I’ve discovered that the secret to enjoying life is thankfulness (“be thankful”—Colossians 3:15). It really works. There’s always something to be thankful for, and finding it transforms your whole perspective. Isn’t it just like God to make His command to be thankful simultaneously His means of deliverance?

This year I particularly want to focus on one kind of thanksgiving—being thankful for men. I choose this because it is open season on men as much as on turkeys, which I feel sorry about. So here is my list of reasons to be thankful for men:

Adelle Kelleher once had trouble staying home at night. She was approaching her mid-30s, listening to her internal clock tick away with each unsuccessful date. On evenings when she decided to ditch the bar for her couch, she felt more anxious than relaxed: What if tonight was the night she would have met the one?

The Romanian Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a measure to allow a national referendum that could change the nation’s constitution to explicitly say that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The constitution currently states that marriage is a union between “spouses.” The 107-13 vote came after Parliament’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, approved the same measure last year.

When a friend told me she was spending $5,000 on a professional matchmaker, I gawked at her and didn’t understand. I was surprised that modern-day matchmakers exist, but was even more surprised that my friend—let’s call her Emily—would have a hard time dating.

Ever since I started working on a feature article on domestic abuse, I have been mulling over the topic of repentance: What does it mean? How does it look? In a situation as destructive as spousal abuse, should the abuser refuse to repent, is that grounds for divorce in God’s eyes? 

On Jan. 27, 2015, T—to protect privacy we are using only an initial—emailed leaders of her nondenominational church in western Washington state: “I’m asking for HELP! I’m desperately asking for help.” She said her husband had abused her with threats, lies, blame-shifting, and manipulation throughout 24 years of their marriage. She felt lost, afraid, broken.

When people ask Little Rock, Ark., resident Roosevelt Simmons about his five children, few are prepared for his answer. “I have a 20-year-old, a son and a daughter who are both 18. I’ve got a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old.” When a follow-up question about the 18-year-olds comes, he explains they are two months and 10 days apart, but they’re not twins. The startled questioners “don’t know where to go after that,” he says.