Christmas in the Blender

I Have a DREAM!! And it's Scary to Share it!!

Yesterday as I was working frantically to catch up with seeing patients.  I looked on my schedule and recognize a couple of names of some little girls that I have seen for a couple of years.  I was saddened to learn that they were back into the custody of DFCS and their sister was now with them.  Their story is heartbreaking to me, but all too familiar.  Dad abandoned three older children and their mother when they were very young and mother had a stepdad that had started molesting the oldest daughter.  The oldest daughter did not see anything wrong and was very upset that she was taken away from the situation (she was 12) while the middle sister saw there was a problem, even the mother would not admit there was a problem.  The poor middle child is being alienated and hated by her mother and sister.  What a horrible way to grow up!!! 

We hear these stories and we kinda know they are happening but because they are not REALLY in our world we can say, there's nothing I can do about that!!!  I've been guilty of the same thoughts!  We say oh that's awful and we go on with our lives.  Their lives are very hard to change and the problems catapult to the next generation to continue the dysfunctionality as they go on to make their lives.  My heart hurts when I walk out of these rooms.  Maybe I just see more stuff, I don't know.  

I have a dream to see these scenarios decreased in our community!!! I want to see children able to grow up feeling loved and appreciated.  That they will see they have talents and gifts that need to be shared with the world. That each child is cherished and knows that Jesus loves them too.  I may be taking a risk in saying this, because you may be saying right now, here she goes again!! For some reason I know that God has placed this passion in my heart!  

Any way,  here's my dream to see us make a difference here!! We have approximately 50% of our families in our communities in NW Georgia that are not churched.  We have 75% of our children growing up without both of their parents in the home.  We have a community that is struggling with unemployment.  It's like I know the secret to the problem!!! It's our families.  What can we do!!!?

A couple of years ago I realized one of my dreams to help with this

 situation.  In 2012 Gary Chapman came to our Trade Center and we saw over 1600 people come to this event.  So many marriages were touched and changed.  We could help them then get into the churches that are wanting to work with families and couples to help them thrive.  It was very expensive to bring Gary here.  But he was known to so many people I knew it would have to be him to bring the people out.  Now how do we follow this and bring another GREAT speaker that will get the attention of our families?  Who is it?  I think I know who it is, but I also know my little organization cannot bring him by ourselves.  The expenses are around $20,000 each time you do this.  Our community has a challenge in that they don't come out to events that are local till the last minute so it's hard to get a good strong audience.  

So you ask me Who is it and How do you do this?  Well, I keep having the same thought come to mind.  We have to work together as a community.  Who is it that wants to work with couples and help them?  Who has the ability to encourage a strong crowd?  Who might be able to help monetarily to be able to make this happen?  Who would people that don't go to church come out to see?  Who would bring a crowd greater than 1000 ?  Who would hit our target audience of 18-40?  

Ok, here's my idea and I just read in the Book "The Circle Maker" - Dream Big, have BHAG's and "Take Captive Every Thought".  Ok, here it goes.  Is there a possibility we can get ten churches to come on board again to do this thing?  Are there ten churches that have a heart for marriage and family ministry?  Are there churches that are willing to let their guard down and join with other churches to make a bigger difference and work as a team?  Are there ten churches that would encourage their church to attend and volunteer?  Are there ten churches willing to do follow up?  Are there ten churches to step out and risk their money for our community?  Are their ten churches that are willing to risk this to see God work?  

Then my next dream to answer, who needs to come?  I believe it needs to be someone that has celebrity and people recognize their name, and not just "Church People".  We need to reach the unchurched!  I believe that it needs to be someone that men can relate to and would say "Hey that would be cool to go to".  It needs to be someone that has a passion for helping people and for seeing God do GREAT things.  

So who do I think needs to come?  Ok, don't laugh,  It's GOT to be "Duck Dynasty"!!! They have got to come to our area.  They have a passion for marriage and families.  The oldest brother Alan and his wife Lisa have written a book on marriage that will be coming out in the next few months.  I did not know this before I started talking about this,  I just learned it when I spoke with the manager.  

Well, now you tell me, just do it?  Well, easier said that done!!  The cost is $17000 for them to come. Is there a church that could afford to do this?  Maybe!!  But we need a bunch of churches to make it happen to get people there.  We need to have lots of people talking.  It's a little more complicated than "If you build it they will come".  

Ok  I shared my dream.  I risked falling flat on my face and people laughing at me.  I will continue to pray but I keep having this same dream come to me.  It's a BHAG it would only be a miracle for this to happen.  Sometimes I get scared when I share a dream, it's kinda like if you tell it, it won't come true.  So maybe that's the case here.  I don't know, but it's now out there and in a mighty God's hands and if it's His dream and it will glorify him, I believe it will happen and there will be churches and Godly men and women that will step up to make this happen.  Let's see what God will do!! 

