2015 will go down as a year in which I, as a Pastor, can testify that the devil has truly tried to destroy marriages and family.  Our theme for the new year here at "The Grove" is... "2016: Year of New Beginnings." And as I am finding out there are many families across our nation and even locally that need a fresh new start.  What a time to make that fresh new start than at the beginning of a new year?  No doubt 2016, as each year does, will have it's challenges, but if couples today would realize that the battles they face are not individual battles, but ones that they face together as husband and wife our relationships would be stronger.  I will go a step further and say that instead of two, there are three of you who face that battle.  I say that only though if Christ lives in your heart and is your personal Lord and Savior.  There is no battle that He has never lost and through Him each battle we face in 2016 may not be easy, but is certainly winnable with Christ on our team and more importantly, Him doing the leading. 
I think one reason so many families and marriages are in trouble today is because they have not totally surrendered all they are and even each other to Jesus Christ.  In some weddings I have done, during the sand ceremony I have read the following: "Today, this relationship is symbolized through the pouring of these individual containers of sand one, representing (the wife or husband) and all that you were, all that you are, and all that you will ever be."  We as couples should make sure that we have given ourselves not just to one another, but our marriages as a whole to the Lord, "all that we were, all that we are, and all that we will ever be." 
The hardest thing for so many today is to totally surrender everything to the Lord and let Him be in charge of it because we are sometimes creatures of control.  Feeling that we have to be in control at all times which is totally opposite of trusting God by faith.  It is He who should have the control, not us.
May 2016 be your "Year of New Beginnings" and be less stressful than 2015 because you have given total control of your home, your life, you marriage and even your children into the care of the Lord Jesus!!  #2016yearofnewbeginnings