I’ve made a list of things people hate to hear when their spouse is deployed. Perhaps you could add to this list, but these are the statements about which I’ve heard complaints: “I’m sorry.” “I know how you feel. I was a single mom.”
In the last pages of What Did You Expect?? Paul David Tripp summarizes his writing with this: “What has this book been about? It has been a detailed description of the daily work of love that must be done with commitment and joy when a flawed person is married to a flawed person and they are living in a fallen world." Did you catch that—“Daily work . . . So how do you do that under the challenge of deployment?
Another day—another email announcing marital troubles as a result of poor decisions made during deployment. I want to scream, “Oh, No!! Not again!!” Didn’t this couple know there were dangers—weren’t they warned?
It was her favorite Christmas present, she said. Perhaps it was his, too, but he was still recovering from long months at sea and was needing to catch up on sleep. As they stood before us they still had that “newlywed glow” about them, even though most of their wedded life had been spent apart due to military duty. So when they were telling us about their first Christmas together there were smiles going back and forth between each other, and eyes sparkling with the chance to tell what was so very special about their first time of giving and receiving gifts as husband and wife.
Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 I’ve been working on this writing for the last seven years. And…
Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. Editor’s Note: While not every deployed couple has children at home, the themes and applications in this writing are common in long-distance relationships. Behold, children are a gift of the…
Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. – Colossians 4:6 I’ve made a list of things people hate…
Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness" . . . That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight…
Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. — John 15:13 Bedford is a small town in rural Virginia. Nestled in the…
Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights. Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure . . . — Hebrews 13:4a Paul David Tripp’s 2010 book What Did You Expect?? has become a…