Today is #GivingTuesday, an event following Black Friday and Cyber Monday that is all about radical generosity. Lori and I usually kick off our year-end giving campaign on GivingTuesday, and I’ll nag you about that at the bottom. But I want to talk about the concept of giving in general.
There’s a lot of need out there.
Last month, I became a board member for The Greenhouse, a local food and clothing bank. A couple of days before Thanksgiving, I joined volunteers to package 250 turkey meals for our clients. We move a lot of food, and we’re barely scratching the surface. Next year I will be working to get more support from area churches, and helping to build a coalition with other food banks in our area. This is part of how I’m working to be radically generous.
I’ve suggested more than once that volunteering as a couple is good for your marriage. A food bank is a great way to do that, and most of them are always looking for help. You can also work with the homeless, or adult literacy. The YMCA needs volunteers, as does Meals on Wheels. Catchafire matches your skills with a non-profit in need of those skills, and VolunteerMatch makes it easy to find a need near you.
As for Lori and me, we are able to do what we for marriages because of the generosity of folks like you. Please pray about helping us help others. Links below.
Donate with Check or BillPay
Print out our donation form and mail it with your check or money order. Make checks payable to The Marriage Bed. Or skip the form and put “Paul & Lori” in the memo.
Mail to:
Paul & Lori c/o The Marriage Bed, Inc. 4641 Lyons Hill Road Springdale, WA 99173
Yesterday, I posted The Ultimate Guy Gift Giving Guide over on The XY Code. I’d love to post a similar guide here for you gentlemen, but I can’t. Maybe part of it is that I’m not a woman. But more than that, I find that what women see as a great gift varies a great deal.
That said, I do have a gift suggestion that will work for most women. Get a heated mattress pad for your bed. If your wife has ever mentioned being cold in bed, this is a great gift.
A mattress pad is a much better way to go than a blanket. Rather than sending the heat up to the ceiling, the pad heats your bodies and gets caught under the blanket. No more getting into a cold bed, and that can only help you heat things up in other ways. Get a bed with dual controls, so you can make yours warm while she sets her side to broil. A mattress pad is a great solution for a bedroom that’s runs cool, or it can allow you to set the thermostat lower overnight. And finally, she can’t steal the pad the way she steals the blankets!
To give gifts that can’t be wrapped, you can use our coupons. From a massage to a vacation to sex the way she most wants it, you can customise these to say whatever you want.
Speaking of gifts, Lori and I have been blown away by year-end giving this year. In less than a week, we crossed the halfway line. We’ve never finished before Christmas — can you help us do that this year? Big or small, one off or recurring, it all helps us keep ministering to couples struggling with their marriage and/or their sex life.
2023 Year End
You can be a part of us helping marriages by supporting us with your prayers and finances. Thanks, Paul & Lori
Print out our donation form and mail it with your check or money order. Make checks payable to The Marriage Bed. Or skip the form and put “Paul & Lori” in the memo.
Mail to:
Paul & Lori c/o The Marriage Bed, Inc. 4641 Lyons Hill Road Springdale, WA 99173
So it’s once again time for me to ask for donations.
Lori and I put a lot of time and effort into what we do to minster to marriages. We’re able to give it so much because of the donations we receive. And about half of our income is received the last five weeks of the year.
Donation QR Code
I’ll be honest, this last year was difficult for us financially. We didn’t anticipate how much our cost of living was going to rise this year, and we got caught short. However, we’re seeking the same amount this year that we did last year, $15,000. This is because of a bit of retirement money that will start in December.
To continue doing what we do, we need your help. Please don’t think what you could give is not enough to bother. It adds up, and beyond that we see each donation as a vote of confidence. Big one-time gifts are nice, but small recurring donations are great too. Even five or ten dollars a month would be awesome.
Donate with Check or BillPay
Print out our donation form and mail it with your check or money order. Make checks payable to The Marriage Bed. Or skip the form and put “Paul & Lori” in the memo.
Mail to:
Paul & Lori c/o The Marriage Bed, Inc. 4641 Lyons Hill Road Springdale, WA 99173
Today, I’m going to ask for your help. Yes, that includes asking for donations, but that’s not all.
