How to Pray as a Couple

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Nov 7, 2021 | Articles

One of the best ways to divorce-proof your marriage is by becoming a couple who prays together. Research shows that couples who pray daily together only have a 1% divorce rate. With those stats why would anyone not want to become a couple who prays together?

As professional Christian counselors, this makes perfect sense. A couple who is coming together in prayer is a couple who is inviting God into their marriage—and if anyone knows marriage, it’s the Creator of it. When you pause together to pray, you are not only inviting in the Creator of your marriage, but you are also surrendering it to Him, trusting that He knows what is best and agreeing that you both want that.

Despite the research and despite what scripture tells us about the power and benefits of prayer, it can still be hard to do. Not all couples are comfortable with praying out loud. They may not know what to say or may not feel scripturally sound enough to voice a prayer. You also may be in a marriage where one of you is a biblical scholar and the other perhaps not so much. A situation like that is a playground for the Enemy to come in and wreak havoc and spread insecurity in.

How to Become a Couple who Prays Together

For starters, don’t be afraid to start small. This can be a quick laying of hands on your spouse’s back in the morning and whispering a prayer of thanks for them. You can also grab their hand in the morning and say “Lord, thank you for my wife/husband. Help them to walk in your will today. In Jesus name, Amen.”

You can also choose a time before bed when you sit together holding hands and just begin to pray silently together. This may seem insignificant, but imperfect or silent prayers will always be better than never starting.

Maybe making prayers casual and conversational will be your thing. Go for a walk and just speak out loud your prayers as you go. Tell God what you’re grateful for, pray over any stressors your spouse has shared with you, or simply pray for protection and provisions over one another. Just walk and chat with the Lord.

Finally, pray scripture. Praying scripture is a great way to start praying together. God has already provided the material for you. Here’s an example:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” John 14:27

“Dear Lord, you are the God of peace, not chaos, in you there is no stress or overwhelm. We ask that you pour out your peace over our marriage. Clear our schedules from anything that would distract us or create stress in our lives. Help us to not be derailed from what you have for us. Let us be safe places of peace for one another and let us always run to you and not the world for peace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Praying together is a wonderful goal to have for your marriage and we encourage every couple to make it a part of their daily lives together. If you’re looking for somewhere to start or to just begin to pray for one another, you can find scripture prayers just like the one above in our free resources for husbands and wives.

Sign up to take the 30 Day Praying for Your Husband Challenge or the 30 Day Praying for Your Wife Challenge. Use them as a great way to lift one another up and as scriptures you can also come together and pray over one another together.

While you’re at it, check out our Couples Devotional too! It’s filled with great applicable devotions, conversation questions, real life stories and prayer. You can’t go wrong with any of these resources.

Here’s to giving your marriage a 99% rate of thriving and surviving!

xoxo, Chris & Jamie

5 Ways to Make Your Master Bedroom a Sanctuary

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Oct 18, 2021 | Articles

There is nothing worse than after a long day of work dealing with people, or a long day at home dealing with little people, than finally heading off to bed together to find that your room is just a reminder of more cleaning and more work you must do. You thought you were finally going to relax but your room tells you a whole other story.
It doesn’t have to be that way!

5 Simple Things you can do to Make your Room a Sanctuary

For starters, your bed must be comfortable and nice.
I’m sure that women everywhere will agree that the best way to do this is by adding some pillows. Pillows are a simple way for your bed to say, “Look how pretty and cozy I am! Come on in!” They’re also a great way to make seasonal changes to your room as well.
If you can’t do anything else, get yourself a nice comforter and some good pillows because your bed is your place of comfort, rest, and intimacy. Your marriage bed should be a desirable place to be.

It will also serve your room and marriage well to invest in good lighting. This doesn’t have to be anything fancier than a simple lamp in your room. You just want to have a way to set the mood by dimming the lights. Dim lights help to calm things down and begin your shut down process for the night. They can also help stir up some romance by changing the mood of the room.