The Second Biggest Reason for Divorce and how to avoid it.

Incompatibility is actually a reason people get divorced as in second after infidelity.  That one is confusing to me.  If you are incompatible, how did you get together in the first place?  My friend John Van Epp has spent much of his life studying and teaching about the Relationship Attachment Model.  This particular model has five areas that you should be measuring before you decide to marry someone.  If any of these areas is out of balance, then is this a good match?  You can determine this if you are discerning and not jumping into relationships.

How many of you know of couples that you know from the start are polar opposites.  She's so intelligent and proper and he's more like a thug and no goals whatsoever?  What are their chances of making it?  Yet how many times do we see couples jump before they really know each other.

The first area is Know -  You must know someone before you start trusting them right?  I see relationships that go so fast that neither person really knows the others.  There are times in my relationship with my husband that I find I don't KNOW him that well.  But when we take our time and spend the time in different settings and situations we will see more of that person.  BUT that takes time. How many times do we rush into something that is really a Life decision and we haven't really looked at it from all possible sides.  Makes me think of watching HGTV and Property Virgins.  How easy it is to make the mistake of buying a house that has BIG time problems or one that is way over our budget.  Easy to do...  I tend to like the show and the wisdom that is shared by the Real Estate Agent as she guides the couple in their first home.  Wow! What a great idea for couples!! Isn't that a little like Premarital Counseling?

After ten years of offering premarital education to couples getting married at the court, I have come to

the conclusion that they need someone just like the property virgins need to guide them in their marriage.  Helping couples to look honestly at what the deal breakers are.  I have gotten so many comments from couples saying they have been married before so they don't need to go through the education.  Whenever you put two people together there will be incompatibilities.  The difference is those that learn how to embrace the differences rather than fight them make happier homes.  We are presently working on Marriage Mentors.  I have two wonderful couples that are studying with me and John to help offer mentorships to couples from the courts.  They will be able to encourage them through the tough times as well as the happy times.  Each are trained to see the incompatibilities and teach the couples that they work with how to deal with those areas.  More than anything else how to communicate through the incompatible areas.

I like Larry Burkett's statement that went something like this. "If you have two people just a like then one of those people is not needed."  So much truth.  As I said embracing rather than fighting the differences helps.  If we can help with this Please check out our website.  Our goal is to help our community to thrive with strong families that are based on healthy marriages.  If this is helpful to you would you pass it on... Thanks  www.marriageisforever.org

Here's a great blog that gets into it even better... http://corrieanne.com/2013/07/17/wifey-wednesday-you-never-marry-the-right-person/  Tell me what you think!!

For Better for Worse, In Sickness and In Health, For Richer for poorer till death do us part

For the last two times I've been able to blog I've written about commitment.  To be honest, I was thinking about commitment in respects to adultery, but I think I had a God moment when I was listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio, that commitment is hard when there have been problems with the finances and even with health issues.  I guess that's why the vows will say in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer.  All these things can cause strains on marriages.  When the statistics say that people say that it's money problems, is it really or is it a matter of commitment?

If a spouse lies about how they are spending money and causes the finances to go out of control it must be as hard as when there is infidelity, because there is a loss of trust.  I heard Dave Ramsey tell the story of a couple that were working on getting debt free.  The husband was so excited because he saw an end to the tunnel and was telling everyone that he would get to do the "I'm Debt Free" scream.  But then his wife told him of the problem that she had been hiding from him.  She had been very frightened to admit that she had run up the credit card to $15,000 I think.  The husband was very angry at first and stormed out of the house and drove around for a couple of

hours.  As he drove around his heart was softened and he decided if he was able to get debt free once he could do it again.  When he got home he and his wife sat down and he forgave her they worked out a plan, then moved forward again.  It took him another 18 months before he could do the "Debt Free" scream, but this time it was even more meaningful because they had gone through the tough times and learned how to communicate about their finances better and they felt closer because of it.

Another incident can be when a family loses a child or when a family has a disabled child.  That is extremely stressful for a family.  So much emotional stress, and most don't make it through that.  I remember taking care of children on the oncology floor and watching the families either cling together or drift apart.

I was watching a video from Project Everlasting with Matt Boggs and Jason Miller.  They showed a couple that had been married 67 years.  They asked for the secret to their marriage and she said... "Commitment, commitment, commitment and commitment... then all that other stuff.  I never thought about divorcing him, murder maybe but not divorce."  Here's a little taste of some of those committed couples. Enjoy!!

Top 5 Reasons Marriages Don't Last - Lack of Commitment: People of Character can Choose Duty over Feeling..