My desire is to see marriages heal and grow. That is why I’ve done this for more than a quarter of a century, and why I expect to keep doing it as long as they can prop me up in front of a keyboard. But helping requires I understand the need. I’m sure I’m missing some things that I should address. And I’m probably covering some things too often. So I would really appreciate hearing from you about what you want to hear, or hear more often, as well as what I should back off on. You can leave a comment, or use the contact form to email me.
I also covet your prayers. I have a fair amount of experience and wisdom about marriage, but I don’t know it all, and I’m far from perfect. Please pray for me to have wisdom. Also, boldness and grace, as is appropriate.
As to donations, yes please. If one to two percent of you who follow Lori or me regularly would give $5 a month, we would be set. Recurring donations help us budget, but giving it all at once is great too. This link allows you to do either. I know setting it up can be a hassle, but a few dollars a month really can make a difference. This is my last nag for summer giving.
Modesty aside, I think I’ve been putting out some great content the last few months. If you feel this is true, would you be so kind as to suggest this blog to a couple of friends? Let them know you don’t always agree with me if that helps.
Additionally, if you’re under the age of forty, could you let me know how I’m doing being relevant and helpful to your generation? I’d love to get more folks who have fewer years of marriage so I can help them avoid some of the mistakes most of us make. Any suggestions on how to reach or speak to Millennials are greatly appreciated.
I’ve been anxious about our year-end giving for most of the month. And, of course, I use to word anxious because it sounds better than saying fearful. But it made no sense for me to feel this way. Donations are a bit slower than usual, but ever since Covid that is the new norm and every year it’s fine. So I just keep pushing it aside.
Then a few days ago Lori was listening to a podcast, about homesteading of all things, which God used to get me to deal with it. The obvious fear is “We won’t be able to pay our bills!” But that’s not the issue. I could easily get a job at Home Depot; they have been short-handed for two years, and I have real-world experience they would like. Thirty hours a week there would more than replace what we are looking for in donations. So why was I so uptight?
As I thought and prayed about it, I realised that I am very excited about my upcoming Doing Sex Well course. I think it will make a major difference for some couples and it’s the heart of what I have always wanted to do. I was afraid I would have to get a job and wouldn’t have time to do the course.
Once I had found the real fear, it was easy to put it to rest. When Lori and I started a quarter of a century ago, we didn’t take donations. I worked 35 to 50 hours a week doing landscape and irrigation and we paid the bills for our websites and discussion forum. We started taking donations five or six years in when our costs went up, but we didn’t make money ourselves for the first dozen years.
So I could make Doing Sex Well happen even if I become bivocational again. I would have to cut back on the blogs and probably end the podcasting, but I could pick and choose and do what I think is most important.
I should mention this is not an attempt to manipulate people into donating. I almost didn’t do this post because I don’t want anyone to think that. But I’ve always tried to be honest here about who I am and it felt like I needed to write this for that reason. Additionally, there’s a concept here that is a big deal in marriages.
Pushing your fear away won’t make it go away and the situation might get far worse if you don’t face it. If your wife seems distant, upset, or mad, you need to face it. Best case you are seeing something that is not there or is not as big as your fear has made it. Worse case you find out there is a major problem, but then you know and can deal with it. If you keep denying and hiding you may be forced to face it when she asks for a divorce.
As for donations, I’d rather not drive into Home Depot several times a week. If you feel led to help keep that from happening, click the button below or follow the instructions for mailing something.
Donate with Check or BillPay
Print out our donation form and mail it with your check or money order. Make checks payable to The Marriage Bed. Or skip the form and put “Paul & Lori” in the memo.
Mail to:
Paul & Lori c/o The Marriage Bed, Inc. 4641 Lyons Hill Road Springdale, WA 99173
Every “Giving Tuesday“, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, Lori and I ask our readers for donations. We’ve been fully donation supported for eight years now. This allows us to put in a lot of hours doing this and still eat. And thanks to so many of you, we have been able to eat and pay our bills all these years.
A little over a week ago, I teased the new things Lori and I will be doing. Lori will announce her new blog in the next week or so. I hope to start “Doing Sex Well” in mid-February. So if you choose to support us this year, you will be helping us with these new ventures.
