Monday, May 4, 2009

Passionately in Love


In March I attended a Thomas Jefferson Education conference that I go to every year. I already reviewed the “biggies” for me on my blog, but I feel a need to go into a little more detail on one of the points. In one of the classes I attended on social leadership one thing really hit me like a ton of bricks. Now, when I think of social leadership I was thinking charity work, global thinking, training our kids, etc. Those things were mentioned but one the strongest points was that we need to have a strong marriage. Dr. Shannon Brooks stated, “if your kids aren’t telling you that you need to ’get a room’ frequently than you have a problem.” His point wasn’t just that we need to love our spouse, be nice, follow the golden rule and all that, but that we should be passionately in love with our spouses and our kids should know it. That has been my focus since the conference (honey I hope you have noticed!) I have always loved my husband passionately, but most of the time it was in my head while folding laundry. Now, I try to think to myself, “the laundry will be there after I kiss my husband and tell him he’s the best.” You know what the laundry was happy to wait and it was pretty great to see hubbies smile and the kids saying “eww gross” with giant smiles on their faces. What better gift can you give your kids then to show to them that the people that are in charge of them are crazy about each other and that they are a team? I just finished reading Behind Every Good Man by John Bytheway, what a great little book. It is filled with wisdom, but the bottom line is, you are not going to MAKE your husband into what he should be. How do you feel when it appears someone is pushing, nagging or critical of you? For me, I think, “yeah well forget it neener neener.” The same is true for your hubby. You catch a lot more flies with honey (or something like that) and even if he doesn’t change into what you think he should, the more you love him the less you want to change him at all….

2 comments:

Lyndon said...

I am all about this. I want them to say, "After 5 kids later we still have the heat". I hope Steve Martin doesn't mind me changing the line a little. Love Ya.

Anonymous said...

It's all about the passion isn't it? Thanks for your last few posts. I'll take hugs and conversation from that one boy of yours anyday and I hope you can walk around in the dark super soon!