With great power....

Yesterday was my 3rd anniversary with this awesome guy who never takes a serious picture for me...ever. Fortunately for me, God wired me to love his silly-ness and so every time I try to take a picture and he makes a crazy face, it ends up being my favorite picture of us.

Anyway, yesterday we celebrated 3 years of being married. It's hard to believe that it's only been three years, since we went through so much in that short time. It's been an incredible adventure, and I am so blessed beyond words to have him as my partner through life.

This past year has been an especially exciting one! We have built our company and last year we made more in a 12 month period than either of us know what to do with.

Which brings me to the subject of this blog.

Every year, I look back at how the year has gone and what adjustments we need to make in order to end up where we want to be five, ten, or fifty years down the road. So far, I've noticed that every year we seem to learn one major lesson that makes everything better moving forward.

Do you remember watching that Spider Man movie with that Toby guy as the star? Most of us do. And most of us also remember his uncle's famous words: "With great power comes great responsibility."

Well, folks. Money is (among other things) power.

Let me start, right now, by telling you that money isn't evil. And people who have money aren't inherently evil nor do they magically become evil when the money touches their bank accounts. But money reveals where you need to do some work in your life, because it is a type of power. Someone once said that power corrupts and I don't think that's entirely true. What power does do is opens up the doors to corruption, and you have to choose to walk through them, or to firmly shut them.

Money is power, and it opens doors. It's the power to have what you've never been able to have before. It's the power to live as you want to, and if you're not careful that can get dangerous fast.

What do I mean?

Well, let's take a look at Jared and I. We're good people. We're Christians. We have morals and guidelines and even a few personal rules that we live by and those keep us mostly safe. And yet, we are human and as such we do have those areas in our life where an open door can cause problems.

Last year we made more money than we know what to do with and this year we don't have a penny in savings because we never bothered to save any of it. What did we do?

For one, we ate.

We ate a lot.

We didn't just eat, we ate restaurant burgers and delivery pizza and lots of ice cream on a pretty regular basis.

As a result, we got fat.

Today Jared and I are working hard to shed the extra weight that we stacked onto ourselves when we had more than enough and weren't managing it carefully enough. As people who grew up poor, we were completely enamored with the ability to have dinner and dessert every night without ever having to walk into a grocery store or cook. And not only did we foist all of our food-related work onto someone else, but we ate way more than we should have at just about every sitting.

Gluttony and sloth came into our lives. Those are called "deadly sins" for a reason.

Second, we helped people.

That's a good thing, right? Helping people is good!

Well, yes and no.

Yes, because reaching out to people is what we are called to do. But no, because sometimes the ways that we help people don't really help them after all.

With our extra money we gathered quite a few people who we were hurting by helping. One of my mentors calls them projects, another calls them strays. Whatever you call them, these are the people who are flat broke on the inside. Whether they have money or not (and sadly they usually don't) these are the people whose ways of dealing with their lives and with other people constantly land them in bad waters.

There's a difference between hitting a bad situation through no fault of your own and throwing yourself headfirst into bad situation stew. When you're first meeting a person they can look pretty identical. In both cases the person is in a bad situation and is frustrated by it. They say things like "If I could just find a job" or "I'm just a little short right now" or "I don't understand why he's being such a jerk."

It's very important, when you're in a position to be able to help people, that you use discernment with who you offer your help to.

We didn't.

Excited to be able to help someone and make a difference in their lives, we picked up the first few people who crossed our paths and were in bad situations. Having been someone who made bad choices and landed in a bad situation and needed someone else's help to get back on my feet, I had a soft spot for twenty-something girls who just seemed to be having a rough time of it. Whenever I came across one I became convinced that I had to throw all of my resources into helping them.

In each of these situations we tried to forge friendships with the people we were helping, tried to offer them help in a way that was un-controlling and uplifting. In each of these situations the people drained us of our resources, caused stress and strife between us, and then cut all ties from us because of lies they had fabricated in their own minds about who we were and what we were about. The result of our attempt to help was wasted money, time, and emotional energy, and a growing wedge in our marriage that we had to work very hard to pull back out.

All because we didn't use discernment in who we helped. I saw people in a situation I could empathize with and I convinced myself that I was the only person in the world who could understand and help them, so I rushed in without counsel or even prayer.

That is called pride. It's another of those deadly sins.

You see, having the power of money and not guarding ourselves carefully enough against ... well, ourselves ... we fell victim to those deadly sins. They're called "deadly" for a reason, my friends. They kill what is good in your life. Once the deadly sins have entered your life there is a heck of a lot of prayer and hard work that you have ahead in order to recover from the damage you've done to yourself.

Fortunately for us, it only took giving too much help to a few people for us to realize what we were actually accomplishing was far from our goal. And after reaping the "rewards" of a year of sloth and gluttony, we were receptive when God brought someone into our lives to help us recover from that damage.

Year three has been very exciting, with more growth and prosperity and blessing than we have ever experienced. And I feel so fortunate that in the midst of all of this, now is the time when we learned that we need to be ever vigilant with what we have. As we gain more influence in its many forms, we become more able to affect more people around us. This means that as we gain this influence, we have to be ever more careful with the way we are using it! I'm glad that we learned this lesson at a time when we do not have children to follow our gluttony or be hurt by our willingness to indiscriminately allow people into our inner sanctum. And now, having seen the truth of how careful we do need to be with our power as we gain more of it, we are better prepared to truly help people.

The lesson for year 3 was to be careful with the power God gives us. I'm really excited to see what's coming in year 4!

15 ways life is better now...

Yep, I know the poster and the title are different. Isn't that cool?

Just in case you can't read the poster, here's what it says (with some explanation):

1. Buh-Bye "Big Girl" stores! (I can wear smaller clothes!) 

If you're like me, you've had plenty of days consumed with walking into a store that you had to drive forever to get to because it's the only one that carries your size...only to look around and think "These clothes are all so...gross."

Fat people clothes aren't designed to be pretty. They're getting there, but they aren't there yet. If you have a bolder, flashier style in general it's easier. But for someone who tends to be a little more on the formal/conservative side it's difficult to say the least. not to mention WAY expensive.

2. My confidence is through the roof! 

This is a big one for me, since I've struggled with an almost complete lack of confidence (which I tried to make up for with bravado and attitude) since I was a kid. To finally be able to look in the mirror and believe that I look good, that's huge!

3. Small, daily tasks - like getting out of the car or standing to wash dishes - are easier and don't hurt anymore. 

I didn't even realize how much pain I was in, how much I was struggling against the weight of my body all the time. I've gotten rid of 65 pounds (six big bags of potatoes and one small one!) Because of that I've been able to pop out of the car without a problem, or stand up for half an hour to hand wash my pots without having to sit down for the rest of the day with an ice pack.

4. I sleep better at night
5. I have more energy all day

These two really go together! Since I'm not tossing and turning all night long, struggling to get comfortable and not crush myself under my own weight, I actually need less sleep and I keep my energy from sleep way easier! It's so much easier to wake up in the morning, to want to get out of bed and start the coffee brewing, to do the things that we all should be able to do with ease!

6. I'm more comfortable with myself.

65 pounds ago, I used to try to take up as little space as possible. (I failed.) I would sit with my back as straight as possible whenever I was around other people, I would tense all of my muscles in an attempt to scrunch my body up and be smaller. It made being around people...exhausting.

Now, I don't worry about it. I don't worry about whether I'm taking up too much space, I just wait for someone to tell me to get out of the way. I'm comfortable lounging around at friends houses, or sitting in a position that's actually comfortable at a coffee shop. Even if I look a little silly, I'm more comfortable in my own skin than I have been since I started gaining weight in the 4th grade.

7. I'm less likely to feel overwhelmed.

The science and psychology behind this one is fascinating, but I won't get into it. The simple version is that without that 65 pounds, I feel less tired. Motion in general is less frustrating and exhausting, which makes life less frustrating and exhausting.

8. I receive compliments on how great I look, everywhere I go.

This one really ties into my confidence level and how I've been able to become more comfortable with myself. It's hard not to feel good about yourself when everyone around you is saying you look amazing!