Another way to help your room become a place of calm is to declutter. If you don’t love it or need it, it doesn’t belong in your bedroom. Your room cannot become a catch all for unfolded laundry, kids toys or things to attend to later. If you must have a place for those things, pick anywhere else aside from your room. It would be better for company to come over and need to slide some laundry and kid’s stuff over on the couch than it would be to keep it in your room. Your home is ok if it looks lived in, your bedroom should be peaceful and sacred.

You also want your room to remind you of the sweet parts of your marriage. A simple way to do that is to hang some pictures of just the two of you. Print your favorite pictures from your vacations or date nights and give them a place on your wall or on your nightstand. Let your room be a place that makes it easy to remember your love for one another.

Finally, make sure it smells good! Get an essential oil diffuser or have some candles. Choose a relaxing or mood enhancing scent like lavender and before bed each night, fill up your room with this scent. Not only will it be pleasurable, it will also be a trigger for your brain that tells it to slow down because it’s time for bed.

Life is busy, chaotic and at times overwhelming, you don’t need your room to be. Make your room a place for the two of you to unwind in, relax in, and reconnect – both physically and emotionally. You won’t regret it.

And if you want one more thing to connect you in the bedroom, we recommend our devotional that’s just for couples, the Newlywed Couple’s Devotional, for newlyweds and newlywed wannabe’s. It’s sure to increase your communication and connection.

Find out more here

Newlywed Couple's Devotional

xoxo,
Chris & Jamie

7 Signs Your Marriage May Be Emotionally Exhausting You

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Oct 3, 2021 | Articles

You might be familiar with all the feelings of burn out or emotional exhaustion; constant overwhelm, a cynical attitude, a mind that won’t turn off, and just complete unrest. Unfortunately, your marriage can be one of the things that might be driving you to all that emotional exhaustion. And if that is the case, it’s time to make some changes.

It might be your marriage draining you if…

You’re the only one investing in your marriage. You’re the one wanting and planning the date nights. You’re the one wanting to fix things and make your relationship better.
You’re the one running the whole show. All the chores, all the mundane tasks that make your household run are all falling on you.
You often feel like a single parent. Your spouse is relying on you to be the primary caretaker, bath giver, meal planner and homework overseer.
You’re constantly worried about your marriage issues. You’re finding it hard to think about anything other than what’s going on at home and in your marriage.
There’s an obvious lack of affection and sex. You’re disconnected and you know it. Your desire for your spouse is lacking, or perhaps you’re feeling resentful that their desire isn’t. They want sex and you don’t, or neither of you have any interest.
You can’t seem to have a conversation without it turning into a fight. Regardless of your best effort, everything you talk about takes a negative turn.
You no longer feel like yourself in their presence. You may find yourself just wanting to be alone instead of with them. Just being around them is anxiety inducing.

If you’re experiencing any of these signs it’s time to get a plan of action together. That may mean asking for some professional help, the help of a mentor couple, or just choosing to tackle these issues one at a time. 3 Things to Do When Your Marriage is Struggling, is a simple place to start. Just decide to do something, because if left unresolved, any one of these struggles could leave you resentful, depressed, anxiety ridden, isolated, and, well, emotionally exhausted. And that won’t be good for you or for your marriage.

It’s time to make some changes and we are here to help!

Cheering you on!
xoxo, Chris & Jamie

*Disclaimer: The information discussed here is meant for entertainment purposes and is not meant to replace counseling or working with a trained healthcare professional.

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5 Ways for Moms to De-Stress this Christmas

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Sep 19, 2021 | Articles

If you’re a mom and Christmas is coming, then you know the feeling I’m about to describe, it doesn’t really have a name, but it lies somewhere in the middle of high hopes and excitement to complete dread and overwhelm.

Do you know why that is? Well, the stats and polls tell us that a good majority of moms and wives feel like the entire burden of the holidays falls on them. While Christmas is an exciting time and there is a lot of fun involved, it doesn’t take long before you realize that all that fun must be organized by someone, and let’s be real Momma, that someone is usually you.

