March 2008 Archives
A few days ago, Christine and I were discussing the increased levels of activities and so many options for entertainment that time together to ‘just talk’ is slowly going away. I’m not saying these growing influences limit the amount of communication, but it definitely changes the type of interaction that occurs. Rather than long stretches of time together in which important topics have time to bubble to the surface, we have brief and casual exchanges of doing life together. Do you ever wonder with all these new ways to stay in touch if we are losing our ability to communicate effectively when we are together? Cell phones, email, instant messaging and text messaging are all wonderful ways to communicate yet...
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Friendship… what does that mean? Do you have a friendship with your spouse? Many times there are things that happen in our marriage that cause us to withdraw from each other or back away from intimacy with each other. We put walls up to protect our heart, and if we live in “protection” mode, we are missing out on true friendships, both with those around us and with our spouse. Let’s take FRIENDSHIP and define what it really means… F means that a true friend is FOR YOU. They are for you when everyone else walks away, especially when the hard times come. It is the spouse that is FOR YOU when you lose your job, there is a death...
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With daylight savings time upon us and the summer rapidly approaching, what a great time to begin thinking about quality time spent as a family. The world has a tendency to keep us so busy and if we are not careful, our spouse and children tend to get our leftovers. Time passes so quickly and it is impossible to get back the yesterdays. As we look back at our own children, the thing they valued most from us was not what we gave them but rather the time spent together laughing and playing as a family. Life requires that we have vision if we are ever able to achieve anything great. As couples, we also need to have a vision...
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How do we spend so many years together and then lose our love for the Lord and each other so quickly? According to the divorce rate, it seems that is the curse tearing marriages apart today. Isn’t it strange that the very things that have made us “one”, that have united us toward a common cause, can sometimes be the very thing that separates us? Maybe it’s the death of a child, the busyness of life or a season of hard times, but if we can stop and go back to the place where we started, maybe it isn’t as hard as we thought to recapture the place where we felt love for a lifetime, a willingness to commit to...
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Growing up, Christine and I played sports year round, mostly on courts and fields. We loved everything about playing--the competitive spirit, endorphins, the thrill of winning, cheering fans, and the roar of the crowd after a close call. Last week, we experienced an adrenaline rush of another kind -- actually being two of those cheering fans on the sidelines....the sidelines of a rink. We joined our friends, Jason and Shanna, for a few hours to watch the Nashville Predators take on the Columbus Blue Jackets. This was our first hockey game and it was incredible. We didn’t make it on the Jumbotron but we did get to see three fights. We certainly don’t condone fighting but fights seem to be...
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