Couple: Pray for your Partner

Recently, I had this thought on my heart. How much time do I really allocate to pray for my wife? In my last post, I talked about how to take a deeper look inside of ourselves and find what is it that we need to change in us in order to become the person that pleases God and your partner.

Here, I have to confess that I failed to continue on with my prayers to my partner. Yes, we pray together every night, but the question here, how much you spend on your own putting your partner in front of God asking Him to bless, heal and give wisdom to your partner.

Remember, The prayer purpose isn't asking God to change your partner. It isn't for the purpose of complaining about your partner and every thing that he or she does wrong. Instead it is the time that you lift your partner to God's hand and ask Him to work on him or her without any bitterness and emotions of complaining.

For example, If it is your wife, pray that God uses her up to her capability to be the wife, and the mother that pleases God. If it is your husband, pray that God uses him to lead the family to the right path that God allows to you.
Here is a few things that we all need to remember as we pray for our families and partners.

• Know for fact that God loves them as it is and that you aren't praying for them to show you are better than them.
• Praying with faith, know that God is Good and capable.
• Pray with patience and persistence, make it also a priority.
• Pray with a humble, repentant heart, acknowledge your own faults as you pray.

The greatest encouragement I can offer you about praying for your family is to ask God to search your heart and show you anything that needs removing from your life. The release of God’s Spirit upon their lives begins in your heart and soul. Find a time and place to meet with God. Get to know Him as “our Father.” See how mighty He is in heaven.

Don't forget to pray that you be the positive influence person in your partner life and that God uses you to implement God's plan in your family and into your partner life.

Couple: One Wish

Over the weekend, I was asked a question by a friend of mine. The question was, if you had to make one wish, what it would be? To be honest, I surprised my self with the answer I gave. I answered my friend that I would like to wish to do the right thing only 90% of the time. My friend, responded as well with a surprised face and asked, only 90% of the times, why?
I said that many times we want to do the right thing and unfortunately we don't. So, when it comes to the times when we do wrong decision we/I can't figure away to fix it as a result of not knowing what to do at those situations.
In relationships, many times we hurt those people who are so close to us, and we end up watching them hurt and not take a step to correct the situation. So, my wish to every one in a relationship is to learn from that 10% that when we do wrong things to the people who love us is to figure out away to repair what was damaged.

In many situations we avoid wrong doing and hurting people. However, the important thing that you need to pay attention to is that every time you do wrong thing it is an opportunity for you and me to realize what hurt your partner and find solutions to that hurt.
Don't stand still watching on the sideline, but take steps toward a positive action. Don't hesitate, but be a risk taker in solving the problem. Don't wait to be told what to do, take the initiative to fix what is wrong. Be part of the healing process to your partner.

Remember that your partner is more important than the risk that you may take in order to resolve the matter. Remember it is an expression of love when you take the first steps toward uniting what is had been broken. However, you must be patient with your partner.

Couples: Hard Things are worth trying

Look at your self and look at your relationship. Find what makes it hard? Find what it is hard for you and your partner to communicate and get closer. Find what can make your relationship better.

Read carefully, I am saying, look at yourself and your relationship, not at your partner. The purpose of this exercise is to find out what it is hard on you to make your relationship more enjoyable and better.

Here are some of mine that I am working on:

Forgiveness after getting hurt

Letting go of bitterness

Assuming the worse out of my partner or being quick to judge.

Opening up to my partner and allow her to hear my feelings

Actively listen and respond

Once you make your list, try to change them one at a time. Understand that is it hard to change and know it isn't easy. But the question that you need to remind yourself with each time is: Is it worth it? See, you need to look at the change in you and your life as an investment, an investment toward your relationship and marriage. This hard investment, will only pay when you stick with it for long time and you don't sell out even when the market in down ( not getting good feedback from your partner)

Believe me, when I tell you that those hard things are worth trying, not only that but it is an expression of love. You partner should pay a closer look to your progress and notice your change and encourage you. But my advice is to keep on going and try hard to change those hard things. Remeber to to Think Potential and understand it is worth it to let go of those hard things in order to win what is more important than those hard things.

Couples: Think Potential

Potential is defined as Possible, as opposed to actual.

