The Jar Podcast | Dignity, Restored, Marriage, Healing, Forgiveness

Do you get irritated and annoyed sometimes… with YOURSELF?  Do you find yourself unable to stop the verbal vomit from spewing? (ew. Sorry. That was gross. But hey, so are our words sometimes!)  You want FREEDOM from yourself, your sin, your tendencies to think or act a certain way. Okay, so now you KNOW you can be FREE from yourself, and you know you need to “control only what you can co...

Are you a wife, a Christian wife, or even a separated wife and you want FREEDOM from… yourself? That’s kind of a weird question, but hear me out. Do you want to be FREE from your controlling nature, your anger, your knee-jerk responses, or your lack of self-control? Are you sick of dealing with the instant regret after emotionally exploding on your spouse or tired of feeling the slow guilt after v...

Imagine walking through a still-smoldering forest after a wildfire. Smell the burnt wood, the sharp sting of the smoke in your nose. Listen to the eerie silence of no birds chirping and the sound of crunching under your feet as you step on twigs and fallen branches. Then see the bottom of your shoes covered in soot and ash, smears of black… It’s unrecognizable. You know this forest well, and it lo...

Have you walked through the fire in your marriage? Have you looked back at the remains of your marriage, the smoldering charred remnants that leave the marriage you once knew unrecognizable? The damage done seems irreparable, permanent, a total loss. But… what if you knew there was life underneath? What if you knew that BECAUSE of the fire, the growth after the burn was in fact MORE green, lusher,...

Have you ever picked weeds in your front yard? It’s slightly annoying and sweaty, back-breaking work, but it’s satisfying work that makes you feel good about your landscaping and helps the bushes to grow and HOA to not send notifications. Around here in Texas, it also helps keep snakes and spiders out! Now imagine trying to take care of a lawn that you’ve neglected for a couple of months– the time...

We close our eyes or raise our hands during worship and sing words like “Christ is enough for me” or “I am a child of God,”  and we nod our heads when the pastor says “you were made in the image of God,” only to walk out the church doors to return to sin. Or maybe you squirm in your seat as you hear things like that because you struggle with the shame of what you’ve done or what’s been done t...

What do you say when people ask you about yourself? “I’m a wife, a mom, a teacher, a….” But suddenly you’re faced with a lackluster marriage, kids that argue back, and a job that’s no longer fulfilling? And maybe that’s you right now. If we got to meet face to face, you would not really know what to say about yourself or you’d struggle to name your titles because you’re going through such a hard t...

Communication in marriage is one of the most foundational elements and yet one of the most frustrating parts of marriage. I know this from personal experience and also from listening to you… those of you that have joined my Facebook community and that I have the privilege of getting to know better have also said communication is your #1 struggle in marriage. So today I brought you a guest. Her nam...

Hey, friend.  I just wanted to let you know that I see you. You might be putting on a brave face right now. You might be holding your emotions down, and you might even be pretending pretty well– maybe no one around you sees how overwhelmed and weighed down you feel about the state of your marriage.  You carry a burden of wanting more for your husband and you yet feel discouraged and even...

Have you ever looked at your husband (or he at you) and thought you could NOT be any more different than each other? Have your differences collided into conflict, and increasingly so, to where you feel like all you do is misunderstand each other or are fighting constantly? What are you supposed to do when you’re just so opposite of each other in your thinking, communication styles, and more? In th...

Has your husband done something to hurt you: been unfaithful, struggled with pornography, been unkind, neglectful, or absent? Are you filled with anger every time he reaches for that game remote again instead of having a conversation with you? Do you feel angry enough to want revenge when you discover yet another time he’s done something hurtful toward you? I know what it’s like to struggle with w...

“And I thought we finally were free…It seemed a just and simple equation. Thousands of miles of ocean separated us from barbed wire, police searches, camps for the condemned, camps for the displaced. I did not yet know that nightmares know no geography, that guilt and anxiety wander borderless…I believe the past couldn’t touch me here….” (The Choice by Dr. Edith Eger) Do you think you’re free from...

