Why I Love Her

A while back I read a post on the Refine Us blog about why you fell in love with your spouse. The premise of the post was about not dwelling on the things that bother you about your spouse, rather, focusing on the things that caused you to fall in love with him/her. The post got me thinking about making a list. In the post the person that Justin was talking to was only focusing on what bothered him about his spouse. In doing this, it was helping to deteriorate his marriage.

Let me be clear, we are not having marital problems. Also, I am not making this list because I need to take my focus off of what bothers me. I simply thought making a list could be a good exercise for any of us that are married to be reminded why we fell in love with our spouse.

God has certainly blessed me with a wonderful woman who chose to marry me. I can't imagine my life without her and I don't tell her nearly enough how much I appreciate her and love her. Smalls, thanks for the last 11+ years of marriage. You are far more than anything I could ever ask for.

- she loves Jesus
- her kindness towards others
- she rarely has a bad day
- she loves me unconditionally- she has a great smile
- she loves college football
- she's not afraid to tell me how it is, or how it should be
- she's a great mom (obviously this didn't make me fall in love with her, but it's an added bonus)

Your turn. What are some reasons why you fell in love with your spouse?

Playing from Behind

Over the past several weeks I have been playing racquetball with my buddy, Kyle. We seem to be pretty evenly matched, so he wins some and I win some. Today during our last game he got ahead early and stayed that way pretty much the entire time until he won. He won the first game as well after going up about 8-2 to start things off. Now, I'm sure there are certain circumstances and certain people who thrive when they are down. Apparently, I am not one of those people. It's not that I get discouraged when I'm down or that I just throw in the towel. I think that I just spend a lot of energy catching up so that once I get even, it's tough to get over the hump to finish off the victory.

As I was thinking about playing from behind, I started wondering about this in when it comes to our relationships with our spouse and children. As a society, are we constantly playing from behind or are we being proactive and staying ahead in the most important relationships in our life? It seems to me that if we intentionally parent our children early then maybe are children will lean toward making the right choices. Obviously, kids are going to make some bad choices, but aren't their chances of making a good choice better if we've intentionally invested time into teaching them what the correct choice is as well as (and maybe more importantly) how to make the right choice? I think the same goes for our marriages. If we work on our marriage we will be much better equipped to handle disagreements and situations that are stressful. We work hard to stay ahead at our jobs and other things we do in life. Shouldn't we work even harder to stay ahead in these two very important areas of our lives?

What are some of the things we can do to keep from playing from behind in our marriages and with our children?

Eight Years and Counting...

Eight years ago today a couple of youngsters said "I do," and began what has been the greatest journey I have ever been on. I remember thinking on my wedding day, as I was crying in the room behind the sanctuary in Tusculum Hills Baptist Church, "How in the world am I going to take care of BOTH of us?" I am sure my brother, who was my best man, was freaking out trying to figure out how he was going to 1) get me to stop crying and 2) figure out how to make me feel better. I can remember him telling me "Dude, stop crying, we have to go out there. You're going to be great." I don't know if I've been great, but I know that the partnership Allison and I have has been great. I also know that there is no one I would rather spend my life with. Thank you so much Smalls, for saying yes. These past eight years have been great, and I look forward to spending the rest of my years with you. You are the best wife a guy could ever ask for. Thanks for all you do to keep our family, household, and life in great working order. You're the best!