy relationship and find contentment in their current stage of life.

Why are you still single?

Has anyone ever asked you this question, "Why Are You Single?" What an annoying question! Today, Heather will bring some clarity on this topic. Check out these three reasons why you may be single.

How to Let Go of an Ex

Unless we heal from our past relationship wounds those past experiences will follow us into the next relationship. Relationship mistakes also have a tendency to repeat themselves, unless we learn something from our last relationship that ended. 

Ashley and Carrington give their best advice on how to let go of anger or resentment toward and ex and move on with your life. 

Relationship Goals

Lead Pastors Michael and Natalie Todd from Transformation Church teach a great message about healthy relationships in this video. Michael and Natalie share some very real and personal advice and give great wisdom as they teach us about the 4 Major Keys to Marriage. 

My personal favorite is key Nr. 2: Know the difference between what your spouse needs and what they want. Men and women have very different needs in a marriage, understanding what these needs are is crucial to being able to respond to them. We can't have a great marriage unless we understand what a great marriage will require out of us. Knowledge is key to success.

Relationships

Pastor Michan Carter from Together Church in Yakima, Washington preaches a great sermon about relationships in this video. Humans thrive when their relationships are healthy and flourishing. It can sometimes be tempting to isolate ourselves from other people because loving others is really difficult, but we can't escape the fact that we need people in our lives. We can't thrive in this life without healthy and fulfilling relationships to our spouse, our kids, our family members, friends and community.

Are You Rushing Ahead of God?

Waiting seasons in life can be frustrating. When we have a clear vision of what we want to achieve, but it's not happening yet, it's easy rush ahead of God. It becomes much easier to wait once we realize that there is a purpose for every season in our lives. Waiting for our dreams to come true isn't always fun, but the growth that happens in a waiting season is very important. Each season in life will prepare us for what will come next, so if we rush ahead of God we will notice that things won't work out as we had hoped.


God's timing is perfect. If we choose to trust God we will notice that everything will fall into place according to His perfect timing. I have a limited view of reality, but God sees everything. I can only make wise choices when I choose to let God into the decision making process. God already knows my future and His plans for me are good. When I let God lead in my life I have peace. I know that God doesn't make any mistakes. Half of the time I don't know what the heck I'm doing in life, but God is never confused about the future. When I choose to follow God's plan for my life I know that He will lead me to exactly where I need to be.

My Beauty, Relationships and Career is what makes me valuable?

As little children we quickly pick up on what the culture around us values. Our culture teaches us that we will find ultimate happiness and fulfillment in many things that can never truly satisfy our souls. Three of the most popular places we tend to misplace our identity in is our beauty, our relationship status and our careers.

Movies, Women's magazines, social media etc. all send us the same message: "The more beautiful you are the more valuable, fulfilled and happy you will be." When we believe this lie we end up obsessing about how we look. We feel insecure about our appearance and spend a lot of time, effort and money on trying to look more beautiful. But many of the most beautiful people in this world have opened up about how insecure and unfulfilled they felt even as they worked as models or were considered one of the most beautiful people in the world. Our culture teaches us that we need to look a certain way to be happy and fulfilled. God tells us in the Bible that we look exactly the way he intended for us to look. We are all unique, beautiful and of great worth, because we are all made by God himself, He designed us.


Our relationship status is another popular place where we tend to misplace our identity. Look at any movie and you will notice that we are taught that romantic love is what will give us ultimate happiness and fulfillment in life. God teaches us something different, he teaches us that it's only in knowing Him that we can find ultimate happiness and fulfillment. God is perfect and He will never fail me in this life, but my husband will, because he is human. I love my husband and he brings a lot of joy to my life, but he is able to do that mainly because I don't expect him to have God's role in my life.


