A few days ago, I rushed to see Toni (the lady who cuts my hair) in the middle of the work day. I got there with just a few minutes to spare after getting off a conference call. Someone else was sitting in Toni’s chair. “I’ll just wait in the lobby until you’re done,” I told Toni. In response, she said, “You’re not supposed to be here today. I have you ...
I recently read a very sad book, Pure by Linda Kay Klein. This book keeps popping up in my newsfeed which tells me that people want to talk about it. The subtitle of the book hits precisely why this book caused my heart to ache: “Inside the evangelical movement that shamed a generation of young women and how I broke free.”
Within the book, the author shares her journey of shame, ...
When is the last time you felt disappointed by your marriage? Notice that I asked when, not if. Disappointment is a normal part of any relationship, but it hits us particularly hard in marriage.
We live in a day and time when marriage is presented as an answer for your loneliness, insecurities, sexual frustration and romantic longings. Marriage is supposed to make you happy, right? Your husb...
Like most of America, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what’s in the news: Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey-Ford. Regardless of the outcome, this story is tragic. Either a victimized woman has been retraumatized by this ordeal, or an innocent man has been slandered. Only God discerns the heart of each person. None of us will ever know what occurred thirty-five years ago amon...
Gary Thomas has been a guest on Java with Juli multiple times and also joined us for our March 2018 webinar "Having a Mission-Focused Marriage." He is a bestselling author and international speaker whose ministry brings people closer to Christ and closer to others. He unites the study of Scripture, church history, and the Christian classics to foster spiritual growth and deeper relati...
God cares about your sex life. It may seem weird to see the words God and sex in the same sentence. Sometimes when I teach women on this topic, they have a visceral reaction to the concept of God knowing about their sex lives. Psalm 139 tells us that God is always with us. There is nowhere we can go to hide from his presence—not even the bedroom!
Why is there such a disconnect for a wo...
When children reach the age of two, they begin asking a question they never stop asking. Why? If you are parenting a young child, you are faced with endless why questions. Why do I have to go to bed so early? Why do I have to eat brussel sprouts? Why do you have to go to work? Why does he get more pizza than I do? Why can’t I drive the car?
In their exhaustion, some parents defer to th...
In many marriages (but not all), sexual intimacy is very high on a husband’s list. In books like William Harley’s His Needs, Her Needs, sex is listed as the number one thing a husband needs in marriage. Many men would nod in agreement and tell their wives in so many words that they need sex; however, I’ve never known of a man to die because he didn’t have it.
I’...
When I look at the home my husband grew up in and compare it to how I was raised, it’s a wonder we ended up together. Our backgrounds are so completely opposite that no marriage counselor in her right mind would have suggested that we marry.
Once we said, “I do,” Mike and I disagreed about how to approach everything from the budget to cleaning the toilet, but parenting pres...
My guest on this week’s Java with Juli podcast is Jerusha Clark. Jerusha and her husband Jeramy have been sharing their journey of marriage and parenting for many years, encouraging others with what God is teaching them. Jerusha wrote the following guest blog as a follow up to our conversation on Java with Juli. You can find out more about Jerusha’s ministry and books at jandjclark....