9. I'm not always more focused on food than everything else.

I used to always be searching for the next source to curb my hunger or my cravings. It would get so bad, I'd spend entire conversations just thinking about what I was going to eat for lunch even if I had just finished breakfast! Now, I can sometimes forget that it's time to eat at all until my stomach reminds me.

10. I'm excited when I think about the future, instead of scared or depressed. 

This is another huge one for me. I used to look ahead and, because of my weight, most of what I could see was the health problems I'd have to deal with or the things I wouldn't be able to do because I was too heavy. Now I know that I can be happy and healthy in the future, and that makes all the things that were already exciting that much better!

11. How much fun I have doesn't depend on how much food I eat. 

In a conversation with an old friend, I was absolutely mortified when the topic of birthday parties came up. Not because birthday parties are particularly embarrassing, but because at one of hers I ate half a sheet cake myself. I had no idea how to handle new situations, meeting new people, or really anything that wasn't exactly as everything had always been. Even little changes would threaten to upset my emotional balance. But life is constant change. To cope, I learned to hover closely to the available food. Food was fun! It was good, it made me happy, and I never had to feel bad about not knowing what to do.

Now, I can go through a whole party without even thinking about the buffet line - and when I get home I still feel like I had a blast!

12. I've developed healthy ways to handle stress, instead of just stuffing my face. 

Remember how I said that change made me upset? Well, that was true of just about all stress. Anything that didn't go according to plan, anything that was difficult emotionally, even just the normal stress of everyday things like being stuck in traffic or having dishes waiting in the sink at home would bother me. To keep on top of the anxiety these things caused, I ate. In fact I ate every emotion, from happy to sad to guilty to bored.

It became so much of a habit that I didn't know how to handle anything without food. Not even being happy! I'd been using food to generate false happiness for so long that I couldn't identify or process the real thing.

Now, I don't need food to feel better! And even better...

13.  I'm less stressed!

Once again, there's a bunch of science and psychology stuff that I won't go into here. But it's really cool!

14. No more concerned looks from my doctor!

At 22, I shouldn't be seeing my doctor frown so deeply when she looks at my chart. Yet there I was with her frowning - no, scowling! - at my blood pressure. Now, I don't have to worry about what bad news she's not telling me yet. I know I'm getting healthier, and she knows it too!

15. I feel like I really am capable of anything!!

Have you ever had that internal eye-roll feeling when someone says you can do anything you put your mind to? I have. When you don't feel like you can even master your own cravings it's hard to feel like you can write a novel, run a business, be a good mom, or really do anything right in life! Now that I've finally got myself on the path to better health and I'm seeing real, tangible improvement, I feel like I can take on anything I can find!

So that's what improved health has done for me so far...what will it do for you?

What you should be teaching your kids about bullying

Let me start by saying that I'm not a parent. I can't speak from a parental perspective on the topic of bullying, and I know that. 

So why have I ventured into this no-mans-land of telling parents how to parent? 

I've been wrestling with the decision to post this blog for a few weeks now. I finally came to the conclusion that - while I'm not a parent - I do have a lot of valuable information to impart on the subject. I can see the bullying issue from a couple of different sides, having been both a bully and a victim in school. There's plenty of articles and blog posts about how the school needs to crack down on bullying, or the idea that there need to be federal laws against bullying. This is not one of those. 

I actually think bullying serves an important function in society. Would it be awesome if kids could just be nice to each other all the time? Absolutely! But since kids are just as human as the rest of us, minus the self control and tolerance that some of us have learned, I don't see it being very likely. In my opinion, that's okay. As my husband says, "How would I have known that white Velcro shoes didn't go with black sweatpants if the bullies didn't tease me for it?"

Bullying teaches us from an early age that sometimes people just won't like you. Not everyone thinks you hung the moon, and if you look weird there is always someone who will point it out. If responded to correctly, the verbal abuse we all sustain in school at one point or another can be used to shape us into well-adjusted adults. We can learn early on that what some people think doesn't matter, and that we need to decide for ourselves and just stick with it. 

We can also learn not to wear white Velcro shoes with black sweatpants.  

If we teach our children to respond correctly to the friction of bullying, it can help them go a really long way in life. So, point number one:

Teach your children to respond to bullying the right way. Not with stupid sayings that don't actually help, but with internal dialog. They need to know that with every comment they have the option to take it in, consider whether it's valid, and either toss it away and move on unaffected, or apply certain changes to adjust whatever issue is being criticized. 

I think it's too easy to just hand out disconnected points and expect the kids to come to the right conclusion for themselves. Parents hear about a bullying situation and either they completely flip their lid and start bullying school administration to make something happen (sending the message that bullying is OK as long as it's aimed at anyone other than the perfect, precious child); or they cite the platitudes of the ages.

"Sticks and stones can break my bones..." teaches children to lie to themselves and others about how something has impacted them, and that you can resolve any situation by being really annoying.

"Just be nice to the other kids" teaches children that they are doormats and probably deserved whatever happened anyway.

"Tell a teacher" sends the message that they have no power of their own and will never be right or even able to defend themselves.

"Just don't let it bother you" teaches them that everything should be bottled up inside - because they don't know how to just not be bothered, so they have to pretend.

I could go on forever. Without the connecting points that we as adults have mentally, these statements are utterly useless and even harmful. It does the child no good to hear that their bully is just as insecure as they are, because they don't know what in the world they're supposed to do with that information. We have to teach them to connect the right dots, in the right order, for themselves.

That alone would significantly reduce the number of bullying-related fatalities.

But teaching children how to have good mental dialog isn't enough. Sometimes bullying crosses the line into physical abuse, and at those times a good mental dialog just won't cut it. Which brings me to my second point:

Teach your children that it's okay to defend themselves. 

It's treated as a crazy idea anymore that you would teach your kids to hit back. After all, didn't you just finish their toddler years by teaching them that hitting back is just as wrong as hitting first? Won't they get in trouble at school for hitting back?

Let me ask you this: Would you prefer for your child to be suspended, or permanently handicapped? Would you prefer for your child to be expelled, or dead?

I saw a video recently, in an anti-bullying article, that I found incredibly disturbing. It was supposedly shot by a student, and featured two teenage girls: One screaming and throwing punches, the other cowering in a corner and begging to just be allowed to go home.

The video seemed to go on forever as the victim sustained blow after blow, never defending herself. I watched the video, waiting for the moment when the victim would finally have had enough and would fight back to save herself. It didn't happen. Despite plenty of openings, plenty of chances to hit back and knock the wind out of her opponent so she could escape, the girl did nothing.

She was hospitalized, in a relatively short coma, and on the verge of death. She did come out of it all okay...provided you consider being permanently blinded and having unknown amounts of brain damage to be "okay."

Being a minor, there was no word on what the consequences to the aggressor were.

Let me ask you again, and I want you to really think about this. Put yourself in that hospital room, your daughter hooked up to those life supporting machines and tell me: Would you rather your child defend themselves and probably get in trouble for it, or would you prefer that your baby girl suffer a brutal beating that blinds her and causes untold brain damage that will affect her life in unknown ways forever?

I shouldn't have to say any more on the subject. The very thought that someone could be allowed to damage your child in such a way should have you signing them up for every martial arts class in the city.

As kids, we go through all of our schooling being taught that fighting back really is just as bad as starting the fight. The kid who defends himself gets suspended for longer than the kid who attacked him, the girl who fights back gets expelled and sent to "Juvie" because she broke her attacker's arm. It's drilled into us, repeatedly and forcefully, that we are not to fight back. That we ought not defend ourselves.

It's up to you, as parents, to override that.

I currently suffer from a back injury that I sustained in the 7th grade. I sometimes can't sleep because I'm in so much pain that all I can do is cry. It's been like this since the day a boy in gym class decided - just for funsies - to drive all of his weight into a kick aimed at my lower back.

