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Top 10 Goals for 2013 – Marriage

Posted in Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged 2013, decisions, don't let the sun go down on your anger, Dreams, Forgive, Future, goals, GOD, hopes, Hubby, husband, Love, Marriage, New Year, Past, plans, Remember, Resolutions, responsibility, Stress, top 10, Trust on December 27, 2012| 1 Comment »

So, I am now at day number two of my Top 10 Goals for 2013, and this time the focus is hubby.

He REALLY does not appreciate posts about him, that mention him, that use him as an example … so, in honor of his preference that I not write about him … heck, I’m just going to do it anyway!

P&C Cropped

He has to forgive me … comes with the whole “love, honor and … forgive” 😉

Here are my Top Ten Goals for my Marriage for 2013:

Do not go to bed angry – I mentioned this yesterday in regards to our kids and it doesn’t hurt to say it again, “do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Ephesians 4:26).
Get away – make time for at least one night each season to get away together, sans children, as a couple. It is so easy, with all of the demands of life, to forget that the family we created started with us, just us, and for this family to continue we need to invest in us.
Respect him – As I write it I just know that some poor, misinformed lady is going to interpret respecting your husband as some kind of response to an archaic male dominated patriarchal society or religion. That is NOT what this is about! He is a child of God, like me, and as such I need to respect him …
Make his life easier – I am sure that there is at least one thing I can do each week to make his life easier … from answering the phone (instead of letting him, because it is always for him), to doing his dinner clean up once in a while (not too often, as I do not want him to get too used to being relieved of ‘his’ chore).
Thank him – so often when we live with someone it is so easy to forget our manners. Please and thank you are words I know I need to use more often with my man.
Let him decide – … and be okay with his decision! My hubby knows that if I say “you choose” his whole future is at stake. I need to trust him to make a decision, and trust the outcome!
Surprise him – there is nothing like veering from the normal, everyday, meatloaf every Monday stagnant way of living to bore a couple to mediocrity! Start seeing excitement and refreshment in someone else. I WILL surprise him … and the details of that, well those are between the two of us 😉 .
Remember the past – I need to reflect on those days, so many years ago, when we only knew adoring love (aka, before we were married 😉 ) … not bills, crisscrossing schedules, and to do lists.
Forget the past – we have baggage, and that is a reality, but the past is the past, and needs to be left there. We cannot move forward if I keep looking back.
Plan for the future – “Where there is no dreaming for the future, the marriage relationship is dead” (that is the Carole Wheaton interpretation of Proverbs 29:18) … enough said.

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Decisions, Decisions

Posted in GOD, life, WONDER, tagged Consequences, decisions, Proverbs 16:3, right, success, wrong on May 2, 2012| 1 Comment »

Ever have a difficult decision to make? Ever feel as though you are incapable of making the ‘right’ decision?

For most of us, anxiety over decision making is due to a fear of failure. We do not want to make the ‘wrong’ decision. We do not want to have to lie in a potentially uncomfortable bed that we have made for ourselves. We simply do not want to make a mistake.

I wonder, though, how often we have made a ‘good’ decision that turned wrong. Or, conversely, a ‘bad’ decision that turned out good? So, is there really such a thing as good decisions and bad decisions?

For myself, as I look back over my life, there are a number of decisions that I made, because I tend towards the ‘safe’ choices in life, that have made me so very thankful for the mistakes I have been spared from making. There are also ‘safe’ choices that I have made, that I now regret my choosing safety over experiences, adventures, and challenges.

I look at my decisions both more seriously and less so, at this stage of my life. I now do not see most decisions as life or death, but I also recognize that there are consequences to whatever my decision might be.

Recently I was trying to make a decision. It was not a life or death choice, but one that I wanted to consider seriously. I had been weighing the pros and cons of both options (and even mentally added a third option … just to mix it up a bit 😉 ). I had spent time in prayer about it, I had talked to others. I was starting to think that the choice was becoming clear, that I was starting to side with one choice, over the other.

Then out of nowhere, and without any knowledge of the decision I was contemplating, I had two different individuals affirm option number two. So, what was I to do with that? Just when I was feeling confident of option number one, others were giving me indicators that made me second guess the direction where I had been leaning.

Yikes! I think I need a professional decision maker!

Sometimes I think we need to remember that, whatever we decide, whatever we are handed in life, it will not be more than we can handle, and that we do not have to try to handle it alone.

Proverbs 16:3 says, “commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” Although this does not mean that your plans will succeed as YOU or I expect, it does give us the encouragement that if what we do, what we decide, is committed to the Lord, there will be success in them.

So, a decision committed to God will always be the right decision.

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A Walk with a Wise Girl

Posted in life, The Kids, WONDER, tagged a walk with a wise girl, Choices, decisions, future planning, Life, Parenting, reaising kids on March 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

On Saturday I was heading out with the beast on a walk, along with my almost fifteen year old daughter. My daughter was telling me of her opinions and decisions on various topics, opinions and decisions that were far more wise than I would have had at her age.

I came home almost giddy! It is not often that, as a parent, you feel any sort of success. Usually, as parents, we feel only failure. This time I was doing my happy dance (now that is quite a mental picture).

Way back when our oldest daughter was a preschooler I heard someone speaking about parenting. This person said it is important to guide your kids towards thinking about, and making decisions BEFORE they are in a position of having to make them. So, when our kids were preschoolers, I would ask them BEFORE we went to purchase a Slurpie what flavor they hoped to get, and why. Doing this alleviated the frustratingly long time it would take them to make a decision, while there were dozens of people waiting in line behind us. Sure they sometimes changed their mind, but, overall, thinking ahead helped their anticipation of what they chose to grow. As they got older we would talk about drug and alcohol use in teens, and they would talk about the possibility of using those substances, and how that might hinder their future goals (another discussion that happens W A Y before grade 12 … more like since they could talk). So, as their peers started experimenting they have known, before peer pressure was involved, what they would choose, and why (this is not a guarantee, but if they have a goal they have chosen, and a reason for choosing it, they then have the intrinsic motivation to make choices, not in the moment, but that help them achieve their goals).

The why is important, because it gives them their own reasons for making decisions. I have always feared that my kids would make important decisions BECAUSE I told them, and so teaching them to think for themselves, set goals for themselves helps to ensure that I am not raising robotic clones.

Now don’t go thinking that I spent my Saturday patting my back. Raising kids is like playing mad scientist with a lab rat. We never know if what we are doing, and teaching, and praying for will actually produce a productive member of society. I am fully aware that even if there was a manual for successful parenting (don’t we wish) our kids still have to make their choices all by themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, she is not perfect, and can still make ridiculous decisions, as any teen (or adult) can. What I do see is that she is pulling through this time of adolescence with wisdom and an end goal as her guides.

And that gives me great hope for her future.

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