Weekend Kindness
Reaching Others Through Kindness

If you’re a girl, or you’ve dated a girl, no doubt you’ve seen a chick flick.  All romance, sometimes partly comedy, these films are part of the reason that people believe what they do about marriage and love today.

(more…)

“I love you.” 

“143.”

“I heart you.”

All different ways to say something that shares your feelings, and yet we need actions to back them up—we need to show our love, and not just say it.  Sure, anyone can say it with flowers or chocolates, but how about saying it with your whole being?

(more…)

No phrase in the English language is stronger or bonds two people together more strongly than the words “I Love You”.  The phrase passed on from generation, always with the same meaning, always let you know exactly how the other person feels.

But you can show that you love someone without saying it, and sometimes that vivid illustration can say what words cannot.

(more…)

It’s no secret that men and women are different, and that they do not always understand each other.  At the same time, the love that is shown between the sexes is more powerful than that shown within the sex, and the same is true when it comes to the father daughter relationship.

In Meg Meeker’s book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, our author about how a daughter’s first love is her father.

(more…)

The Complete Husband
By Lou Priolo

Love is more than a feeling, it’s a choice.  When you took your vow to love your wife, you did not vow that you would have the feeling of love until death, but that you would choose to love her until death.

This choice means that you would prefer her over all others, and it means that whether it was easy or whether it was hard you would still choose to love her.

That is why there are 7 things that you may not do when she sins against you:

(more…)

This is what my oldest son told me he was doing for his younger brother– whose birthday is this Wednesday.

My oldest is growing into liking to do crafts– whether it’s pipe cleaners or paper, every week when he gets home from church his paper has a new idea he wants to try.  And the names he gives things!

In any case, his latest thing is that he is going to make a paper sword because the pipe cleaner swords that he made keep falling apart.

What I love is the fact that he’s thinking of his brother, and not himself.  He knows that this is a special day for his brother, and wants to give a gift.  It’s that small thing that counts– the small thing that he wants to do to show his brother his love.

I don’t know when it happened, but sometime between the first time I realized I liked coffee and the time when Starbucks appeared on every street corner in America, coffee changed from just something that I drink to an event to be savored and enjoyed.

Oh, I still drink coffee every morning just as part of the routine (a readily available brand that won’t break the budget), but when I go out for coffee, it’s not just to get coffee, but to enjoy the aroma of the coffee shop, the small tables set up for intimate conversation, and the handful of other folks who are enjoying the experience as much as I.

While the coffee is often too strong at the local coffee shop, I’ve learned that two packs of Sugar in the Raw and a pretty decent serving of half and half will do the trick and gives me a treat that I don’t indulge in at home, where my coffee of choice is generally just black.

For my husband, however, going out for coffee does not have the same appeal. Although he is learning to appreciate the difference between store brands and freshly roasted coffee, he is just as happy most of the time with staying home and brewing Seattle’s Best in our coffee maker and sitting on the front porch as we drink every lost drop.

I know it seems like a very silly thing to get exicted about and to feel loved because of, but on those rare occasions when my husband wakes up on Friday or Saturday morning and says “Let’s go out for coffee and read the newspaper there,” I think that he truly, truly loves me. There is more to this gesture than just saying, “Let’s go somewhere,” because if he just wanted to go somewhere with me it would be hiking or fishing or golfing or some other activity that he really enjoys.

But when he says, “Let’s go out for coffee,” I know that he’s suggesting it because he loves me and because he knows how much I enjoy the experience and how good it makes me feel to savor a cup of coffee that’s a little too strong unless it has just the right amount of cream and sugar.