I highly recommend that Christian men read Matt’s blog. God has given him lots of wisdom, and all of us (families of men) would benefit from husbands and fathers checking out what he has to say.
Message for Men
I would like to recommend this article to every Christian man. I hope some will read it. It is very important. I believe that God has a message for His men, and this article is a very clear articulation of that message.
Here is an excerpt:
Men, you’re not called to be a passive, weak, indecisive partner—you’re called to protect, lead, and guard your family. You are to initiate prayer, defend your wife, shepherd your children, and make your home a holy sanctuary not a breeding ground for satan. You’re called to fight the enemy, not flee from him.
I’m tired of weak, passive men who never contend, stand, or fight for anything worth dying for. Our nation is looking for character, our wives are looking for leaders, and our kids are looking for fathers.
Men, STOP the silly video games, get off of Facebook, kill your porn habit, tell your ungodly friends to hit the road. You’re called to lead, love, and die, if necessary, for your family.
http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=14003
Mother’s Day Family Picture
Queen for a Day
I’m finally posting the picture our church graciously took and gave to us as a Mother’s Day gift. We had everybody but Katie with us that day. It was a very blessed day, and I enjoyed it immensely.
Kelsey cooked us a nice dinner. And the family made me feel very special. Blessed.
Planting Wildflowers
I would love to go see this field of wildflowers!
These are pictures of wildflowers that we have discovered here in Texas. The state of Texas lets wildflowers grow. They don’t mow along several highways and roadways, so you get to see wildflowers in the spring as you drive along, and I personally find it quite refreshing.
I just did a little research and found out that it is not really illegal to pick Texas Blue Bonnets, but they do stress that trespassing is illegal, so you better make sure you are not on private property if you stop to pick some and take your annual kids-in-the-bluebonnets photo. You are also not supposed to dig them up for transplanting. And you are supposed to be careful not to block traffic or do anything dangerous in your endeavor to get next to the coveted state flowers.
Blanket Flower
Years ago, I looked at pictures of flowers that grow in Texas and saw Blanket Flowers and thought they were so pretty that I decided that I wanted to grow them some day. Then one day a couple months ago, Shawn came back from a walk and brought me some flowers that he picked. They happened to be Blanket Flowers, growing wild!
These flowers are growing wild in our backyard.
These are Evening Primroses.
Yesterday we did a little unit study, based on two books by Tomie DaPaola, The Legend of the Bluebonnet and The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. We just happened to have a packet of wildflower seeds, so I gathered the kids together and read the books to them, then we went outside and planted our wildflower seeds.
The kids planted seeds.
They watered the seeds.
We got the seeds in the mail from a local hospital and saved them for now.
These are the books by Tomie DaPaola. I read them to the kids as part of our unit study. These legends are part of the history of Texas. So we were able to study some Botany and History through the same lesson.
Indian Paint Brush
Texas Blue Bonnet
What a Woman Needs from a Man
A woman needs a man that will be strong for her no matter what. It shouldn’t be the other way around. Or if she does have to be strong for him, it should be rare, not most of the time. When storms come, and things seem about to fall apart, she needs that reassurance from him that everything is going to be all right. It shouldn’t be the other way around.
A woman needs a man that will be strong for himself, not giving up or trying to do himself in when things get rough. If the man really loves the woman, he will not want her to worry about him or how he will react to problems. He should be strong and take problems on and face them and deal with them. Not hide from them or ignore them and dull the pain with some kind of escape. That only makes them worse because they weren’t dealt with when they should have been and they exacerbate. Problems get worse when they’re ignored or put off.
We don’t need someone whose default is negative and lack. We need someone who is positive and confident and knows that as long as he keeps trying and keeps doing what is right, things are going to get better.
If our man knows God, then we should be able to count on our man keeping his faith and taking problems to the Lord, and casting them on Him. We should have assurance that our man will ask the Lord for wisdom to handle whatever comes our way.
We should be able to depend on him to lead us to God in prayer. We should be able to expect him to be a good example of faith and trust in God. To us and our children. He should be our rock.
Women don’t want to be the leader in the home. Women want to be taken care of. We want to know that our man has our best interests at heart and is doing his best to meet the needs of the family yet trusting God; not getting angry when he doesn’t understand what God is doing. And not fretting and treating us badly because he’s worried about the future. We don’t deserve to be treated badly just because our man is not trusting God to take care of the family.
We should never feel the threat that if something doesn’t change, our man is going to give up and kill himself. We should never feel emotionally blackmailed for any reason. We shouldn’t have to worry about our man being that weak. He should be strong enough to deal with whatever comes, with the Lord’s help.
Women are strong. But they shouldn’t have to be stronger than their men.
Men, please consider this at all times. What kind of example am I setting for my wife and children?
"Oh that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse in to the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no other's hands the sacred and holy trust given to her." -JR Miller