Not that any of you are super interested in knowing more about me personally, BUT, I used to struggle with vulnerability, not opening up to others, keeping others at bay since I moved so much, hiding behind pride and perfection, and at one point in my life, behind shame. But. That bandaid was essentially ripped off, and I’ve since learned the value of being vulnerable and honest and open when it’s...

Are you really rooted in God’s Word as a Christian Wife? Do you spend time in God’s Word often yet haven’t actually allowed it to sink in and transform you? And this is obvious when you snap at your husband when he makes a comment you don’t like or mumble under your breath with a bad attitude. What is preventing you from applying what you read in the Bible? What’s stopping you from using these bib...

I bet you don’t go into a conversation with your husband, typically, looking for a fight. I bet you start to have a conversation with him with good intentions, hoping for something to get resolved or to be heard, but then something derails, emotions get bigger, careless words are thrown, and you leave the room sort of stunned of like “what just happened?” Today I’m talking with my girl Erika Diaz-...

Have you ever been trying to communicate with your husband and… as his eyes glaze over, you realize you’ve been talking for a while, but what you’re talking about now is not even close to what you originally started talking about? Come on, Linda, yes, yes you have. Then your husband pipes in, making a comment that he deems “helpful,” but it only makes you feel unheard and invalidated. He sees a pr...

Are you at the point of complete and utter brokenness? Do you feel like your marriage is on its last leg or even worse…dying? Or maybe you’re dealing with consequences of your own sin and feeling like an unworthy failure… And perhaps you’re just sick and tired of feeling so sick and tired of it all.  Hey. I’ve been there.  Today we’re going to walk through 3 biblical truths that you can...

The kids are finally in bed; the husband is on his phone, and your favorite show is about to come on. You grab a wine glass, fill it up, and settle into the other couch. No harm, right? It's been a long day. Your kids are arguing, and your husband is in a bad mood. You sigh, head to the cabinet to get that trusty glass and pour a glass because you just need some thing to calm your nerves.  Yo...

Are you sitting there right now imagining yourself on vacation…alone? Do you wish you could escape your marriage just momentarily and get away from the dysfunction? Or are your bags packed and you’re ready to call it quits? I see you, friend… and I’m here today to give you four tools that will help you find peace, quiet the noise (whether that’s arguments with your husband or just the chaotic jumb...

I see you, Friend, sitting on the couch with your glass of wine after a long day, scrolling Instagram, thumbing through the picture-perfect filtered photos instead of facing the unfiltered truth of your life right now.  I see you turning on Netflix to binge-watch that show instead of braving the conversation you know you need to have with your husband about when you felt frustrated earlier th...

How do you KNOW if you've truly forgiven your husband?  What do you do when your heart still hurts and hasn't fully healed from the pain in your marriage? You've tried everything to make it work, to fix it, to fix...him. But it's not working. You're living undivorced under the same roof, he's left you and wants a divorce, or things are just so bad that SOMEthing is about to give. Tune in to P...

HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN UP ON YOUR MARRIAGE? Have you lost hope, wanted to just toss it out, and, like a seed planted in soil, rolled your eyes at the thing that’s probably never going to actually grow, turned your back and decided who cares and let the sun scorch it cuz it’s already dead? OR MAYBE YOU TRIED. You tried watering, following all the instructions, shading it and giving just the rights amo...

Are you tired of being the spiritually mature one in your marriage? Do you feel like your husband just isn't invested in your marriage like you are? Have you gotten to the point of GIVING UP because... well, he just isn't in this. Maybe he's even left you, and you're living separated right now...either physically or emotionally but under the same roof.  Friend, in this two-part series with my...

Shut down and avoid? Lash out with a torrent of harsh words at your husband? Bottle it up, shove it down and move on when you feel frustrated? As different as each of these ways of dealing with this emotion are, they all have one thing in common-- anger. Whether or not you claim to be an "angry person," or whether you know you're actually angry and not just slightly annoyed, there IS a way to mana...

Are you sitting there feeling hopeless since your husband walked out? That his struggle with pornography is ongoing? That infidelity has wrecked your marriage (whether it was yours or his)? Maybe your marriage is at rock bottom right now, and you're struggling to see the light.  If you're not sure how something so broken can be restored or how God can possibly work a miracle in your marriage,...