Ooh Wee I'm Blessed!!

When she walks into the room, she carries herself with such a beauty and grace it makes me scratch my head in wonder. Truthfully, I'm often amazed this woman who I've spent the past 26+ years with actually chose me to be the man she wanted to travel this journey we call life.

When I say amazed, I really mean it too. There is not one day which goes by I don't think of how extremely blessed I am because of Cheryl. Now this is not to put her on a pedestal. I know she isn't perfect in the actual sense of the word, but who is really?  We say things like, "Oh you're perfect baby." Or "There's never been anyone better than you."  Unfortunately, these things are brought on by a little gland inside our brains which makes us "feel" in love.  But shortly after the initial attraction wears off, and this gland stops secreting it's fluid, we can wake up and think, "Who is this I'm with? Their breath stinks!"

Now before you label me as some type of pig who doesn't love his wife, when I tell Cheryl I love her it is not because of this gland giving me some type of feeling, it is because despite always having a feeling I choose to love her daily.  Yeah I know, that's not going to make it onto any Hallmark cards anytime soon, but it is true.

I believe from the bottom of my heart that Cheryl is the greatest woman on this planet. She's a beautiful, intelligent, funny, hard working, beautiful, smart, full of life and sass, beautiful family oriented and beautiful woman.  Did I mention she's beautiful?  I love my bride daily because I choose to do so.

With both of my kids fixing to get married, one of my prayers is they will experience the joys of married life like Cheryl and I have. I pray they will be able to look past the little things which will annoy each other and find in their future spouses what I have found, a true ally and my very best friend.  Because in the end it's not the "feelings" which matter as much as having a partner to travel life with, who is there to help in time of need and to share some laughs as well.

Cheryl, I've said it before and I'll keep saying it as long as I have breath, baby, you're the greatest, and I love you!

You Are Beautiful Ladies, Now It's Time To Believe It

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so what are you beholding today?  What do you see when you look into the mirror? 

I will have been married to my bride for 25 years in a few days, and one thing that we have argued about (not seriously) in all that time has been about how beautiful she is.  She will say she’s not, and I say she is.  This has gone on for our entire married lives.

I’d love to say that I was attracted to her mind when we first met, but truthfully when I saw her sitting across the room from me, it wasn't her mind that interested me.  I remember thinking to myself, “Wow!  Who is that girl?  I've got to get to know her.”  This is not to say I only like her flesh, it was just the first thing that caught my attention.  Over the years, I've come to find out that she is quite a bright and intelligent girl too.

For all of my adult life when I've looked into a mirror, what I always see is a handsome, striking twenty something young man, regardless of how old I become.  I guess it’s a gift that I am not critical of myself in that way.  I think I look great, plain and simple.  Now my sweet bride on the other hand does not see herself in the mirror the way that I do.  In fact, she will spend as little time in front of a mirror as possible.

I saw this video a few weeks back, and it truly captures the essence of what I'm wanting to say in this blog.

Why is it women tend to see themselves in a poorer light than others around them?  I'm sure that we could blame it all on the society in which we live, and the pressures women face to be beautiful.  But I think it truly is something even deeper.  In the Genesis story; God puts Adam to sleep and takes a rib from him to make Eve.  Man was made from the dust of the ground, but Eve was handcrafted and fashioned from the rib of man, God made a work of art when He made a woman.  The reason I think women in general have a hard time seeing themselves in a good light, is the enemy of God and mankind hates women with a passion.

Before the devil became the devil he was named Lucifer and was the most beautiful creature ever created. After he fell from Heaven, his beauty was taken from him, and when he saw Eve and her beauty he coveted what he once had, and has been working to undermine women ever since.

What you think about yourself is the most important thing, and ladies it is my prayer for you that you will begin to see yourself as you truly are, and not what you think you are.  Because you are all princesses of the King and lovely to behold!

Hey Man, What's Your Purpose?

