Enjoying intimacy in your marriage

photo courtesy of intimacyinmarriage.net

Here’s another post for couples, in honor of Valentine’s Day.  Like the previous one, it’s an audio broadcast from Focus On The Family.  This one, though is about enjoying intimacy in marriage (so, obviously, this blog post is not for younger readers).

Today’s lesson is brought to you by a regular on the program, Dr. Juli Slattery.  She very effectively ministers to married women in the area of intimacy, being a psychologist and author of several books (a particular book, No More Headaches: Enjoying Sex and Intimacy in Marriage is the resource for this particular session).

Young ladies of high school or college age, learn to be His Girl

JZone, being a great youth group in the business of changing young lives, has a great event for high school and college age girls, called Becoming His Girl

Our mentors: Doc Allan and ate Blessie Melicor

Indeed, young girls today are under such ridiculous pressure to conform, to look a certain way, and to prematurely give their hearts away to some guy (partly in infatuation, partly because their friends are also doing so), and surely they need wisdom to put all this in perspective.

Here’s the perspective: bottom line, there’s only One Person you should aim to please, One Person who you ultimately give your heart to.  Young ladies, strive, ultimately, to be His Girl.

The special guest who will guide our young ladies to be His Girl is Blessie Melicor.  She’s a very lovely woman who serves as a mentor to my wife and to so many other ladies in our church, CCF-CDO.  My wife (and I) look up to her greatly, and definitely JZone couldn’t have picked a better resource speaker for Becoming His Girl. 

So, if you have college or high school aged young ladies in your house or in your acquaintance, please do make sure they come to CCF-CDO this Friday for JZone's event.  It’s a fantastic community for young people, including young girls, to grow in friendships and to grow in the Lord.

My daughter, Lynn, LOVES the JZone community, and I’m so blessed how she’s being discipled by so many wonderful “kuyas” and “ates”.  When so many young people are so passionate for God, I can’t help but smile and have my eyes tear up. 

People with great marriages are both healthier and wealthier…and that’s not all.

I came across this awesome infographic from one of the blogs I subscribe to.   It very excellently explains how relationships and marriage affect health, happiness, and finance. 

I’ve always figured that when couples think there’s no more love in the marriage and therefore divorce, it’s more than just the relationships and the children who suffer, but health and money suffers too.

On the flip side, when there’s love in the home, the people living there live strong, healthy, thriving lives.  Indeed, healthy marriages bring about healthier (and wealthier) people…and that's not all!

Here’s the infographic, below:

Teens talk about finding Mr. and Ms. Right, based on two great relationship books

One thing about February, other than being one of the most stressful months of the year for this teacher, is that for my Literature classes, I bring my junior and senior students towards books that focus on wisdom when it comes to romantic relationships (in keeping up with February being the love month). 

The juniors read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, while the seniors read Boy Meets Girl, both books written by Joshua Harris.  It is my goal that my students not only become excellent in academics, but excellent in life in general…and part of that means making wise decisions at love.  That’s the reason why I have added some non-literature books in the Literature curriculum, complete with exams, assignments, etc.

In case you’re wondering, the school I teach in is The Abba’s Orchard (the main campus is here in Cagayan de Oro, but there are campuses in Manila, Cebu, and Davao), and I am a Literature and Humanities teacher in the Erdkinder (high school) program of the main farm campus. 

A large number of my students are also very involved in various Christian youth ministries in Cagayan de Oro City (InsideOut, Lifebox, and JZone, mostly).  This background info would explain the quotes that I would feature below.

Anyway, one of the assignments that the juniors have to make (remember, the Philippines only goes up to grade 10, so the juniors are grade 9 and are around 15 years old) is a seatwork titled, What Matters at 50, based on one of the latter chapters in I Kissed Dating Goodbye. 

In that chapter, Joshua Harris says that we often focus too much on physical appearance often at the cost of what really matters, and he counters this in his own life by imagining the lovely lady at age 50…would he still be in love with her?  This exercise would make character evaluation more important than physical attraction.

For the What Matters At 50 assignment, the juniors are asked about what they think is important in looking for a potential romantic partner.  I asked permission to quote a few of my students here, as these entries blessed me tremendously.

One student said:

“By 50, I want to still see how handsome my husband is.  Not physically in a sense that he still looks like he’s 17, but handsome in a way that God’s glory can be seen in him.

“Boys usually misunderstand girls and think that we’re looking for some ‘hunk’ with 10 pack abs and a body that can lift 100 kgs.  But all we’re looking for, really, is someone who’ll still love us and tell us we’re beautiful when we reach the age of 50.

“What matters most at 50 is that his character pleases God and he still treats me nicely.  One of the important traits that matters is that God is in the center of his life, in my life, and our marriage.  When it’s like that, everything else will follow.”

How to become a better neighbor

In the other blog where I contribute, I have made a post titled “How to become a better neighbor.”  I live in probably the best and safest neighborhood in the city, yet I’m embarrased that I can count only on one hand how many of my neighbors I know personally.

I made this article in the hopes that I will be better in this area.  If you struggle in this area like I do, you may want to check the article out as well. 

So, do you want to learn how to become a better neighbor?  Click here.

Another humorous blog post that has gone to the dogs

The “Please don’t TEASE your dog” post is now officially my most popular blog entry…by far, too.  I guess Lessons Of A Dad has gone to the dogs after all.    Well, I hope you appreciate another animal-based humor piece, but this one has a little more to do with what this site is all about: 

A man wrote to Dear Abby some time ago. He said:

“Dear Abby: I am in love and I am having an affair with two different women. I can’t marry them both. Please tell me what to do, but don’t give me any of that morality stuff.”