Last week I started a blog on the top five reasons marriages don't last.  I was very candid how I maybe had chosen an uncommitted person and that let to the demise of my marriage.  But marriages can fall apart if there is one person that is not committed and you might not even realize they are not committed.   Scott Stanley found in his research about Sliding vs. Deciding that when there is that commitment from both partners, enough to get a marriage license there is a much higher chance that the marriage will make it till Death Do us Part rather than When We Don't Love Each Other Any More.  Lack of commitment is the top reason marriages fall apart, but I want to say that it is the main reason any marriage would fall apart.

I was reading a blog by Michelle Weiner Davis and how she says if you want to get a divorce just
admit it rather than trying to say that it would be better for everyone if we got divorced.  Don't sugar coat or make excuses for making moral choice.  Boy, that's the truth.  As I was listening to a podcast by Randy Roberts from Loma Linda University Church I heard him say something quite profound, "People of Character Can choose duty over feelings".  I might get in trouble for this but I will say it any way.  Even when you are being emotionally abused and feeling so down and hopeless you can choose to stay committed to your marriage.  Wow that's harsh.  What I mean by that, if there is emotional or physical abuse you stay committed to the marriage but don't keep putting yourself in the place of the victim.  Maybe you need to separate for a while or choose to distance yourself from the person and see what you can do differently to change your negative behaviors.  Too many times we rush into divorce before we even try to work the relationship out.  My caution is wait.... take your time till you know you have done everything you can, then take the step.

So many times it seems to be easier just to divorce than to work on the relationship, especially when there is adultery or emotional or physical abuse involved.  In our society today, we seem to think that divorce cures these particular problems, but unfortunately, it doesn't.  Unless someone does some deep work on themselves (and I mean both partners) then they will repeat the problem, even adultery in the same or a different relationship.  It is a well know fact, it takes people being physically abused a minimum of seven times before they are actually ready to leave the abuser, but then how many times when they do leave do they get in a situation that is very similar.  Wouldn't it be better to learn what to do rather than jumping from one relationship to another?

In adultery there are all kinds of excuses for committing adultery, but the person of character will choose duty over feelings and make their relationship work.  I hear the silliest reasons for why a person might leave their husband or wife for another partner such as she just didn't know how to clean house or do the laundry.  He could not give me the attention I needed.  Once you have said "I do" you mean it.  I know of a gentleman that could not live with his wife, so they separated.  He has never divorced her but has continued to live separately for over 25 years.  Don't know if that is really a marriage, but at least neither of them jumped into another relationship and they stay committed to the marriage.

Marriage is hard sometimes, and you have to have the character to stay with it when it gets tough.  We know that couples that stayed married when they felt like getting divorced, were happier than those that chose to divorce.  That goes back to the old saying, "Love is a Choice".  It really is as simple as that.

Lack of Commitment - Biggest Reason for Divorce

Before I get into this topic, let me clarify that all these pictures are of people that to the best of my knowledge are still committed to each other.  But I have been surprised before.  But none of these couples have shown to me that they were anything but committed!!  I also am not trying to point fingers at anyone, we all have choices and With That.....

Commitment, commitment, commitment!!!   After twenty-three years of trying to figure out what went wrong in my first marriage, the only thing I could think of was a lack of commitment. Is there anything I could have done to prevent this?  No, not after I was married.  I am being very candid when I share that I knew that my marriage would fall apart even before it started.  But I was more scared to admit I had made a mistake in the choice of who I married.  I have studied and read and researched how one can prevent your spouse from having an affair and leaving you and there is not really anything YOU can do.  You BOTH have to be committed to the marriage.

The funny thing is, I remember talking to a friend and telling her I knew I would be one of those statistics.  Maybe I was pronouncing my own defeat, I'm not sure.  But six years after I said that I was one of those statistics.  Do I regret marrying him.  I would have be lying if I told you that I don't have some regrets.  But, I look at my two beautiful children and the only regret I have is that they had to go through the rejection that they did not deserve.  I was given the opportunity to grow in a way that I would never have grown if I had not gone through this experience.  It was VERY difficult and there are still some tough times,  but I am still growing.

Approximately nine years ago I met a gentleman, Dr. John Van Epp, that wrote the book, How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk.  He has done a lot of study in the RAM (Relationship Attachment Model) and applying it to finding a life partner.  After I read and studied his book, I realized I ignored the warning signs.  I ignored that he was not as committed to me as I was to him.  Have you heard of the movie I think it's called "He's just not into you".  Well, I should have known that was where we were.  But there were other things that were looming that when we are young we try to ignore, such as parents trying to warn us that this is not a good match.  I realize now, since I've become a parent, that we can see things that might not work in a match.  After all we should understand our children pretty good after we have passed on our values and watched them grow.  But so many times, we have those rose colored glasses that cover things up and when we are "IN LOVE" we close our eyes to the problems that could occur.  We as women think we can change them. But I  now realize how foolish I was.
breaking
I wish I could give you a magical formula that would prevent your marriages from breaking up, but I can't.  All I can say, after studying this topic for twenty-three years, you have to be committed yourself and choose wisely before you're married.  It's not a good idea to marry someone that has had multiple affairs with another marriage partner.  They may be a wonderful person, but they have a lack of commitment.  You might want to take a second look if you are dating someone that cannot stay committed to a job,  if they cannot be committed in one area will they be able to commit in other areas?

