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There’s no doubt in my mind that my wonderful husband loves me. After 7+ years of marriage, he has proven it time and time again.
In the beginning, I didn’t always believe that he did. But that was my problem – not his. He’s usually gentle, kind and understanding of me and my needs.
He’s my truest friend. My courageous hero. The one I share the most with here on planet earth.
Would you agree your spouse is the one you share the most with every single day?
It may not always feel like it, especially if you haven’t had a meaningful conversation lately…
But think about what you share together:
- a house
- car(s)
- money
- thoughts
- dreams
- and most of all – children
Is your spouse your best friend?
Such a precious relationship is even more beautiful when cherished and nurtured to grow into what it’s meant to be.
I find myself in my husband’s love when I accept his love as “for real”. When we have time together alone to talk and relive some memories. When we dream together, and celebrate life.
How do you find yourself in your spouse’s love?
One day I gave my daughter a blank sheet of white paper, unlined.
She ended up writing a story that I’m proud to say is a creative work of fiction!
And I’d like to share it with you here…
My Car’s Trip to Disneyland 29 – a story about cars
Characters: Daddy, Tia and Mia car
Daddy was taking Tia and Mia to Disneyland. “Come on!” cried Daddy car. “Let’s go!”
When they got there, Tia saw a ride. “Can I go on that slide ride, Daddy?” She asked.
“Sure,” Daddy said.
“I’m going on the slide ride, I’m going on the slide ride!” sang Tia as she, Mia, and Daddy drove to the “fun slide dog ride.”
“Whee!” cried Tia. “That was fun!”
“Oh, can I go on that slide ride, too?” cried Mia excitedly.
“Ok, sure,” said Daddy.
“Yyaay!” cried Mia, jumping up and down. “Whee!” said Mia. “That was fun!”
“Alright, girls, let’s go to a different ride,” said Daddy.
“Ok,” said Tia and Mia. “Oh, there’s another ride, Daddy, it’s a Merry-go-round,” said Mia.
“Let’s ride it,” said Daddy.
“Ok,” said Tia and Mia. “Yyayy!”
“Alright, girls, don’t get toooooo excited,” said Daddy.
“Whooooaaaaaa!” said Tia. “II feeell Diiiiizzzyy!”
“The ride’s gonna stop in one minute for us to get off, ok, Tia?” said Daddy, explaining what he knew about the Merry-go-round. “Plus, I’ve been here before, and I remember it was suppose to stop after 3 minutes.”
“But, Daddy,” said Tia, “My mouth feels hot. Can we go have some popsicles or any kind of cold food?”
“Uh, that’s a very strange comment and question, Tia,” said Daddy, “Well okay, you can have, uh, wait, what was that? Oh yeah, you can have orange flavored frozen lollipops.”
“Hooraaay!” shouted Tia and Mia, exitedley.
“My mouth feels hot, too,” said Mia, “I just started having it when you said ‘lollipop’ Daddy,” said Mia.
“Ok girls hop on me, and we’ll start going to the Frozen Dessert place,” said Daddy, as the merry-go-round ride stopped.
They waited in line. Finally it was their turn. “Can I get three frozen orange flavored lollipops?” Daddy asked the seller.
“Sure,” said the seller, “I’ll be right back with those.”
“Alright,” said Daddy.
The seller brought the frozen lollipop colds back with him.
“Mmm, yummy,” said Tia, Mia and Daddy.
“Oh let’s go home now. It’s almost dinner time.”
The End
Tags: Fun Friday, Marriage And Parenting
This month, I’m entering a blog contest with The Colors Magazine. It’s actually for posts written in the month of January – the deadline for submissions is February 15. So if you’re thinking about getting your blog “out there”, there’s still time.
Putting content out there for even more eyeballs to see takes courage. I’m inspired by people who press through their discomfort and do it anyway!
So I came across The Colors Magazine, a beautiful blog handling topics on human relationships. Like Love. Feelings. Emotions.
These are the very topics I love to dive deep and weave into my blog.
These are the things most people feel but don’t have the chance or courage to talk about because of busyness or societal pressures.
So why not challenge my comfort level?
Is it really comfortable there, anyway? Or just an illusion of comfort?
Here’s a less intense question…
Would you say that growing in your own personal life is important?
Business trainers and coaches of mine have said, “Your income follows your personal growth.”
Recently I’ve been listening to Tom Challan…and he makes the point that the home-based business industry truly exposes a person’s “junk in the trunk.”
In other words, be prepared to really GROW!
To work on things that may be will be uncomfortable.
And it’s true.
Unless we allow this process to happen, we’ll never grow past wherever we’re stuck at.
Why would I or anyone else intentionally put ourselves through a process that’s uncomfortable? Is it for fun? Freedom?
Is the price for freedom worth the discomfort to move out of our comfort zone?
I believe it is.
Recently I was asked a question that made me think.