You’d love Abby’s answer:

“Dear Sir: The only difference between humans and animals is morality. Please write to a veterinarian.”

Reading that made me laugh…but the topic isn’t funny.  The fastest way to end a conversation with me is to brag about how much a “playa” you are. 

My mom is a woman, my wife is a woman, and I have two beautiful daughters…and I get pretty pissed off when someone dares to treat womanhood in a trashy way.

Maybe it’s because I violated womanhood in my own way, which I share here.  In that same post, I share my favorite books and resources in helping you treat women the way they should be treated.   They’re must haves in any single man’s library…or any single person’s library, period.

Teens who wait…and how yours could be one of them.

I remember, during a reunion with college friends, a conversation when they were telling me how appalled they were to see two very young teens just fresh out of puberty making-out in the movie theater.  According to my friends, those two were just all over each other like you wouldn’t believe, and they were maybe 12 or 13 years old.

They were telling me that teens today are way out of control.  Well, teens needed to put on the brakes during my day as well, not just today.  Hey, I became a dad at a very young age, so I should know.  And how easy for my friends to forget that they were teens once, and maybe they had their own struggles in this area, and not just in movie theatres.  Heck, some of them still need someone to put the brakes on them today, but that’s another story.

But, yeah, I agree with my friends in that we feel technology and media has made teens today less disciplined in keeping their hands, lips, and other parts to themselves than in previous generations.

However, all is not lost.

One girl my church’s high school youth ministry has promised her dad that the first kiss she will ever have will be with her husband on the altar.  Her “you may now kiss the bride” will be kiss #1.

Another teen girl in the same church, who lives apart from her parents, told them “I will not give my heart to any man until you give me your approval.”

Another girl, also living apart from her parents, not only is choosing to wait, but has gone on and mentored her dorm-mates who have fallen to pieces because of relationships they shouldn’t have had.

These are just three of many such breath-of-fresh-air statements; both made a few years ago but today are kept as strong as if they were said yesterday.  By the way, these are not girls who have faces only their mothers could love.  All three girls are actually very pretty, with looks and personalities that would attract any guy.

Oh, and don’t think it’s only the girls who are making a stand like they are.  My favorite testimony of all time in this topic is from a teen guy.  I wish I could tell it here, but as of the time this is published, I failed to ask his permission to share his (quite personal) story…and it’s such a beautiful story of conviction, wisdom, patience, and, I believe, genuine affection (How much did he love her?  He loved her so much that he chose not to pursue…man, it’s sooo nice).

Anyway, so what is the difference between the out of control, newly post-pubescent pair liplocking at the movie theatre and the examples I mentioned?  I saw two common denominators.

One, all of the teens I mentioned had fathers who were willing to mentor them in walking the right path, especially in this area.  I know so, because I know their fathers quite well, and I know what kind of men they are.  These men know that their first disciples are their families, and they take to raising their children very seriously.  I look up to all of them very much and I hope I can parent my two daughters and youngest boy as well as they did their own children.

Second, and this is just as important in my opinion, is that all these teens were part of a youth ministry.  These activities are true gems in not only molding a teen’s character, but in getting together like minded young people, with the result being some fantastic camaraderie and mutual growth that cannot be achieved when alone (a lone ranger is a dead ranger).

It also gives them a big brother/sister role model that they could look up to and emulate.  My wife and I had the pleasure of playing that role for all of the teens mentioned above except for the 2^nd, who goes to the same church but in a different city.

I remember, when my students were still doing Alex Lacson’s book (see my previous blog on a BUY PINOY experiment), my final project was for them to submit their very own “12 Little Things Every Filipino TEEN Can Do For Our Country.”  A great number of them included joining a youth ministry as part of their 12 things.  I couldn’t agree more, especially if said ministry has the guts to tackle this topic head on.

And there are so many great churches with great youth ministries to choose from.

The church that I go to, Christ’s Commission Fellowship (CCF) has T.E.E.N.S. for high school youth and T.O.U.C.H. College for the college youth.  To tackle sex and relationships, they just had their “Love Dare” event to great success and they will launch “True Love Waits” very soon.

(2012 note:  CCF’s youth ministry is now called JZONE ELEVATE)

Some of the most ministry-oriented and active Christian students in the school I teach in belong to GCAF’s Inside Out.  It is a fantastic youth group where, if my students are any indication, young people are molded really, really well.  They also do “True Love Waits”.

The school also has some wonderful people from Victory Christian Fellowship (VCF) visit from time to time for leadership and personality training.  These guys belong to VCF’s youth ministry, Lifebox, and they just had an event called “Love, Sex, and Kwek-Kwek” (what a cute name, and they served 400 pcs of the heralded street food that night) to great success as well.  The students love their weekly visits and have a blast with these awesome guys.

So readers, if you really care about your child’s purity (in both body and mind), I feel that you need to be a real mentor to your child, especially in sensitive areas like love and sex; and you need to get them in an environment where they can grow socially and spiritually, so that it partners with you in your parenting journey.  Pick any of the youth groups above for that.  In CDO, these three are among the best.

Well, this was a long one, but I hope you got a lot out of it.  Now, I’m gonna ask those Lifebox guys if they have any spare kwek-kwek left.  I love me some kwek-kwek!