It's Me-Finally!!

Dear Ladies,
I'm sorry it has been so long since you've heard from me. Just a quick note to let you all know that I am thinking of you.

This morning in church I was standing next to my husband during worship. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him worshiping the Lord. I realized that no matter what he does wrong or does that I'm not real excited about that none of that really matters. What really matters is that my husband loves the Lord and is committed to his walk with Him. I need to keep this is mind when I'm frustrated, feeling unappreciated or overwhelmed. In reality few things are really important, but one of the things that is important is the relationship our family members and friends have with the Lord. In the end all we can take to heaven with us is other people.

I'm taking my three youngest kids and heading to So. Carolina to help Eric's sister who has ALS. ALS is a quickly progressing disease and I want to spend time with her while she is still with us. I will try to write to you from there.

I would love to hear from some of you. It inspires me to write when I hear from you and you ask me questions or share something from your day with me.

Blessings to all of you,
Melissa

Marriage Secret

Dear Ladies,

I have just finished writing a long letter to a friend who is ready to end her marriage. All around me it seems couples are falling apart. Several are couples who have been married for over 20 years. Twenty years is a long time and yet they are willing to walk away and start again. How did this happen? Well I know for sure they didn't start having problems a few years ago, they started having problems on the honeymoon.

Here is a funny story about problems starting on the honeymoon. I got angry at my husband on our honeymoon. It seemed to me he laughed at me quite often and I didn't like it. I said something to him and he laughed at me, but I didn't think it was funny. I went to the bathroom and shut the door. I showed him, I was upset, I wouldn't talk to him that would teach him a lesson. My husband explained to me that he wasn't laughing at me, he was laughing with me; he enjoyed me and what I said and did. Now that's sweet, if your honey tells you he enjoys you. However if my husband hadn't communicated that to me I wouldn't have known. In my mind he was being mean and making funny of me. This may seem to be a small and funny moment, but it could have been the beginning of a wall that I built in my heart.

Those little moments in our marriage in and of themselves aren't what cause couples to divorce, However, 20 years of little problems build on each other and make bigger problems. The problems are not dealt with and they grow and multiply.

A big secret to a successful marriage is communicating. It is ok to let your husband know he has hurt your feelings, or treated you badly. Chances are he meant it differently then it was perceived. When we were first marriage we would say "I heard you say..." or "This is what I meant to say..." By doing this we learned to communicate and see how what we said was received.

"So friends-How is your marriage?' Don't wait until your problems are too big to solve, work on them today. Pray together for protection for your marriage. Marriage is a holy institution, therefore Satan wants to destroy marriages-including yours.

Blessings to all of you,
Melissa

Tips, Good Ideas and a Lion or Two

Dear Ladies,

Thank you for making these letters such a hugh success. I started writing with about 8 ladies, most of them sat with me at MOPS meetings. The list has grown to about 20 ladies now. Welcome to all the new moms. Please continue to share these letter with anyone who is interested and have them email me if they would like the letters to show up in their mailbox. All the letters are posted at the following blog address (www.amomlikeyou.blogspot.com) if you would like to re-read them. I know it is easier to have them just show up in your in-box. That way you can read the letter quickly and go hunt down the two year old, who is all of a sudden quiet. And we all know what it means if a two year old is quiet-TROUBLE. Once while I was on the phone my two oldest were quiet. I found them in the bathroom. The oldest was brushing his teeth with my toothbrush, after having used my lipstick. The younger one was sitting in a sink of water with messy diaper.


My husband and I had the chance to enjoy two days at the homeschool convention. There are always too many fabulous products to buy and too many informative workshops to attend. Many workshops deal with homeschooling topics, but many would be of interest to non- homeschooling families. For this letter I am just going to bullet for you some of the things I wrote down in my notebook. I hope one or more points will be of encouragement to you today.


Family Life

-Wives respect your husbands. If you wouldn't believe in him, how can he believe in himself.

-Prepare children for all seasons of life. ie. the season of learning or being a disciple, the season of raising a family, the season of being leaders within the church and the season of being leaders of the nation.

-Ask you child, "How ARE you?" "Have I ever hurt your feelings?"

-Remember it's the little things that destroy a marriage-work as a team.