Men and women.  Male and female.  God said they were made in His image, yet both are completely different in almost every way.  I mean the basic model is the same, but come on guys you'd have to admit that if we were vehicles, that men would be a utility truck and ladies a Lamborghini.  I don't know about you, but I for one am very thankful that God didn't just make Eve out of the dirt of the ground like He did Adam.  No, Scripture actually states that He hand crafted and fashioned woman out of man like a fine work of art.  So much so, that when God brought Eve to Adam, Adam must have said, "VavavaVOOM!!!"

Which brings me to my thought this morning on the last day of 2012.  Men, what is your purpose actually?  I mean in the context of men and women, what part do each play?  It's pretty evident in society that this one area is pretty skewed too.  Society as a whole doesn't understand the roles that men and women are to play.  I won't bore you with all the nonsense that came out of the sixties with women's liberation, burning bras and starting the downward spiral of the men haters club.  Suffice it to say, that once man became "enlightened" and started the move away from God things have gotten more and more weird each year.

If you want to know how something is supposed to work, it's good to go back to the original design and take a look at that.  Mankind's original design was Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  That was what God originally had in mind for men and women, and until they decided to listen to the enemy instead of what God had told them, life was great.  There was no fighting with each other, no animosity, no thinking that one was better than the other.  How quickly did Adam go from saying vavavavoom to this woman you gave me?

What is God's design for man and woman then?  It's actually pretty simple; He gave Adam a job to do (take care of the Garden) and He made Eve to help Adam do that.  In Genesis 2:18 it says, Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper who is just right for him."  A helper who is just right for him...I love that!  My bride is the helper that God created for me and she is just right for me.

Men listen to me here.  God has given you a job to do, and He has hand crafted and made a woman who is just right for you that will come alongside you and help you to fulfill that job.  This is what we should be teaching our children; for ours boys we need to tell them, God has given you a job to do on this planet  and He has the right girl out there for you that is going to come and help you to do it.  For our girls, God has made you specifically for a boy out there, and you have been created to come alongside and help him and are just the right girl for him, who is going to help him succeed in doing that job God called him to do.

Now before you think that I'm making a sexist statement, or just am a male chauvinist pig, if we would go back to the original design and desire for what God wanted, we would see fulfillment in our lives like we've never seen before.  Agree with me or not, it is the truth.  I want my son to know that he has a job to do, and that there is a girl out there for him who will help him to accomplish that, and in helping him, she will be fulfilled in her life's calling.  For my daughter, I want her to know that she has been called alongside a young man to help him fulfill the job that God has for him to do, and that she was handcrafted to help him do it.  And if she will do that, she will be fulfilled in her life as well.

God's design and purpose for men and women is a good one.  It's one that has been assaulted since the very beginning.  The enemy knew back then as he knows now that if he can divide the man and woman and get them turning on each other he will defeat them.  If we don't realize what our purpose here on the planet is, then we become easy prey for the enemy to exploit.  When I realize that I have a job to do, and my bride has been called alongside to help me, it puts me in the place of being able to lead my family the way that God intended.

God has great plans for all of us, both men and women, we just need to realize what our part in this story is so that we can then go out and play it.  When we play the part we've been created for, then our lives will become much fuller and richer.  So let's go out and do that, what do you say?

Strength and honor for the family and the King!

Humble Beginnings

I sent an R.S.V.P. to a young couple letting them know that my bride and I would be attending their wedding which is coming up in a couple of weeks.  The really interesting thing about this wedding is that the young lady who will become the bride is one of the kids that grew up with my oldest son Micah.  They attended church together and have been really good friends for as long as I can remember.

And then I read a comic this morning too, which set my mind to thinking about marriage and beginnings.  I've been around the block a few times in my almost 50 years on planet Earth, and one of the things I have noticed is how many kids getting married want to have the things that their parents have, the day after the honeymoon is over.

