As a therapist working with couples, my goal is to try and give them what I did not receive (or ask for) as a young man engaged at the age of 20. Over a decade of marriage and four children later, to say that I have done the following poorly for most of the years of my marriage is a vast understatement. To be perfectly honest, for most of my years I have remained hidden behind and within work, anger or alcohol. For me, healthy marriage comes down to one core thing, which is knowing and being known. It seems that at the...
Being Sandwiched
Three Short Insights of How to Stay Emotionally Healthy in the Craziness of Caring for Aging Parents According to Wikipedia, The Sandwich generation is “the generation of people who care for their aging parents while supporting their own children. According to the Pew Research Center, just over 1 of every 8 Americans aged 40 to 60 is both raising a child and caring for a parent. I’ll confess -I’m a super-sub ham-n-cheese. I’ve been sandwiched for ten years when it became apparent that my mother’s memory-loss issues were far too severe for my dad to handle. Ten years into it...
Trying to Understand
Marriage may be the most infuriating, brilliant, amazing, and humbling of creations. The Apostle Paul actually describes it as a “profound mystery” in Ephesians, which is probably the best description for it. There are more books, seminars, Sunday School topics, sermons, and research about marriage than almost anything else, and yet most of us are still deeply confused about how to “do life” with another person. I’ve been involved in the mystery for four years now and have experienced the full gamut of emotions. I have been more richly blessed, more deeply heartbroken, and more graciously forgiven than I could...
awake
One of my favorite vacation destinations is the beach. I love essentially everything about it: The ocean, with it’s waves rhythmic and crashing; the sounds of the sea soothingly breathing in and out. I love getting in the water, surrendering to the tide’s calm rocking, feeling cleansed and rejuvenated. My favorite thing to do is to get out where the water is about chest high, plant my feet in the ocean floor, and go weak in the knees so that the waves bob me up and down like a cork. I like walking barefoot in the sand and feeling that...
Great Betrayals
How do you put the pieces of your story back together after finding out about a great betrayal? How do you reclaim a past when you find out it was seemingly built around a longstanding lie? In her article ‘Great Betrayals’, Anna Fels explores how ‘robbing someone of his or her story’ through a longstanding lie or betrayal may be ‘the greatest tragedy of all’. FREQUENTLY, a year or even less after the discovery of a longstanding lie, the victims are counseled to move on, to put it all behind them and stay focused on the future. But it’s not...
What You Don’t Say
You’ve probably heard the story about old man Floyd, a widower, who lived alone in a ramshackle house down by the river. Floyd was a man of great faith who seemed content regardless of circumstances. Anyone in town could tell you that when times were tough Floyd would just smile and say, “the Lord will provide.” And, it always seemed so. That is until the rains came. The river crested its banks and began flooding Floyd’s community. When the water was in the streets, big trucks and buses were employed to evacuate the townspeople. When they arrived at Floyd’s house, he politely refused, “the Lord will...
Got Story?
Just so you know from the outset, these words have no magic potion, no 30-day money-back guarantee, and not any earth-shaking information. In fact, this is a major “not rocket science” collection of words. This is so simple you can do it with your eyes closed. You can do it in the car. You can do it eating pizza. Or even when your child and you are somewhere in that blessed world between nighttime stories, stern warnings, prayers, drinks, and sleep. First, I want to borrow an idea from Kermit the Frog. Since he first entered our lives, he has...
No Neutral Relating
A former boss/mentor/fatherly-friend once told me ‘You can’t not lead; the fact is you’re always leading, it’s just a matter of how well or poorly you’re doing it.’ This phrase has been stuck in my head for years now, and always seems to find new areas to lay hold of. Lately, this saying has modified into ‘You can’t not affect others in relationships, you’re either building up or tearing down, there is no neutral.’ “Sin sprouts, as banana trees on the Nile, whenever the effect of your relationships with others is to diminish rather than enlarge them. There is no...
On Disciplining Children
The root of discipline is disciple. The point of disciplining is to teach. As parents, we are in the business of teaching our children to lead fruitful and healthy lives. However, many times we find ourselves feeling frustrated about how we handle difficult parenting moments – Those moments when we yell, shame, or are sarcastic instead of teaching. Bill Cosby says, “No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids – their behavior is always normal.” So, how should we treat these wonderful, frustrating, crazy and normal children...
Oh, Good Grief!
Oh, Good Grief! “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” –C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves Have you ever lost something? Or someone? I don’t mean like losing your keys, or getting separated from your mother in the department store… I mean truly losing something. Like a part of you has gone missing. That deep pain that escapes the ability to explain it to others. It’s like your life before the loss and your life after the loss are completely different. I know I have. What do we do...