It wasn't the first time I'd been attacked at school. Since 4th grade I'd been dealing with physical violence of increasing intensity, and an administrative staff that didn't really care enough to do anything about it. No, it really wasn't the first time I'd been hurt because my classmates thought it would be funny.

But it was the last.

Why? Because after years of listening to my mom tell me to just be nice and just tell a teacher and just don't let them bother me...I finally took my dad's advice, and hit the kid back.

More accurately, I tackled him, shoved his face into the gym floor, and told him to apologize.

Did my mom do something wrong in teaching me to be nice, to tell a teacher? No. She did the best she knew how. And in many situations, being nice or telling the teacher could have made all the difference. But if I had retaliated sooner, the issue would likely have never even reached the point that I would have sustained an injury that affected me into my adult life.

Why didn't I listen to my dad sooner? Simple, I didn't want to get in trouble.

The fact of the matter is that there comes a time to draw the line and refuse to allow anyone to cross it. Our kids need to know that. They need to know that whatever the consequences for their actions, there comes a time to defend yourself...and that's really okay.

So there it is, my two cents on bullying. My non-parental advice to all the parents out there. Teach your kids to have correct internal responses, and teach them that sometimes it really is okay to hit back.

Just how many lives could we save?

The Letter

Dear family and friends,

2013 has been an amazing year for the McQuades! We've strengthened our marriage and had a record year in our business! We had our share of challenges, but each one served to make us stronger and better as people and we have had so much fun in the process. We've been abundantly blessed to donate over $10,000 to charity and we've set the wheels in motion to update our website and photos. Overall, it's been an amazing year.

Which brings us to 2014. I'm really excited about 2014!

2014 brings us great things from the start, kicking off with an amazing 90-day fitness challenge. I'm excited about this challenge because Nutrilite and BodyKey have really kicked it up a notch with this one! They've improved the starter kit, adding new and better products and even more amazing prizes and incentives. Plus, my awesome husband will be doing the challenge with me this time and in my opinion that makes every activity better!

We're improving our social lives by working to schedule at least one activity (but preferably more) for at least one of us (but preferably both) on every single day of the new year. I'm already off to an excellent start, scheduled all the way through next Wednesday! I'm excited about this because I always love the opportunity to meet new people. This also has the additional challenge and benefit of finding new things to do and enjoy, which is always super exciting.

I have a personal goal of reading 34 books in 2014. I've got the plan all mapped out, and I'm really excited about everything I'm going to learn! From leadership to marriage, self awareness and improvement to how to uplift and encourage others, there's lots of topics and I'm looking forward to it. I'm also starting a journaling project. The plan is to write in the journal every day (partially inspired by Brad Paisley's quote about the next year being a 365-page book). I don't know what I'll write or what it will be used for, but I'm excited to see how it will turn out.

And that's not even the half of it!

2014 is going to be so amazing, and we're both looking forward to it!

Christmas 2013

Usually this is the time of year when I do my Christmas post about how much I love Christmas and my favorite Christmas traditions and so on. I spend a lot of time reflecting on the past, on Christmas with my parents and how different it is now. In fact, this is the time of year where I start really feeling like the point of the whole year is about to be accomplished! But this year, for the first year ever, I'm at this time of year and I feel like life is so much more than Christmas.

Maybe that's weird to say.

Growing up, Christmas was what it was about. Life was life...and then there was Christmas. We all tried harder at Christmas; we were more organized, more patient, more kind. It's like the magic of Christmas swept into the house and straightened us up. The rest of the year was just stuff, and Christmas was special.

This year has been amazing. I'll post more about that later. But all of the year-round amazingness has changed my perspective on Christmas. It's not really the highlight of the year anymore. It's kindof just another day. We get to hang out with family and take a few extra days off, but that's the only real difference. Part of me is sad about losing the magic feeling, but I'm way happier to have such an amazing life that Christmas dims in comparison!

This year we've been fortunate in that we've gotten to just relax for most of the Christmas season. While others have hosted large parties for family and friends we've sat back and spent time with each other, talking about our goals and plans for next year and how wonderful this year has been. Our Christmas season actually doesn't even start until the 21st, and I think I like it that way!


We're kicking everything off with a gorgeous black tie optional party one of our clients has invited us to. We were invited last year as well and it was a truly spectacular night, so I'm really looking forward to it! Plus, I get to wear one of my fancy dresses for the first time since last Christmas, and I've lost about half a dress size since then!

The next day we're joining my husband's side of the family for a movie and dinner to celebrate his grandmother's birthday, which I'm pretty excited about not only because it's his grandma's birthday but also because we're going to see a movie I've been wanting to see and the restaurant they picked is one of my favorites....it's like a Christmas present to me from the whole family (haha). Then on Monday we're going over to my mother in law's house to help her with my favorite part of Christmas preparations - wrapping presents! And after that we're driving down to Longview to see my father in law and his awesome wife. After that it's Christmas Eve and we don't have any plans solidified for that yet but we'll probably just chill with all the corny Christmas movies on Netflix. Then it's Christmas!

Christmas is crazy for us as a couple in a way that it never was for me growing up. You see, my husband's other grandma had nine kids (his dad's generation), and all of those kids had kids (his generation), and most of those kids have had kids as well (our kids' generation). And almost all of them pack into Grandma's house for Christmas! There's only enough seats for everyone because there's a floor and I'm sure some of the aunts spend the whole time standing up and working (cooking, cleaning, etc). We're all crammed in like sardines and it's noisy and disorganized ... and yet, somehow, we all have an excellent time.

After Christmas we take a day to recover. It's just got to happen. With that much food, there's no way around it. We sleep for most of the day and it's amazing.

Then we start in on New Year stuff. We write out our goals and plans, get things organized, make more plans, and post our goals and affirmations around the house. We conference with our mentors to share our goals and plans with them, and to get input from them on where things may need to be adjusted. We get all of our accounting things in order so we can send them off to our awesome accountant at the beginning of the year, and before we know it December 31st has arrived!

It's a whirlwind, to be sure, but it's so much fun.

I'm especially excited for the new year. There's so much happening! But that's another post. Merry Christmas everyone.

A picture's worth a thousand words...

There are some moments you notice, and you just can't help loving them and wanting to hold on to them forever. This is one of those moments. It may look like a normal, slightly cluttered living/dining area, but traces of the day are there. It's all of our moments wrapped up together. I'm sitting here, on the couch with my tea and my book to close my night, and I can't help smiling. I look up, and I see this one, beautiful moment that is so representative of all of the other amazing, beautiful moments of today. It almost makes me want to cry with gratitude and an overwhelming sense of how blessed I am.

Let me show you what I mean.

Just out of your line of sight in this picture, there's my bookcase and my little breakfast bar. The bookcase is jam-packed, full of books and notebooks and binders and journals. It's time to clean up my collection again, and get rid of some things I just don't use. I love books. Three years ago I didn't own a single one. Today, I'm thinking about buying a bigger bookcase!

Only two of the books in that case are fiction, Monarch and The Breakaway, they were written by a friend of mine. I don't know her very well, and I don't speak to her very often, but when I was in a really tough spot in life she gave me a lot of guidance. She was one of the few people willing to go on a limb for me, to try her very best to help me in that particular time in life. For that I will always be grateful, I will always consider her a dear friend, and I will never get rid of her books.

The rest of my books are nonfiction. There's three bibles and a whole lot of resources about business, marriage, family, leadership, and similar topics. Three years ago I didn't own a single book, now I need a bigger bookcase because I'm constantly buying new ones. I'm learning so much, all the time! I can barely believe that the person I am today even came from the person I was three years ago, but I'm here. I treasure those books, especially the personally signed copy of Get Married, Stay Married by Paul and Billie Kaye Tsika. That book saved our marriage before it had even started. It began the transformation in my husband and I that got us back into church, and onto the right path.

Just past the bookcase is my breakfast bar. I think that's what they call it, anyway. There's candles there. Jared doesn't much like candles, but he lets me keep them around because he knows how much I love them. Especially these ones. It's really hard to find this scent except after Halloween, but for me it's always been the smell of happy times. All of my favorite childhood memories happened when the house smelled like this. It's the perfect blend of apples and cinnamon, the smell of my favorite tea. In this moment, the smell of those candles brings me not only the joy of all those wonderful memories, but also of knowing that my husband probably really hates those candles and he doesn't say a word because he loves me and he likes how happy the candles help me be.