You might want to be hesitant if you find someone that wants to live with you, but does not want to commit to you for life.  That is usually a huge red flag.  Scott Stanley has studied this and found that this phenomenon is very common, and calls this sliding vs. deciding.  When a couple just kind of falls into living together, there is less likely that the relationship will last because there is lack of commitment.  My heart breaks every day when I see mommy's come in with their newborn babies and they are not in a married relationship.  I don't understand what it is that a piece of paper can make that much difference, but it does.  When two people sign the paper together by their own choice their is a much greater chance a baby will have both his parents in the home.  When they come in with this situation, I can pretty much tell them, he will be gone in three months.   But who wants to hear that at this point in their life?

You might want to be hesitant if you see in their background a family with a pattern of lack of commitment.  Are their parents committed?  Were their grandparents committed?  What is the pattern?  We don't think that two generations makes a difference, but somehow it does.  We know that when parents are divorced there is greater chance that the children will not be committed in their relationships, because that is the pattern that they have seen.

Yes, it takes two and we could go into all kinds of reasons a person might have an affair.  I could go on and on and try to tell you things that you could do to keep your spouse from leaving you.  But the only thing I see that might prevent is to be wise and take a serious wide open eyed look at the person before you commit and determine if  they are as committed to me as I am to them?

Insanity: Doing what we have always done and expecting things to change!! Top Five Causes of Divorce and How This Affects our Community

Recently I quoted that we are seeing a dramatic decrease in our area on the number of teen births.  It is wonderful that this is happening for our community due to the positive things that can happen such as less children in poverty, possibly breaking a cycle that was so strong in our community.  Saving our community and businesses great amounts of money etc.  And these are the reasons or basis for Family Frameworks in our community and its focuses.  It may sound strange that a Marriage Initiative Organization focuses on teen pregnancy results, but we know that stable relationships are usually not (and please note the word usually) the most stable relationships later in life.  We also know that when you prevent teen births you can prevent further poverty which we would like to see, but also prevent that teen from passing this behavior on to their child.  We have learned through the research that there are higher number of teen births where there are not two biological parents in the home.  And the last thing we have noted is that our community has been listed for many many years as having the highest teen births as well as highest divorce per 1000.

So this has told me as a leader in our organization that we first of all need to try to break the cycle of

teen births.  And this means hitting it in many different areas.  We chose to work with the teens first.  They were a captive audience and the curriculum we use made it easy to talk about the choices they make.  We have gotten very positive responses from both the students and teachers on the topics and how we approach these topics.  But what put the icing on the cake was seeing the dramatic decrease in teen births for the Whitfield and Murray Counties, which is greater than surrounding counties.  But I don't want to take this for granted.  We will continue to work in this area but now we need to focus on the families and help them to stabilize with the younger children that are still in their homes so that they learn how to have good relationships and choose good life partners and make the choices that will lead to happy healthy lives.

Well, how do we do this?  When we first began this organization we started by working with the premarital couples.  Teaching them good communication, problem solving and conflict resolution skills.  Which was great, but we slacked off and decreased the amount of information that we would put out to the public on how to keep a strong healthy marriage.  Now it's time to look at where do we need to focus to keep families together before they fall apart.

I wanted to start with why or what are the main reasons why couples

get divorced?  There are several lists and we have all heard some of the reasons, such as infidelity, money or finances, or just growing apart.  I looked into some of the latest studies to see what the latest list might be.  That was a bit challenging.  These have been studied since 1985 and there are all sorts of variables and differences you must consider the greatest is the reasons women divorce compared to why men divorce are different.  We think differently and we don't like to think that we just fit into a box.  I finally chose to go with Paul Amato and Denise Previtti's study from 2003 and see what they found.
Here is the list:
            Men                                                                  Women
1. Infidelity                                                        1. Infidelity
2. Incompatibility                                              2. Incompatibility
3. Lack of Communication                                3. Alcohol, or Drug use
4. Personality Problems                                     4. Grew Apart
5. Grew Apart                                                   5. Physical or Mental Abuse
6. Don't Know                                                  6. Personality Problems

Over the next few weeks I hope to give resource that address these issues and possibly some ways that couples can prevent these from happening.  Please let me know as we go along if this is helpful.

