Every man should be so lucky as to have a wife like mine. I’d rather hang out with her than anybody in the world. Often I’ll ask her to go do something with me when I have no need for her assistance, but great want for her companionship. I love her so much!

It’s 7:00 a.m. I’ve been awake for an hour, blissfully happy after seven straight hours of good sleep—unusual for a male on the backside of 40. And I’ve been lying there in my warm bed beside Kelly, just pondering as I drift in and out of sleep.

I am so happy. I am so blessed. I am so grateful. I have such a wonderful life and a big part of that is a wonderful wife. As I lay here my mind drifted back to a conversation we had yesterday out at the barn where we’d gone to get the heating pad so we could plug it in on the porch so the cat could stay warm—a story digression just to demonstrate what an exciting and exotic life we live!—a conversation which she started by saying “You’re a very lucky man. The girls have practice for two hours tomorrow and I thought…….” (I’ll let you fill in the blanks while I pray that her creativity is as powerful as your imagination.)

My wife is a wonderful help to me in so many ways. She listens (though she’s kind of a busy, flitty, type so I have to catch her sometimes). She gives me good counsel. She works really hard just keeping our home up. She mows, farms, plants flowers, does laundry, keeps the books (at the office), runs the taxi for the girls, and……she’s enthusiastic in the bedroom. And I’m truly grateful, for ALL of that and more. She’s an incredible woman and I stopped her yesterday, gazed deeply into her eyes, and told her how much I appreciated her; both the bedroom her, and the everywhere else her.

I’m convinced there are many marriages that have dutiful spouses filling roles, but based on experience as a pastoral counselor and conversational observations through life, my guess is that alot of couples miss out on the bedroom bliss. A gynecologist friend discussing marriage confirmed that anecdotally when he commented recently (anonymously, of course) on an exam he’d performed on a married woman. He said “I could tell that nobody had been there since her exam last year.”

That’s such a shame! It’s more than a shame, its a travesty. In some cases its a sin. It seems like such an easy thing to fix, and yet people struggle so much. Why?

Intimacy. Oneness. Knowing and being known. It scares people. There is something in the human psyche, placed there by Satan when Adam allowed him to corrupt that prototype human hard drive, that alienates us. It causes us to fear one another, to fear discovery, to fear judgment, and we miss out on something that my physician described as “heaven—as close as we’ll get until we get there.” Indeed, the notion of oneness, acceptance, fully knowing and fully being known is part of the steamy imagery of the Bible. What we can have with our mate in marriage is SUPPOSED to portend what we can also have in our relationship with God. Marriage can be a taste of Heaven, in advance.

I think people miss out on this aspect of their relationship because their “intimacy program” is corrupted. But Kelly has a different view. She says there is no exuberance in the bedroom because there’s no kindness in the kitchen.

Hmmm.

I get her point, and I can agree with it (isn’t that smart of me—wink, wink—did I mention how brilliant my wife is).

In reality, I think it’s all the above and much more. Men and women do crave intimacy, but don’t understand it and struggle profoundly to find it—and it really isn’t about being naked between the sheets. And, there is a lack of kind sensitivity in how we treat our spouses that bleeds over into the bedroom. Boorish behavior, gentlemen, doesn’t make her want you.

Unfortunately, this is an area of life we don’t discuss much in polite company. It’s everywhere on TV, and in locker rooms. But the things we hear and learn there have little bearing in reality. Rarely do we get the chance to talk with real couples about real things…..”Do you……..?”……….and so our education and information about how to relate in this vital area comes from the Stepford Wives or the latest edition of Cosmopolitan magazine: hardly reliable sources.

