Today is my anniversary

Today, Jill and I celebrate 26 years. It has been full of highs, lows and everything in between. I wanted to talk with you about those lessons I have learned.

1- Stay committed. No matter what is happening in your relationship. For men, we can get to "i give up." This can more quickly then our spouse. Dad, don't give up. Stay committed. Do so with intentionality.

2- Keep working at deepening your relationship. Marriage takes commitment and it takes hard work. Sometimes this is incredibly hard. I do have friends that have told me they have never found marriage to be hard work. I seriously bow to them. This is not the case for Jill and I. I will just own that possibly I am the one that makes it hard. I don't know. But, what I do know is this. We can get complacent. Don't give in to this but keep working at getting better and deepening you relationship.

3- You are responsible for your family. I spoke this to one man. He said to me don't even put that pressure upon me. Dad's the pressure is upon us. We do carry the responsibility of our family. The success and the failure of it does fall upon us. Our culture looks to balme others. Take this responsibility, commitment and work at it.

Dad's can you give us any examples from these three lessons?

Pastor Dad by Mark Driscoll - Free e-book!

http://relit.org/pastordad/downloads/relit_ebook_pastordad.pdf

What or who is tugging on you?

I have heard my wife say this, "I can't handle this. If someone wants another piece of me, I am going to scream." Like mom's, there are so many differing tugs for a dad's time. I personally can tell you that my job, other people, school schedules, my kids interests and my to-do list are all screaming for more of me. At times I can be overwhelmed. I used to get home at the end of my day and head for the couch, the remote and the television. Something hit me. No it wasn't Jill throwing something at me!

What changed for me was reality. I didn't want to let other things get in the way of the importance of my wife and kids. I made an empowering decision. I wasn't going to let the demands of life rob me of my family. I found that I was focused only upon me and was missing my family. I had to make some changes. I made these empowering decisions.

1. I would make time for Jill as soon as I got home inorder to process my day, to process Jill's day and to establish our plans for the evening.
2. I would make time for my kids and hear about their day.
3. I would be available either with them asking or my initiation to play with them. Austin loves to play basketball. Kolya loves to make things out of wood or to fix things and Erica loves to talk.
4. I would also make time for me.

I don't always get it right, but I work hard at not coasting through and missing my family. They are my greatest treasure and my responsibility.

How about you? What is tugging at your commitment to your family? What choices have you made?