He's amazing like that.

In the corner are the boxes and packing materials from today's product delivery. I love product day. I get to spend at least an hour unpacking, sorting, recording, and putting away my favorite everyday products! It makes me feel productive, and busy, yet somehow so at peace. Every product day means I'm one month closer to everything I've been working toward for the past three years.

On the wall, above and next to the door, are my inspiration reminders. I have our first son's name, printed in big letters, to remind me why I'm learning self discipline. I have pictures of places that we want to visit: Ireland, Italy, Germany, Peter Island, and Victoria BC, to remind me that the world is bigger than just what I can see right now. I have a picture of an old car driving down a road lined with cherry trees, to remind me to enjoy the journey. I have 70 personal affirmations, six inspirational quotes, and six pictures of the most gorgeous shoes I've seen yet...all to help me keep developing myself.

When I'm feeling discouraged, or sad, or put-down, when something hasn't gone the way I anticipated or wanted, I look at this wall. I remind myself of my son and all of his siblings, of the wonderful places we'll be able to go, of why this is all so worth it. I stand in front of this wall and read off the 70 affirmations until I believe in myself again. I often glance over at the inspirational quotes to give me a mini-lift when I need one. And the shoes? They're to remind myself to take everything one single, beautiful, careful step at a time.

Truthfully, I'm sure this wall drives my husband crazy too. He doesn't learn the same way I do and so the wall probably just looks like a bunch of printer paper and thumbtacks to him. But he knows that it helps me, and so out of love he lets me do as I please. He's pretty awesome.

The table makes me smile today, because Jared was sitting right there this afternoon when he told me that I'd gotten the pancakes right. It's a small thing, sortof. For me it's a really big deal. I've been struggling with learning (and re learning) how to cook even the simplest things. His affirmation meant a lot to me. And he was right! They were excellent pancakes!

Him taking the time to say it is also very important to me. It wasn't always this way. Not because he was a bad person or a bad husband, we just weren't there yet. There was a period of time when we barely even liked each other, much less complemented each other! Having gone through that, hearing even a small praise like "good job on the pancakes" means a lot more.

Also at that table, there's our jackets hung side by side on chairs. We spent the whole day together again. Almost two years ago we started our own company. It's only by God's grace that both the company and the marriage survived, because we started up smack in the middle of that not liking each other time. Spending a day together used to be something I wished we could enjoy. Now, just barely two years later, it is. Every day is a giant bonding experience, and I love it!

Some people have said that will go away but I don't think it will. We get so much time to talk, to really get to know each other more and really be there for each other. Sometimes we talk about stupid things, just sharing our opinion on the colors of the cars around us or the transition from chorus to bridge in a song we just heard. Sometimes we talk about serious things, like our pasts and our future. Whatever we talk about, we grow closer every day. I wouldn't trade our time together for anything, and I'm so glad that God opened a door for us to be together so much.

In the corner there's the rocking chair. I only keep it because my mother in law likes it so much and I love to make her happy. When she's not here, the chair is just a storage space for purses and unused blankets. But when she's here, we pull it away from the wall so she can sit and rock. Maybe it's so many years of being a great mom to her own kids and then the kids she "adopted," but she really loves that chair. I'm looking forward to seeing her there, rocking and holding my babies, maybe singing or telling them a story. She's going to make a wonderful grandma.

The office chair is so far away from the desk because Jared and I wanted to watch one of our favorite shows with dinner. I was sitting there, until he said I was too far away and asked me to sit on the couch with him. It's another evidence of how far we've come, and it lit up my evening.

If you look closely you can also see my weights stashed under the end table. I've been working really hard on staying consistent with my workout habit. I'm having some medication conflicts right now that are making progress difficult, but I'm determined to build the habit anyway. Once I started thinking seriously about my future, and especially about my kids, exercising got really important to me. I never want my kids to be bored or lonely because I'm too fat to chase them around the playground, and I never want them to have to worry over the health problems that are caused by being overweight. I want to be my best for them, and set a good example for them, and that means building the habit now. I keep my weights there so I have to see them every day, because if I skip a workout then seeing those weights just sitting there under the table will drive me crazy enough to pick them up.

All of that, and it's just a snapshot. Just what I see when I glance up from my book. One glance carries so much blessing, so much abundance, so much change, growth, and happiness. So much, in just that one moment. I never want to forget just how thankful and blessed I feel right now.

Advice from my personal experience: Give.

When you're struggling in an area, it gets particularly difficult to give. Your survival instincts kick in and start to say things like "That money is needed for our family budget, I can't tithe." or "There's barely enough food for us, I can't invite someone to dinner or donate to the food drive."

This is an especially easy thought trap for women to fall into, because we are naturally wired to be protectors of what we already have. Men are wired to expand, women are wired to preserve and manage. But that doesn't mean that you're immune if you're male.

The reality of the matter is that lack of any kind creates in us faulty humans a greediness that is hard to defeat. We sit like Scrooge McDuck and count our pennies, all the while wondering why we have no friends, why no one is offering to help. We aren't willing to look around and see how our pennies can be used to help someone else because we're so busy keeping them to ourselves. After all, we barely have enough. Let the rich do the charity donating.

The only cure to lack is generosity. If you want to start doing better in life, you have to give. Not because there's some cosmic law of the universe that says if you give you'll receive (which there is, but it comes with a caveat: your attitude has to be in the right place), but because giving what little you have to someone else is an act of faith. When you put that extra dollar or ten dollars or hundred dollars into the offering plate at church, or when you invite someone you know is also struggling to come share your family dinner, you're stepping into God's jurisdiction and saying "I'm going to trust that you'll take care of me."

Remember, it's about the heart attitude. Giving is so important because of the heart attitude it creates. You can't give with a heart attitude of "God, I'm putting this ten bucks in the plate and now it's your job to bring me more money." God doesn't honor a selfish heart that gives only to bribe a response.

Two years ago, my husband and I had hit a really rough spot. We were relying on the good graces of a friend for shelter and some nights we couldn't even afford the 15 cent packet of ramen noodles for dinner. Both of us are fairly unemployable, having between us just one GED in a world where Starbucks can choose from doctorates, and so we were trying to start a business that could support us financially. We put every spare penny into getting gas for the car. We were getting barely a quarter of his previous pay from unemployment and that amount put us in an income bracket that disqualified us for government assistance with food and other bills. It was an incredibly difficult position to be in, especially after the year we'd had.

In this time, my husband made an amazing decision. Before he'd lost his job he'd promised a certain amount - roughly a tenth of our income - to a charity on a monthly basis. I found out that first month that losing his job hadn't changed that decision. Before he paid any other bills, before we went grocery shopping, he wrote a check to that charity. In his mind it wasn't even a question. He'd made a promise, and he knew that God could handle taking care of us whether he kept his promise or not. His integrity demanded that he follow through and his faith promised it would work out.

I was furious. I'm not proud to admit that, but I was. I was in full on McDuck mode, thinking only about how that money could have benefited us. When my husband later continued to give what small amounts we could to those in need around us, I got angrier. It created a crossroads in my life where I had to decide whether I was going to trust God and submit to my husband, or become a nuisance and try to control things.

Fortunately, I'd already been under mentorship for a while and I'd learned to think more in terms of who I wanted to become. I wanted to be someone who trusted my husband, who trusted God, and who walked in faith. So I made the decision to do so. When the nagging thoughts in the back of my head wouldn't go away I approached my husband with humility and explained my concerns. I talked to him about how I was worried that with us doing so much giving to others, there wouldn't be enough for us. That's when he explained his faith and that he already knew God was going to get us out of this, so it was easy for him to be generous with others. He explained that God had given us an opportunity to see what he could do, and so our job was just to trust him and to put our time and what money we did have to work in faith. We did a lot of volunteer work in that time, and we never missed one of those payments we'd promised to make.

