Marriage

Marriage. It’s the one thing that we all look forward to as we grow up. Young girls spend their time planning each aspect of how the wedding will go years before they have met their man. Young men spend their time day dreaming about what it will one day be like to have a wife. It’s as if each of us was naturally instilled to want and need someone beside them in life. But what does that really look like, to have a special partner to walk beside and love and why does something so wonderful and inspiring often turn out to be such a struggle? How could something built on the most powerful thing “love” become something so difficult after the wedding day?

Marriage is like a house. If built properly and maintained it will stand strong in any weather conditions. When building a house you have to lay down a foundation with firm corner stone’s. Without these in place the building will never stand or if built upon will always be uneven and will lean to the side when the wind blows. Each corner stone relies on the others and if one is removed or begins to crumble it will not be long until the building begins to show it. But what are the corner stone’s of marriage? We spend all of our growing up years preparing ourselves for the wedding day and no time looking ahead towards what comes after. To be a good spouse either now or in the future it is important to have a strong understanding of what your part in all of it is. If marriage is like building then you (Holy Bible King James Version, 1990) are the engineer and you will not be successful if there is no blue print to follow.

Love. What is love? Love is one of the strongest words in the dictionary but many people confuse the meaning or truly don’t understand what it really means. There are a few very interesting things about this word. Love is an action word meaning it takes doing something to get a result. Love is also an interaction word, meaning it takes more than just yourself to get a satisfying result. Most people describe love as a feeling. All too often we mentally connect being loved to the rush of romance and although romantic love is one of the sides to our first corner stone it is important to remember that the others are equally important. Love is truly based on making a decision. In real life everyone makes mistakes and screws up (1 Corinthians 13:4). We are all born with the human flaw causing us all do stupid things. It is ridiculous to think that we can go through life and never offend or hurt our partner in some way or another. Your partner needs to know (Ephesians 4:2) that no matter what they do you will always be there to help them up, even when the person they offended is you. This isn’t to excuse it but (Ephesians 4:32) when they know that your love and commitment to them does not turn on and off when they mess up, that’s when the trust can be built and the relationship has the security to blossom and grow.

Love. Love is all about giving yourself to your marriage partner. (Ephesians 5: 20-21) In society we are taught that we should only look out for our own needs and well being. This is a natural instinct (Ephesians 5:29) instilled in us from the day we are born but if abused and not kept in check it can become a very selfish habit that becomes obvious as soon as you are in a serious relationship (Acts 20: 35). Think of it this way, you have hopes, dreams, goals, and every day needs that make you the person you are. When you are single you can pour all of your energy into all of those things. When you meet that special person suddenly you come to a serious impasse. (Ephesians 5:25) Why wouldn’t your partner want you help you accomplish those goals and dreams? In fact they are upset because you are not sensitive or respectful of those things that they want. Needless to say you are both offended. This can slowly drain your relationship and make it miserable. Like two toddlers on the play ground both throwing tantrums because the other isn’t giving them what they (1Corinthians 13:11) want. This is where the giving aspect comes in. The all so often neglected beauty in marriage (Ephesians 5:31). If you give your everything to the needs and dreams of your partner and he/she gives their everything to yours suddenly it changes everything. Because now your loving each other not just yourself. Remember this will only work if you are giving everything you have and then some. It takes you making the decision to stop this “war” and make a change. (Ephesians 4:26)You cannot change your partner but you can change yourself. Keep your eyes open for ways that you can make a difference to your spouse and you will be amazed.

Safety. One of the hardest things in the marriage relationship is the outside problems that weight it down. Things like work, family and financial problems can cause you and your partner to always be running and never have a place to land. Although you cannot always remove problems from the picture there are things that you can do as a couple to soften the load. The number one best way to do that is to sit down and talk about everything. Being married it is easy to forget or not make the time to communicate to each other all of the little things that are weighing on your mind. It is time to make the time to talk about everything. Look into your partners eyes when they are talking to you. Listen to what they say without interrupting and then seek a middle ground in which you both agree on. Even more importantly it’s time to eliminate the distractions that are giving you excuses for not talking. For example if the kids or the ringing phone are keeping that from happening, tell the kids to leave the house (not just the room) and turn off the phones. Multiple studies have been conducted showing that young children and teens will literally create problems, in hopes that their parents will come together to solve them. Your children need to know that you both love spending time together. They need (and want) to know that their parents put their relationship before being parents. It is important to always keep your relationship with your spouse above all other things in life. Being careful to not let things like friends, careers and x-box distract or take preference over your wife or husband (Ephesians 4:15). Maybe it is time to throw a patio brick through the television and tell your best friend good bye if that’s what it takes to get a grip on your priorities. This is not to say that we are all perfect but too often marriages fail to work the way they could because one of people in the marriage decides to put something else above their spouse and selfishly serve their own wants.

