Kathryn's Essay: About God

Kathryn came home with this essay yesterday. She had written this in school and we didn't know she'd been working on it till she shared it with us. I've typed it verbatim, spelling and all-- and there aren't many typos! Did I know what incomprehensible meant when I was 7? Don't think so!

"God is Jesus, and Jesus is God. He has three names. God the father. God the son. And God the holy spirit. God loves us and takes care of us. Lets learn some characteristics of God.

God is incomprehensible. Incomprehensilble means you can't understand it.

God is trustworthy. Trustworthy means you are able to trust him.

God is just. Just means you always do the right thing.

God is questionable. Questionable means we are always asking questions about him.

Now that we'v talked about some characteristics of God. Let's talk about how we should treat God.

We should treat God with respect. Respect means that we should not say bad things about him. And we should love him.

We should treat with obedience. Obedience means that you obey him.

Now we've talked a little about that.

Now I'm going to get serious. Now were going to talk about what it means to become a child of God. When you confess all the wrong things you'v done. And ask him to live in you and to help do the right thing. Then you become a child of God. When you become a child of God, the holy spirit lives in you. When you become a child of God it gives you great joy. You want to share that joy with other people. So do it!

You can start going to chrch. Chrch is a place were you worship God. You can read God's holy book the Bible. Now remember be a light to others. Start your life with God right now. And if you have any questions come see me at my house in Ballwin, Missouri 63021."

Advent Conspiracy: A New Way to Do Christmas

Thought this was a fabulous video!

Embracing Redemption

"God promises us redemption, but his sacred path leads us away from safety, predictability, and comfort. Any attempt to fly over the dangerous terrain or make a detour to safer ground is doomed because it will not take us to God. Instead, it leads to a host of other idols that can't provide us with the confidence of faith, the dynamic of hope, or the passion of love we so deeply crave."

"It is in the silence of the desert that we hear our dependence on noise." --Dan Allender

Which One Are You?

Are you a "paranoid?" "Life is hard, then you die."
"Rebels who never actually live."

Are you a "fatalist?" "Hardship is inevitable, so just let it roll... God is in control, so just trust him, don't worry about it, no big deal."
"Fatalism anesthetizes desire."

Are you a "heroic"? "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger...Tackle the problem till it resolves."
"The heroic leads to a disdain for any who cannot run ahead of the pack, or worse, who fall behind and need care to survive."

Are you a "optimist?" "Grin and bear it... laugh at every foe...Everything will get better."
"Optimism is the comfort zone of those who want to distance themselves from pain."

All of these 'styles' are ways of numbing the heart from pain. As I reflect, I think I'm a mixture, choosing all four at different times! Yet if we are closed to sorrow, we are also closed to joy.

What if we learned to embrace the pain of life instead of escape it? What if we learned to allow the heartache to shape us into something more-- more awake, more alive, more free?

These thoughts taken from Chapter 1, The Healing Path, Dan Allender

Lighter Side of Counseling V

Guarded?

Fall Fun

Ahhhhh- A yard with leaves-- this is a first for the girls!

First Halloween

It was our first official Halloween in the US.
Thought that deserved a few pics!

Noticeable shift this year-- NO PINK in the costumes!






































The Manchester police even drove around, delivering popcorn!















Our next door neighbors, the Frick's

Crossroads Conversations

Joe is driving home from work. Something important happened today, and he really wants to tell his wife about it. When he walks in the door, Sue is on the phone with her girlfriend. She is laughing, sharing deeply, and obviously enjoying their conversation. 20 minutes pass before she gets off the phone, and all the while, Joe's anxiety and frustration is hard to manage.

At any conflict/stress moment if your relationship with your spouse, you can take on of these three paths:

1. Attack or defend: You express some element of what you are experiencing, but in the form of a complaint that has the effect of coercing, criticizing, or retaliating.

"How come you always have so much to say to your friends, and so little to say to me?"

This turns your partner into the enemy, and triggers an "adversarial cycle." Each partner stings in response to being stung. Each feels too unheard to listen, too misunderstood to being misunderstanding. There is always another rebuttal.

2. Avoid, ignore, or downplay: You keep what you are experiencing to yourself and talk about something else.

"Anything good on TV tonight?"

This turns your partner into a stronger, and triggers a withdrawn cycle. Each partner's carefulness, politeness, or walking on eggshells stimulates the same in the other. Whispering stimulates whispering.

3. Confide and listen: You bring your partner in on what you are experiencing; you take in what your partner is trying to tell you.

"I'm jealous of how much fun you were having talking to Gail over the phone just now."

(You're not saying this to make them feel guilty, or spur them to action. You are being honest about what is true in your heart.)

This turns your partner into an ally, and triggers an empathetic or collaborative cycle. Each partner's confiding, admitting, reaching out, and considering the others viewpoint makes the other automatically do the same.

