Music and family: a perfect combination!

Last week on Thursday, Steven had a very important meeting in a recording studio called Redbridge Studios in Bolton! As a retirement gift from his last school, St Peter in Hixon, the pupils chose to give him a voucher for a recording session and he was over the moon. The session went extremely well and Neil, the music producer was very friendly. I will put the recording on my youtube channel as soon as possible now that we are back home!

In the evening, our daugthers who were in Manchester joined us for a diner with the bride to be Verity and David, the bridegroom in the Rivington. It was great to spend time all together and we talked a lot about the wedding of course! 

On the Friday, it was the wedding rehearsal at the church and I decided to join the girls who were still in Manchester so we went for a relaxed lunch. Later on that night, my sister in law Pauline and her sister Eiline met us at an indian restaurant in the centre of Adlington, Zalzala. I recommend this place, the service and the food were excellent and we had a great time!

More to come, everything on the wedding will be revealed! lol 
Have a blessed day :)

Food for thought!

A Christian wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday.

"I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me I can't remember a single one of them. So I think I'm wasting my time ... and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor.

It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:
"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall what the menu was for a single one of those meals. I do know this: they all nourished me and gave me strength. If my wife had not given me those meals, I would be dead today."

That pretty much ended the discussion.

Love and respect...simple or difficult?

Every Human Being on the planet yearns for respect, but especially men. For a man, respect is the lifeblood of our emotional stability, the air our heart breathes, the milk in our Wheaties, the gas in our combustible engines. In other words, it’s what makes us go.

Respect is sometimes demanded, enforced, and argued about. Gangs and countries have gone to war and men have died for lack of it, but when freely given, means the most to us. For a wife, respect is given as an order from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:33…”let the wife see that she respects her husband.” In other words, it’s not enough to love him, to coddle him, to baby him, although those things are kind of nice sometimes (I’m not going to lie!), but it’s most important that she respects him.

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs wrote in Love & Respect, that respect is like the air a man breathes and being disrespected is like pinching off a man’s oxygen hose so that he slowly dies a suffocating death. However, it says the same about love to a woman. A wife being commanded through scripture to respect her husband can be a difficult pill to swallow if the husband is mean, irritable, critical and unloving.
Here are the three P’s of loving our wives well so that she can respect us easily and without feeling like a traitor to her own heart.

1) Praise Her.

Too often, we as men think something and fail to say it. We dig into a home cooked meal, walk past a manicured garden, put on clean clothes, cash a second paycheck, all the while thinking this is nice, but never saying it. “Honey, thank you for working to help provide for this family”, “Honey, thank you for doing that yard work, the yard looks great”, “Honey, This meal is fantastic, Thank you.” Or how about “Girl! You are looking so fine, YOU make that dress look good!” Praise your wife………daily. Praising her often is loving her well!

2) Promote Her.

Praising her is speaking well of her….to her. Promoting her is speaking well of her to others. The first people you should be speaking well of her to, is your family. Your children should hear you speak lovingly and adoringly about your wife often. Your sons will learn how to treat their wife from you. I know, scary thought, but true. Your daughters will learn how to be treated from you. Start early and Praise her often. Proverbs 31 says that “her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her”. If you want a Proverbs 31 Virtuous wife, treat her like one. A man who promotes his wife in public earns respect. A man who discredits his wife in public earns contempt.

3) Protect Her.

We are Human. There are going to be times when your wife sins or falls short. Cover her. Don’t blab about her failure and don’t grind her failures in her face. Cover her. 1st Peter 4:8 says this “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” To love your wife well means to cover her, just as your Pastor is your spiritual covering of the local church, Jesus is our spiritual covering before the Father over the complete church, you husband, are the covering of your family.

As men, we sometimes feel that our wives will respect us for the things we respect other men for, accomplishments, money, occupation, the toys we own or cars we drive. The truth is, our wives respect us for how we treat them, so praise her, promote her and protect her and she in turn will respect you. As always, may you love your wives well and be mighty men of valor who always chase after the heart of God. Amen.

Stephen Miller is a Family Life Pastor at Crystal River Church of God, an ordained minister in the Church of God, the Men’s Ministry leader of Warriors with a Covenant and a Married Life Small group marriage ministry leader. Steve and his wife Jessica present regularly for the Marriage Restored Conference. You can read more of his work at Marriage Encounter and read his book “Fight for Her! A Marriage in Crisis and God’s Intervention.”

Bad taste joke? Let me know!

Husband Store







A store that sells new husbands has opened in London , where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:



You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:

Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs

She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.

'That's nice,' she thinks, 'but I want more.'

So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads:

Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.

'Wow,' she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.

'Oh, mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!'

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:



Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

PLEASE NOTE:

To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store just across the street.

The first floor has wives that love sex.

The second floor has wives that love sex and have money and like beer

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited.

A perfect husband?

A woman was walking along the beach when she stumbled upon a Genie’s lamp. She picked it up, rubbed it, and a Genie appeared. The amazed woman asked if she got three wishes. The Genie said, “No. Due to inflation, constant downsizing, and fierce global competition, I can only grant you one wish. So, what’ll it be?” The woman didn’t hesitate. She said, “I want peace in the Middle East. See this map? I want these countries to stop fighting with each other.” The Genie looked at the map and exclaimed, “Lady, these countries have been at war for thousands of years. I’m good but not THAT good! Make another wish.” The woman thought for a minute and said, “Well, I’ve never been able to find the right man. You know, one that’s considerate and fun, likes to cook and helps with the housecleaning, is romantic, gets along with my family, doesn’t watch sports all the time, and is faithful. That’s what I wish for—a perfect husband.” The Genie let out a long sigh and said, “Let me see that map again.”

Does this ever happen to you?

For instance, the minute you are engrossed in something really interesting, i.e. just now, I was in the middle of reading a new post (Why did God create evil?), I got interrupted by our daughter asking why there was a cardboard box full of bath  towels in the middle of her room! How do I know? on second thoughts, it was probably brought there by mistakes because when we moved back in there were so many boxes everywhere...
Earlier on, my personal chef (lol) asked me whether I wanted some home grown potatoes and beans. I politely said no thanks, I'd rather have a tomatoe salad..For some reason,  I never had time to make my salad so when the fish appeared, I asked him if there was enough for me too..grumble grumble, ok, why did you change your mind...Don't know! Just did!
I have been told recently that my vocabulary includes too many of these: basically, anyway, well.. I did not say anything, wondering why/when I had started to use these regularly. The following day, at break, my colleagues and I were chatting away, and within 5 minutes, I'd heard the word 'basically' 5 times. Could this be a simple osmosis?
Blessings :)