Tag Archive - marriage

13 Years on the 13th

June 13, 2011 in Personal with 2 Comments

Today we celebrate 13 years together. There is so much that I’ve learned in the past 13 years as it relates to living with and loving this woman that is my wife. Here are 13 Things I’ve learned over the past 13 years with my wife.

  1. Wouldn’t want to share a bathroom with anyone else. Even if I only get 10% of the counter space for myself.
  2. Laundry will just not ever be caught up with. Ain’t gonna happen, but I don’t mind at all.
  3. Being right is overrated. Being civil isn’t.
  4. It’s always more fun with her there, and always more lonely when she’s gone.
  5. A surprise Diet Coke in a big cup will always make her day better.
  6. Sitting quietly through girl movies is always better than making fun of them loudly.
  7. A small gesture means a lot with 3 (and sometimes 4) kids in the house.
  8. Funny things are more funny when she’s laughing with me.
  9. She will always laugh first when I’ve hurt myself in an accident. I’m learning to accept this unique way of dealing with bodily harm.
  10. Asking forgiveness is the greatest marital tool in the marriage toolbox.
  11. Holding hands is always worth the inconvenience of a sweaty palm.
  12. Having her to talk with me through life’s changes and ups and downs; is one of my favorite things about her.
  13. The ability to count years and years that we’ve been together is something I’ll always treasure!

Married People need a Big Night Out

September 16, 2010 in Ministry with 1 Comment

So this week www.marriedpeople.org released some new downloadable events for churches.  You’ve got to head over there today and see all that they have going on to help churches reach out to the parent side of the family.  Good Stuffs!
Married Couples Can Have Their Own “Big Night Out”
MarriedPeople Offers New Downloadable Event for Churches

(CUMMING, GA — September 15, 2010) MarriedPeople, a partner organization ofOrange designed to help churches help marriages, is launching a new “Big Night Out”event program today. The Big Night Out events will help couples celebrate the goodthings happening in their marriage in a way that is powerful, yet fun for both wife andhusband. Created to be turnkey, downloadable and low cost, these events can behosted within local churches anytime at their convenience.
“Big Night Out downloadable events are designed by church leaders for church leaders.While the nights are most definitely fun, they truly are life changing for many, manycouples,” said Reggie Joiner, founder and CEO of Orange.
““Most churches lack the time and budget for a focused marriage ministry. We willprovide the tools to churches that want to be known for helping marriages,” said TedLowe, founder of MarriedPeople and former director of MarriedLife ministry at NorthPoint Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga. “We want to make the church the hero.”
Church leaders can log on to marriedpeople.org and download everything they needto conduct a Big Night Out event at their church. Big Night Out downloadable eventsinclude program orders, messages, host scripts, production orders, videos, computergraphics for promotion and the event, takeaway pieces for application, several word documents that coach leaders through the event and more.

17 Years Worth of Valentines

February 14, 2010 in Personal with 0 Comments

Happy Valentines to my Valentine.

I met my wife when I was 17 years old and she was just 15 years old.  This Valentines day will be our 17th Valentines together.  Some Valentines have been dynamite celebrations of our love.  Other Valentines have been spent cleaning up sick kids, and me bringing home Sonic Cherry Limeades.  But every Valentine’s Day for the last 17 years I have been with the one person I most want to be with.

Every. Single. Time.

Bible + 90 Days = Whew!

November 18, 2009 in Bible, Personal with 9 Comments

Dusty Bible

Over the past 90 days my wife and I have been pouring all our energy into completely reading the Bible through.  I’m talking Genesis to Revelations in 90 days.  Cover to cover!  In actuality, we crunched the numbers and think it was more like 92 days.  So sue me!

It was quite the experience and not something I made big news of while I was actually reading it.  Didn’t want to NOT do it, then have to look stupid.  By the way, that’s wisdom right there! (If you follow me on twitter @jonathancliff then you might have seen a few cryptic “35 of 90″ tweets here and there.  Make sense, now?)

I’ve read the Bible through a few times in my life, most recently in bible school; but never in 90+ days.  Let me sum up my expereince by saying, “Whew!”

Here are my takeaways, having finished last Friday:

  • I’ve never spent so much time doing a project over 90 days.  It’s exhausting to do the same 45 minutes of reading every single day for so long.  I wish I could say it’s a habit I could keep up, but it’s not.  I just don’t normally have the attention span to do this.
  • Doing it with my wife was key.  I can’t tell fully explain in this paragraph how cool it was to walk this journey through the bible with Starr.  Not to mention being accountable to each other each and every day.
  • I learned that my wife is a slow reader, who knew?
  • I also learned that I’m hyper-competitive.  Even when reading the Bible.  I could never stand to be finished after Starr, I just had to win my daily Bible reading contest.  Even if it was only in my head.
  • Reading the entire Bible through in such a short time frame is comparative to flying over a forest.  I didn’t get to spend much time looking at any one tree, instead seeing the boundaries of the entire forest in one fell swoop!
  • Reading through Leviticus was hard.  Crazy hard!
  • What were my favorite books to read?  Easy.  Genesis and Acts.
  • When you spend 70+ days reading the Old Testament, the Gospels come as a ray of sunshine.  It helped me see the beauty of Jesus’ arrival on the scene.  He came just in time, and redeemed everything that was wrong with creation.
  • The word I’ve really taken away from this experience is, “Story.”  The story of the Bible is such a powerful story of Sin.  How Sin ruined God’s original story, and the story of how Sin was defeated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The story is powerful.

If you ever want to do something to help gain a healthy perspective on this Story of life, I can’t more highly recommend taking the 90 day challenge.  Go find a friend, and start today!

Compare Game

April 2, 2009 in Links, Ministry with 1 Comment

Did you know that sometimes I write blog posts for others?  Really, I do.  Sometimes I take perfectly good stuff that could be on my blog and give it to others in exchange for Starbucks and iTunes gift cards completely free.

Head on over to Gina McClain’s blog for my recent gift to the blogging community of JabberFrog.

The Compare Game

Do you ever compare yourself to others? I do. I’ll go ahead and admit that I sometimes try and size up people in the first few minutes with one standard-bearing question: Are they better than me, or am I better than them? It’s all very subjective, I don’t literally wonder if I’m a better person than someone; but I do wonder if my house is bigger, if my salary is larger, if my church is more heavily attended, if my marriage is healthier, and any other way that I could possibly walk away with a win in this dangerous “compare game.”

Head over to Jabberfrog.com for the rest…

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