About Marriage Episode 1 (04052023)

The host, Karen Penn, talks about her own marriage and encourages listeners to share their difficult times in marriage. She emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and learning about oneself in a relationship. She believes that people today are too focused on themselves, which hinders their ability to connect with others. She also discusses how the dating and commitment dynamics have changed over time. Karen shares a personal story about a difficult time in her marriage when her husband got into a car accident while she was expecting their third child. Despite the challenges, they were able to grow and learn from the experience. Karen encourages couples to persevere through difficult times in marriage and believes that prayer and overcoming emotional abuse can lead to positive change. Welcome to Encouragement in Difficult Times. This is your host Karen Penn and today's subject is about marriage. I'm going to talk first personally about my own marriage and I welcome listeners to email me or make comments about difficult times in your marriage in order to receive a word of encouragement. I have been married for going on 43 years and I know a lot more now than I did when I got started. We were both very young and neither one of us had examples to go by as far as what should a wife do and what should a husband do but we were gung-ho and we just figured we had the world at our fingertips and you know our marriage was going to work even though any marriage that we did hear of didn't seem to work and there weren't many examples in the communities that we grew up in. However, he had one way of thinking and I had another way and neither one of us were willing to compromise so needless to say there was a lot of crashings that went on in the beginning stages of our marriage. We were not sure what was expected of us so we were living like we were single though we had rings on our fingers and we started out in our first year immediately with a child. I was expecting a child before we got married and so there was no time for us to bond. We had dated a year or so beforehand and decided to get married but it was difficult trying to start out with a new baby and we really were still getting to know each other and we were also getting to know our own self. That's another challenge that many people don't do. They call it shadow work today so people focus on themselves more today and who they are or who are they becoming than ever before and you know I believe sort of it as a result of that people are so busy focused on themselves that they cannot that they cannot seem to connect with each other because they're busy focusing on themselves and you know I think it's a good thing however learning about yourself is a lifetime journey so why not do that with a partner and I think it becomes a barrier because then we can there's a fine line between doing shadow work and becoming so self-centered that you're self-sufficient and you don't really need anyone for anything and as a result of that men are feeling unneeded like they felt they were needed before when women were not focusing on careers back in the day and they wanted to please their husband and they wanted to care for their family and so the man felt needed because he needed to go out and work. Now the tables are turned there's a lot of shadow work focusing on yourself and it sets up a different environment and a different way to connect when you're looking for a mate. I am a Christian so I will say things periodically that refer to the Bible and the Bible does say that if a man finds a wife he finds a good thing and so it's the man that's to do the hunting versus the woman doing the hunting I think that sets the tone that means she's not looking she's not making herself look like she's looking she's not making herself look like she's looking so it's it's a challenging time I've noticed to connect with people. I heard a tick-tock the other day gentleman was sharing how it was better back in the day the way people would connect with each other in that a guy would see a female and you know give her contact smile whatever to let her know he's interested and if she smiled back he would get the courage to go over to her and try to give her his number and ask her you know and call her and talk on the phone and then ask her out for a date and hopefully if she accepts it on the continued dating the hope or the goal is to get married to her and so that system has changed dramatically and the gentleman said that women are looking prettier and prettier and men are looking handsomer and handsomer these days so much so that people don't want to commit to any one person for fear that they might miss out on someone more beautiful so what a way of thinking are you only looking for beauty are you so weak that you wouldn't be able to refrain and be committed to one person because you have such a wandering eye hmm that says something about character and how character development is become so minimal when it comes to commitment people don't want to miss out on anything so but today is about marriage and difficult times and needing encouragement in difficult times and like I said I was talking about my marriage I'm going to give a brief scenario a story true story and tell you how I became encouraged and I welcome anyone to share difficult times via email or comments that I would give find an encouraging word for you the email address is info at bridging our gaps comm that's info I nfo at bridging br IDG ing our oh you are gaps GAP s.com so one particular time that I recall we had a difficult time in our marriage was when I was expecting my first child no no it wasn't that it was when I was expecting my third child who is a son and my husband was out gallivanting he had the company vehicle and he was out gallivanting late wee hours of the night and he got into an accident with the vehicle and he hit another car and in the car in the wee hours of the night I'll say 2 a.m. was a family and the woman in the car was expecting so BAM he hits the vehicle first of all he's in the company vehicle second of all he hits a car with a pregnant woman he did not tell me that that had happened until I found out through papers that came in the mail that he had to go to court I knew nothing about it but he had to tell me once the papers came in the mail because now he's got to have a day off from work my husband's very committed to work his work ethic and he has to show up in the court and they dismissed the case some kind of way I forget what happened but I don't know if he had to pay he didn't share a lot of things with me back then which I found out later and realized that was a lot of the frustration in our marriage because he was holding things in and he had an attitude and I had no clue why he had an attitude because he wasn't sharing anything and I was doing my best to make sure the house was clean and food was cooked and the clothes were washed and the kids were taken care of to make sure that it is being angry didn't have anything to do with me that's the kind of young wife that I was I've changed a lot since then so anyways time goes on and because I was expecting our third child our third child was soon to be born and our third child was born on the exact same day that he had the accident so it was actually a year later okay yeah well actually was a year later because he was hoping that his son was not going to be born on the day that he had that accident with the company vehicle and our son was born on that day I by the time he was born I hadn't even thought about the day that he had the accident because I really didn't know actually he didn't tell me so because he didn't tell me when it happened but our born my son so our son's birthday is a reminder of that time that we that he had the truck accident but the encouraging part is that first of all I had a bouncing baby healthy boy although I didn't bring him home when he was born because he had stool in his lungs I forget what they call that as he was coming out I did not know that babies go through distressing times when they're being born I didn't know that back then but I didn't get to bring him home because they put him on oxygen until the lungs got strong enough and boy did he have some strong set of lungs by the time he came home so I imagine my husband must have been proud in one sense to have his first son and in another sense felt like he was being punished you know for by having him being born on the day he had the accident and then I couldn't bring him home the encouraging part is since that time my husband shares a whole lot more with me and we're able to go through things together and I have learned also not to be critical towards him you know don't kick someone while they're already down so that was a difficult time that's one of so many that we experienced but this is an outcome that you have to look at the positive side he learned a lesson that only God could have orchestrated for him to learn to share things with your wife and since that time he doesn't you know carouse and drink and go out and crash up vehicles certainly and definitely not a company vehicle so people grow from places we both grew in in so many ways through that experience so I want to encourage marriages to hang in there no matter how difficult it is the one thing that I don't believe that God or that you should stay in a relationship is when you're being physically abused by all means you should get out of that situation but if you're not being physically abused even emotional verbal abuse is something that can be overcome and I believe it can be overcome through prayer through prayer and fasting sometimes even depending on how severe it is and you can believe you will see things turn around and in the process the person who's praying they learn a lot of things as well while simultaneously God is working on the other person so I hope this was encouraging for you I look forward to your feedback I look forward to you sharing difficult times where I would share a word of encouragement for your issue and let's build each other up in strength and truth to be uplifted and enjoy life more abundantly okay so long for now God bless you and have a wonderful day