Love & Marriage 183 - The Patio - Aesthetic Togetherness

I am back sharing from the book, Blueprints for a solid marriage, of Dr Steve Stephens. He uses the analogy that your marriage is like a home. Each room or space in the house represents a different area of your marriage.

I now look at the patio which represents the Aesthetic Togetherness in your marriage. To enjoy beauty together from your patio makes live more positive and beautiful. It represents a place of simplicity and an escape from the hectic pace of life.

The first area of beauty is:

The beauty of Positives

Negativity is ugly. It can destroy a marriage through discouragement. Negativity is like a slap in the face. It pushes your partner away and kills their enthusiasm for the relationship. Far too often things are said like, nothing will make her happy or *No matter what I do, it's not good enough. A negative attitude is dangerous, while a positive attitude is truly a thing of beauty.

Chuck Swindoll wrote, Life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond to it. Attitude is the single most significant decision I made each day.

At every moment of every day you have a choice before you to have a positive or negative attitude. A positive attitude increases happiness, reduces depression, decreases stress, and strengthens your marriage. I realize that in spite of all the reasons to have a positive attitude, it is not always easy. It takes looking beyond circumstances and feelings. Sometimes circumstances are not very optimistic, and feelings can pull you down.

https://za.pinterest.com/pin/384565255656283573/

There is lots of evidence of people that grew up in bad circumstances but despite that, they still rise above their circumstances to make a big success out of their life. They did not let negative thoughts or feelings keep them down but by adopting positive thoughts and attitudes rise above their circumstances. You get just the opposite where people with great circumstances and fine feelings cling to a negative attitude.

Here are 10 ways to be positive:

1. Practice positive attitudes.
2. Repeat positive thoughts.
3. See positive qualities.
4. Speak positive words.
5. Encourage positive actions.
6. Pray positive prayers.
7. Make positive choices.
8. Befriend positive people.
9. Develop positive goals.
10. Live a positive life.

There are always things to complain about. Murphy's law says that whatever can possibly go wrong will go wrong. All too often this law seems to come true. But an optimistic person has learned to find positives in any situation. He has discovered that optimism has more to do with your focus than with your circumstances. Someone once said that the pessimist complains about the apple's seeds but the optimist plants them. To find the beauty of the positives, you must choose to focus on the positives. In the Bible, Paul encourages us in Philippians 4:8 to focus on all that is true, noble, pure, healthy, graceful, admirable, polite, exceptional, and praiseworthy. If you focus on these things, you can't help but be positive.

Thank you for reading, make a decision and be positive!

NEXT POST: Together enjoy the beauty of Creation.

Source: Blueprints for a happy marriage, Dr. Steven Stephens, Tyndale House Publishers
Images: pinterest as indicated

@hope777