I see,  in my practice way too often children that are suffering in various illnesses both mental and physical that might be prevented if we actually keep the parents together and in a healthy relationship.  Will this be easy?  Not at all, but if we don't start somewhere and stop doing what we always have done then we definitely won't see our community change.

Almost 10 years and we've just started.

It has been a month since I have been able to write.  We have restarted our classes in the schools.  We have hit a record number of volunteer instructors with 16 this year, which gets us closer to our goal of 20 to be able to reach out to Gordon, Catoosa and Walker Counties. I thought it might be helpful to give an explanation of why we are working so hard in the schools and what kind of progress we have made.
When we started the marriage movement in Dalton we thought we were going the right direction when we just started couples out right with premarital education.  That was way back in 2004 (yes, we have almost made 10 year s at this quest!!) After 3 years we realized that we really needed to do a whole lot more and go back just a bit in helping people learn how to choose a partner and how to be a good partner before you start looking.  But we also realized for our community to truly THRIVE we needed to continue the premarital and help those that were already married stay together.  If we didn't what we did in the schools would fall apart because the lack of example in how to have a strong healthy marriage.  So early on in our development we realized we needed to work in all three and possibly four areas of relationships.

Well, we next needed to figure out WHAT we needed to measure to see if our prevention was doing any good.  With the help of all the research that has been done in the past ten years plus the guidance of Georgia Family Council and First Things First we came up with the areas to measure.

        1) The number of marriages.  Were we encouraging strong healthy marriage over cohabitation?

 So we started keeping track of how many marriages, but not only that, but were clergy marrying them or the the judges in the magistrate and probate courts.  At first we found that it was close to 50/50 and realized that this is a problem that we needed to work on.  We got the Courts to start referring their couples getting married to our organization for premarital education so they could receive a discount on their marriage license.  Well, we have seen anywhere from 459 in 2001to 864 in 2003 and 537 in 2012.   Well have we made a difference.  There are several ways to look at this, hopefully there are less getting married because there are more couples choosing to break up or not married, rather than get married and get divorced.  But are there more couples just living together.  Well, we know this is the trend throughout the nation, so this is difficult to determine.  We could get discouraged with these numbers or get busy and get some more work done.  I see it as we have more work to do.  We are fighting a culture that says marriage is bad, you need to live together so you won't get divorced. We need to get out there and let this generation know that living together is not as healthy as marriage. I won't get into all the reasons for that now, but just that we have some more work.

     2) The number of divorces.   This should be obvious.  We want to decrease the divorce rate and
we have.  Maybe not enough and the numbers had a great dip for a couple of years but now it's trending back up again.  In 2001 there were 593 final decrees (actually went through not just filed) and in 2012 506.  So we have seen a decrease. But we would like to see a 30% decrease in this area and this is only a 14% decrease.  So we still have a ways to go.  But we are at least going the right way in both areas.

     3) The number of teen births (15-19 year olds) Research has found that the majority of teen births

are from teens that do not have their two biological parents in the home. This has been a huge problem in our area for many, many years.  We actually started our work with teens in 2007.  If you look at the statistics for teen births in 2007 for Whitfield County you see 292 teen births and in 2011 there were 177.  Here we see a 39% decrease in the number of births.  That's extraordinary.  What's happening that there is such a GREAT difference there?  Well, you will see a downward trend throughout Georgia from 2007 which is FANTASTIC!! But if you look at the counties around us, there is not as grand a decrease, i.e. Gordon County had had 148 teen births in 2007 and decreased to 113 but it was only 23%.  So there is a significant difference in the drop in the counties that we have been working with the teens.  Could there be some other reasons?  Sure, but our work is the biggest difference.

What this tells me is we have to keep going with the Teen Classes in the school, but now we need  to beef up our work with the married crowd.  So for this next year we hope to work on our Date Night portion as well as some other possibilities.  Stay tuned!! This is 10 years and we are not finished yet, we just began!!

A Different Perspective

 At our recent fundraising affair with Bobby Bowden I gained some insight that I really did not think would happen that night.  Kind of a serendipity.  I was getting ready for the evening and getting a little overwhelmed with all that needed to be finished in such a short amount of time so I delegated a task to my husband.  I gave him the task to decorate our table.  I had spent several weeks planning in my head how I wanted to decorate the table and what materials I would use etc...  I gave him all those materials and asked him to put them together.  I don't know what I was thinking, because I did not give him any directions on my thoughts of how I wanted it done.  He

knew that I was overwhelmed at that point and knew better than to ask for details and he thought (I'm sure) that he had this under control.  I assumed he would not do this task at all and would just stick the stuff on the table.  Much to my amusement I saw him working diligently on the table about an hour into the prep time and he had created the above.  Now I will tell you this, it was not what I had envisioned. He had not used the flowers I had bought or the coke bottles that I had also bought.  But, the task was done.  He actually did a very creative design and I was quite impressed.  I then looked around the room at all the other creations and each was very special and unique but was a creation from each person's own perspective.

