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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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Forgiveness … To Do The Impossible

Posted in Guest Post, life, WONDER, tagged Forgive, Forgiveness, Larry Lomax, Life, Matthew West, Praise 106.5, radio, song, story behind the song, tragic death on September 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Forgiveness …

That would be one of the weak links in the chain of who I am. I can speak so quickly, so easily, about forgiveness. One might hear me speak of how imperative it is to forgive, or how not forgiving will only hurt ourselves. But, it is a wholly different thing for me to actually do the forgiving.

Driving to work one day the song, “Forgiveness”, by Matthew West came on the radio, and I was so aware of the line, “help me now to do the impossible, forgiveness …”

And then, when the song had finished, the radio announcer spoke of the story behind the song, and I just had to check it out!

Today’s guest blog is that very story. The link is to Praise 106.5, a radio station in our area. The blog entry is written by Larry Lomax, and includes both the story in written form, as well as an audio interview between he and musician Matthew West.

I could never say that I could do what Rene, the woman at the center of the story, has done following the tragic death of her daughter. I pray it is never a situation that is placed in my hands. I also have to say that what Rene has chosen to do brings light to a very dark night.

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Forgiven so that I can Forgive

Posted in GOD, life, WONDER, tagged Colossians 3, Delirious, Forgive, Forgiven so that I Can Forgive, Forgiveness, Majesty, Redemption, Words, Worship on January 10, 2012| 2 Comments »

I love words!

There is nothing that makes my heart skip a beat like hearing or reading or singing words that seem to grab my ears and yell “we are for your ears, listen!” If I was listening (who doesn’t hear what is yelled?) I would then spend the next minutes, hours and even days pondering them. Turning them inside out, to see if I am really getting all that they say, because I know they are for me and I don’t want to miss one syllable of their message.

I love it even more when those same loudly proclaimed words take me away to a different place in my mind, to a different place in my soul. Sometimes those words will even force me to make time for them.

This happened one day last year (don’t you love it when only a couple of weeks ago can be referred to as ‘last year’?). As I was singing along in church one Sunday we sang a song, and one line, “forgiven so that I could forgive” yelled at me, and it (and the rest of the song) been yelling almost daily since.

It is a song performed (and written) by the group Delirious. The lyrics could mirror the words of David in his Psalms. They recognize the ranking of the one who has sacrificed as higher than any other (to refer to one as his/her majesty is the highest position possible) on the earth. The lyrics speak of thanks, of grace, of love. It is a song of recognizing the redemption made available, and of receiving it in the humility of one who is redeemed.

For us to understand that we are forgiven is, I believe, a concept not easily or quickly learned. Maybe it is because we struggle to forgive others, and in our own struggle to forgive we do not comprehend the forgiveness that is offered to us? Maybe we can forgive others, but we do not forget the original offense? Maybe we have the order of learning forgiveness wrong?

Perhaps it is in being forgiven that we learn how to forgive. Perhaps we cannot fully forgive another, until we have received (and that offer is always there for us) the forgiveness that is foundational to understanding how to forgive others. And maybe, it is a lesson that we keep learning all of our days.