November 29, 2009 | Posted by drrick
I have sat here today watching the UF/FSU football game. The Noles lost. My family are doing different things: one at work, one at friends, and my wife and youngest son here at home with me. Today has been a day where I have done little of any consequence, and it has been very nice to simply sit back, read books, watch TV and just relax. But it is also on days like today where I am afforded the opportunity to sit back, watch, think, and appreciate. The fact that this is Thanksgiving weekend makes this time even more meaningful for me.
If you lost everything you owned, all your stuff, what is left that matters to you? Hopefully you would say your family, friends and relationships. What makes life meaningful is not what we have, but rather WHO we have. Love means nothing if we have noone. For love can only be expressed in relationships. Without relationships, loving and intimate ones, we lose purpose and meaning.
While I have been typing this a documentary on my local PBS affiliate has been airing. It is about the terrorists that attacked the hotels in India and killed so many people and interviews with the survivors. Listening to the survivors was humbling. Many of the testimonies were not about the things they would lose, but rather, the people they would not be able to see again and regrets. I think a life lived well, will love well. And a life that has loved well, will die with few regrets.
Be grateful for those you love and for the fact that they are in your life today. Forgive each other, overlook differences if possible, and live fully in the present with those you love. This way, you are able to better appreciate them, and what they provide for you.
Love well.
Categories: Marriage | 
Tags: community, family, forgive, love | 
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November 19, 2009 | Posted by drrick
Today flights have cancelled across the country due to computer issues within the FAA system. These issues have affected lives everywhere. And not only lives, but business and the market place. I am sitting here in the Jacksonville Airport (love this place) and watching, listening, and pondering life this very day. Here are some of my thoughts.
An electronic issue (that I would never fully understand) has affected the airline industry and flights across the country. This reminds me of the times when there are issues that I don’t fully understand within myself, yet I act out those feelings and emotions in unhealthy and immature ways. This acting out (not proud of it when i do) not only is within me, but has consequences beyond me (much like the flight cancellations across the country). These reactions to our internal struggles affect our spouses, children, co-workers, and quite possibly, customers you deal with at work. You see, nothing happens in a vacuum. All that we do has consequences beyond ourselves.
When you think your are right, others are wrong, your pride, your insistence to MAKE others come to your truth, to be unloving, uncaring, non-nurturing, uncompassionate: all of these have relational consequences beyond yourself. I like what Maximus says in the movie Gladiator, what we do in life echoes in eternity. I would add, it also echoes in life too! May we be mindful of how we act and react in order to love better and love well.
Blessings on this day I get to practice flexibility, patience, and have been afforded the opportunity to relax here at the airport. Thank you, Father!!!
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November 15, 2009 | Posted by drrick
In the New Testament, we are told to give thanks IN everthing as well as FOR everything. So, I wanted to take this time to share some of the things for which I am grateful and appreciative.
I am thankful for my wife, my children, my health, their health, my family, my brothers and sister, my sister-in-law Melinda, my mother and step-mother, Matthew Meadows, Chets Creek Church, Jan Werson, Granny and Poppa (you know who you are), my work and calling, my eyesight, the ability to hear and walk and talk, laughter, my house, for the past struggles and challenges I have had in life, for those who have hurt me (as I have had to learn more about myself because of what they did), and above all of the above, for Abba Father. Thank you that you never leave nor forsake nor abandon nore reject.
Categories: Marriage | Tags: thankful, thanksgiving | No Comments »
November 6, 2009 | Posted by drrick
We all get hurt and have things done to us by others, close to us and not, that hurt us. Many times, these things hurt us deeply. The emotional effects of what took place can last for awhile. However, once we allow attitude and anger and resentment to settle, that grudge can be all consuming. The negative energy of the grudge will not only wreck our personal life, but also affect those around us.
I remember the worst job I ever had as an employee. The leaders were (by all clinical understanding) abusive and controlling. I kept my resentments to myself for a few years and finally could not hold them in anymore. The resentment not only spewed from my mouth and attitude, but I allowed it to affect other relationships. The sad thing was that, at that time, I didn’t care. My anger and deep hurt had become all too consuming. I wasnt free until I forgave. I Forgave my offenders, and others who betrayed me and took the side of the offenders.
Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. Don’t make the mistakes I made. Forgive. Let it go and move on. If you want to understand forgiveness better, check out my audio file on my website at www.marriageforlife.org. And, if you have a forgiveness story to share, provide it to me at www.forgivemeknot.com. Blessings.
Categories: Marriage | Tags: forgive, forgiveness, grudge, healing | No Comments »
November 3, 2009 | Posted by drrick
Remember that song? Another line in the song went: “what’s love but a second hand emotion.” What do you think? Is love really an emotion? Is it a choice? Or could it be… both? I do think that love is a choice. We choose to love. But, love is also an emotion.
