Plain Talk 4-21

      I had a conversation not too long ago with a young man who was having marital problems.  I remember thinking to myself, “Frank, what do you know about marriage?”  I also thought about what made me an expert to talk about how to work through the problems that arise in a marriage.

      I answered my own question by responding to myself, “Not much.”
      But sometimes people just need to vent and have the opportunity to express themselves.  So I just listen and stay quiet. sometimes doing that is a great help. Later I could not help to think about my own marriage. and some of the things I had been wrong and/or right about.
     What had I learned?  Happiness comes from the  inside, not from the outside of you. 
     Happiness is a spiritual experience and you need to understand that to be able to tap into your own emotional desires.
     No one or nothing can make you happy except God and yourself.
     The Bible speaks about happiness in Proverbs 3:13 (KJV) : “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.”
     Some times we need to check inside ourselves, and not be so fast to look at your partner as the problem.
     Listen, wherever you are in your heart and mind at the outset of a relationship is where you will be at the end.
     Whatever you bring to the start of the relationship is what you will have to clean up in the end.  If you run into a relationship to get away from another one, do not expect that you won’t do it again.
     If you should enter a relationship in sadness, desperation and pain, guess what?, you will find it again.  If we want to put an end to angry, bitter and ugly separations, we must begin our relationships with openness, love and honesty.
    Remember to keep the faith, trust in God only and seek after a pure heart.  God will be pleased.