This is a time of thanksgiving and reflection. In a world that is full of darkness, chaos, and negativity, it is important to have our homes a place of shelter, peace, and where the love of God abides.

In the Thanksgiving season many families and friends make time to get together and fellowship one with another over a special dinner. It is a time where they can reflect and be thankful for the people that have been placed into their lives in one fashion or another.

It is a time to see the blessings in your life, whether big or little and to see how you can be a blessing in another’s. A great way to reflect this is to look at your marriage.

A lot of times you will find that those who are in marriages give a lot of time to see the bad, negative, and wrong things that are going on in their marriages, homes, and life in general. Too much time gets spent on this and it can snuff out the joy, happiness, and gratefulness that you should be experiencing. This happens when you take your eyes off of loving the other person and take your focus off of God’s commands and place it on a more selfish place – you.

In a season past, I personally found out how damaging it can be to your marriage. It affects your life all the way around including the people in your life by your actions and words. It begins when you become unthankful and ungrateful. You start consuming your mind with any wrongs you perceive happening to you. It can creep up on you.

When you become a negative person either in your focus or your words it takes the unity out of just about everything you do. Negativity can come off of you and produce an atmosphere that many people do not want to be in unless they are miserable. It goes with the saying, “misery loves company.”

Along with falling into negativity came the “passing the blame” as to why I ended up there. It did not matter what others were doing around me or even how I was perceiving that I was being treated or even the words that was being spoken around me. The Word of God gave me plenty of tools to not become like them but gave me the tools to be a light to break up the negativity and bring God’s Love to help heal where they had become broken. In fact, in the Word of God you will not find anywhere where it says treat others as they treat you. In fact, the Bible tells you just the opposite. There are many verses that teach you how to treat others as you would want to be treated and to treat them like Jesus Christ would.

To be honest with you, once you have fallen into the pit of negativity, it can be hard to climb out depending on how long you have been down there and how deep the habits have become that you picked up. It is a fight to find your way back to positive, bring back life in your words, and doing what you have been commanded in the Word of God to do and that is to love.

First you have to see and understand that you cannot do this on your own. It will not matter how many self-help books you read or movies you watch or seminars you go to help restore you marriage. In fact, to think you can do it alone is pride.

God has given you the Holy Spirit to help guide you, instruct you, and lead you down the path that God would have you to go. He is a teacher, comforter, and understands what will help you and restore you. The Holy Spirit brings in the presence of God and the fresh anointing that will help climb you out of the pit of negativity and on to stable solid ground of the truth, life, and speaking good.

Throughout the Word of God you will find that God speaks of this on numerous occasions. From the beginning to the end. Words carry death and life. When you are a negative person, you are really digging your own grave of death and you are bringing others with you. It is time to grab the ladder of the Holy Spirit and make steps on the ladder to begin to climb up and be a light and full of Words of life.

The world is so dark and full of hopelessness. The only place we have to begin is in our homes where our families can be safe and secure. Hope can only abound where there are words of life. Love can only grow when spoken to with encouragement, understanding, and truth. Negativity brings destruction, division, and despair. Which one do you want to be a part of?

My own marriage has suffered from this kind of destruction. God, with His mercy, is bringing it back together. When I write to you about marriage tidbits it is things that I myself am learning and still learning and am hoping that they will help others out there in their own marriages. The truth is you have to want to be the change in your marriage, no matter what. It really doesn’t matter whose fault is what or even if your spouse doesn’t love you back. Marriage is a covenant to love that person for the rest of your life. More about that another time. What I am getting at is you have to make a decision to want to change and then pair up with the Holy Spirit and let God bring you to that place.

This month, my husband and I will be married for 8 years and I am looking forward to all things that God is going to do in our marriage to help others and do things for His Kingdom. The enemy has tried to hit us with just about everything in the book, but with God, our next years will be much stronger and be a true example of what a marriage called by God will be.

My pastor, Evangelist Barbara Lynch, gave me a book called, “The Forty-Day Fast for Couples” by Tim Cameron. I have begun to dig into this book and there is so much to learn and it makes perfect sense. It has given me a ray of hope to see things change in my own marriage and as I am going down this journey, I will be sharing different things with you as I am learning, in hopes that it too will help you.

God really does work in mysterious ways and will answer your prayers in ways that you would not have imagined. God answered my prayers when my pastor gave me this book, because I had been asking what do I do next to go forward in my marriage – and she gave me the book the next day. I just knew it was my answer.

I hope that you too will have hope that your marriage can be restored even greater then what it is no matter how good or bad. Start with being thankful for your spouse and the opportunity that God is giving you to be the change in someone else’s life. Let this season really teach you to be thankful and grateful for what we do have no matter the size, because that is what God can use to bring healing and miracles into our lives.