I always say small donations count. We had someone give $2 a month for several years. Every time I saw that come in it blessed me more than the bigger donations. It’s not just the money, it’s the vote of confidence. If we could get $2 a month from each of our readers that would take care of our needs. The reality is most folks never donate, so we very much need those of you who give one hundred or one thousand dollars. We have a couple of churches that support us monthly and would be thrilled to see more doing that.
The donations we’re asking for today are specifically for Lori and me. The Marriage Bed ministry is blessed with a yearly grant and a number of long-term supporters that cover our operating costs.
If you have questions, please ask. I think those who live on the donations of others have an obligation to be transparent. BTW, there are plenty of other ministries and people who could use some financial help. Please be generous!
Donate with Check or BillPay
Print out our donation form and mail it with your check or money order. Make checks payable to The Marriage Bed. Or skip the form and put “Paul & Lori” in the memo.
Mail to:
Paul & Lori c/o The Marriage Bed, Inc. 4641 Lyons Hill Road Springdale, WA 99173
In the summer of 1997, Lori and I started posting on AOL’s Christianity Online Message Boards. We primarily posted in the married sex and romance forums. Because of our journey and a lot of reading, we knew a good deal about these things and knew where to find answers to things we didn’t know. Someone suggested we should start a website and a couple of folks seconded it. After a bit of discussion and prayer, we went for it.
In the fall of 1997 the predecessor of The Marriage Bed, called Godly Intimacy In Marriage, went live. So our twenty-five anniversary is about now. Originally we had intended to discuss all aspects of marriage, but Christians willing and able to discuss sex was a novelty back then, and we ended up doing mostly sexual content. In the summer of ’99, we started The Marriage Bed message boards when the Christianity Online Message Boards were overrun by a group of self-proclaimed pagans. Two years later the blogs were started, to allow us to cover issues beyond sexuality.
Every year we ask ourselves if God wants us to keep going. Not because we want to stop, but because we don’t want to put time and energy into something that is no longer God’s will. Beyond asking if we should keep going, we seek Him about what we should be doing. This has led to us moving into social media and more recently audio recording. At the start of 2022, Lori felt unsure of God’s direction for her. I had similar thoughts. We offer a lot of content here, but we sometimes wonder how much of it is actually put into practice. Sure, we get comments and emails that say something we’ve written has made a big difference in someone’s marriage, but our feeling was we weren’t meeting the challenge.
Lori took a sabbatical, a decision we made just before the start of her five months of medical issues. In the midst of that, she told me she had a sense she needed to do something new that involved more practical suggestions developed over a week’s time. More doing. I won’t steal her thunder, so I’ll leave it at that.
When Lori shared this with me, it brought my thinking into focus. I share the same concern she has, but specifically about sex. What we’ve done on The Marriage Bed and the blogs has helped a lot of folks overcome sexual problems. But have we helped folks with okay sex lives move to good? Have we helped couples with good sex lives find their way to great sex? I want to do something for couples without sex problems who want way better sex lives. Following a similar plan as Lori, I will provide one idea every two weeks. It might be a sex act of position, or it might be looking at your thoughts and feelings. I want to gently push at your limits and suggest ways to move beyond what has been your norm. I’ve done bits of this on the blogs. It’s been well received, and modesty aside, I think I’m rather good at it.
Neither Lori nor I want to tell you how to do your marriage or sex life. This is not about doing it right, it’s about finding what works well for you and your spouse. We want to offer ideas along with various ways to implement those ideas. Some will work for you, some won’t. But if you give each a fair chance, you will gradually improve your marriage or sex life.
As my plate is already full, doing the new site well will require me to cut back somewhere. I’m going to continue doing The XY Code three times a week and will cut The Generous Husband to five times a week. It’s still a modest increase in my workload, but I think it’s doable.
We have no solid timeline at this point. Lori has been actively working on building her new site and we’ve both been making notes on content and have started to put a few ideas down on cyberpaper. I expect Lori will go live before I do. My tentative start date is mid-February, but that’s just a guess.
We would really appreciate your prayers as we move in these new directions. And as always, we depend on your financial support to keep us going. I’m doing a soft launch on our year-end giving today, with more information on that to follow after Thanksgiving.
I’d love to do this for another twenty-five years. We will see what God does.
To give gifts that can’t be wrapped, you can use 
2023 Year End