I couldn't understand it at the time, but I stuck with my decision to trust God like he did. I prayed that God would prove my husband's faith and strengthen mine. It was an agonizing few days, waiting for a miracle. Finally, something did happen - and I almost didn't see it. We paid all of our bills for that month, even paying rent to our friend who was helping us. To this day I don't know where the money came from. After that, people started inviting us over for dinner, just to hang out. With no idea of our struggle (we kept a good front because we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves), people started being used by God to feed us. For the first few months, before business picked up for us, God fed us at the tables of people we had only just met and he somehow kept our bills paid. Then business slowly started to escalate.

Today, we are abundantly blessed. Our income has tripled from what it was while my husband was working at his job, and we've been put in a position to be able to bless others. I don't say this to boast! I want you to know that God is capable of taking care of us in ways we would have never imagined. But it all starts with faith. It all starts with that one step into what we don't know, trusting that God is going to make it work. And when you have very little in life, that process starts in your heart because of your decision to have faith -which is backed up by actions like giving.

Give to prove your faith, and to increase it. This will create in you a generous spirit, and only the generous spirit can receive all that God has for us.

Halloween

Someone asked me recently how, and why, I can bring myself to participate in Halloween festivities when my mother is so adamantly against it. This person seemed very upset that I would turn from my mother's teachings so easily and I could sense that they really wanted an answer more involved than "I just do."

I didn't have a good answer at the time, but I've thought about it, and now I do.

When I left home, I stepped blindly into a world I knew nothing about. I was instantly confronted with so many views about so many things that were opposite to what I'd been taught, and I wasn't sure what the truth really was. I began, as I imagine any young person on their own for the first time does, to try things out for myself. I couldn't make heads or tails of what everyone was telling me, of what I'd been told my whole life, so I had to have some experiences of my own. I needed to form my own judgments about things, weigh each decision in my own heart and against my own understanding of what God wants from and for me. I came to a lot of conclusions that were different from my mother's, and I think that's alright. That is, after all, the point of growing up.

You see, the reality is that my mother and I have very different experiences in life - particularly in this issue. For my mom, Halloween is a throwback to a religious past she doesn't want to repeat. She's seen a lot of awful things happen in correlation to Halloween, and between that and her current convictions she's decided that it's simply not something she's going to participate in. That's okay. It's her choice and there's nothing wrong with it.

For me, the experience is entirely different. When I decided to try out Halloween shortly after leaving home, I didn't walk in blind. I knew what I'd been told, what I'd been taught my whole life about this pagan holy day. Quite honestly, I was terrified. I'd been raised with the Christian equivalent of ghost stories, fears passed down from perfectly well meaning parents and church leaders about sacrifices, possessions, curses, spells, and demonic strongholds. From a very young age these stories had been the majority of conversation throughout October and into November, and these stories had created in me a spirit of fear. I half believed I would become demon possessed just by walking out of my house that day! Every drunk person became, in my mind, a witch putting a curse on my family line. Every shadow was a demon waiting to devour me and place me irrevocably on the path to hell. Every kid in a costume was a satanist with plans to sacrifice cats and virgins.

For me, that was the breaking point.

I can't reach people if I'm scared. How can I possibly tell people about the all-powerful God that I serve and how he makes it so much easier to get through the challenges of life because of his strength and protection when I really believed that some demonic minion could take over the soul I was claiming God protected? I had to decide in that moment and for myself whether I was going to have faith in God's strength or in the strength of the dark forces around me.

I chose God. It was an easy choice, really. Something in my soul just knows that God is stronger, greater, and more powerful than any enemy I could have. I decided, that day, to be done with my fear.

Do these things still happen? Yes, absolutely. It's unfortunate, but some people really do call on demonic powers in rituals that to me seem strange and a bit frightening. Halloween isn't special here. Darkness and evil will get their feet in whenever and wherever possible. There are still very real demonic strongholds in life that people need serious spiritual warfare to break. The difference is just that now I'm not afraid of those things, and I'm certainly not going to let them ruin my chance to have a little fun.

So now I celebrate a lighthearted Halloween, a day to stay out after dark dressed in  some (probably ridiculous) costume, munching on tootsie rolls and smiling at the little princesses and superheroes in my neighborhood. I've decided to use it as a day to have fun, to get out among my neighbors and mingle, and to admire the creativity all around me. It's one day (plus maybe one more of preparation) to just take a chance to be silly. I like being silly.

I celebrate on Halloween, despite my mother's beliefs, because I'm just different than she is. We each choose to accept or avoid things based on our personal experiences and how those things affect us. My mom doesn't celebrate Halloween for her reasons, and I enjoy it as a day of ridiculous fun and a chance to take a break. I don't see it, as the person asking the question seemed to, as an assault on my mom or what she believes in. In fact, I've done exactly what she's taught me to do. I took an objective look at all of the facts available, took my faith into account, took stock of my personal convictions, and made a decision.

Now, if only deciding what costume to buy was that easy! ;-)

Intolerable Grace

My breakthrough came because of my son, who is still only a promise for the future.

Since he is the only child we have a name picked out for, he is the one I think about the most. I think about the kind of mom I want to be, the kinds of things I want to teach him, and what I need to learn or change before he gets here so I can be the best mom to him that I am capable of being.

I was sitting at my desk one morning, half asleep, thinking about these things. It's funny, but sometimes I think God waits to talk to me until that still of the morning time, when I'm awake because I'm developing habits but my brain hasn't caught up with the game plan yet. I think he waits because he knows I'm more likely to really hear him without my own brain in the way. When I get a question out of nowhere in this time, I take it to mean that God is trying to tell me something. He likes to ask me questions, and make me realize things for myself.

So here I was, staring at the beauty of a world just beginning to wake up, thinking about my son, when a question came to me:

How will you teach him to be strong in himself, to be strong in God, to have a knowledge of who he is and where he comes from that is rooted in God's purpose for him, if you refuse to do the same? 

God had a point. Kids do what they see you doing, believe what they see you believing, regardless of what you're saying to them. So how could I expect to teach my son confidence when I hated myself? How could I teach him about forgiveness when I wouldn't even forgive myself? How could I tell him about a loving God who accepts everyone and has such an amazing purpose for us if we will only listen - if I wouldn't allow God anywhere near my heart?

You see, for as long as I can remember I've struggled with not feeling good enough. In my mind and my heart, everything that went badly in my life was my fault because it wouldn't have happened if I was good enough. My parents wouldn't struggle financially if I was good enough, my mom wouldn't have heart problems if I was good enough, my best friend wouldn't have shot himself if I was good enough, I wouldn't have been another domestic violence and sex trafficking statistic if I had been good enough. Throughout my life, everything that ever happened, I took the blame for. If only I was good enough, these things wouldn't have been a problem. When I started lashing out and hurting other people because of my own pain, it was just more evidence that I wasn't good enough - after all, people who are good enough don't hurt this way, and they don't hurt the people around them.

I was living a delusion built on pride and I didn't even know it.

Trapped by feelings of inferiority, burdened by my pain and unforgiveness, I was on the outside when it came to anything about God. I'd been raised Christian, so I knew beyond doubt that God accepted me. And I resented him for it. How could he accept me? Hurt, broken, screwup me?

I didn't want to bring all of that pain to someone who would actually accept me. I didn't want someone to see everything that was wrong with me and still accept and love me. It wasn't how my mind thought the world should work. It wasn't comfortable to be forgiven without paying a penance that is even with the sin. It wasn't comfortable to be loved even though I knew - and so did he - that I was a complete mess.

I simply couldn't tolerate the idea of grace. Not for me. I didn't feel that I deserved to be accepted. It was uncomfortable to belong. I felt more comfortable - safer - on the outside where I could blame any failure on myself and where only I controlled the outcome of everything. It wasn't a happy life, but it was what I used to, and it was all that I thought I deserved. And so I stood on the outside, constantly pushing God away, refusing to be accepted. I built a wall between myself and God, I wasn't perfect enough to be loved and he was just going to have to accept that!