Romantic relationships become miserable when we expect our significant other to do for us what only God himself can do. God alone is the only one who will love you no matter what, God alone is the only one who will always be there for you to help, listen and care for you. No human-being will ever be able to love you perfectly and unconditionally, only God can do that. If I believe that my relationship status is connected to my worth and value as a woman I will also be discontent with being single and create an unhealthy expectation in my heart that once I'm in a romantic relationship then I will finally be happy and fulfilled. Nope, that's not how it goes. I will never be happy or fulfilled in a romantic relationship if I wasn't already happy and fulfilled as a single lady.


The third place where we tend to misplace our identity is in our careers. When we believe that our careers are connected to our worth and value as a woman we become very focused on achievements and get anxious/stressed when we are not achieving at top level. We were all created by God to do good works, but or work is not what gives us our worth and value as a person. God does not value a woman who works as a CEO any higher than an old retired lady who doesn't work.


We are all called by God to love Him and to love other people. God isn't impressed by how much we achieve, what title we have at work or how much power we have. Sometimes you can see a small child who is more caring and loving to others than some important business owner who has become focused on selfish ambition. Our careers can (and should) be used to love and serve God&people with, but our achievements will never give us more worth in God's eyes. There is nothing we can do for God to love us more, and there is nothing we can do that would make God love us less. God's love for me and you is always completely unconditional and freely given, you could never earn it.

3 Ways to Fight Commitment Issues

Deep and authentic relationships with people is what make us come alive and bring meaning to our lives. But to be able to have deep and meaningful relationships with others we have to be willing to commit to people. If you have been deeply hurt by people before it's understandable that you have commitment issues, but it's not possible to experience the joy of a deep relationship without commitment.

If we fail to commit to others our friendships and romantic relationships will stay shallow and ultimately be meaningless. Getting vulnerable with others is always scary, but on the other side of that challenge is the reward of joy and meaning. We are all called to love God and love people. It's impossible to really love people without committing to them.

The Joy of Summer

What I've enjoyed the most this summer is definitely going to the beach and getting to spend a lot of time with family.

The Lovebirds, Mom&Dad.

Having my family from Norway and Finland come visit us was a lot of fun. Of course we also had a couple of arguments, that's inevitable when you have family come stay with you for two weeks in a row. But I don't find arguments to be a bad thing, as long as you solve them in the end. Arguments teach us things about ourselves. Each one of us learns where we still have room for personal growth. Nothing helps us grow and mature as much as human relationships do. Relationships are difficult because they challenge us to become better people every year.

Once I heard a pastor say: "God sees that we need to grow so he gives us a husband/wife. If that's not enough he gives us a baby, and if that's not enough he gives us one more baby." LOL. Yep, few things will make you grow more spiritually and mentally than close human relationships. :)

Another thing I'm enjoying this summer is the beautiful gifts we got for our Renewal of Vows. My stepson gave us a nice candle and my brother and his girlfriend gave us some encouragement to hang on the wall. "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." So true! :)

My summer obsession: Watermelon lemonade. I can't get enough of this drink!

One of my favorite summer memories: Spending many hours in the sun with family at Cobourg Beach.

The Summer bummer:

Nr. 1) The bugs. There's way too many bugs everywhere in August! Every time I try to relax outdoors the bees chase me out of my own backyard! I'm so happy that they have a very short lifespan.

Nr. 2) The rain. This summer has been much more rainy than the average Canadian summer. One minute you're enjoying a nice day at the beach and the next moment dark clouds roll in and you're forced to run towards the parking lot as the rain starts pouring down. When my Scandinavian family came to visit we went to Wasaga Beach and got about one hour of nice weather before we had to run to the car. The upside of a rainy summer is that you appreciate the warm and sunny days even more. When it's weekend and happens to be sunny you scratch all your plans, pack the car full of beach toys and head to the beach. It's called "summer priorities".

The rainy spring and summer has also led to Lake Ontario being flooded. The waterfront of Lake Ontario looks quite messy at certain places.

You don't have to settle

I remember being single and asking my friend if my expectations on men were too high. I had been dating many men who were the opposite of gentlemen and since there were so many of them out there I started to doubt if I was ever going to find someone better. I chose to be patient and not lower my standards. One year later I met the love of my life.

