What’s the one thing I can do to… Improve my marriage? Find balance in life? Lose weight or get healthy? Get out of debt or become financially independent? Be the best mom or dad? … and the list goes on and on and on! And usually we want that one thing to be something that we can do once that is pain-free, and relatively easy that will bring immediate satisfaction and alleviate all the stress [...]
Have you ever been asked a question about the very thing you just communicated and you can tell your message is not getting through? We’ve all been there and it can be frustrating. Active listening may be a “blind spot” for those we are speaking with and for us as the listener as well. If you’re honest, when was the last time you intentionally listened in order to comprehend meaning, to show love and honor [...]
Grandparent involvement in the lives of your children is a blessing that must be managed appropriately so the joy is not offset by drama created by imbalance. If you have grandparents who cautiously seek time with your kids with a visit or they wait upon you to come see them so as not to impose, consider this ideal a wonderful balanced blessing. But occasionally the grandparent mix creates family drama that must be managed so [...]
January 7, 2018 Dear Journal, Kash and I reached a low point in our relationship yesterday. I screamed “shut up!” at him, which shocked him, and the littles. And hours later, he repeated it and told me to shut up, which threw me into a spiral. My temper has manifested in ways I am ashamed to even document on these pages. Why do I do it? Why do I lash out? Kash mirrors my behavior [...]
It has been well said about courage that courage isn’t the absence of fear, but forward action in the presence of fear. We offer, then, that faith isn’t the absence of doubt, but forward action in the presence of doubt. Courage imagines a scenario where a person must protect life and limb, or their self-concept, often with adrenaline juicing up the moment. Faith is harder to act forward because doubt is more subtle than fear. [...]
1.47 million orange slices! That’s how many orange slices our family provided throughout the years at our boys activities and sporting events. Or at least it felt like that many! So what’s deal with orange slices anyway?!?! When Trevor and Alex were young, their favorite thing, like most of the kids that age, was the orange slices at the end of the game or activity. For them, nothing was better than to share delicious, sweet [...]
There are a thousand things to take up one’s time: Responsibilities at work, emails, organizing and paying the bills, the abundance of life’s maintenance like cooking and laundry, mowing the lawn and taking out the trash, school events, sports events, and unending child socials, and then throw in your own socializing and time to just relax in front of a Netflix movie. Why would you take what few precious unscheduled moments that remain and volunteer [...]
OneFamily is all about equipping, encouraging and sustaining couples as they journey in their marriages and parenting. Many of the concepts, principles and ideas that we share each week, in our OneFamily letter and quotes, are derived from the Growing Families curriculum we have taught for the past 16 years. As a result, we would be remiss if we didn’t make you aware of a fantastic opportunity to learn and connect with other families that [...]
It's graduation season! There are preschoolers graduating to Kindergarten, Kindergartners to Elementary School, Elementary to Middle School, Middle Schoolers to High School and so on. All graduations, to varying degrees, have commencement addresses. These speeches are designed to impart wisdom and encourage students as they move to the next chapter in life. We recently came across a fantastic commencement address that has a simple message which is as applicable to the college graduate as to [...]
In every life there is a transition from the essence of youth into the experience of adulthood. Often within this transition is an episode that stands out as a hinge point of meaningful experience, which is designated as “the event” that dislodges understanding from the rock of ignorance. These hinge point experiences are retold as testimonies. As authors of these weekly letters to you, we continually confront the question as to what is valuable, what’s [...]