Dating
Loving Smart
Everyone experiences love differently. Biology, upbringing, personality and experiences all influence the way an individual likes and needs to be loved. Being different in this way isn’t a problem. In fact it’s one of the things that makes relationships a rich and wonderful experience. What is a potential problem is that both you and your…
Read MoreThe Nature of Love
We all ‘know’ what love is: it’s that feeling of affection and attachment we experience for another person. But is love just a feeling? Or is there more to it?
Read MoreRomantic Love: Feeling or Choice?
From Hollywood to Cleo, the cultural representations of Romantic Love are clear: it’s a spontaneous feeling of attraction and affection for another. And like all feelings, we don’t choose it: it’s something that just happens to us. We spontaneously ‘fall’ into love and we are powerless to prevent it. To be sure when it strikes,…
Read MoreRomance in Scripture
Why is the Song of Songs favoured by mystics? What is it about this book in the Bible that attracts so much attention? Surely the answer is that the language – poetic, erotic and sensual – speaks profoundly to the hearts of those who hunger for intimacy with the lover of our souls. This…
Read MoreSexuality – A Resource for Loving
Sexuality touches upon every aspect of our personhood, body and soul, and it is expressed as either masculinity or femininity. It is developed and expressed primarily through relationships. Our masculinity or femininity draws us into relationship and makes us attractive to the other sex. When we are attracted to another, our good qualities are brought…
Read MoreCouple Prayer
Praying as an individual is vital to our Christian journey. As a married couple, you can also do couple prayer. This is prayer in personal conversation with God while allowing our spouse to hear. It’s a bit like a three way conversation. When we pray in this way, we are authentic and honest as there…
Read MoreMarriage or Matrimony?
Are you getting married ‘in the Church’ or simply ‘at a church’? People call a lot of things ‘marriage’. Everything from heterosexual cohabitation (common law marriage) to civil contracts (secular marriage) to the Judeo-Christian concept of covenant. In a Christian marriage there is a desire for the marriage to be open to the Lord and…
Read MoreReality Check: Cohabitation
Cohabitation is a general term that refers to a number of different living arrangements. These comments refer to those couples who are both living together and also sexually active, (that is, they are not just sharing a residence as friends) and are not in a permanent alternative to marriage (de-facto relationship). Despite the widely held…
Read MoreThe Power of Forgiveness
Let’s face it, your fiancé is not the only person who can or has hurt or disappointed you. Outside injuries, whether new or ancient, limit your ability to trust or to be completely generous and they often drive your behaviour. You can overreact to each other because of something someone else has done to you…
Read MoreFree to Love
The challenge before you is to learn to love the other effectively and to do so wholeheartedly and consistently with God’s abundant grace. Clearly some couples are ‘natural couples’; their formation makes it easy for them to express love in ways that are appreciated by the other. Other couples need to be constantly alert and…
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