All that planning, driving around, gift buying, meal prepping, and you name it, can drive even the sanest of moms a little nutso, so don’t you feel bad. It’s not just you! Moms everywhere are standing in exhausted unity!

If you want to unload some of that stress this Christmas, here are 5 sure fire ways you can do that.

5 Ways to De-Stress this Christmas

Don’t focus on the details—I don’t know when we got to the place where we felt that less than perfect is a failure. It indeed is not. In fact, do you know what less than perfect really is? It’s DONE. Yep, it’s just done. This is the year of good enough. Let go of the perfect menu, the perfect décor, and best teacher’s gifts. While you’re at it, go ahead and allow your house to be clean enough too. It’s fine Momma, it really is.

Stay in the moment—Sticking with the spirit of good enough, set aside the desire to have those Instagrammable perfect pictures. By putting your phone down and not capturing every moment you will stay connected to your family a lot more. You also won’t have to hear the grumbles from your kids about all those poses. Fill your mind and heart with memories, instead of your phone with images. Screen shot this Christmas in your mind. It will actually stick around a lot longer that way.

Ask for help—This is a hard one and I get it. You already might be thinking, “No one will do it like me”—but remember, we’re letting go of perfect, or you might think “It’s easier to just do it myself”—spoiler alert..if you never train anyone to help you now, they never will. Let it be harder this time so it can be easier in the future. You work hard and do A LOT, ask for the help, be specific with what you need. You deserve it.

Take a pass—I am giving you my permission

now to say no to sending out the Christmas cards with professional pics, no to accepting every party invitation you get, and here’s a big one, even saying no to traveling to see family this year! If you need some help with that one, we’ve got a great podcast episode for you on Boundaries During the Holdiays.

Focus on Jesus—He is the Prince of Peace after all, the reason to celebrate. It will defeat the entire purpose of the season if you miss Him. Make the time to slow down and let go of some expectations that friends, family and YOU have on yourself. It’s time to focus and give Him the praise He deserves, and I can assure you, your heart will be flooded with peace.

Here’s to a stress free Christmas!

30 Days of Thankfulness for your Spouse

by email@expeditionmarriage.org | Sep 19, 2021 | Articles

“Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Ephesians 5:20

I don’t think I’m alone here when I think about how easy it is to take your spouse for granted. After a while, the days, the routines, the chores, and even the hugs and kisses can become mundane. The last thing you want to happen in your marriage is for your love and appreciation to simply become boxes to check off.

How about you take the next 30 days and intentionally give God thanks for the gift of your spouse. If you don’t feel like it because perhaps, you’re honestly not that grateful for them in this season? Well, that makes it an even better time to do it! Nothing helps the negative go away like gratefulness. Let’s get started!

30 Days of Thanksgiving for your Spouse

Day 1—Your favorite way they love you

Day 2—A small thing they do every day that you appreciate

Day 3—Your favorite personality trait they have

Day 4—Something they do that annoys you (yep, this makes them who they are too)

Day 5—One of their physical features you like

Day 6—The ways you’ve seen them grow over the years

Day 7—The way they look at you

Day 8—The day you met them

Day 9—The way they parent your children

Day 10—Their flaws that show their need for you

Day 11—The way you balance one another out

Day 12—Your friendship

Day 13—Their faithfulness

Day 14—The chores they do

Day 15—Their providing

Day 16—Your physical intimacy with them

Day 17—The Fruit of the Spirit they show the most

Day 18—They laugh at your jokes

Day 19—The fact that you have them to go through life with

Day 20—The fun you have with them

Day 21—For tolerating you on your bad days

Day 22—The times they chose to stay instead of walking away

Day 23—Every day you’ve had them

Day 24—Their sense of humor

Day 25—The fact they were made in the image of God

Day 26—The many times they’ve forgiven you

Day 27—How they’ve helped you become more like Jesus

Day 28—That they’re your best friend

Day 29—Their strongest character trait

Day 30—That you get to honor God with them

If you want some more encouragement on gratefulness and the power it holds in your marriage, be sure to check out Walking in an Attitude of Gratitude on the Expedition marriage podcast.