Even if you're a giver who likes to give, it's exhausting being married to a taker. A taker will suck the life out of you in many ways, and in one sense undercut your ability to minister to others.

If a woman essentially abandons her family to ambitiously serve God, she will likely display the same lack of compassion and empathy for others as she does for her own family, who feel her absence keenly.

spend much of their time and effort trying to bring people down to their level of misery rather than blessing others with joy and encouragement.

Some use the label toxic much too broadly as an excuse to avoid difficult, different, or hurting people.

His solitary act was a radical statement of the importance of community. If we desire to be remade in God's image, we will be molded in such a way that we move toward others.

It's not enough to survive, a lifelong love is all about thriving in a ministry-minded marriage that impacts others.

What if your husband's faults are God's tools to shape you? What if the very thing that most bugs you about your man constitutes God's plan to teach you something new? Are you willing to accept that your marriage makeover — the process of moving a man — might begin with you?

I wouldn't be surprised if many marriages end in divorce largely because one or both partners are running from their own revealed weaknesses as much as they are running from something they can't tolerate in their spouse.

But in a real Christian partnership, one member's guidance is always submitted to the other's for correction and confirmation.

It's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians.

A gentle sister is the second best gift to a man.

Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? This Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet it is bright with many a gem; I, the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzling confounds. 'Tis Iron - that I know - not gold.