Welcome to Season 6 of the Excel Stillmore podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson, and I am here to encourage you in your walk with the Lord, and I'm glad you've joined.

Our program continues to be sponsored by Cunningham Financial Group. John is a good friend and he's helped me and my family in everything

from stock and mutual fund investing to annuities, life insurance, and retirement planning.

I certainly commend him to you if you have needs in any of those areas. You can reach him at

205-326736-3-64. Thank you again for your ongoing encouragement and support. Let's get started.

Hey, welcome and thanks for listening in. Today, I want to talk to you about communication and how

powerful it is as a key to unlock a lot of doors and solve a great many problems. We will be

tying it particularly to relationships like dating and engagement and marriage, though I think

the answer to some of the questions I'll be asking you about communication today can apply to

any relationship that you have. I'll go ahead and open telling you a bit about where this is

coming from. I'm looking at a sheet of paper right now that says let's communicate at the top

and has about a half a dozen questions on the topic. I first saw this sheet of paper in very

similar form in the spring of 1997. Summer and I were engaged to get married, a couple of teenagers about to give

it a go, and the preacher where we worshipped, Steve Fontenow sat down and took us through a series of

lessons, but this was the very first one. I have since used this small packet of material in, I don't

know, countless studies with people before marriage.

And in fact, I have one of those studies starting tonight and another one later in the week.

So I'd pulled it back out and was going through it.

And every single time I do that, print this packet out and staple it together.

It brings back memories of that year and our wedding and all those really cool things.

But it also reminds me of some little tweaks and adjustments that I need to go home like today and make. And so for you,

if you are young and in love or thinking about marriage or just entering into it, I think these

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