Crazy Cycle CD (10 Pack)

To stay the course in speaking words of Love and Respect, keep your heart in Scripture, trusting in and talking about His promises to help you.

Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

Getting married reveals, usually sooner than later, an incontestable fact: your spouse cannot possibly meet all your needs and desires

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.

Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times from one degree to another.

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

A major step toward a happy marriage is accepting differences and working them out with love and respect.

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

Though the end can be worthy (to be loved and respected), when each uses unholy means (unloving and disrespectful words and actions), it will not achieve those ends. We must treat others as we expect them to treat us. To deny this makes us arrogant or fools, or both.

When you possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted you.

“Respect is a man’s deepest value. I have had numerous men tell me, ‘I would rather live with a wife who respected me but did not love me than live with a wife who loved me but did not respect me.’ These men are not saying that they are indifferent to love. They know they need love, but they need to feel respected even more than they need to feel loved.“

Your husband knows you value his friendship when you tell him you like him and you show it (he knows you love him, but he often wonders if you really like him).

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

In the ultimate sense you marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship with Jesus Christ.

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

When others do not respond to our communication, we need to look first at our communication style. Is the other person incapable of hearing what we have to say? Or are we abrupt, brusque, and curt?

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

If you are seeking positive change in your marriage, you will need to make a positive change in your attitude and actions.

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.

[Husbands] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

Always try to look at your spouse the way Jesus does.

Marriage is a test of how you unconditionally love and respect your spouse as you obey, honor, and please the Lord.

We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

Your position in Christ is what counts, not your less-than-perfect performance.

Being a person who communicates what is true frequently demands tact, and at times it can feel like sidestepping land mines. It takes work to be both truthful and tactful.

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

I have concluded that those of us in the church who believe we have the Truth are not using the whole truth. A crucial part of God’s Word has been completely ignored, or perhaps simply gone unnoticed, when it has been there right under our noses the whole time! Many Christian spouses know Ephesians 5:33 and can at least paraphrase it. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to love their wives as much as they love themselves, and wives are to respect their husbands. But is anyone really listening? Perhaps the first step to better communication between husband and wife is to hear what God’s Word clearly says. --Emerson

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

A man has a natural, inborn desire to go out and “conquer” the challenges of his world – to work and achieve.

God is not trying to trick you or mess with you. Trust that He wants to reveal Himself to you just as much as He wants to reveal Himself to the world.

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

You can be right but wrong at the top of your voice.

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

Men are solution oriented, they love to solve problems. They want to be helpful.

Feeling unloved, a wife gets defensive and acts offensively without respect. Feeling disrespected, a husband gets defensive and acts offensively without love.

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

Clearly, in the marriage, in the family and in the household, when you speak words of blessing, you are speaking to the Lord, and for this you will be rewarded.

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

Christian maturity involves a lot of things, but surely it includes knowing how to process your anger.

Through Jesus and Peter, God set forth His standard for living in the unconditional dimension: choose to be loving even when the other person is not; do what is right regardless of the treatment you receive. I believe this standard applies directly to marriage. A husband who speaks lovingly to his disrespectful wife will be rewarded; and a wife who speaks respectfully to her unloving, not-worthy-of-respect husband will be rewarded. Whether you are husband or wife, the reward is what can keep you going in the midst of the craziness: knowing that God commends you, knowing that you have found his favor for your words and actions.

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

The Love and Respect message is not about a husband earning his wife’s respect by being more loving any more than it is about a wife earning her husband’s love by being more respectful. Always love or respect is given unconditionally according to God’s commands.

When the wife flatly says her husband will have to earn her respect before she gives him any, she leaves the husband in a lose-lose situation. Now he is responsible for both love and respect in the relationship. He must unconditionally love his wife and earn her respect.

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

He will feel appreciated when you disagree with him only in private and honor his authority in front of the kids.

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

Do not live by the standards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His Holy Word.

Thank God for His forgiveness of your mistakes. In trying to be a loving man or a respectful woman, we blow it. Owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it is always the way to move forward. Take good care not to accuse your spouse of mistakes as you pray. Also, pray about any forgiving to be done in the family, any forgiveness that needs to be asked. Children may need forgiveness (and what about Mom and Dad?). “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

Recognize your different gifts--how each of you (Pink and Blue) functions according to God’s perfect design.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

The Crazy Cycle is, indeed “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25)

When you relinquish an offense, you need to send that offense somewhere. So follow Jesus’ example and release it to your heavenly Father.

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

We get on the Crazy Cycle because without love a wife reacts without respect, and without respect a husband reacts without love.

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

When a wife feels unloved, it can be such a shock to her heart that she is oblivious to her disrespectful reactions toward her husband, though any man watching could see it plainly.

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

Holding back your love or respect will just keep the Crazy Cycle spinning away, but being mature and making the first move could slow it down.

Focus on the positive in the midst of the negative, and the Energizing Cycle will keep right on humming.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and Respect.

If we subscribe to the belief that because we are equal we are the same, then we’re going to expect our spouse to respond the way we do.

Refuse to let evil turn you into a contemptuous and hateful person.

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

Marriage is a tool and a test to allow God’s will to be revealed in our lives.

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.

Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.

Respect for the husband is just as important as love for the wife.

You have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!

Unconditional respect, like unconditional love, is all about how one sounds (tone of voice and word choice) and appears (facial expressions and physical actions).

When Jesus said “turn the other cheek,” He wasn’t saying to be passive wimps. He was teaching that physically people can control you but if you turn and give the other cheek, suddenly you’re in control and you’re making the choices.

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration, or anger, but you always have a choice.