For Women Only Turns Twenty! My Thoughts — and Yours.

The positive ripple effects continue

 For Women Only had other positive ripple effects, too. Its success swung open the door for Jeff and I to share encouragement for marriages at speaking events all over the country. It has led to much more research, which resulted in For Young Women Only, For Young Men Only, For Parents Only, and other books—as well as audio books, bible studies and resources designed to help relationships thrive.

It also opened doors to many more marriage-based research projects that have helped couples build stronger intimate lives, create better connection around money, and discover habits shared by the happiest couples.

Just last week, a woman wrote in to let me and my team know how this summer’s Married With Benefits podcast series through FamilyLife, which I co-hosted with Brian Goins, impacted her marriage. She wrote:

“Shaunti … your podcast saved my marriage. This summer I listened and re-listened and shared with everyone that I could. I have been married for 21 years. We had completely fallen apart and your podcast honestly saved us.”

Messages like these bring me to tears. Truly. If I can be transparent with you, working in the relationship space— especially the marriage space—comes with a built-in target. Readers of faith will understand what I mean. I have author friends who have done credible, earnest, transformational work in this area, and let’s just say all of us have many scriptures we collectively cling to when the battle gets fierce.

But it’s entirely worth it.

When you book Jeff and me to speak, when you buy our books for your engaged kids, when you write in with your heart-rending stories … not only does this keep our ministry going, but it spurs us on to learn more, research more, and share more that might help. We are even hoping to work with the publisher on an update to the books. We will never have perfect messaging, or all the answers readers need, but as long as God gives us the ability, we can keep trying.

So, those are some my thoughts. Now, I want to share your thoughts.