With this words, I came to conclusion that I am not prefect nor I should claim that I am. In relationships we expect our spouse to be prefect. Know what to say and when to say it and how to say it, all in prefect time. However, the last few weeks examining my self showed me how far I fall short of being the prefect husband.

Our expectations in relationships are mostly high, and that leads to major frustration toward our partner. So, here is my advice and confession to you and to my partner. Always tell me what I fall short of your expectations, but most importantly, expect me to get better and know that I am trying. Don't look only to my mistakes but look at my potential. Encourage and motivate your partner by looking ahead of the problem. Don't allow the exsitance of the problem henders you down from looking to the potential of growing free.

Think of it as a tree growing and you can't allow the slowness of growing of looking after and watering the tree. As you expect me to be prefect, expect me to want to grow prefect knowing that I am trying.

Jennie and Wess is a wonderful couple

Jennie and Wess is a wonderful couple. They invited us to their home in Laguna, Orange County Cali. We are blessed to have such great couple in our life. The friendship between married couple is really needed and the support of those couple is amazing. We really enjoyed our time with them. The conversions went on for hours and the words of encouragement lifted us and encouraged us tremendously.
Thank You so much J & W for your great welcome, we miss you and can't wait to see you soon.

Enjoy The Pictures above, or Click .Slide Show Pictures

Couples: Trip to Cali

Jennie and Wess showed us a great time. They took us to many places. They really put an effort in showing us a good time. We went to Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Dana point. The wales parade. Thank You so much.
Shady and Mary joined us on Sat, along with Fady and Jess. What a great company.


Watch the pictures above or click Slide Show



Watch the pictures above or click Slide Show

Couples: Share Three Things

Lately been adopting a new way of communicating that we learned in a book that we have been reading. The book is about communication in marriage and one thing that the book encourages us to do is to get beyond the headline reporting way of talk with our spouse. Meaning, that we need to be more expressive with our conversations and saying meaningful things to each other not just the normal short sentence talk.

So, here it is what the book has been teaching us, every day take 30 min or so and tell your spouse three things about your day that moved your feelings and emotions. The point of it is to share the feelings with each other, which we may keep for ourselves. The purpose is to talk about thing we might don't want to talk about and also to force us to find things and way to have conversions. The need to share the emotions is the key point.

We have been trying to do it every day for the past two weeks and it has been going great. I think it helps us a lot, we get to know how we feel and shows what is important to each other. I believe that best benefit of this method is the way it makes us listen to each other and the feeling of importance that brings with it.

Couples, I encourage you to try to have those meaningful conversions and have more than the usual (ok, nice, thank you) communications.
I look forward to your comments.

Balancing Couples

I guess God has his own way of balancing every thing. After five weeks of good weather in Boston and temperature reaching almost 60 on Friday, Monday comes with almost a foot of snow.

In Job, God is credited with the power to send snow down from His heavenly storehouses to either protect and water the soil or to hinder the efforts of soldiers in battle (Job 37:6; 38:22-23). The psalmist enjoined the snow to join the rest of creation in praising the Lord by "fulfilling His word" (Ps 148:8)

In many areas, snowfall is an important source of moisture. Jeremiah writes that no farmer would trade a farm watered by the snow water of Lebanon for another field watered by a muddy or uncertain stream (Jer 18:14). God uses snow (which, having fallen to earth, never returns to the heavens, but instead waters the fields) as an example of the unfailing power of His word which, sent down to earth, accomplishes whatever He pleases (Is 55:10-11). The Jordan River, itself, was fed by the melting snows of Mt. Hermon. Snow also protects the roots of various plants from cold weather. Hannah Whithall Smith writes, "There is no frost hath power to blight the tree God shields; the roots are warm beneath soft snows, and when spring comes it surely knows, and every bud to blossom grows" (The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whithall Smith p. 73).
I don't mind those white flicks, I actually enjoy them alot. These are something about them that bring smiles to my heart and ignite my thinking.
Your spouse may not be in love with snow, I won't blame her, not too many people are fond with is it as well. But I guess God has his way of balancing things even within couples who would love to see their partner just like them. But, God has his way of balancing that and putting differences in our relationships as couples. One snow storm  she may say the snow looks so pretty, it just like God is decorating the trees. I loved her comment and her new perspective on snow. That little comment made could make any spouse feel closer, or shows that despite our differences partners can sometime see an eye for an eye and admire God work in every thing even in snow.