As I look back on this incident I learned a great lesson or two.  First, I could trust him with a task and he would come through.  Second, we have two different perspectives.  He had all the materials that I had bought but his design was totally different than what I had designed in my head.  His perspective was different, not wrong or right, but different.  He saw a totally different picture than I did.  Each of us views things differently.  We have different histories, and different pictures in our brains, so many times when we disagree it's because we have different perspectives.  We may want to say that it is wrong, but can you really say that?  We have to put ourselves in their shoes or see things from their perspective.  When we can try to see things from another's perspective we can have a better understanding.

I was listening to a podcast today by James McDonald on forgiveness and one point he was making was that when we are forgiving someone we are to be kind and tenderhearted.  I loved how he pointed out what tenderhearted meant.  Tenderhearted means to have a heart for someone else.  That you have their perspective and you embrace and accept their perspective.

When someone does something that might hurt you or does something that you just don't quite get try to see it from their perspective.  Then the thing that I have learned is that you have to find the good in it.  I don't believe people, especially those that love you and care for you want the worst for you.  Say to yourself "what were they thinking?" When you do you will have a much easier time being kind and tenderhearted.

Life Is Crazy!!

Life has gotten to be wild and crazy!! I feel like I've lost control to some extent, but yet so much continues to happen.  I let my blog go for a while because I felt like I needed to show attention to my husband's needs.   He loves to travel and go on adventures, so when summer hit we had our children coming and going and he had a goal of doing RAGBRAI again this year.  After riding with him on many Tuesday evening group rides and weekend rides, I came to the conclusion that he gives me so very much and I need to return to him at least time and attention.  He allows me time to work on this initiative and supports me in many ways.  So when  I realized that I needed to think of his needs over my own, I realized how important it was for him that I go with him on RAGBRAI.  Yes, he would have and easily could have done this on his own, but it was much more enjoyable to share this experience with me.  On several occasions he told me how much he wished I was going with him.  I finally came to the conclusion and was inspired to join him on this ride.  But, it was a sacrifice in other areas.  I don't regret the time we had and actually look back and have some great memories, lessons and growth from the experience.  But, it's taken me a while to get back on track.

Last week was our largest fundraiser dinner we have ever attempted.  We brought Coach Bobby Bowden in, one of my dreams, to speak.  But that required a lot of time and energy too.  It was an awesome experience too!  A great man that has an uncanny ability to share his heart in a straight forward manner, without being politically correct and gets the point across so effectively and non-threateningly. But,  I'm still recovering from that too.

Recently one of my board members shared a great book with me by the Steven Covey organization, The 4 Disciplines of Executions, Achieving your Wildly Important Goals.  Once I began to read this book I realized how effective this was, not just in leadership in an organization but also in your personal life.  One of the things that it brought out was that we can all get distracted by our "whirlwinds".  These whirlwinds are the activities just as I have mentioned above that keep you from accomplishing your Wildly Important Goals.  But what are yours and my Wildly Important Goals?  Are my goals to focus on my husband and family and meet their needs?  Are my goals to serve others?  Are my goals to do what God calls me to do?  I have come to the conclusion that I need to constantly keep the goals of my life intact so that I am doing what God calls me to do.  I need to constantly visit these goals so that I am making sure my goals for my personal coincide with my professional life.

So with all these considerations I have come to the conclusion as I read today, that my life is about putting others first so that I can be totally dependent on God to take care of all of my needs.   When I do that I have seen the mighty things that He accomplishes through me, which I am a very insignificant human body, to accomplish what he wants.  I want to meet the needs of my husband and family and show them the love and acceptance that they need.  And then I want to serve my community with love to encourage others to have strong healthy families so that the children that I see can have a better chance in this world.

In conclusion,  I want to keep my focus in the right place, so I hope you will understand when certain whirlwinds get in my way.  I pray that I will reach my Wildly Important Goals by keeping myself focused on the right things.  I hope this might be helpful to you too.  So here's to a new start to my blog and away we go!!!

Is Your Child's Asthma affected by Your Marriage?

In 2007 a study by the CDC reported that over 9 million children were reported to have the diagnosis of asthma.  They studied this information to see if the family structure affected whether a child's asthma was kept under control.   What they found was very interesting: 

1. Children living with biological or adoptive parents—either in nuclear families or unmarried biological or adoptive families—were less likely to have ever suffered from asthma than children in the remaining family types 
2. Children in single-parent families were more likely than children in nuclear families to have asthma regardless of their gender, race/ethnicity, parent’s education, family’s poverty status, place of residence, or region.  
3. Among children with private health insurance, those living in nuclear families (10.4%) were less likely to have asthma than children in single-parent (15.3%), unmarried biological or adoptive (15.5%), blended (13.7%), extended (13.9%), or other (18.7%) families. Among children with Medicaid, those living in nuclear (11.4%) and unmarried biological or adoptive (9.3%) families were less likely to have asthma than children in single-parent (20%), blended (15.3%), cohabiting (16.5%), extended (16.4%), or other (17%) families.  