There is a scene from the John Wayne movie Mclintock that I love, and what the Duke says in it pretty well gets at the heart of what I'm trying to say this morning.  GW is talking to his daughter Becky about marriage, and says:
"What I'm gonna give you is a 500 cow spread on the upper Green River.  While that might not seem like much, that's more than we had, your mother and I.  Some folks are gonna say I'm doing this all so I can sit up in the hereafter and look down on a park named after me.  Or that I was disappointed in you, didn't want you to get all that money.  But the real reason, Becky, is because I love you, and I want you and some young man to have what I had.  Because all the gold in the United States Treasury and all the harp music in Heaven can't equal what happens between a man and a woman, with all that growing together."

And "growing together" is what marriage is all about.  I think it is during that time of struggling together that you come to grow and appreciate what you have later on in life.  Marriage is not about the end result at the beginning, it is about building a life together.  To build something means that you are going to have to work, and that is where so many marriages fail.  Young couples go into marriage full of the "in love" feelings, which make it easy for a time.  But then when bills start to pile up, and decisions about what to do start to arrive, too many couples head for the hills instead of sticking it out and growing together.

My bride and I didn't have two nickels to rub together and we lived on very little when we first got married.  Actually for one solid year I ate bologna sandwiches for lunch every day.  On a good week, (when we had some extra cash) I had some mustard to put on the bread, and a bag of chips to go with it.  To this day, I will not eat bologna unless it is the absolute last possible thing to eat, because I ate so much of the stuff that to think about it turns my stomach.  The only way we had any entertainment for several years was because I worked at a video rental store, and anything that wasn't rented when I closed up for the night I could take home for free and watch.  We were poor.

I thank God for those times early on in our marriage though, and I am very appreciative to all of those people who helped us out in the early days.  One thing I would not trade for anything, is those days when Cheryl and I were getting to know each other and learning how to live together.  I won't lie, there were times when it was rough and neither one of us liked each other very much, but we stuck it out and grew together in our relationship.

This is where I think so many couples miss out.  They are so busy trying to get the "stuff" thinking that will make their marriage great, and they actually miss out on finding out who they married.  And believe me, if you are dating someone and think that you know them, wait until you've been married a few years.  My bride and I will celebrate 24 years this August and we're still learning things about each other, and getting the opportunity to build our marriage.

I feel that while we didn't really enjoy the time in our "humble beginnings", those were some of the best times in our life together as husband and wife.  I mean yeah we've got better stuff now than we had back then, but it's not about the stuff, it's about the relationship and that doesn't take amazing stuff, that just takes time and a willingness to grow together.

Are You Speaking Her Language?

"Wo ai ni"


I just finished reading the book "The Five Love Languages" by Dr. Gary Chapman this week and there was something very profound that I learned from it.  Check this out from his book.


"My academic training is in the area of anthropology.  Therefore, I have studied in the area of linguistics, which identifies a number of major language groups:  Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Greek, German, French and so on.  Most of us grow up learning thee language of our parents and siblings, which becomes our primary or native tongue.  later we may learn additional languages - but usually with much more effort.  These become our secondary languages.  We speak and understand best our native language.  We feel most comfortable speaking that language.  The more we use a secondary language, the more comfortable we become conversing in it.  If we speak only our primary language and encounter someone else who speaks only his or her primary language, which is different from ours, our communication will be limited."


He goes on to talk about how in relationships we may actually speak a different love language than our spouse, and in reading this it dawned on me why exactly my bride doesn't always understand me when I am loving her.  It's because I don't naturally speak her language.  Dr. Chapman talked about five different love languages, let me lay them out for you before I go any further.


Words of Affirmation
Actions don't always speak louder than words.  If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you.  Hearing the words, "I love you," are important - hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirit skyward.  Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten.


Quality Time
In the vernacular of Quality Time, nothing says, "I love you," like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there - with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby - makes your spouse feel truly special and loved.  Distractions, postponed dates, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful.


Receiving Gifts
Don't mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift.  If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you.  A missed birthday, anniversary or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous - so would the absence of everyday gestures.