Goals. Having dreams and goals is the most important part of the marriage relationship. If the other cornerstones give the marriage its satiability this corner is the cutting edge that gives the relationship its direction. It is also the glue that holds you both together, the beautiful friendship between the man and woman. . Working together is one of the most important parts of having a healthy marriage. So many marriages fail to work (or not work like they should) because the wife and husband have no goals or dreams that they are currently chasing together. Why is it that we are all expected to concentrate all of our time and energy on our careers and none at all on making plans for the good of your future together?  When dating and engaged you made plans together of things that you would do on the weekend and things you would do together in the future. At that time you both felt so alive and close to each other. Suddenly you walk down the aisle and that should stop happening? Should it stop after ten years of marriage or maybe when you have had your first child? The point is it should never stop or even crease for a moment. Plans can be made together in the smallest ways and have a huge impact on how your marriage grows. By bringing back this corner stone the relationship will once again have the exiting energy it once had.

The love relationship should always be seeking out new things and learning how to move the relationship in a healthy direction (Philippians 1:9 ). Sitting down and learning together gives the relationship the balance it needs. We don’t always stay on the straight and narrow in this life. The best way to do that is by studying. Seeking out knowledge gives you both the ability to see the things that you may not have before. Without expanding and changing how you do things in marriage nothing will change. It is always important to be looking and asking yourself “what can I do differently to make my marriage better”. Even the people who seem to have the perfect marriages have problems and have to continually be working at it. Remember that this is a life time deal, you are never going to get to the point where everything is perfect and you don’t have to work at it. At the end of the day there is no certain way to make your marriage perfect. The best thing you can do is sit down and study from the word of God what he has to say about your position as a lover and marriage partner. You should never take what you read or what you hear as the final. Let God have the final say in your life and marriage and you will be truly blest in every way. Remember there is no retirement to marriage and thank God. Where would we all be if we did not have our “better half” to keep us walking the wire?



Isaac R.

Pretty and Hot

This is an article I read and found very interesting. Its by Pat Archibold

The Death Of Pretty

Pretty, pretty is dying.

People will define pretty differently. For the purposes of this piece, I define pretty as a mutually enriching balanced combination of beauty and projected innocence.

Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence. I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is. But some things were different in the back then. First and foremost, many beautiful women, whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence and virtue. And that combination of beauty and innocence is what I define as pretty.

By nature, generally when men see this combination in women it brings out their better qualities, their best in fact. That special combination of beauty and innocence, the pretty inspires men to protect and defend it.

Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different. When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.

As I said, pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend. Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity. Its value is temporary and must be used. It is a consumable.

Nowhere is this pretty deficit more obvious than in our “stars,” the people we elevate as the “ideal.” The stars of the fifties surely suffered from the same sin as do stars of today. Stars of the fifties weren’t ideal but they pursued a public ideal different from today.

The merits of hotness over pretty is easy enough to understand, they made an entire musical about it. Who can forget how pretty Olivia Newton John was at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the pretty. What we are left with is hotness.

Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth.

Most girls don’t want to be pretty anymore even if they understand what it is. It is ironic that 40 years of women’s liberation has succeeded only in turning women into a commodity. Something to be used up and thrown out.

Of course men play a role in this as well, but women should know better and they once did. Once upon a time you would hear girls talk about kind of women men date and the kind they marry. You don’t hear things like that anymore.

But here is the real truth. Most men prefer pretty over hot. Even back in 6th grade I hated the “hot” Olivia Newton John and felt sorry for her that she had to debase herself in such a way. Still do.

Our problem is that society doesn’t value innocence anymore, real or imagined. Nobody aspires to innocence anymore. Nobody wants to be thought of as innocent, the good girl. They want to be hot, not pretty.

I still hope that pretty comes back, although I think it not likely any time soon. For every Taylor Swift, there are a hundred Megan Foxs, or Lindsay Lohans, or Miley Cyruses etc.

Girls, please, bring back the pretty.

Penn. State

If you have spent any time in the last few weeks watching the news, one of the biggest headlines that may have caught your eye is the recent issue involving Penn State and their former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky was charged with 40 counts of rape and sexual abuse of eight boys during his fifteen year career at Penn State. The question most of us ask ourselves is how a respected man of the community, who is married and has children of his own, could suddenly come out as having sexually molested 8 different children.

How can parents protect their children from this growing invisible threat? The amount that sexual abuse affects our country is enormous. Even those who are not abused are affected by this problem. No matter how hard we try, each of us has been affected by it in some way or another.

In her recent article CNN writer Roxanne Jones (2011) talked about some of the victims who have shared their terrible experiences after the situation of Penn State arose. The victims all spoke of the guilt and shame they all feel. One thing that I observed while reading was that most of these victims were almost all over the age of thirty. According to statistics found on RAINN.com (2005) 60% most victims never report what happened to them. In the case of these particular victims they didn’t tell anyone until years later. This means that most of these people have spent most of their lives hiding the problem. Either they were afraid to tell or they thought no one would believe them. This is exactly where we find our problem.

Across America, we have developed an all too easy way of dealing with the problem. Ignore it. I have heard and read about too many parents who almost always refuse to deal with the problem when told. Many parents either pretend that they were never told or even worse, the child is told that they are lying. The crime ends up getting buried by the exact people who should be exposing and dealing with it. This is not to say that victims of sexual crime necessarily always need a judicial victory to recover from what happened. Children need someone who they can trust to listen to listen to them. All too often the parent abandons the child because the adult has no idea how to deal with it themselves.