We will be tested in life in many different ways but settling is never the right option. Choosing to settle for a man who says that he loves you but who doesn't show you any respect will only lead to pain. If we choose to keep our hopes up and believe that the right guy is out there we will get to meet him one day.

My husband and I have both said that if we would have met each other one, two or five years earlier our relationship would have never worked. We weren't ready for each other before the day we met. We both had our own issues to work on and if we hadn't worked on those things prior to meeting each other our relationship would have failed. After you have worked on your own issues and developed great character "the one" will come find you. When the timing is right it will happen.

Are You Sabotaging Your Relationships?

I love Ashley's videos about relationships on her youtube channel "Ashley Empowers". In this video Ashley talks about how we can easily end up sabotaging a new relationship if we haven't healed from past hurts. When we carry around unforgiveness and open wounds from the past we give these things the power to affect our new relationships negatively.

Finding The One and Keeping The One

God wants our relationships to be beautiful, but that takes effort. Whether in singleness or in marriage, the common denominator is that we must faithfully steward what we've been given. 

Jennie Lusko teaches a great sermon at Fresh Life Church called "Becoming The One". We often focus our attention on finding the one but unless we focus on "becoming the one" ourselves we won't do well in our romantic relationships. We all have our issues and ignoring them won't make us happy, when we actively work on developing our character our romantic relationships will thrive. The same is true for marriage, even after we have met the one and gotten married there's no room to be lazy if we want our marriages to stay strong. Just like a garden requires a lot of work to keep it beautiful a marriage requires us to actively work on it every year to keep it strong.

I've really enjoyed the Swipe Right series at www.freshlife.church this spring. "Becoming The One" and "Worth Fighting For" are my two favorite messages in the Swipe Right series. I learned many of the same truths that are being shared in the series when I was in my early twenties and still today they are making a difference in my marriage. I won't be able to save money and keep my finances in check without a budget and in the same way I can't have a thriving marriage without building it upon wisdom. Levi and Jennie Lusko share great wisdom in the Swipe Right series that when applied will make a romantic relationship strong and healthy. I can't protect myself from natural disasters, most diseases or accidents in life but I can protect myself from relational pain by building my marriage upon wisdom. 

Staying in Love

Pastor DawnChere and Rich Wilkerson from Vous Church in Miami preach a great sermon about love that lasts. DawnChere and Rich talk about how to build lasting love in marriage, but this wisdom can be applied to pretty much any relationship. All different types of relationships require these qualities; protection, trust, hope and perseverance. I like what Rich Wilkerson says: "If you want a quality life you are going to have to learn how to have quality love." No matter how much money, possessions or power we get in life nothing will give us more joy than our relationships. If we love well, we will live well.

The Bible teaches us many things about quality love. The first thing we learn from the Bible is that love always protects. When we are married it's our job to always protect our spouse's heart, to always protect them emotionally. When we learn to be self-controlled and respectful in our conversations we can have tough conversations without hurting our spouse in the process. Protecting our spouse also means that we are not only going to tell them what they want to hear, but what they need to hear. When our spouse is going through something difficult it's our job to speak truth wrapped in love to them.

The second thing the Bible teaches us is that love always hopes, always trusts. It's very important for every relationship,every marriage, to have hope. The thing is, your marriage will never have hope if you do not first have trust. Rich and DawnChere mention three different ways we can build trust in a relationship in the sermon video.

The third thing the Bible teaches us about love is that love always perseveres. Not even one of us can say that we have a perfect marriage, that we have never made any mistakes in our relationships or that the past five years of our marriage have been pure bliss. Perfection is not what we are after in relationships, because it can never be achieved. What makes all the difference in our marriages is when we stick it out, when we decide not to quit. Sometimes we will get tired, sometimes we will feel like quitting and other times we will be stretched in our marriages. What makes all the difference in a marriage is when we decide to persevere. Perseverance is what's going to take you to a love that lasts a lifetime.