See the pride? That same thinking almost ruined my relationship with my husband too.

How could I teach my son that I would always love and accept him no matter what, if I wasn't even willing to let God do the same for me?

That was the moment, the breakthrough. I couldn't let myself hurt my son the way I was hurting myself.

I spent the next few days wrestling with myself. Everything in me bucked against the idea that I should let God love me. I was too broken, too messed up. Everything in me hated the idea that I didn't have to pay for the things I'd messed up, that God wasn't even going to hold it against me. I wasn't on probation with God. My record with him wasn't full of black marks for bad behavior. I wrestled with that. It was so hard to fathom that I could have a love and acceptance that I didn't deserve, that it wouldn't be conditional to my paying the price for my sins. Everything was just new and forgiven. I was just accepted.

I had to decide to accept it. And then I had to walk in that decision. I have to remind myself that I'm not holding on to this stuff anymore, not keeping people at a distance anymore. Sometimes, I have to mentally sit myself down and have a talk about it. "Don't you remember? This is what we decided. God isn't holding this against me and neither are you."

It was the breakthrough I've needed the most for many years.

Without that breakthrough, nothing would have changed. I would have kept fighting my husband's love and acceptance as hard as I was fighting God. I would have kept hating myself. I would have kept pushing everything and everyone good out of my life.

Instead, I'm happy.

Happy is a strange feeling for me, it's still very new. I'm still not perfect, and the wounds of the past are still healing, but I'm happy. I'm losing weight because I finally love myself enough to do something about the things that make me hate myself - and because my son deserves a mom who can play with him. I fight with my husband much less because I can accept that he loves me, and so he doesn't feel constantly rejected. I'm making friends because my confidence is through the roof. And finally, for once in my life, I'm not so terrified of my dreams coming true.

On the Bench

The term "Bench Player" has a lot of connotations. John Maxwell talks about it as a good thing. If you're on the bench then you're the supporting team. You're the one they'll call on when something needs to change or when the score needs to be made without the star player on the field. He advises coaches in all areas of life to have a strong "bench" - a large group of backup players who can be counted on to help them toward their goals.


Most of us understand the bench to be a bad thing. We know that if you're sitting on the bench for the whole game, that means you didn't play. You didn't get to actively participate in the victory. Sure, everyone on the team won - and when we're talking about teams that's what matters.

But nobody looks at the stats card of a lifetime bencher and says "Jerry, this guy is amazing, truly amazing! He's spent his entire life sitting on that bench!"

We know this, and so when we're on the team it takes a lot of patience and self control not to try to force our way off the bench and into the game. I've seen high school players get violent over it. "Let me play, coach! Just let me play!" They'll scream about it. They'll work harder in practice for it. They'll get into brawls with each other over it. Something inside them instinctively screams "I have a stake here, let me do something about it!"

Yet, in the game of life, so many of us are content to just sit on the bench. In fact, many of us aren't even geared up. We aren't ready to be called off the bench! We're making ourselves permanent backseat players in our own lives.

Remember when you were a kid and you had an idea of what being a grownup was going to be like? Remember the kind of house you thought you'd live in, the kind of person you thought you'd marry, the kind of life you thought you'd live?

Let me ask you a personal question:

Today, do you live in that house? Did you marry that person? Do you live that life?

I'm betting the answer to at least one of those is no.

For most of the population, the answer isn't just no. The reality is so far from where we thought we'd be that we have to follow the no with excuses. "No, but y'know, times are tough." "No, but I didn't understand the world back then."

If you have to say no, and if you have to follow that no with an excuse, you're a bench player in your own life. You put on the jersey of someone else's team and spend your day taking a beating in their game, then you come home and sit on the couch and watch TV. Sometimes you spend the weekend with a different team jersey on, but it's still not yours.

You're not looking at the score in your own game, you don't know who your teammates are, you probably don't even know what your gear looks like anymore.

As a result, you're losing your game.

What does that look like for you? Do you live in a worse neighborhood than your family deserves? Maybe your house is smaller than you always thought it would be. Maybe you're ignoring the fact that the food you eat isn't good for you, might even be killing you, but you eat it because it's what you can afford. If you're like most Americans, the vacations you take - if you take vacation at all - are disappointing, more of an exercise in playing pretend than a vacation.

Whatever it looks like, I'm betting that all in all your life has gone in a different direction from where you thought you'd be.

And I'm betting you don't know what to do about it. Most of us don't. We look around at 20 or 30 or 40 and say "How did I get here?"

The answer, my friend, is that you've been benching in your own life. You're supposed to be the star player, but you've been sitting down, sitting out.

But there's good news!

This is still your game, it's still your life, and your destiny is still to get out there and be the star player. It won't be easy. You've got to train, to rebuild the muscles you've allowed to atrophy. But you can do it. You can get off the bench and start making a difference in your own life. Start taking hold of your own victory.

If we were talking about sports, you probably wouldn't be content to spend season after season on the team but never getting to play the game. So don't be content to do so in your life.

It's your life. You have every right to win! You just have to go out there and earn it.

Fear

Most fears are silly.

Founded or unfounded, our fears are rooted in a desire not to feel pain. These desires tend to create patterns in our mind - fear patterns - that hold us back.

When confronted by our fears, it's important to let our reality mind - and our faith in God - take hold. I can be afraid of all people I don't already know and refuse to go anywhere without my husband because a girl my age in my area was killed by a stranger, or I can realize that statistically it's improbable that I will run into the same situation, and choose to have faith that God has a greater purpose for my life.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm still careful when I'm out alone. I don't go whistling into dark alleyways just because God has a greater purpose for me.


Really, most fears aren't any more of a problem by themselves than spiders are. It's our brains and our choices of what to do with those fears that makes them road blocks.

Right now I have a lot of spiders around my house. They've crawled up from the forest behind my yard and made homes for themselves on the windows and railings around the outside. Some of them have even made massive webs stretching from the side of the house to our cars! And, as is always the case, some of them have found their way into the house as well.

I hate spiders. They freak me out. I think they're gross and I'm afraid of one biting me because I've heard of some awful situations where people have died from spider bites.

Do I know this is an unreasonable fear? Yes. I'm much bigger than the spider, and the chances of it actually being able to get through my flesh far enough to get poison into my blood stream is very, very low. Even then, I know that most spiders don't have venom strong enough to actually kill an adult human anyway. There may be a little bit of sickness or inflammation, but overall the chances of me dying from a spider bite are incredibly small. So it's silly for me to be afraid of spiders.

And yet, something in my nature just causes my whole body to cringe when I see one near me, and I tend to stay as far away from them as possible. They can live in the window frames on the outside, and I'm ok with that, but I don't want them in the house or near where I'm going to be walking.

Recently, a particularly ambitious pair of spiders has taken residence in the corner of the frame on the sliding glass door I use to get in and out of the house. For a few days I just ducked my head slightly to avoid the web and didn't bother with the spider. It was keeping the moths out, after all. But this morning I opened the door and the webs they had made were impossible not to walk through. It's almost like they were trying to catch me! Did I shut the door and stay in the house? No! That would be silly! I got the broom and removed the webs, and then went about my business, as anyone else would do.

So why don't we do the same with other fears?

That's not to say that there aren't reasonable fears and things we all ought to be careful about. But there is a balance to be found between exercising due caution and letting our fears control us. Picking up hitchhikers isn't safe anymore, and especially should be avoided if you're a woman driving alone. But you would probably think it silly if one of your friends told you that they would not get into a car anymore because they might be in a car accident sometime.

Some things are risky, and have potential of pain, but the payoff is worth whatever the potential failure is. For example, it was risky and frightening when my husband and I took our lives into our own hands and started a business. We had no money, and there was huge potential for massive struggle and even failure. There was a potential that things wouldn't take off, and by the time we realized the venture was lost we would have even less than we started with. But there was also potential that we could make it work, and we could support ourselves on our own business and even live comfortably. So we took the chance, and today we're glad we did.

