I just wanted to pass on a quick message to you. And this is a message that applies to you, whether you realize it or not.

When I was with my brother-in-law about a week and a half ago in San Francisco after the last First Steps to Success, we had an awesome joyous time. Something came up in a conversation was so interesting. What he said was, "Dani, I know of 6 couples right now who are on the verge of divorce. These are young couples, between their 20’s and 30’s. There seems to be an all-out assault on marriages."

It was so interesting, because just that morning I had woken up out of a dead sleep, and I heard the words, "Married people, stand firm. Don’t quit." I woke up with that brewing in my gut. And then later that night, my brother-in-law brought up this same topic. He said these 6 couples who were on the verge of divorce would all consider themselves very moral couples. They go to church, they are part of different Bible studies, and yet they were all on the verge of divorce. 3 of them were already broken up or separated, and the other 3 were on the verge of doing that.

Not to mention, right before I was with my brother-in-law, I had gotten a text from a friend who was trying to get her friend to go to the Spiritual Equipping in the Marketplace at First Steps to Success. She sent me a text saying, "This woman is really hurting. She has a lot of kids, and her husband just left her for another woman. This was all condoned by the church. He is a speaker in churches, and he felt like God had told him to leave his wife. The pain this woman and her children are going through is horrific."

My friend, there is an all-out assault against marriages and against you succeeding.

Remember when I said back at the beginning that this applies to you, whether you realize it or not? There is a force that wants to stop you from fulfilling your commitments. There is a force that wants you to fail. There is a force that wants you to give up and give in. Married or not, I’m telling you now – Stand firm. Do not give up!

Listen, I’ve almost wanted to throw in the towel so many times in my marriage. Even when things are so bad, even when things seem like it’s never going to work, even when it seems like it’s just too hard, you can’t quit!

Now, I may not know your exact situation, but if you are feeling like, "I married the wrong person," or "I got into the wrong business," or "I didn’t find the right job," or "I didn’t have the right kids," there is a force that has targeted you, and you must stand up against it. You have to stand firm. If you are going through some major struggles in your marriage or in your business or parenting, I want you to know that you are on the brink of something great. So you have to make a decision to stand firm, to hold tight, to not quit.

Your marriage is a partnership. You and that partner have to get together and make the decision not to quit. You can’t even entertain it. You and that partner have to say, "It’s obvious that there are things we must learn in order to succeed in this relationship. There must be something we are supposed to gain from this. There must be a piece of wisdom we’re supposed to grab from this."

See, all of these challenges in your marriage, business, finances, or family are exposing a place where you lack a skill. Challenges expose a weakness in your foundation and a place where you must learn a new skill, whether it’s the skill of communicating with each other, the skill of forgiveness, the skill of bypassing resentment and bitterness and judgment, the skill of sticking to it, the skill of rejecting division and clinging to unity.

You cannot succeed in anything in life if you just give up. When times get tough, you talk yourself out of the commitment you made. That’s an easy thing to do, but you, my friend, are not called to do what’s easy. You are called to wisdom; you are called to freedom; you are called to do the right thing.

So if there are challenges right now in your relationships, just know that those challenges are exposing a skill that you are lacking. A skill is something that is simple to attain, to grab, to buy. You can learn a new skill. You just have to make the decision that quitting is not an option. You have to make the decision that you must press ahead. You have to make the decision that division is no longer going to take a stand in your life. You’re going to cling to unity, cling to wisdom, and cling to gaining new skill sets so that you can stand firm.

Listen, Hans and I, through the last 2 decades, have certainly come to points of, "I’m outta here, I’m done. This is too hard. I must have married the wrong person. It shouldn’t be this difficult. Why don’t other people have these challenges?" That’s a bunch of nonsense!!!

Here are the facts: Great marriages are marriages that manage to make it because they have made a decision not to quit. Great marriages are those who have made a decision to grow, to gain a new skill set, to glean from the wisdom of others, and to not quit.

A perfect marriage does not go without challenges or temptations or failures. A perfect marriage is a complete marriage, a marriage that makes it through those bad and hard times, a marriage that makes it through those challenges that make you want to quit.

It is time to grow in your maturity. It’s time to cling to unity. And it’s time to claim your freedom. You will succeed greater than you ever thought was possible, and you will grow deeper and more madly in love with that person that you made a commitment to however many years ago it was.

So that’s it for me today. Please pass this message on! You never know who’s about to throw in the towel. You never ever know who’s about to give in and give up. You never know who you could help by simply sending this email to everyone you know. Post it on Facebook, post it on Twitter, post it everywhere you can. Because someone you know is about to make a decision that will change the course of their life and their family’s lives forever, and you could be the one who was used as a powerful instrument to bring truth when they needed it most. God bless you, and I look forward to talking with you soon!

In great faith,