I thought so long and hard about it that I want to share it as a post with all of you.
Here’s the question:
What do you think is most important in order to have and maintain a successful marriage year after year?
I believe the answer varies for each person because of different circumstances.
Personally for my husband and me, the over-arching “ingredient” is being willing to meet each other’s needs.
In order for us to do that, there are all kinds of “ingredients” we need to make that happen.
Things like…
- time alone with each other, free of distractions
- listening to each other intentionally
- asking each other engaging questions
- putting ourselves in each other’s shoes
- doing something funny to break tense moments
- remembering each other’s good qualities
Yes, it’s about communication. But I believe there’s a deeper angle…
Perceived communication.
Here’s a suggestion if you want to experience this. It’s helpful and kinda fun.
Pretend you are your spouse for the day.
Whatever you say to or do for your spouse today, imagine yourself receiving those words or action. Notice how you might feel if you were in your spouse’s shoes today.
It gives incredible insight into how we can better ask questions, listen to, and meet each other’s needs. Also a great way to prepare our hearts for Valentine’s Day.
What about for you?
What do you think is most important in order to have and maintain a successful marriage year after year?
If you have a comment, we’d love to hear it below!
Tags: Communication Skills, Marriage And Parenting, Mindset Monday, success
Daniel Yee!
I almost feel funny writing this, as the gift of encouragement is truly precious in the unseen realm of things.
At the same time, it’s not the easiest gift to give or receive…
Oh, what to do?
I’m not letting this prevent me from giving encouragement the best I know how.
And I don’t want to assume that I know what other people need or want. So Daniel, please answer this funny question – would you like to give or receive encouragement?
Tags: Building Community, Heart And Soul
We had an awesome time together talking about…
Assumption #2 – If I’m spiritual enough, I will have no pain or sinfulness.
Daniel, you did a fantastically humble job leading the discussion. Thanks for putting in your time, energy, and talent into making the time deep and rich.
Safe Haven group meets to discuss the book, “12 Christian Beliefs That Can Drive You Crazy”.
Ok, let’s dive in.
Here are the questions again for further reflection and discussion:
- Are there certain things that happen in your life and you wonder why?
- What type of things do you do to be more spiritual?
- Is having no pain a goal for you? Do you wanna be more spiritual because you think you’ll have less pain?
- Are there ways you try to avoid pain?
We talked about pain in…
- being generous in finances
- finding purpose in work
- physical exertion at work
- losing work
We talked about growing up hearing, “You’re not good enough” and feeling bad about being depressed.
Not all negative feelings are sin. This includes pain, grief, anger, sadness, or fear from physical, emotional, or sexual abuse as a child.
The Fallout is this…if we think we’ll have no pain when we are “spiritual enough” (whatever that means!), we’ll bear bad fruit. And this bad fruit looks like…
- feelings of failure
- wasted energy
- hiding
- unforgiveness
- lack of love
Is this shocking? There’s no escaping the unpleasant fact: We will have pain and sin.
It’s how we deal with both sets of feelings – resulting either from sin or pain. If we don’t deal with our sins and pain, it’ll prevent us from what God wants for us. We confess the sin and take the pain to the Greatest Doctor to get healing.
Let’s experience the wonderful freedom of living the way God made us to live – not by having no pain, or trying to be more spiritual – but by simply going to God saying, “I messed up. Please help me.”
Tags: Building Community, Heart And Soul
Yesterday night I experimented with making quesadillas for dinner. It turned out surprisingly well and the kids loved it! They ate it without slowing down, which says something 
Here’s the recipe:
2 teaspoons chili powder
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
__________
2 C onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 C frozen corn
2 C tomatoes, chopped (about 4-5 Roma tomatoes)
1/4 C cilantro, or more to taste
__________
8 large flour tortillas
24 slices cheddar cheese
6 Tablespoons olive oil
- Heat olive oil in skillet.
- Mix together chili powder, ground cumin, sugar and soy sauce in a bowl.
- Sautee onions and garlic. Add frozen corn. Cook 4-5 minutes.
- Add chili powder & cumin mixture. Cook another 1-2 minutes.
- Remove from heat. Add tomatoes and cilantro. Mix well. Remove to separate bowl.
- Heat olive oil in skillet – add flour tortilla with 3 slices of cheese. Heat until cheese is melted and tortilla is browned to a crisp.
- Remove flour tortilla to plate. Add corn salsa mixture. Fold tortilla in half and cut into quarters.
Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
Tags: Fun Friday, Heart And Soul, quesadillas
Part of our passion here at JinniaLow.com is to help others give and receive more encouragement.
Could you use more encouragement in your own life?
Our free gift for today is, you guessed it: encouragement!
Incidentally, today’s post also goes along with Day 2 from 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.
The task for Day 2 is to write a list post.
Basically, it’s a post that contains a list of some sort.