Acts of Service

Can vacuuming the floors really be an expression of love?  Absolutely!  Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an "Acts of Service" person will speak volumes.  The words he or she most want to hear: "Let me do that for you."  Laziness, broken commitments, and making more work for them tell speakers of this language their feelings don't matter.

Physical Touch

This language isn't all about the bedroom.  A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy.  Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face - they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care and love.  Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive.

The thing then that we need to do in our marriage relationship is determine what our love language is, and also that of our spouse.  If you are not certain what your love language is, click here which will take you to Dr. Chapman's website and you can take the assessment test to determine it.

I felt that I knew what my primary two love languages were after reading the book but taking the assessment confirmed it for me.  I am a Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation kind of guy.  And after having read this book, I realized that I have been using those two languages to convey my love to my bride.  The only problem with that is that her primary language is Acts of Service.  

It's kind of like this, take for instance that your native tongue is English.  Have you ever been around someone or actually been that someone yourself when you met a new person from another country who spoke a different language?  Have you ever noticed how we tend to speak louder and slower?  It's almost as if speaking louder and slower is some magical elixir which will render the hearer the ability to understand your words.

Well it's like that in a marriage where the two people speak differing love languages.  For the better part of 24 years I've been loving Cheryl with Words of Affirmation and Physical Touch, yet what tells her that I love her is when I clean the kitchen and take out the trash.

There is a movie called "The Break Up" with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston, while I have not actually seen this movie, and the reviewers don't give it very good reviews there is one part that actually illustrates what I've been saying.  In the movie she (Aniston) tells him (Vaughn) that she wants him to WANT to do the dishes.  To which he replies, "Why would I WANT to do the dishes?"  While this is funny, it is actually kind of what has been going on at my house for quite some time.

You see, I will go out and mow the yard, do dishes or laundry and tell Cheryl that I did that for her.  To which she responds, no David, you did it for you too.  You live in this house so you didn't do it for me, you did it just as much for yourself.  The only problem with her thinking is that I did in fact do it for her, because I just don't care about those things.  I could live in a world where I pull clean laundry from the dryer and if the grass was up to my waist I really wouldn't care.  Now while I enjoy living in a house that is not filthy, I could do it.

So when I do things that I don't necessarily like to do, or even for that matter want to do, it is usually because I know that my bride likes those things done, and now I realize that all of the words of affirmation that I have told her (which I will continue to do too) have not meant as much to her as when I take it upon myself to "WANT" to do the dishes and do them.  And that is what learning to speak your spouse's love language is all about.  Showing them that you love them in the way that they understand love.  

As I said in Mandarin Chinese at the beginning of this blog, "Wo ai ni" which translates into English, "I love you."  We actually need to love and be loved in the way we understand it.    Which takes time and effort but will pay off dividends unlike any you could ever imagine.  So keep at it you guys, find out her language and then learn how to speak it.

How Does She Know?

The couple sat across from their counselor; the wife in tears and the man looking annoyed.  Through the sobs, she managed to squeak, “I don’t even know if he loves me.”  “Love you,” he barked, “of course I love you, I married you didn’t I?”

While this is a humorous look at married life, it’s more often than not a truth about the state of marriages in our society today.  The problem is miscommunication I think.  It’s not always what is said, but how it is said; it’s a matter of perspective.  So my question for the men is how does she know that you love her?

Men and women think differently, there is just no disputing this; it’s the way we’ve been created.  You see, each of us displays a different characteristic of our Father God at the level of our gender.  The real test for the marriage relationship is how well a man and woman work together becoming one like God intended in the first place.

Some men are just not comfortable, or feel inadequate when it comes to the “language” of love, yet they are right at home doing things which show they love their wife.  Perhaps your husband doesn’t buy you presents or write poetry, but he keeps the yard mowed and the bills paid.  To him, this screams “I love you!”  Unfortunately a lot of ladies talk bad about their husbands saying he never takes them dancing or buys them flowers, yet he is showing you love in the way which makes sense to him.

