During the 2010 Valentine's Day weekend, our church sponsored the Sex, Love, and Communication Marriage Simulcast hosted by Jimmy and Karen Evans of the Marriage Today Ministry and TV Program. It was humorous, insightful, and very helpful! Jimmy's Scriptural basis and fun approach made the weekend unforgettable!

Recently we received a gift of The Fig Leaf Conspiracy (DVDs), by Jimmy Evans.

Jimmy's The Fig Leaf Conspiracy teaches:

• that sex is the covenant seal for a marriage
• the devil wants you to feel shame regarding your sexuality
• from the moment Satan told Adam and Eve they were naked, he has tried to corrupt human sexuality
• God designed sex to be fun and fulfilling while the devil has perverted God's design, and attempts to keep us from bringing God into our bedroom!
• the steps to walk free from shame and sexual sin
• us how to remove the stigma of shame and replace it with God's truth and plan for sexual expression

This is a great site to check your love language!

If you haven’t heard about Dr. Gary Chapman’s book, "The 5 Love Languages", it is a classic! In his ground-breaking research, Dr. Chapman discovers that all of us have a dominant love language, one of a possible five. For each person, they best understand and receive love using their own love language. When we try to love someone in a way differing from their own love language, they don't value it as much--when compared to expressions of love in respect to their own love language. Here are the five different love languages:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Physical Touch
4. Receiving Gifts
5. Acts of Service

Imagine how powerful it is when husband and wife know each other's love languages!

For example, since I know my wife’s love language is Words of Affirmation, I make a special effort to shower her with kind words (whether verbal or written), acknowledge her in every way I can, and verbally praise her often. On the other hand, knowing my love language is Physical Affection, she is awesome at doing her part by being physically affectionate :-) The result? A little bit of heaven on earth in our marriage, because we have learned to speak each other’s language!

Check out this site and take a few of the free tests!

We attended a conference in Texas recently, and heard Brady Boyd talk about the 12 Steps Leading to an Affair. He commented that the first steps are common to most couples. Here they are in outline form:

1. Something makes you lean away from your spouse (argument, sickness, a trauma).
2. Awareness of another person (entertain lingering thoughts of them).

3. Innocent meetings with that person open the door to flirting (stop now, or you'll go down the slippery slope quickly).

4. Meetings become intentional and planned by one of the persons.

5. When in a group setting, the two people linger in conversation with each other.

6. Conversations shift to feelings about life, God, relationships ...deeper topics. (Raise the red flag for help!!)

7. The two people have isolated meetings under the guise of legitimate purposes.

8. The two people have isolated meetings just for pleasant conversation.

9. Embraces become affectionate, and playful touching begins.

10. Embraces become passionate (everything but sex).

11. Adultery happens (and torment begins).

12. The affair is made public.

Do you see yourself sliding down the slippery slope leading to emotional and even physical adultery? If so, get help, and start working on repairing your marriage relationship!

Since we've attended this conference, we have started using some different phraseology--we talk about 'leaning away" and "leaning toward" each other.

• Sorry for leaning away from you earlier, Sweetheart!
• I made you this snack, because I want to lean towards you, honey!

Why not say to your spouse...

"I am leaning towards you, heart and soul. All of me, all for you!"