So how can we help to solve and prevent this problem? The answer is simple. Be prepared. If your child where to tell you that something happened, what would be your reaction? Would you cover it up because it embarrasses you? Or would you find some way to deal with it? If you talk with your children and warn them against sexual abuse they will be far more likely to tell you or the authorities if anything ever where to happen. Each of us is responsible to have a plan for on how to deal with this if it ever where to happen. It’s our children, our community, are future.

In the case of Penn. State, they will be remembered for what they did do not what they didn’t do. Finally someone has the nerve to stand for what’s right. They made a stand for all the people across the nation who has been hurt by sexual abuse. We have a job and a responsibility. To stand for those who have been injured.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

Penn. State

If you have spent any time in the last few weeks watching the news, one of the biggest headlines that may have caught your eye is the recent issue involving Penn State and their former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky was charged with 40 counts of rape and sexual abuse of eight boys during his fifteen year career at Penn State. The question most of us ask ourselves is how a respected man of the community, who is married and has children of his own, could suddenly come out as having sexually molested 8 different children.

How can parents protect their children from this growing invisible threat? The amount that sexual abuse affects our country is enormous. Even those who are not abused are affected by this problem. No matter how hard we try, each of us has been affected by it in some way or another.

In her recent article CNN writer Roxanne Jones (2011) talked about some of the victims who have shared their terrible experiences after the situation of Penn State arose. The victims all talked about the guilt and shame they all feel. One thing that I observed while reading was that most of these victims were almost all over the age of thirty. According to statistics found on RAINN.com (2005) 60% most victims never report what happened to them. In the case of these particular victims they didn’t tell anyone until years later. This means that most of these people have spent most of their lives hiding the problem. Either they were afraid to tell or they thought no one would believe them. This is exactly where we find our problem.

Across America, we have developed an all too easy way of dealing with the problem. Ignore it. I have heard and read about too many parents who almost always refuse to deal with the problem when told. Many parents either pretend that they were never told or even worse, the child is told that they are lying. The crime ends up getting buried by the exact people who should be exposing and dealing with it. This is not to say that victims of sexual crime necessarily always need a judicial victory to recover from what happened. Children need someone who they can trust to listen to listen to them. All too often the parent abandons the child because the adult has no idea how to deal with it themselves.

So how can we help to solve and prevent this problem? The answer is simple. Be prepared. If your child where to tell you that something happened, what would be your reaction? Would you cover it up because it embarrasses you? Or would you find some way to deal with it? If you talk with your children and warn them against sexual abuse they will be far more likely to tell you or the authorities if anything ever where to happen. Each of us is responsible to have a plan for on how to deal with this if it ever where to happen. It’s our children, our community, are future.

In the case of Penn. State, they will be remembered for what they did do not what they didn’t do. Finally someone has the nerve to stand for what’s right. They made a stand for all the people across the nation who has been hurt by sexual abuse. We have a job and a responsibility. To stand for those who have been injured.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke

So the week before last I spent quite a few days looking into college! I thought I would be spending my senior year at the technical college but things changed a bit.
So during open enrollment in March I enrolled into a charter school! I spent about a week on the paper form that you send in that tells them about yourself.(I wouldn't usually wouldn't spend that kind of time on that kind of paper but I wanted it to be better than perfect) About the time I finished (the paper) I went to their open house to visit! They informed me that they would only be taking in four high school students. The high school is also interlinked with the junior high so I just dropped the idea thinking (logically) that it would be best to just not put in any more time trying to get into the the school. There was no way I was gonna get in so I turned my energy to college.I never even sent in the form and forgot about the whole thing. Then this last week I got a letter of acceptance to the school!!!!! So that's where i will be going for the last year of high school! needless I am pretty excited about it!

So this last week Wisconsin got more snow! terrible! summer was here...... and now( not so much).
The large Weau tv 13 tower fell during the storm!!! When it was first built it held the record for the tallest structure the the nation!Of course it got beat years later by a news tower in South dakoda. They built theirs a foot taller! Well any how the it was visible from my parents deck on the horizon! Now its gone! It is quite weird not seeing it at night! I really wouldn't mind (I don't have time to watch much tv) if it hadn't been for the fact that my favorite radio station also used the tower (Waxx 104.5). Now I cant get any good country stations in and the other stations (in my opinion) are just not that great! Oh well! The news is that the new tower might not be built for six months to a year!I might just loose my mind!lol

Well its been since October of last year since the last time that I posted! I guess that means its time!

I look at the calender and its already the 18 or wait maybe the 19 now! Its past 12 at night so new day( see what i mean). I have the hardest time keeping track of the days lately! It goes to fast!
At the beginning of the month I attend the conference in Eau Claire! It was really good! The speakers where amazing! I especially like the Friday night session's! The younger speakers where really good! There's a lot of promise in all of those guys! Saturday was amazing! We went to bed at 2:30 in the morning and woke up at six to start setting up sound at the the Plaza! needless to say I was pretty tired and had some trouble staying awake for some of the sessions ( not good)!