Think about it. Do you want to simply know someone loves you…or would you rather feel loved by them? Most people want to feel loved. I know my Dad loved me, though I never felt loved by him. I always strived to FEEL loved by him, but to no avail. Children want to feel loved; for when we feel loved, we know we are loved.
The choice to love arises when we lose feelings of love. I can still choose to love my wife even when I lose feelings of love for her.
So, lets work hard to ensure those we love FEEL the love.
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October 6, 2009 | Posted by drrick
We all know that love is patient, kind, doesnt boast, etc. and yet I find myself NOT being patient, kind, selfish, etc. more often than not. I know all too well the Romans 7 struggle of the two sides! ugh!
But, I have also found that daily we have opportunity to practice love. Like right now. I am sitting in the Jacksonville airport waiting for a flight to Wisconsin to do some work. Air Control in Atlanta has grounded our flight for an additional 90 minutes. So I got off the plane to sit in the terminal. Boy oh Boy! Are some people upset, frustrated, perterbed, (you fill in the word)! Impatient. And because of this impatience that energy is coming out to Delta agents who have not done anything. As i watch these impatient people, I see clearly what it means that Love is patient. When we are patient, we will treat people lovingly. When impatient, we treat them unlovingly. I am glad that for this time, I have chose patience, and thus love.
How are you doing exhibiting those 15 traits of love mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13? As I am experiencing right now, we daily have opportunity to practice God’s heart. Look for those opportunities and do well.
Blessings,
Categories: Marriage | Tags: love, patience, unloving | No Comments »
September 19, 2009 | Posted by drrick
I have just seen the power of love in action and how it covers a multitide of sins! Love heals as well as time.
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September 18, 2009 | Posted by drrick
I am sitting here in my office with a couple from out of town going through a HUGE stack of relationship assessment inventories (Thanks John Gottman) and while they are in the next room doing their assessments, I am sitting here in my office thinking about issues here in jacksonville and about life and relationships.
I am coming to realize in a very profound manner the brokenness within the Body of Christ, but more importantly, with the Church leadership. If not broken marriages hidden behind the mask of love and fondness, egos at stake and humility diminished. I think about a meg church pastor who shared from the pulpit that he would be happy if he was on an island, with his bible, and no one else. Hmmm? His wife was in the audience at the time and I silently wondered what she thinks about the fact that she is not important enough to have on the island with him. But then again, this statement only affirms that many people today are bonding to their professions and not their spouses. BTW, it is not the Bible we want to be on the island with, it is Father. You can be on the island with the Bible and not Father, but to have Father on the island, IS to have the Bible.
The hurt and pain is immense. I think about the hurt and recovery I had to go through in my own life from my own broken home and relationships. But, what astonishes me even more is that you can find the same level of brokenness in the Church as outside. Egos, insecurities, backbiting, labeling, abandoning, rejecting, accusing, withdrawing, etc. are all things that Father will never to…yet His Church will. How far we have come in misrepresenting our Savior’s heart.
Oh well, I will quit pondering for now. Blessings. And remember, He will NEVER leave you nor forsake you. His Body of Christ might, but He will not. And he will always send someone alongside you that cares, even if he uses an unchurched person or a donkey!
Categories: Marriage | Tags: brokenness, healing, love, ministers, pain, relationships, wounds | No Comments »
September 3, 2009 | Posted by drrick
I am in Atlanta right now working on the next module of our Enriched Work Teams program. Working with Dr. Kevin Ellington and Mr. Don Marks, SVP of Suntrust Bank is a real blessing getting their insights and support for the project. As I write this blog I am looking over what once used to be battlefields of the American Civil War. And my thoughts turned towards how many marriages today, even one’s in the faith community, are experiencing a civil war. A marriage in crisis, at war rather than in love and good will.
I know of a man who told his wife he can respond to her in “righteous anger” because he is angry with her. Other tools of marital war are pride, manipulation, threats, silence, intimidation, physical assaults, stonewalling, and there are many more. Each of these marital offensives just causes the partner to dig in deeper and either defend or counterattack.
Love. Does love do these things? Does Christ tell us he has the right to be controlling and angry and call it “righteous”? Does he do the things we do to each other? I think not.
Love. Two things I have learned about it: 1) it never controls another, it gives up power and never seeks it own; and 2) it will risk rejection and abandonment. To love well is to operate in good will and respect!
may we focus on operating in love by being respectful, operating in good will and empathy.
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August 27, 2009 | Posted by drrick
How would you like to know your spouse loves you, but never feel loved from them? Is that possible? It sure is. many people know their parents loved them, yet never felt loved from them. I have come to realize love does have an emotional component to it and that we all need to feel loved. When the feelings of love are lost or not present, we then get to choose to act in loving ways inspite of how we feel.
What needs to happen for you to feel loved? What does your spouse need from you in order to feel loved? Lets do what it takes to help our mates feel loved. Blessings!
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