Now this is not to give the guys a pass here.  Gentlemen you should find out what makes your bride tick and do those things and what ticks her off and not do those.  If she wants to go dancing – take a dance lesson.  If she comments about you leaving your dirty underwear on the floor, pick them up and put them in the hamper.  Don’t take the caveman approach saying, “I’m the man of this house!”  I assure you this won’t work like you think.

Scriptures instructs husbands to love their wives like Christ loves the church. (Ephesians 5:25) This is our example men; we are to love our wives like Jesus loves us, giving everything we have to the relationship.  Maybe there is a chick flick she wants to see that you could care less about, take her anyway.  Marriage is not about the man ruling the roost and all of that, it’s about us growing together and becoming one, so take an interest in what interests your bride, and see what happens.  I promise you, it will pay dividends beyond your wildest dreams.

For the Kingdom and the King!

What Idiot Said Beauty Is Only Skin Deep?

I know, I know this phrase actually speaks to how placing too much emphasis on beauty is really superficial and everything, but I was thinking about this today in the context of marriage and I had to think that beauty, the true beauty of a person runs way deeper than skin level. 


It actually runs to the deep places in the heart of a person.  Now before you go putting words into my mouth like he's saying that his bride is not beautiful or something like that, that is not where I'm going at all, so put that thought out of your mind completely.  My bride is the most beautiful woman that I have ever known, or ever will know and truthfully I think that she grows more beautiful with each passing year.


There is another saying which says that love is blind, and I actually heard a version of that in the third Star Wars movie I watched today, (Actually it is the sixth installment of the series but episode three...I know confusing huh?) here is the transcript from the movie where Anakin and Padme are talking about being in love:


ANAKIN: You are so beautiful!

PADME: It's only because I'm so in love . . .

ANAKIN: No, it's because I'm so in love with you.

PADME: So love has blinded you?

ANAKIN: Well, that's not exactly what I meant . . . 


Love does not truly blind, but actually it is as we come to know our spouse in the deeper sense of the meaning that we come to truly love them, the real them.   This coming August my bride and I will have been married for twenty-four years.  I have spent now almost half of my life with this girl who chose me, and even though we've had our ups and downs, I am still madly and passionately in love with her.  I know I may end up regretting this but here goes, I do not look the same way that I did twenty-four years ago, and neither does Cheryl.  


There have been changes in our appearances, some more drastic than others, and that is all I'm going to say about that.  But what I really want to get at, is that even though there are changes that have taken place in our physical looks, I have to say that Cheryl's beauty, her true beauty is the real her, and that is her spirit.  Her beauty is more than skin deep, it is at the level of her soul, who she is as the person that God made her to be.  This is not to say that I don't find her outer beauty pleasing to my eyes, because I do, ask her, I tell her all the time, and I really mean it. She of course will roll her eyes at me, but she's been doing that for twenty-four years now why should she change?  


There is a movie called Shallow Hal, and in it the main character is given a gift to actually be able to see the true beauty of each girl he meets.  It's a funny movie, but truly poignant when the viewers realize that most of the people that we think of as the "beauties" which the world desires are truly the ugly people, and the people who never get a second look are the real beauties.  If only we were able to have this ability, the world would be such a different place I think.


Our society spends so much time on what is considered beautiful and everything, yet I'm afraid that we've actually missed it.  So many young ladies spend their lives trying to live up to what the world says they should look like, and never truly get it.  They walk around feeling like failures or unwanted because they don't match up to the images in the media and go through life trying desperately to please, only to find out that after all their efforts their beauty (the outside beauty) will begin to fade with time.  


I think that during every marriage counseling session the young "in love" couple should be shown wedding pictures of couples and then shown follow up pictures from like twenty-five years later.  Of course this may scare the young people, but may save some trouble later on too.  I'm thankful that God has blessed me with a beautiful bride who is so both inside and out, and look forward to many more years together to discover the beauty that has yet to be unveiled in her.