It’s been our good fortune to talk with a few couples about this sensitive area, and reports that came back were that those conversations had helped improve the quality of their lives. Awesome! So, until we might someday have a chance to talk, I’ll leave you with a few things I’ve learned that might be helpful:

• Ladies, he really does need you sexually, often. Not just “available” as a tool, but engaged enthusiastically. Take the initiative in this area and you can lead him around by the……………nose. Nose. What were you thinking? You can lead him by the NOSE.
• Guys, take a bath and shave.
• Girls, he is visually stimulated. God made him that way. Take advantage of that, and feed it.
• Guys, She’s not visually stimulated. She’s emotionally stimulated. That happens through talking. She needs to talk. Listen.
• Guys, did I mention she needs to talk?
• Guys, take out the trash. Speak with kindness. She needs to feel loved and valued as a person and a partner, not just as a sex object. I know. It’s hard. She’s got breasts. But really, if you can learn to engage and communicate your appreciation of the total package, you’ll get more access to the parts you so physically enjoy.
• In the bedroom, judgment is suspended. Just have fun, go all in, and be as silly as you wanna be. (And keep the lights on for goodness sakes.)
• Turn off the damnable TV and talk to one another.
• Make sexual jokes with each other and cultivate innuendo. It creates a tension that makes life interesting and keeps you engaged with each other. I make the stupidest jokes with Kelly, and she laughs every time. I don’t even think the jokes are funny. They are so predictable. But that’s kind what makes them work. She knows I’m gonna go there, and she laughs when I do, and I laugh at the fact that she laughs. And that’s what makes us work.
• Seek to serve and help each other in every room of the house. It really is all about the other person.

There’s a lot more I’d love to share and frankly, I could write this better if I had time to go back, edit, and reorganized my thoughts. But, I’ve got a big day ahead of me. I’d better get going. I’ve got to take out the trash, shower, shave………..

I’m no expert on Haiti, earthquakes, or really much of anything for that matter. However, watching the Haiti earthquake coverage has brought some thoughts to mind.

Heartwrenching. How could anyone feel anything but great sadness for the people whose images overwhelm your TV screen? Oh my.

There’s nothing we can do about earthquakes but respond to them when they’ve happened, pick up the pieces, bury the dead, bind the wounds of the injured, and cry with those who’ve lost the people they’ve loved. But there is something that people—governments in particular—can do: be prepared. I love the fact that America is prepared. When we have disasters in America people run into the fray with their resources. Here in Tornado Alley citizens load their trucks with chainsaws, diesel fuel, and all manner of disaster recovery equipment. The national guard shows up. The president and governor talk and work out the disaster declaration—-aid comes!

Where is the aid in Haiti? Oh, I know that all manner of U.S. based charities are running toward the Caribbean. Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse was on CNN tonight begging the U.S. Government to open Haitian airspace so his organization could put plane loads of aid into the country in the morning. Convoy of Hope from here in Springfield, Missouri where I live is already on the ground in Haiti. But where is the Haitian National Guard? Oh, I forgot. They don’t have one. The people in charge over the generations haven’t cared enough to educate, organize, train, and lead their citizens to build a better Haiti. As a result, simple commodities like gasoline are in such short supply they can’t even run the generators so badly needed to care for the injured. No water. No food. No tools—they are digging people out with their bare hands. Why?

For generations all manner of dictators and potentates have ruled Haiti. My guess is that—as is typical with dictators and potentates—they were in it for what they could get, instead of what they could give. There is gasoline in Haiti; to power the cars of the ruling elite. And, I’ll bet that—outside of Port au Prince—their toilets still flush.

I’m not a member of the ruling elite in the U.S. For the most part, we don’t have a ruling elite. But I am a member of the blessed, and my guess is that you are, too. Our obligation my friend is to exercise our leadership, and utilize our resources and abilities for the benefit and betterment of others. God blessed us so we could bless. We need to get our minds around that. It’s Core Value #1: It’s about the people depending on us! I have to believe a similar attitude by the rulers of Haiti would have built a country that lifted its people out of poverty and created the resources so that Haitians could participate in helping Haitians.

I think there is a spiritual component here. The philosophy of Core Value #1 (It’s about the people depending on us) is rooted in my faith. Whatever God has given me is so that I can be a channel of His blessing to others. I’m not a reservoir of blessing. I don’t contain it. I channel it to where it is needed. I’m not just talking about money here. I’m not even primarily talking about money. I’m talking about resources—-intellect, ideas, inspiration, energy, solutions, brain power, and ability. Those things are vested, I should say “entrusted” to us so that we’ll deploy them in lifting others up.

