THE JOY OF CELEBRATING OUR 31ST WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

It seems like it was just yesterday my wife and I celebrated our 30^th wedding anniversary and time has flown around again to celebrate another one.  On October 6, 2015 we celebrated our 31^st wedding anniversary together, by going to a place where I always wanted to visit, Las Vegas, Nevada.   We had a ball together just getting away and being able to enjoy one another’s company.  Being able to getting away from the busyness of life and work, to just have time with my wife in a new place was exciting to me.  I couldn’t have thought about being in any other place with any other person, other than with my best friend.  We have learned not to take one another for granted, and take advantage of the time we have together.  When we dated one thing we did that has aided us in being a happily married couple was, to build our marital relationship on a strong foundation of a good friendship.  We learned how to become intimate friends first with each other before we became lovers.  This means we didn’t allow sex to cloud our minds. 

My wife and I have truly built an intimate friendship with one another.  Most people when they hear the word intimate they think about a sexual relationship with someone, but the word intimate and even intimacy has a broader meaning than sex.  Intimate and intimacy means revealing your true self to someone.  In the book “The Seven Levels Of Intimacy” written by Matthew Kelly, he talks about what intimacy is in relationships.  He says, “Life is a self-revelation.  It’s about revealing yourself.”  In other words Matthew Kelly is saying life is about revealing who we are to others.  He goes on to say, “Relationships are also a process of self-revelation.  But far too often we spend our time and energy hiding our true selves from each other in relationships. … We yearn for intimacy, but we avoid it. … We avoid intimacy because having intimacy means exposing our secrets.  Being intimate means sharing the secrets of our hearts, minds, and souls with another fragile and imperfect human being.  Intimacy requires that we allow another person to discover what moves us, what inspires us, what drives us, what eats at us, what we are running towards, what we are running from, what silent self-destructive enemies lie within us, and what wonderful dreams we hold in our hearts.”   

You see, intimacy or being intimate, is all about taking the risk of revealing who we are on the inside to another person, and that person revealing themselves to us.  It is important to understand we can’t share the intimate details of our lives with everyone, but there are certain people that we are close to that we can share our life with.   While my wife and I were in Las Vegas celebrating our wedding anniversary, I shared with her that in 31 years of marriage there are two decisions I made in my life that I never regretted.  One was when I said “I do” to accepting Jesus Christ as my savior and Lord, and the second was when I said “I do” to marry her.   I believe my intimate relationship with Jesus is the only thing that has kept my intimate relationship with my wife, and it is all because of the wonderful friendship we continue to build upon in our marriage.

My wife and I can be honest with one another being able to speak the truth in love.  We have one another’s best interests in mind because we are best friends.  We took time getting to know one another such as our likes and dislikes, our life desires and ambitions, and the things we had in common.  We learned how to respect one another, have fun together, laugh at things and not take it seriously, and most importantly not to end our day angry with each other.  It is important for couples to take the mask off, and be your true selves with one another.  I encourage you to take the time to build an intimate friendship with one another, and allow yourselves to become good friends that have authentic communication with each other.  Don’t allow sex to cloud your judgment where you can’t be honest about one another’s behavior that irritates both of you, because of fear of losing the other person in the relationship.  Remember the habits and behavior that is in your dating relationship, is what will be carried over into your marital relationship.  An intimate friendship with your spouse can help you have a long and happy marriage.  

Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.

HOW TO BE LOVED AND RESPECTED BY YOUR CHILDREN

Today’s blog is entitled “How To Be Loved And Respected By Your Children”.  I was really motivated to write this blog after looking at a couple of videos on YouTube.  One was about an African-American family, and the second was about a white family.  Both videos showed how children were disrespecting their parents. 

·         The first video showed an African-American family of a mother and her two children (son and daughter).  The family was shopping in a grocery store.  The children were off the chain running around the store, and the son was eating food without his mother paying for it.  The problem was brought to the mother’s attention, and she confronted her son about it.  She grabbed and began to curse at him.  Eventually, both children disrespected the mother by the way they talked to her, and the things they did to her.

·         The second video showed a white family, a mother and her son, who was on the Dr. Phil show.  The video shows the mother sitting with her son confronting him about his disrespectful behavior.  They go back and forth talking at one another until the son gets so angry and slaps his mother in the face.

These are just two examples of children disrespecting their parents.  How many other times have you seen a child on T.V., or in public not respecting their parents by either hitting or talking to them inappropriately?  It seems like in our society you see more and more children and teenagers displaying disrespectful behavior toward their parents.  Maybe the reason why there are so many disrespectful children is because many parents are absent in their lives, there is little or no structure in their lives, or it could be the lack of love shown in the home.  There could be many reasons why children don’t display love and respect toward their parents. 