I think this is rather interesting, but that may be because I see it so much in my practice.  The #1 Children living with biological or adoptive parents were less likely to have ever suffered from asthma.  That doesn't mean that there are not children in two-biological homes that suffer from asthma, there are! But what it's saying is that children in a nuclear or two-parent home have less chance of suffering from asthma.  

I can understand now how this might be affecting the children.  When there are two parents in the home, there is more help.  In other words, it's not just mom that has to watch for the symptoms and give the medications.  When I have children going back and forth from one home to the other the compliance is a bit more tricky.  Parents don't seem to be on the same page, there are some control issues that keep the child from being cared for and children or parents may forget the medicines.  

It might be thought of as not that big of a deal when a child forgets his/her medicine for the weekend, unless they have an asthma attack.  Asthma can kill.  I have seen children die from asthma attacks.  We have learned so much in the last few years on how to control asthma, but the medicines are a big part and it has to be daily medication.  How do you remedy this when you have two parents fighting over issues and medications are forgotten or not sent.  Or you have a single mom that is trying to survive with children and she forgets to give the medication or remind the child to take the medication.  

So this is definitely a problem.  If we know this when we do a well check or even when we do our asthma re-checks we can actually prevent the problems and help the family problem-solve.  We as medical providers MUST be advocates for the patient or the child.  If we ask non-judgementally "Are you guys married, do you live together?" then you have a better idea how to work with the family.  Also when we make notes in our charts regarding this it allows the next healthcare provider or even the present to remember the situation and work within the parameters of what the family has to work.  

This is definitely a way to prevent Asthma from being out of control.I see this as what Obamacare was originally thought to do.  When we prevent big problems such as uncontrolled asthma we can save money in our tax dollars, the children will lose less time at school and tend to do better at school and parents will have less time off of work because they have to take child to the doctor.  Seems like a Win-Win to me.  What do you think?  

Family Structure and Children’s Health in the United States: Findings From the National Health Interview Survey, 2001–2007, Vital and Health Statistics, Series 10, #26, December 2010.  

Should Marriage be talked about in the the Medical Office?

If you know me you know how passionate I feel about marriage and how it effects our children.  We are seeing more and more research that demonstrates this.  Several colleagues have questioned my desire to check with a family about how their marriage is doing.  They have expressed that this is not part of the anticipatory guidance that is needed for a child or that this is getting too personal and it's really none of a healthcare provider's business to ask these questions.  A healthcare provider should focus only on the patient's health and it's inappropriate to ask anything else.  Well, I am proposing that this is one of the MOST important ways to determine how the child is doing.  

Twenty years ago I started using a form that was provided by the government as a good check off list for anticipatory guidance.  It did include a question about the marriage relationships and how the family is doing as well as summer safety, bicycle helmets and many other issues that are important for children's safety.  In the past twenty years we have done further research and found that when there is increased conflict that leads to violence there is a greater chance that the children will be effected emotionally.  So much so that this has been determined as one factor that allows the Children and Family Services to remove a child from the home. Why aren't we asking these questions?  Dr. John Gottman has found that when there is increased violence in the home the child has many more illnesses.  So why don't we ask before we get into this situation?  Could it not be helpful to get them resources before violence occurs?  Could we prevent some problems such as non-compliance, depression, neglect, and many other stress related illnesses? We are more comfortable giving them summer safety advice and helmet safety rather than talking about relationships and how they effect a child's health.   If we do not talk about this or ask the questions do you think the patient might bring it up? 

To be honest many years ago when I was going through my tough divorce, I felt like my medical

provider would be a good resource for finding help for the children emotionally.  Unfortunately, my provider had no clue.  Most medical providers a very much trusted by their clients, so much so that they will reveal very intimate information that may not be revealed to anyone else.  If they are trusted this much don't you think it's pretty important to encourage them to get good information or to refer to good resources to prevent the problems that troubled relationships can have.  

I remember when I was young there were so many physicians that smoked, it was not even considered

a medical problem.  There were just a very few that were willing to challenge their patients on their smoking habits.  Other colleagues would scoff and seem to think it wasn't a problem. But look what we have now.  There are tobacco quit lines, all kinds of stop smoking classes and devices, because we found out it does effect our heath and life expectancy and the money we pay out for our medical insurance.  

