Jimbo's Jots

In 2018, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County accomplished something never ever done in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. As a 16th seed, they defeated a number 1 seed, University of Virginia. Worse yet, the Virginia Cavaliers were the overall number 1 seed meaning they were the top team in the nation that year entering the tournament. And the defeat wasn’t just by a last second shot to shock the world. It was a 20 point UMBC Retrievers’ win and not really a close kind of game. ESPN showed after the defeat that 99.4% of the brackets were wrong in picking UVa over UMBC.

What gives a team like UMBC a chance to win a game? A team that by all accounts doesn’t have a chance. It’s a little four letter word – HOPE. UMBC believed and hoped by playing to their potential even against a stronger opponent, that they could win.

In 2014, marriage researcher Shaunti Feldhahn, along with her senior researcher, Tally Whitehead, published a little book, “The Good News about Marriage: Debunking discouraging myths about marriage and divorce.” In short, as a preview of coming attractions, she says that there is one certain factor that keeps couples together – HOPE. She asserts that couples will go through periods of their marriage. What keeps them together is the hopeful feeling one of the partners has in the relationship. Even more so, when hope is spoken freely, each will work towards making sure work gets done to keeping the marriage alive.

Of course the opposite of this is true as well. When thoughts of “This is not going to get better” or “I don’t think we can make it”, it clearly changes the outcome. When a relationship doesn’t have hope, the thought is “why should I work so hard to fix it?”

As I work with couples in trying to strengthen their relationship, one thing I look for is hope. Important foundations in the relationship like communication can be taught. Also, couples in conflict usually only look at what is wrong with their marriage. I always ask as we start a session, “What has been good about your relationship since the last time we met?” Because I want them to see that there is good and seeing the good always brings hope.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll look at Feldhahn’s book and share insight that hopefully, brings a message of hope to your marriage.

Be blessed and be a blessing!