As parents when it comes to being loved and respected by our children, everything starts and ends with us.  Firstly, we must love our children not based on their performance or what they do or don’t, but love them unconditionally with no strings attached.  Loving our children unconditionally means accepting them for who they are, and appreciating them for what they do.  As a result they can feel loved by us and respond to us in love.  Secondly, we must respect our children as we hold them accountable to standards set for them to follow.  Even if our children over step a standard or behave disrespectfully, we must discipline them in a respectful way.    The standards we set for them to follow should be the same ones we are following in our life.  If our children are going to respect us as parent, it is because we are modeling respect before them, and practicing the same standards we are teaching them.  This will allow us to gain our children’s respect, and cause them to respect us as their parents.     

How we love and respect our children will determine how they will love and respect us as parents.  I believe God gives us a biblical principle in Ephesians 6:4, which says “Fathers, do not to provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them.  Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.”  Here God is not only speaking to fathers but to mothers as well.  He is saying as parents we are not to provoke our children to anger by the way we treat them, but to love and respect them.  We are to also discipline and instruct our kids by holding them to the standards we teach them, but they need to see us model what we teach.  My wife and I have gained our children’s love and respect, but on different occasions we had to deal with disrespectful behavior.  We decided we would allow our children to speak their mind, but we would not allow them to be disrespectful to us.  Parents I encourage you to talk to your children to make sure they feel unconditionally loved, and respected by you.  Hold your kids accountable to your standards in a respectful way, but make sure you are observing them too.  We can be loved and respected by our children.      

Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.

TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK IN MARRIAGE

                                                     

I have always heard the phrase, “Teamwork makes the dream work.”  Every time I have heard that phrase, it usually happens after someone has achieved some goal(s) in their organization, by working together with a team of people.  When I look at a marital relationship between a husband and wife, the same thing can be said.  It takes teamwork between a couple working together to have a strong and healthy marriage.  I can truly say I have learned through years of being married to my wonderful wife, for a marriage to be successful it takes both spouses working together as a team to accomplish it.  When couples aren’t working together in their marriage all it does is create division, confusion, difficulty, and conflict which eventually separates and destroys marriages.  The good news is when we are pulling together operating in our strengths as a team, it can truly make the dream work of achieving the goal for having a strong and healthy marriage.   

When we look at the word teamwork it can be used synonymously to the word team.  Teamwork or Team is where two or more people are working together to accomplish a certain task or goal.  Dr. John C. Maxwell in his book “The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork”, has a chapter in the book called “The Law of Significance”.  The Law of Significance says, “One Is Too Small a Number to Achieve Greatness”.  This is saying if we are going to accomplish anything great or significant in our marriage, it is going to take us working together with our spouse. 

Practicing teamwork can make the dream work in our marriage.  Working together with our spouse can help us overcome obstacles that fight against our relationship.  We need to also work as a team in order to achieve our goals.  One of the main goals we should shoot for is having a strong and healthy marital relationship, so we can bring our children up in a healthy home environment. I believe there are three areas where as married couples we can work together to help us have a strong and healthy marriage.

·         Marital Intimacy – As married couples we should always be working together on our marriage building an intimate relationship with one another.  When most people hear the word intimacy they think only of sex, but the word means more than sex.  Intimacy is taking the mask off being able to share the good, bad, and ugly about ourselves, knowing that we will still be accepted by our mate.  Intimacy is connecting with our mate at the different levels of spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical (sex).  We should always be working together as husband and wives to keep the romance going in our marriage with one another.  We should still be dating or courting each other, and constantly sharing our lives together in open and honest conversation with our spouse. 

·         Roles In The Home – As married couples we should be working together with our spouse when it comes to the domestic responsibilities of the home.   Today both spouses are working in our society in order to handle the financial responsibility of a marriage, so as a result it takes teamwork by couples fulfilling their roles in the home.  As husbands and wives whatever our responsibilities are in the home, whether it is cooking or cleaning we need to do it as a team.  Effectively operating in our roles together in the home, can help us achieve the goal of having a strong and healthy marriage.

·         Financial Harmony – As married couples it is important that we work together as a team when it comes to having financial harmony in the home.  The first thing we shouldn’t be doing is making a distinction between your money and your spouse’s money, but the attitude should be that “our” money makes up the financial picture for the marriage.  The second important factor is for couples to determine who is better at handling finances, and as a team work together on your spending and saving to accomplish your financial goals.  It is important for you to determine what your financial goals are, and strive together with teamwork to sticking to a budget so you can stay out of debt.  

Even the Bible talks about the power of teamwork between two people walking in agreement, to accomplish anything in life.  In Amos 3:3 it says, “Can two people walk without agreeing on the direction?”  The answer is no because in order to go in any direction both partners must agree.  We need to honor God in our personal lives, and in our marriage with our spouse as we walk together.  Working together as a team has helped my wife and I accomplish our goals such as having a healthy marriage for 31 years, raising three children who are doing well for themselves as young adults, and owning our home just to name a few things.  We have overcome several difficulties in our marriage, but we have learned the art of teamwork that makes the dream work.  We honor God in our personal lives, and in our marriage.  I believe when it comes to marriage no matter what your roles are as a husband and wife, the goals you set together to achieve will take teamwork which makes the dream work.  I encourage all couples to work together to accomplish all your goals, but let your main goal be to have a healthy and strong marriage. 

Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.