-Children need to trust their parents.

-Teach your children to see a job and do it before being asked.

-When a young child wants to do a job, ie. fold clothes, then it is time to begin teaching him/her that job.

-Lavish praise for jobs children do.

-Some kids don't see the mess, use a check list to help them with cleaning jobs.

-Make a list of everything in the house that needs to be done, enlist the children to help.

-Gear chores towards a child's skill.

-For a forgetful child have them do the same job everyday for a year.

-Reward children for completion of big jobs. ie. a trip to the ice cream shoppe.

-Preform weekly room checks, reward a child for an orderly room.

-Reward a child for good manners.

-Mention things a child does right when you pray for him/her.

-Create an audio tape of dad reading the proverbs.

-Make use of rewards in training for occasional motivation and for learning Bible verses.

-Train girls to run the household and have a heart of service.

-Have young men learn a trade.

-Encourage a servant's spirit, first in the family, then when company is over and by adopting an elderly person.

-Limit electronic entertainment, teach a lifestyle of productivity.


Stretching in Your Grocery Dollars

-Plan a menu

-Put together a price book, so you will be able to check if an item is a deal or not.

-Establish a buy price. ie. I try not to pay more then $2 a pound for meat.

-Try bulk cooking or once a month cooking. This makes for a long Saturday, but is great if you can do it. You can also do smaller jobs like cook up a lot of ground beef at once, cook and bone a bunch of chicken, or chop and freeze onions/green peppers. This isn't bulk cooking, but it does make dinner time easier.

-Make family dinners happen at least four nights a week.

-Stay at the table to play a game, read or have devotions. Mad-lips is a funny dinner game.


Lastly Ladies, remember that God has a BIG purpose for your children, just as He did for Ruth, David, Esther, Joshua and Samuel.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Melissa

PS. What do you think David's mom thought when he came home and said " I killed a fierce lion today". Oh My and we thought our kids worried us.

10 Ways to Love Your Husband

Dear Ladies,


Twenty years. Twenty of the best years of my life. In June of 1988 at the young age of 22, I married my sweetheart. Before we got married we had read books, listened to tapes, attended a marriage conference and consulted with our pastor. We were so ready to try out all our new found wisdom. All the prep work helped, but we had and still have much to learn.


Even though our children require a lot from us, our most important priority (after our relationship with Jesus) is our husband. How do we show our husband he is important to us? What your husband yearns for most from you is respect. Showing respect to a man is showing him love. The definitions of respect are: take notice of; to regard with special attention; to regard as worthy of special consideration, to care for

How to show your husband you love and respect him:

1. Listen to your husband when he talks. Look at him. Show him you're interested in what he is saying.


2. Understand how important his job is to him. He takes very seriously his responsibility to provide for his family.


3. Trust him. Allow him to lead you and your children. When he steps out to lead, follow him.

4. Submit to him. This is a tough one. A good friend once told me, “Melissa, do what your husband says. If he is wrong God will take care of you."

5. Don't nag. Nagging happens, so watch for it and nip it quickly. There is no faster way to pull down your husband then with constant nagging. Even the Bible addresses the issue of a nagging woman. Proverbs 25:24 “It is better to dwell in a corner of a housetop, than in a house shared with a contentious woman." The definition for contentious is “wearisome tendency to quarrels and disputes”.

6. Meet his physical needs. For a man this is one of the primary ways he receives love.

1 Corinthian 7: 5 “Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time…”
1 Corinthians 7:3 “Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.”


7. Be content. Asking for a new car or larger home when a husband is doing all he can to provide puts undue pressure on him.
“Be content with such things as you have” Hebrews 13:5


8. Don’t take control. Allow your husband to be the head of the house, especially in the areas where he needs to be taking the lead. Don’t take over just because you don’t think he is doing a task right or hasn’t started to take the lead. Pray for him. Allow the Lord to work.

9. Compliment your husband. Let your husband know on regular bases how much all he does for your family means to you. Tell him he is an excellent provider, an outstanding father, a sweet lover and your closest friend. He needs your words of affirmation.


10. Pray for him. Pray that God will give him wisdom. Pray that he will have favor with his co-workers, pray for protection from temptations and give thanks that he is walking the road of life and parenting with you.