A Slow Sunday

On Sunday afternoon I treated myself to a chocolate cupcake and a homemade latte. I love cupcakes, they always make a regular day feel special.

It was surprisingly warm and sunny on Sunday morning so my husband and I decided to go for a walk in the park.

We had our breakfast on a park bench in the sun, I had coffee and a Maple Pecan Danish.

It became a very relaxing and enjoyable Sunday. We went to church but other than that we didn't have anything planned. Sunday is going to be our rest day of the week from now on. We usually make Saturdays our rest day but this school year we have commitments on Saturdays so we're bringing back Sunday as our Sabbath day.

I love the fall because it's the time of year when many new programs and volunteer opportunities open up, I like to try something new every year. My only problem is that I tend to commit to too many things. Lately my husband and I have come to the conclusion that our weekly schedule has become too full, something has to go. During the last couple of weeks I have tried to figure out what we could skip but I've felt like we have to do everything that we have committed to at this point. I finally decided to write down everything we have committed to on a paper to get an overview of our situation. Once everything was written down it became easier to notice what we can skip and which activities we can put on hold until next year. Some projects we need to put on hold for another three years.

We live in a world with more opportunities than ever and it's tempting to want to do it all at the same time, but that's not the wisest approach. Every year I'm noticing that I get better life quality when I avoid doing too many things and rather choose to focus my efforts towards a few things per year. Toronto is a huge city with so much to offer, but there's no need to cram all the things I want to do into one year. Nowadays I write down 3-year plans, 5-year plans and 10-year plans in my journal to help myself see what I need to focus on this year versus what can wait. I don't want to rush through my life, I want to be able to stop and be grateful for everything I get to experience. I want to be able to focus more time on all my relationships; God, my marriage, friendships and family members. I need a slower paced lifestyle to be able to live a meaningful life.

My husband and I decided to cut four different things from our schedule so now our life is less full again. We also decided to make Sunday our new rest day and keep this day free from any other programs than church. I look forward to a less busy November because the month of October ended up being too busy. I tend to need to suffer a little bit before I learn what I need to change in my life. I've learned most of my life lessons through doing the wrong thing first (and feeling the pain) before I learned to do things the right way. Life is all about growing and learning new things and every year we become a little wiser. It's not fun to make mistakes but I don't think it's possible to learn anything important without making some mistakes. there's a lot of hope in that.

How to fix trust issues

Most of us tend to have some trust issues, trust issues can easily ruin a relationship since trust is such a vital part of a healthy relationship. Lysa TerKeurst gives us some advice on what we can do to deal with our trust issues. If we don't deal with our trust issues we will end up trying to perform our way to love, trying to earn another person's love. Unconditional love is not something we earn, it is freely given.

Relationships & Breakups

Chelsea Crockett and Lysa TerKeurst talk about breakups and rejection in different types of relationships. Rejection hurts us deeply, whether it's in a romantic relationship, a friendship or in your family. Chelsea and Lysa talk about what we can learn from rejection and how changing our view of breakups will enable us to go through the breakup without having a breakdown. Lysa also points out that what we learn from each breakup we can bring with us into the next relationship and we can let it make us even more kind and loving in that relationship.

Give What You Want

During the last few weeks Steven and Holly Furtick have been teaching a series on relationships at Elevation Church called "The Other Half". This series brings up different topics that apply to not only romantic relationships but to relationships with friends, family, co-workers etc. The more we learn about relationships the better we can become at loving each other in this world.

In this sermon Holly Furtick teaches us about the rule of reciprocation. Here's a description of the sermon by Elevation Church: "When we keep score in our relationships, everyone loses. But since things are rarely 50/50, what are we supposed to do? How can we expect to receive what we need, when we feel like we're the only one giving? "

Love Works

Pastors Philip & Holly Wagner share their thoughts and experience on what it takes in relationships to ensure that Love Works.