I wonder if their dictators and potentates had their countrymen on their mind when they took power in Haiti? I doubt it. Generation after generation has grown poorer and less able to help themselves because there is no sense of “us” and of “God in us” and “God for us” and “Us for God and them.” (Well, I misspeak. With dictators and potentates there is an “us” but its a pretty small circle, and if it comes to down to you and me, it’s gonna be me.)

Sanitize American history and detach it from it’s roots however you want. At the end of the day American’s rush to aid each other and the rest of the world because inherent in our DNA are Biblical Judeo-Christian values like “us” and “us as the image of Him.” We are better. Not inherently, but fortunately. We are better because our imperfect forefathers did plant seeds of righteousness in the ground from which we continue to reap a crop of blessing today. I’m grateful for that blessing and for the heritage from which it comes. I didn’t choose to be born here instead of Haiti. It was a gift to me for which I am grateful, and responsible.

I don’t know what you and I can do about Haiti. Perhaps not a lot. But we do have an opportunity to make a difference tomorrow in our workplace and communities. We’ll be wise if we recognize our responsibility to advance the ball for others and make the world a better place for the people who are depending on us.

No dictators. No potentates. Just servants using our gifts to make a difference.

Oh God, help me to be a Difference Maker.

Won’t you join me?

Do you live your life according to generalities? Kinda? Sorta? Mostly? Or, are you living precisely as you intended?

This thought came to mind as I interacted with one of my team. We’re building some new advertising and needed to know somethings about our customer. When I asked the question I got back “probably” answers. As you might guess, I’m not interested in building advertising that sorta, kinda, generally targets who we suspect our customer to be; especially when we’ve got the information available to us. I want to know exactly. As I told him, “You fly a kite on ‘probably.” You fly an F18 on ‘precision’.”

There’s always a larger lesson in these kinds of encounters. And the larger lesson in this one—for me—had to do with how we live our lives, generally, mostly, kinda, sorta. And guess what kind of results that produces, mostly. ….Yeah, I think you are beginning to get my drift.

What if life really does give you exactly what you ask for? Exactly what you intend?

Is your intention set precisely so that you’ll achieve what you really want? Or, is it just sorta pointed in a general direction?

My belief is that we get what we ask for. There’s even a spiritual component to this. If you read the Bible you’ll find repeatedly that Jesus asked people “What do you want?”

Don’t misunderstand. I don’t think God is Santa Claus to be treated like a celestial slot machine. But there is a sense that when we set our intention in a focused way on a thing to be achieved or attained, that it then begins to show up in our life. For example, I recently decided I wanted to be more grateful and to facilitate that I bought a notebook to keep beside my bed in which I write nightly “I am grateful for…..” and my sense is that my overall gratitude has increased since I began that exercise. My historically cheery daughter has recently been downcast and gloomy with a “life sucks” attitude. Her mother bought her a notebook and every night she has to write down at least one thing that happened during the day that was positive. Guess what? She’s now discovering many more positive things. Why? Because we set her intention to find those things.

Life is to be lived in abundance. I believe that a key to that experience is deciding what we really want, and pursuing it intentionally with passion and vigor. And I’m 100%, definitely, absolutely, precisely, positive about that.

Remember, you miss 100% of the targets you never aim for.

What’s in your bulls-eye?

I’m slowly learning about the power of being grateful for every single thing that comes my way in life—in all things, giving thanks. B. J. Gallagher captured the essence of the principle when he wrote….

Any day I’m vertical is a good day . . . that’s what I always say. And I give thanks for my health.

If you ask me, “How are you?” I’ll answer, “GREAT!” because in saying so, I make it so. And I give thanks I can choose my attitude.

When Life gives me dark clouds and rain, I appreciate the moisture that brings a soft curl to my hair.

When Life gives me sunshine, I gratefully turn my face up to feel its warmth on my cheeks.

When Life brings fog, I hug my sweater around me and give thanks for the cool shroud of mystery that makes the familiar seem different and intriguing.

When Life brings snow, I dash outside to catch the first flakes on my tongue, relishing the icy miracle that is a snowflake.

Life’s events and experiences are like the weather – they come and go, no matter what my preference.

So, what the heck?! I might as well decide to enjoy them. For indeed, there IS a time for every purpose under Heaven.

Each season brings its own unique blessings . . .

. . . AND I GIVE THANKS