An Evening Well Spent

This past week, the temperatures in St. Louis dropped and it felt like fall was upon us. Saturday night we returned home from a day trip to visit Lisa's grandparents in Greenville, IL, which is where we held our wedding one week shy of 8 years ago. This was one of those trips where the time spent with the relatives is wonderful, but the hour plus car ride there and back proved exhausting, as our girls just seemed to be unsettled and wanting to whine and argue a lot.

We enjoyed dinner of grilled cheese and chicken noodle soup on the patio in our backyard and then I lit the fire pit for the first time this season and the first time at the new house. We roasted some marshmallows with the girls and made s'mores, and then proceeded to bath-time and bedtime for the girls.

Lisa and I returned to the fire pit and sat around it for an hour, as the small fire slowly died. I spent most of the time talking, as Lisa had asked me a question that I evidently had more to say about then I would have guessed. So there we sat, wrapped in blankets in our chairs, holding hands and enjoying our environment and one another's company until the embers began to fade and the temperature finally forced us inside.

It's an extreme understatement to say that we have been blessed.
We have two beautiful, healthy little girls that bring so much joy into our lives, as well as to others.
We enjoy our time with both of our families and live close to both sides that it is convenient.
We live in a wonderful home that we are thrilled beyond belief to raise our family in.
We lack for nothing and have more than we need.
We are blessed.

I thank God for all these blessings and more
I am so glad that I can sit with my wife in the cool of the evening, share a moment of conversation with her in our wonderful backyard, enjoy being in each other's presence and know that  there are many people who cannot honestly say that.
I am blessed.

The Parent Rap

This is awesome.

(HT: 22 Words)

See also Dad Life
See also The Swagger Wagon 

The Marriage Commitment Reflects the Depth of Love

In contrast to how the world defines love and the importance of marriage:

"But when the Bible speaks of love, it measures it primarily not by how much you want to receive but by how much you are willing to give yourself to someone. How much are you willing to lose for the sake of this person? How much of your freedom are you willing to forsake? How much of your precious time, emotion, and resources are your willing to invest in this person? And for that, the marriage vow is not just helpful but it is even a test. In so many cases, when one person says to another, "I love you, but let's not ruin it by getting married," that person really means, "I don't love you enough to close off all my options. I don't love you enough to give myself to you that thoroughly." To say, "I don't need a piece of paper to love you," is basically to say "My love for you has not reached the marriage level."  - Tim Keller "The Meaning of Marriage", p78

The Difference Between Men and Women

(HT: Vitamin Z)

How to Change Your Marriage

Love these points from counselor Winston Smith:
"Marriage is the sum of both people's actions. It's not just about what one person is doing. So really, anytime one person changes, the marriage itself is going to change."

"If your going to hang in there in marriage and you are going to see growth, you have to understand, you have to be convinced that 'my actions make a difference' that 'my marriage can be better if I am willing to put the effort into it and I am willing to look at myself to see how I need to change and how I need to grow'".