Sunday, March 29, 2009

i do....

this weekend marlo and i went to a marriage retreat hosted by our church. it was our first marriage retreat we've attended in our 12 years of marriage. as i left the retreat i couldn't help but think....we should do this more often. marlo and i have a great marriage by all accounts but there were some things that really stood out to me. below are a few of the take aways i had from the event.

1. i invest a lot more time and resources getting better at my job than i do investing in my marriage. i have one conference i go to every year (for the past 7 years) that has become a non-negotiable for me. it is a given that i will pack a bag every October and fly to Atlanta for catalyst. as we sat through the seminar this weekend it became so clear that i need to invest more time, energy and resources on my marriage.

2. what happened to my chivalry? i treated my girlfriend and my fiance with a lot more respect than i treat my wife. i used to open doors for her....not so much anymore. i used to comment on her beautiful eyes...haven't done that in ages. i used to have really meaningful spiritual dialogue with her..... this list could go on and on but you probably get the picture. i need to relearn how to "date" my wife.

3. my marriage is a huge part of my witness. like i said earlier....marlo and i really have a great marriage. our friends wonder why we never seem to fight or get really mad at each other so in many ways i think our witness is safe there. however, i wonder if my kids see us as a team when it comes to teaching them how to serve God and love others. i think i "do ministry" all day and have a tendency to drop the ball when it comes to planning opportunities for our family to serve the Lord by serving people. we're going to fix that problem asap.

if you are married and haven't been intentional about investing in your marriage....do it. marriages are under attack. at my home church we have a saying "if we don't win at home....we don't win at all." i pray you are winning at home and if you're not....i pray you seek the help you need.

Monday, March 23, 2009

fishing poles and smores

last week my family took a few days to go to the Lake Bob Sandlin State Park in Pittsburg Texas. we stayed in my parents motor coach so it wasn't exactly "roughing it" but it did get us out of our element. as i have reflected back on the time we had at the park i am left with several impressions.

1. time flies...enjoy it while you can. i heard a friend a few weeks ago make the observation that most people spend all of their lives working towards retirement with the hope that they will enter their twilight years able to travel and spend time with family. sadly many people enter their twilight years with either too little cash or families that are too busy to spend time with them. i couldn't help but think our time at the park was time well spent.

2. you don't have to catch a fish to enjoy fishing....we had a great time just throwing a hook in the water. my 6 yr old got bored pretty quickly and my 2 yr old didn't even know there wasn't a hook on the end of his line but they had a blast.

3. smores are more than a dessert....time around a camp fire does something for your soul. not sure how to explain it but it does.

4. making priceless memories doesn't have to cost a fortune....we didn't spend very much money at all on our little excursion but we harvested memories that will last a lifetime.

it was a great spring break. if you haven't taken some time off to be intentional about doing nothing more than investing in your family in a while let me encourage you to do so asap. you won't regret it.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

open house

gee whiz....it has been too long since i last blogged. if you are still reading this thing i really appreciate your patience with me.

last thursday night we went to my 1st graders open house at school. i love open house. it is so cool to see my daughter light up when she is telling us about her work and showing us around her classroom. you would think she was starring in an episode of "cribs" when she is showing us her desk! it is so cool!

one of the things that caught my attention this year was a side by side comparison of her writing skills since the first day of school. on a piece of posterboard the teacher had a sheet on the left that showed how she spelled (or rather mispelled) her name on day one. her penmanship was lacking....she gets that from her dad!! on the right side of the posterboard was a sheet of paper that she had completed that week. she has not only spelled her name correctly but her penmanship was very precise. it was really unbelievable how much she had sharpened those skills in a relatively short amount of time.

the next morning i was reading through a chapter in the book of Jeremiah. i couldn't help but wonder what my spiritual life would look like if you could view my life/motives/thoughts/habits/knowledge of the word on the day i crossed the line of faith and compare it to today...

have i grown in my faith? have i gained a more precise understanding of the word of God? am i better able to articulate His truth today than i was back then? what areas of my life/motives/thoughts and etc have remained basically the same....or even perhaps regressed a bit?

why has her penmanship improved so much? because she focuses on it every day. at least 5 days a week she is sitting at a desk with pencil and paper and practicing writing the same letters over and over. she is beginning to see how those letters lead to thoughts and how thoughts lead to imagination and how imagination leads to creativity and how creativity leads to actions. as a result she continues to practice....to learn....

how about you? what have you been practicing/thinking about/ studying/craving lately? maybe our voice as believers would be louder in our culture if people saw us progressively getting stronger in our faith.

let's pray for each other....

Sunday, March 1, 2009

twist and shout

last night i had the opportunity to go to our church's "daddy daughter dance" with my 6 year old sydney. it was a blast! i'm not a very good dancer but i felt like there were a couple of reasons why i should go in spite of my limitations.

1. it was a great, no brainer, way to spend some one on one time with my daughter.
2. it provided a good opportunity to start showing her how a gentleman should treat her when she starts dating (in 30 years of course).
3. it was a neat way to support an event sponsored by our church.

by the end of the night i felt like we had accomplished all 3 things. she and her mom worked to get her hair just right (cool bonding time for them), i picked her up at her house, presented her with a corsage, opened & closed the door for her, we went to dinner with friends and then danced until the final song was played. for a couple of hours she got every bit of my attention. it was so much fun!

as i reflect back on the event i realized a couple of things i am really thankful for so i thought i would share them in this blog. i'm trying to get better at recognizing my reasons to be thankful....

1. i'm thankful for a wife that loves me and encourages me to be the best dad i can be.
2. i'm thankful for a little girl who like to hangout with her dad.
3. i'm thankful for a church that has a vision for healthy families.
4. i'm thankful for parents who modeled what it means to be involved in their kids lives. my mom and dad never missed a single event, recital, tennis, game, or any other opportunity to support me. i know what it looks like to be more interested in family than in a bank account. they continue to model that even today as they actively and consistently engage my kids.

it was a good night indeed.