Every week we are confronted with the same agonizing dilemma, what should we write about that is of interest and value to you? We have 500 people receiving these emails, each with a unique perspective as to what’s worth investing the 5 minutes necessary to pick up whatever we’re throwing down. The young parents with teeny little ones have different desires than more seasoned parents of middle-schoolers, so we sort of work up and down the ladder to spread out our thoughts accordingly. Ideally, we’d get some feedback from you that would help us focus on a topic of interest. in fact, we would love to hear your ideas, comments and/or questions. All you have to do is reply to these letters and we’ll respond.
OneFamily, which is just the Howards and Marrs, is working toward building up families. Every marriage has relationship difficulties (the divorce rate is 50% for goodness sakes) and in every marriage there is often a fork in the road between things going well and things not going so well. We desire to bring goodness to you by preparing you for that fork. That’s it. No agenda other than that. We believe the more insight you have on the issues of marriage, parenting, money management, sex, God, sports scheduling, group development, and on and on – the better off your marriage will be. The result of you being better prepared is that your children will be the prime beneficiaries because your strong marriage is the platform they will launch from. Nothing is more valuable to your kids than you giving effective love to your spouse. Nothing.
Some things you can only learn through direct experience, like calming yourself when a child is screaming bloody murder while you are changing their diaper. Or when they throw up on you just as you’re going out to eat, dealing with it is just one of those things. But some things you can get a heads up on and learn vicariously through the experience of others. For example, how do you build a community that will enrich your life, provide an extended family to your kids, give you peace of mind in understanding where your kids are playing and the values in that home, and hours and hours of fun and laughter? Building a group takes time, years in fact, but follows a well-worn path laid down by others. Like us.
The key is – someone has to step up. Someone has to take the initiative and do something that brings people together. In our group, Mike and Nanci had game night once a month. Dozens of people came to their house and played games till the wee hours. Brad and Caren coordinated camping every Labor Day weekend at the Sand Dunes north of Alamosa. We had 10-12 families every year for that. The Marrs hosted a Swedish Christmas party every December where Lis brought her Swedish culture to our group by cooking up a smorgasbord of her family delights. We traded Easter duty where a dozen families would convene for a potluck dinner and we’d have an Easter egg hunt for the kids. Every year someone took on something to make community happen.
One thing we did to build our extended “family-like” community was to take the Growing Families International’s Parenting Class offered at our church. That intentional commitment by all of us was invaluable in helping us form the strong, committed, like-minded community we have today. Our group has evolved over the years: a few couples have dropped out; a few have divorced but not many; there are eras of more intense togetherness, like during high school; and there are times when you don’t see one another much, like when grandbabies arrive. But through it all, we’ve stayed connected.
2017 is a clean slate for you to create the life you’ve dreamed of. Marriages are strengthened by being a part of a community of friends. That community doesn’t just show up to your door and invite you out to play. No, it will take intentionality on your part to pick couples you want to build a community with and then make that happen. You will have to initiate it or it just might not start. And you may have to pick several couples before you finally connect properly.
In our experienced opinion community is a MAJOR success factor to enjoying life.
To a Blessed 2017,
Lis and Dave
P.S. For our local readers in the Denver area, a perfect opportunity to enrich your small group is coming up at Cherry Hills Community Church where we are offering the Parenting From The Tree Of Life class in January. Grab your small group, your church friends, neighbors, parents on your kids’ sports teams and join!