Today I'd like to encourage you to face your fear. Look it in the eyes and say "I'm going to do it anyway. You can't stop me."

And remember, fear isn't from God. God gave you a spirit full of love and power, and a mind that is meant to be a tool of strength for you. Use that tool, be strong and courageous, and go take your victory!

"Ohana" means "Family"

My husband and I talk a lot about the future, especially where it involves our future children. We know that we both come from different families and were raised very differently in many ways. We also come from separate parts of the generation - far enough apart and different enough that some sociologists are even separating my part of the generation from his when they talk about how we will be affecting the world in the next 30 years. Despite all of our similarities, we're very different, and so we know that it's important for us to talk and come to common ground on things - before they come up.

We also both come from broken families. Our parents did their best, but because our families were broken there are a lot of things about our childhood, our lives in general, that we want to engineer differently for our own children. And so we talk.

In fact, our children are probably the topic of at least 70% of our conversation. We talk about how we'll raise them, about what we want them to believe about the world and themselves and God and how we're going to teach them these things. We talk about the mindsets we want to teach them, the ways we want them to learn to handle the challenges of life, and how we'll foster a sense of trust in us without promoting weak character.

We ask ourselves a lot of questions. How do we pass on our belief that they are filled with amazing potential but avoid creating a sense that their potential entitles them to things they haven't earned? How do we balance teaching them to march to the beat of a different drum, to not just go with the crowd, but still foster a sense of respect and trust for authority and for those who have walked the path ahead of them? What do we do to teach them an entrepreneurial mindset that will help them create for themselves the best opportunities?

Will they be sports kids? Music kids?

One of the topics that comes up a lot in relation to our children is family. We've done a lot of talking around the questions of what it really means - to us - to be a family, and how we'll teach that to our kids.

The interesting thing, is that we both agree 100% with no compromise or changed perspectives, on what kind of family we want to be. Perhaps even more interesting is that it's not the kind of family either of us grew up in.

I watched Lilo and Stitch the other day - you know, that Disney movie about the alien. It's a story of family, threaded with examples of how - no matter how difficult it may be sometimes - family stands up for each other. In this movie you see over and over how the little family, broken as they are, finds a way to overcome things together.

Togetherness is a big part of family.

To us, family is more than just the people you share your home with. It's more than the people you shared your childhood with, or who is related to you by bloodlines. To us family is a team, sometimes a war machine, sometimes the most enthusiastic cheering section in existence. They're the people you can trust to be on your side and at your back no matter what.

Family is who you turn to with your victories, knowing they will always celebrate you. They are also who you turn to with your challenges and even your defeats, knowing they will help and uplift you. Family sticks together, stands up for each other, supports each other, and shares the load. We help each other be stronger and better. We protect each other. We're a personal army, always ready to stand and defend each other.

We know that sometimes this will mean we'll be in the Principal's office with one of our children, who started whaling on the kid who upset their sibling. After all, teaching a little one that they're part of a unit who defends and protects each other means that sometimes they will go a little overboard. But that's the kind of family we want to build.

Family believes in you, and your dreams, even if they don't agree with you. For example, my husband hates sports and I'm no good at them. But we know that if we have a child who somehow falls in love with Basketball, we'll be in the driveway or at the gym with that child every day helping them to practice. We'll hire someone who can teach what we can't, which will be just about everything. We'll do everything in our power to help that kid be the best they can be in their area of passion - even if we inwardly think it's pretty stupid. And if the best way we can help that kid achieve his or her goals is to make sure they always have a drill partner, then the family will take turns doing drills together. Because that's what family does.

As in everything, there's a balance in family. Family always supports you, and they're always the ones you can rely on to go to the craziest lengths for you. But the flip side of that, is that family will never ask you to sacrifice your dreams and potential for them. Family are the ones you can count on to cross the world to help you out or support you, but the other side of that is that as family you never demand of each other something that conflicts with their life goals or puts their smaller family unit in danger. You ask for the support, because you know your most trustworthy and reliable teammates are going to come from your family. But you don't make them feel badly if they aren't able to do what you're asking.

However, even if they can't help in the way you ask for, family always finds a way to help.

Together we're stronger. That's family.

In hard times or when something needs to get done, family is the team you rely on. They pull together and pull through. Each person's talents are unique and important. We are all better because of each member of our family. We all do better, go farther, and achieve more when family is on our side.

In the good times  family is the group you celebrate with, train with, study with. They're your running mates, your biggest supporters, the first ones to tell you when you've done a good job.

Family is where you want to be because you know that you belong there, because they've made room for you, because you're a part of their team and they're a part of yours.

Family backs you, takes risks for you, stretches farther for you, and you do the same for them.

Family will throw you the biggest victory parties, and will always be proud that you're a member of the family.

Family is your mastermind group, your inner circle, your training team. And you are theirs. Members of a family know they can count on each other, can trust each other. You're always safe in your family, always wanted and accepted, always loved. There's not a question. It just is.

Every member of the family is vitally important to the success of the family and of it's individual members. It's simple when you think about it. It's family.

The secret our society could afford to learn

I'm going to tell you a story. It's my story, and it is a perfect demonstration of why the feminist agenda with its bumper-sticker philosophies boils my blood. My opinion is not popular opinion, so you may not agree with me.

I think that we, as a culture, need to stop idolizing women and demonizing men. I think that we need to bring back the culture from the 40s and 50s, where men were allowed to be the heads of their homes, where women actually respected the men in their lives and the rewards for that respect were security, love, and
success.

I love my life. Today I'm a happy housewife and carpool-companion. My husband is a great man, who works hard through the good times and even harder in the bad ones. He's built a company literally out of nothing - when we started our computer company he didn't even own a screwdriver! Just a year and a half after that we're more profitable than we imagined we would be and we know that blessing is going to increase. My husband is also helping me to build a second company, through our Amway business, into an asset that will take care of us and our family through retirement. He's a strong man, a wise man who has been my counselor and my strength many times. He's a man who never gives up, never even thinks about it.

I respect my husband immensely, and my respect for him is a big part of the reason that we are where we are today.

Now, that may sound prideful, but I'm not boasting. I know for a fact that if I didn't respect him, he wouldn't be able to be so amazing. We wouldn't have a successful and profitable company, we wouldn't be building an asset that will take care of us in the future, and life would not be as happy as it is today. I know this because there was a time when I didn't respect him.

You see, I was raised in The United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave, and the country where girls are taught from a very young age that men are worthless.

Don't believe me? Take a look at your 5 year old's television shows. In vast majority, the male characters are fools. If they do manage to accomplish anything it's by accident or with the help of a stronger, smarter female character. Take a look at facebook, where there are floods of bumper-sticker philosophies about how amazing and wonderful women are and how lucky men are to have us around, but there is a striking absence of these same posts about how incredible the men in our lives truly are.

I grew up thinking that men, by and large, were stupid. They were brutes with physical strength amd steel stomachs, good enough to accomplish the things that I as a girl did not want to do, but that was their only redeeming trait. Otherwise, they might as well be cavemen or primordial ooze. They caused trouble, interfered with the goals that I as a strong and independent woman should have, and were mostly just in the way.

Then I became a teenager. I started reading romance novels and murder mystery novels and there was a theme. Women were the heroes. They were smart, sexy, cunning, and irresistible. They could get anyone to do anything they wanted. But because they were such conquerors, their lives were boring. Enter the "hero" of the story: A dashing, muscular brute who drags trouble into our heroine's life that she then has to use her own balls of steel to overcome - in the end, rescuing him but falling madly in love with him anyway.

Despite being raised this way (by no real fault of my mother, who tried to teach me that everyone is equal to everyone else), the feminist agenda didn't sit well with me. What if I wanted to stay at home and bake cookies for the rest of my life instead of being the Head B In Charge at some corporate office? What if I wanted to be loved and protected, instead of just feared and respected? I was confused because something in my natural wiring didn't agree with the messages I was being fed. I was taught that women were better than men, but men had been keeping us down for centuries and it was time to prove that we were smarter, faster, stronger, and more capable in general. But in my heart, I wanted a Prince Charming to vanquish the dragons while I stayed a safe distance away shouting "good job, honey!"