So here’s a list of the posts from this past week. Simply comment on one or more posts to participate:
1. How Unglamorous Everyday Stuff Can Be Fun
2. Glad I Asked
3. Prosper Where You Are Planted
4. Encouragement – A Rare Commodity
And I’ll choose one person to give or receive the precious gift of encouragement in a special fun way!
You’ll find out end of Sunday who it’ll be
Again to participate, leave a thoughtful comment on one or more posts above.
Tags: encouragement, Fun Friday
One of my readers made an insightful comment about encouragement. I thought it was so good, I’ll answer it here in a post for all of you.
Encouragement is so needed but a rare “commodity” indeed in my humble opinion, maybe because I haven’t seen it in a majority of circles…
So kudos to all of you who are learning to be more transparent about being frustrated and discouraged.
It’s not an easy thing to do!
Not many people are equipped to help those who are being transparent.
For example, my husband and I have been transparent in the past, and then we got squashed by well-meaning people who do love us – they just didn’t know how to help us out of particular pits we were in. They said things that sounded spiritual and even quoted Scripture…but in the end they hadn’t quite listened to our hearts.
I could go on and on about this…
But I’ll end with this…from what we’ve observed, the ones who are equipped to help people out of painful, frustrating, depressing circumstances are those training to be therapists, counselors, life coaches…
…or they are mature people who have amazing servant’s hearts and/or great listening skills.
Maybe there are more.
If you’ve seen more, please let me know!
Of course the one who ultimately helps anyone out of any pit is Almighty God Himself.
Encouragement – what a rare and precious gift we can give someone!
If you want something concrete to work on to give the gift of encouragement, check out my 21-day Compliment Experiment.
Tags: encouragement, Thoughtful Thursday
by Dani Johnson
I watch people every single day working their jobs like drones with no sense of purpose, no vision and no spirit of excellence. They are just doing their time, buying into the lie of security, kicking back and riding the wave to a great retirement. The brutal truth is that there is no security on this planet. This article will reveal how important it is to prosper where you are planted, making the most of what you have so that you are ready to bring that spirit of excellence into all future opportunities, giving you the best chance to succeed.
Let’s get real here. There are tens of thousands of people laid off every year, which proves that there is no such thing as job security. The rug is pulled out from under those folks with so called “secure” positions due to deaths, bankruptcies, changes in company leadership, unethical business practices, market downturns, injuries, illness and many other circumstances. There is no security in life at all.
One thing that is inevitable is change. Nothing lasts forever. So kicking back and riding the wave of security results in the mediocrity of falling into a comfort zone. In a comfort zone we stop dreaming, taking risks and reaching beyond what we can see.
Marriage and dating is a prime example of sliding into a comfort zone. When you are single and playing the field, you take care of yourself, dress nice, smile a lot, brush your teeth and make sure that you are groomed. You speak politely to the person you are dating and pamper them with special cards and flowers. We do all of this stuff when dating to impress the other person.
Then, we get married. We feel secure for about a year and then things start to change. The woman’s hair is in a messy bun, she hasn’t worn makeup in a month and she’s let herself go. The man stops shaving every day, doesn’t put on deodorant, forgets her birthday and misses the wedding anniversary. We wouldn’t even miss monthly recognition of our first date when we were dating! Why? It’s the façade of security that leads to a comfort zone. A comfort zone only leads to destruction and death… death of dreams, death of excitement, death of anticipation, wonderment and death of the unseen.
You must prosper where you are planted. When you start sewing good seed into your marriage with all of that care and detail the way you would if you were dating, it prospers. We all know how to prosper. We all know how to work in a spirit of excellence.
Ask yourself this question, “If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you pursue?” What is in your heart to do? What does it look like? Who would you be working with? In life, nothing becomes dynamic until it becomes specific so make a list of; who you want to work with, what kind of a purpose do they have, how do they treat their customers, what kind of money you can make and what each of you brings to the table. Be specific and start reaching out by faith for what you want today.
Dani Johnson is a relationship marketing expert, author, speaker, trainer and founder of Call to Freedom Int’l. She went from living out of her car with $2.03 to her name to earning her first million in two short years by the age of 23. Dani regularly consults, mentors, and coaches successful home business owners and entrepreneurs on marketing and lead generation solutions, prospecting, closing, business building strategies, leadership development and personal achievement, insider profit strategies, organizational and team development and more.
Gain control now of your financial future with free training by Dani Johnson. Check out WorkAtHomeProfitZone.com for more free articles and home business training and remove all barriers to your financial future now!
© 2009 WorkAtHomeProfitZone.com, All Rights Reserved Worldwide! WorkAtHomeProfitZone.com is a division of Call To Freedom Int’l, LLC. You may reprint or post this article to your blog or website as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way, give author name full credit and leave article intact as it appears on this website.
Tags: success, Work At Home Wednesday