Being intimate is bringing your spouse IN on what you are feeling and struggling with in the moment. It does not require a certain feeling. Intimacy is just a sentence away, but it is hard to come up with that sentence. It is hard because we are not very aware of our own internal states--and mostly we am fighting off our shame.

Based on the work of Daniel Wile

Turtle Park

A couple of weeks ago when Aunt Becca was in town we met at Turtle Park for a little cousin fun:








































































































Isn't he the cutest lil' peanut?

Why the Toothpaste is a Big Deal

You stumble into the bathroom, and there it is.

The toothpaste tube laying on its side, no top, squeezed in the middle.

How many years have you been married? How many times have you made it clear that you like it squeezed from the bottom? As you flatten again, you begin to think, "I'm not sure I really matter to her/him." The proof is there on the bathroom counter the next morning too… and the next.

You bring it up. (maybe even explode) "I'm so tired of asking you to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom. (!!!xxx#$!!!)" Or maybe it's cloaked in sarcasm. "You'd think after 5 (10, 15, 20) years of marriage, you would have learned how to squeeze the toothpaste right." Your spouse gets angry that you are making such a big deal of the *** toothpaste. You are both convinced that the other is an unloving nincompoop.

You stop mentioning the toothpaste. And a dozen other little things. Socks. Unflushed toilets. Unwiped countertops... insert your own issue. Why bother? They don’t really care anyhow. You shut up and withdraw. You stop talking in the name of peace. Maybe you are ashamed that the toothpaste matters to you. Maybe you convince yourself that it's ok… a mature adult should be able to deal with the idiosyncrasies of a nitwit. But everyday, you see the tube… and something is happening emotionally, driving a wedge.

Is this really about toothpaste?

Do I matter? Do my emotions count? What your heart really wanted, from the first day of the toothpaste incident, is that your spouse would affirm again, "You really matter to me. I want to remember the little things that are important to you." But in the fight-over-the-toothpaste-that-was-never-about- toothpaste, your connection to the other is diminished over again and again. The heart of the matter…being affirmed that you are important to them…keeps getting missed. A slow downward spiral of distance happens day after day.

What would have happened if the conversation went differently? What if you had realized from the start that it was about your heart? What if you'd talked about your heart instead of the toothpaste? What if your spouse knew that you needed love more than a flat tube?

Maybe it's time to have a new kind of conversation.

[Hear more about this perspective in Hold Me Tight, Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, by Dr. Sue Johnson, who is the developer of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy.]

Deeper Still

Deeper Still

In the tears you gave to me


I found a river to an ocean


A concrete sky and a stone cold sea


That came to where the emptiness cracked open


And all my fears came crashing through


And met the fire of my sorrow


But I found my strength in forgiving you


I never even dreamed how far my heart could go



To give my life beyond each death


From this deeper well of trust


To know that when there's nothing left


You will always have what you gave to love



In this life, the love you give becomes

the only lasting treasure


And what you lose will be what you win


A well that echoes down too deep to measure



A silver coin rings down that well


You could never spend too much, a diamond echoes deeper still


And you'll always have what you gave to love,


You will always have what you gave to love


David Wilcox & Beth Nielsen Chapman, What You Whispered CD

David Wilcox gets something here about marriage. There is goodness in the struggle; the good marriage isn't primarily about joy and happiness and mutual pleasure, not that those things don't happen. But that's not the measure of a good marriage. He sees that we become fuller people as we give because we love. We are stretched beyond what we thought possible, even though there is a cost, and that it's worth it. Reread the lyrics again, thinking about marriage...

On Falling in Love & "Prenuptial Panic"

"Falling in love is something people can't really do until they first learn the skills of friendship."

"One of the greatest pains of love is that one of us always gets there first and must patiently wait for the other to catch up. We can work on our friendship skills while we are waiting. We dare not try to fall in love in order to be made happy. We get happy, and then we fall in love to share it."

"Anyone who doesn't feel a bit of panic at the point of making such a total permanent commitment either doesn't mean it or is not paying attention. Yet years later, in the throes of an old, open conflict or a new, secret romance, those who would run from their marriage always remember the sprint not taken on their wedding day. They don't realize it is universal. The function of all the well-dressed wedding guests is to keep the bride and groom from cutting and running..."

What is a Good Marriage 2

More on marriage...

"Marriage is not supposed to make you happy. It is supposed to make you married. Once you are safely and totally married, then you have a structure of security and support from which you are free to make yourself happy, rather than wasting your adulthood looking for structure."

"The creation of partnership, companionship, and even friendship--is impossible if one or both partners insist on being right." As one client once realized, "You're telling me that I can't be right and married at the same time?" RIGHT. A married person must respect the partner's opinions, emotional reactions, preferences, and points of view without applying a standard of right or wrong to them... the course of the marriage, like the course of true love, never did run smoothly, and isn't supposed to."