Another recent example is the weight problem that we see.  Many 

would not address the weight of their  patients.  I remember a friend of mine being so offended because her physician labeled her as obese.  But it needed to be said.  We as healthcare providers need to be pointing out where people can improve their health.  We are not doing what we are expected to do if we don't address the issues.  But the majority of providers will not ask the question, "How's your marriage doing?" or "Are you two married?  why not?"  That might be too uncomfortable, it might offend someone, it might make them leave the practice.  I believe that most people want to know what they can do to improve their health.  But you have to say it in a way that it can be accepted.  Just as saying your fat can prove to be ineffective, you can't ask any personal question without being upfront and honest but doing it in love.  

I would love to know what you think.  Do you think this should be talked about?  Who do you ask these kind of questions.  Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to be looking at the health of your marriage and how it effects your health.  Let me know if this is helpful, ok?  Thanks for reading. 

Being Mimi, Mom and so much more

Being a "Mimi" is one of the greatest things.  I loved my kids, and now I LOVE my grandkids.  Whenever I go anywhere it's like I'm constantly looking for cool stuff that the kids will like.  I hear that there are others that do this too.  Some of these stores have SUCKER written all over it.

This past week my daughter Jennifer and I took our mom/daughter trip all the way out to Branson.  I had no idea how far it really was.  13 hours with a 6 month old is a bit of a challenge (yes we had the baby with us, he's attached right now).  Both were real troopers!!!  Caffrey wasn't too keen on the carseat after the first 13 hour trip.  Can't say that I blame him.  But he slept alot and seemed to handle it pretty well.

It's always great to have some time to talk with kids. I miss having my kids in the car with me.  That was always the best talking time.  They would tell me about their day and what was bugging them etc.  Jenn and I enjoyed that time again.  So wonderful to catch up.  To hear her points of view on motherhood, being a pastor's wife and life in general.  To be honest I was a little apprehensive about the trip.  I only messed up once, well maybe twice.  I noticed that the time she gets most upset is when I try to tell her I understand.  Well, it's been 24 years since I've been in her situation and I probably have forgotten some of the trauma of a being a mom and hearing your baby crying.  I quickly had to apologize, because I don't remember how it felt.  I just know it must hurt to hear your baby cry.  I do remember being in distress when she would cry all the way home from Columbus, GA to Dalton, GA. That was distressing and she screamed the whole time.

The other neat thing I now know she is experiencing is the need to be whole with her family.  She

missed her husband, just as I missed mine.  It's really weird, but you do feel a little lost without your other half there.  They are used to working as a team with their baby and they have that down pat.  And that's the way it's supposed to be!!!   God made two parents to be the mommy and the daddy.  She kept saying "I don't know how people do it without a husband to help!"  I did a lot of my kids by myself and I know, it wasn't easy.  It's easier to give in and do mess up and say the wrong things and not get corrected.  It's easier to do just let them watch that show and to go along with the crowd.   It's easier to go through the drive thru than it is to sit down with your kids as a single-mom family.  So I'm very proud of her for seeing how tough it is.  As she said, it's tough enough with both of us.

She also gave me great insight into what I did right as a mom.  I am still amazed that we have five kids that we blended together and they are starting to really enjoy being together and they all love Jesus.  The latter is what I'm most proud of.  I asked her what did we do that was different.  She told me it was our Friday night worships with our kids.  We used to sing and then tell a story every Friday night we had the kids.  We created a tradition about dinner that evening and our time together.  They all tell different stories about those evenings.  Trevor reminded me tonight about how he hated that we would have Chinese food.  He would always end his prayers with AMENT.  When we get our kids home on a Friday evening, they still enjoy our Friday night worship time.

I remember so many walks on the beach with my precious husband praying about our children.  I knew

the odds for them turning out good were not as high as if they had all had their own parents together.  I knew also that the only thing that would make the difference would be prayer.  So pray we did.  We had a regular 3 mile walk on the beach at our "beach" in Jacksonville.   John would start praying and go through the oldest to the youngest to our parents and I would follow and do the same.  Those walks were so precious and sacred to me.  I miss them so very much.  I remember praying at the end, please let them know you, love you and serve you.   God is so good, he's letting me see my prayer being answered.  They each talk about how they love Jesus.  In 3 weeks we will get our oldest granddaughters as their parents go on a mission trip to New Orleans.  What a joy to have the girls, but especially knowing that their mom and dad are serving Him is even more of a joy. (More on that when we get to experience it)  We can't wait to see where God is going to take each of them.

Experiencing our children as adults is a treat.  I'm so glad we can experience this together. God is good.  It's been worth the challenges that we had in the past to see the ends of the stories.  I wish I could say we did it perfectly, but we didn't.  I just know it took a lot of prayer and trust.    I hope this hasn't seemed like I'm bragging, but I am very proud of all of our children.  I know it really had nothing to do with John and Me except we trusted God to do what he was going to do.  I hope you see God as trustworthy too.