This confusion led me into a very bad relationship. In my search for a man who was the opposite of what I'd been taught men were, I found one of the brutes we are so often warned against. He talked of taking care of me the way I'd always craved. The only trade off was that I would be absolutely subject to him. Naive, confused, and searching for something other than the only thing I was ever taught I could have, I agreed. I spent the next year in a very abusive relationship, as a domestic slave to a man who took great pleasure from beating me until I passed out, in the name of an off-beat set of sexual desires. The year-long relationship did more damage to me mentally and emotionally than all of the trials, hardships, and even traumas of the other 21 years of my life combined. Four years later, memories of that relationship still bring me nightmares, tears, and waves of deep depression that take all of my strength to push through.

At some other point, I will tell this part of my story, and why it breaks my heart that so many reach out to Bulgaria, Romania, and other countries to stop human trafficking there, but never think about offering to help the teenager in the apartment next door. We as a country are so consumed with sending our good deeds overseas that we completely forget to look to our own shores where there are frightened and broken people being subject to the exact same levels of mistreatment.
After this relationship, I saw myself as having one option. I had to grow into the balls of steel woman I had been taught to emulate - the one I didn't want to be. I prayed that day, for the first time in three years. I prayed desperately and told God that if he had any heart at all, he would find some sort of brutal, painful death for me. I figured the pain would make up for the mistakes I'd made in the past year, and I desperately wanted to die. I didn't want to live in a world where I would never be truly loved and protected, and I would have to spend the rest of my life as the hardened corporate woman. And I saw my experiences with that man as proof that there were no good men in the world. They were all either weak or abusive.

When I started dating my husband, I found myself with a man who wasn't abusive. In my mind that meant he was weak. I had no respect for him. I was constantly belittling him, second guessing him, and counter-acting him. I would roll my eyes at his jokes and his silly antics, snap at him for trying to help me with anything, and I expected him to be at my beck and call. He lived in a very small cage, which I had constructed around him with my criticisms. His self image, already low from a decade and a half of working in a job where he received the same treatment, spiraled downward. He began to have terrible health problems, and I started to resent him for them because he was being a burden on me. We were fighting all the time. Not little fights either. No, these were screaming matches, in each other's faces, screaming our voices raw. They always ended with him leaving the house just to escape me, and me so frustrated and angry that I was pounding my fists into the floor until my hands were so bruised I could barely move them. There was so much anger, resentment, and frustration on both sides.

But it didn't stop there. I didn't think I should have to respect him, because the only examples I had in my life of men who were "respected" were men like my abusive ex. In my mind, respect was a filthy word, used to guilt women into being doormats. It meant that I was expected to sit down, shut up, take whatever abuse was dealt me and make do with whatever lack came from that abuse.

Our relationship got worse and worse, and our living situation spiraled with it. The health problems progressed, turning into a year of him being on narcotics that completely took his mind away - which I also resented him for. Our financial situation decreased, ending in us losing our home to foreclosure and being sued by hospitals and a credit card company. Eventually, the company he was working for was sold and he was not strong enough to make a case for himself to be hired at the new company without a significant pay cut, so he lost his job.

Are all of these things entirely my fault? No. But they could have been made so much better if I knew what respect was, and if I had respected my husband.

A year and a half ago, I found myself faced with a very difficult choice. Desperate for something to change in the insane cycle of fighting, I had spent the year before that devouring marriage and relationship books and begging my new mentors for every and any insight they had. It all came down to one word: Respect.

Men inherently need respect. Just like women are wired for love and security, men need respect and trust. I had learned that respect didn't mean what I thought it meant. It wasn't giving someone else permission to treat you like nothing. Instead, it was acknowledging the other person's strength and - in the case of my husband and myself - allowing him to take the lead. It was trusting that he was capable, believing he was strong enough and smart enough, and keeping myself from criticising when I thought he wasn't doing something right, or rubbing his nose in whatever failures he might have.

A year and a half ago, I came home from a women's bible study, and the air was tense. My husband looked at me and told me that he was going to push for a higher salary with the new company, and that might mean he would lose his job. We were already struggling financially. We had lost our home, been forced to give away our dog, and were living on a credit card and the grace of what few friends we had. Just that morning I had made a commitment to God that I was going to start trusting my husband, since trust is the gateway to respect. So when he told me this, I went into the bathroom and had a serious conversation with God.

I had a choice. I could go back on my promise and start second guessing my husband. It would be easy enough. We were barely making it with what money we had and if he lost his job we would likely join the ranks of those who draw on welfare just to survive. I could go back into the living room, tell him how I thought this was a bad decision and I wasn't going to support him in it. I could spend the next few days belittling his ability and convincing him that he didn't deserve a raise.

Or, I could trust him. Something in my spirit knew that trusting him, in that moment, was the only way that anything was ever going to change. And so I trusted him, and he lost his job, and we started a company. We spent the first six months so broke that we occasionally had to show up at customers' offices and ask them to pay us earlier than they had planned to, just so we could buy groceries or put gas in the car. I spent that next year really struggling with having respect toward my husband. Each time I would fall back on my old habits, profitability would be lost. We would go backwards financially, business would come to a screeching halt, and I would have an argument with God.

Today, I've learned to trust my husband wholeheartedly. I know that, whatever comes our way, he's smart enough and strong enough to get us through it. He trusts and follows God, and God has blessed him with an amazing intuition. It's my respect for him, my awe of his abilities and appreciation for his work ethic, that allows me to keep smiling and stay at peace when he makes a risky decision. I know that he's probably being guided by that intuition of his. And on the rare occasion that he's wrong, he's pretty awesome at fixing it.

I'm immeasurably blessed in my life, because of the respect I have for my husband. He's stronger because that core need of his is being met, and that leads him to work harder and stretch farther and sometimes take bigger risks. All of this turns around to bless me even more, with a happy husband who showers me with attention, with the funds to relax and have fun, with two businesses that are thriving and keeping me busy and entertained. All because I made the decision to have respect for my husband and stop treating him like he was less than me.

There's a principle of the universe that John Maxwell teaches about. As he says it, "When you're winning, nothing hurts." He points out that in sports, a team that's winning will frequently end the game and then discover that some of their players were playing with bones that had been broken during the game. They kept playing, hadn't even really felt the pain, because they were winning. And the fact that they kept at it just as hard is why they ended the game having won.

In life, it's the same way. When you're winning, a setback doesn't hurt as much. What we as women need to realize is that we can give our husbands that sense of winning. If we respect them, and treat them with the honor and trust they as men need, they'll always feel like they're winning. Then, they'll go out into the world and win even more - and we will reap the benefits of those victories!

In fact, many of the common problems in marriages can be alleviated almost entirely by a wife's respect. Men who are respected at home work harder, take bigger risks that pay off better, and take the incentive more frequently. Studies have also shown that one of the biggest reasons men have for cheating is that they don't feel respected at home, and the woman they cheated with gave them that feeling they were craving. That sense of being a champion is so very important to our men. With that, they can do anything. Without it they are unlikely to do anything good.

If we, as a society, can change our view just a little bit, a lot of our problems would go away. If we would stop treating men like they're worthless just because they're male and women like they're goddesses just because they're female, our world would be a whole lot better. Sure, there'd still be the guys who are just bums, or the guys who just can't keep their hands to themselves. But the other guys, the guys who are honestly good men, would be more likely to stay faithful to their relationships, and to do the things that would bring them lasting success in whatever venue they're in. So let's put down our one-liners like "real men don't cheat" or "If you can't treat me like a princess you're not worth my time." Let's realize that we're all human here, and we all have needs that will drive us to strange and desperate things if they're not met.

And ladies, let's start doing our part. We are amazing, and powerful. We are the secret to whether our husbands fail or succeed because we are the ones they care about the most. We are the most capable of crippling them, or of making them feel like Superman. And let me tell you from personal experience: Life is a lot better when your husband feels like Superman!