Seven Ways to Improve Your Marriage in 2014

Most of us want the New Year to be a fresh start in our lives. The old calendar, with all of its notes and appointments and reminders of things that didn't go well is pitched, and a new one, fresh with possibilities, hangs in its place/

We usually look at change in ourselves, but why not try for a change for the better in your marriage?

It's not hard. You don't need grand gestures,or a dozen roses every night. There's an old song..."Little Things mean a Lot"...and it's nowhere more true than in marriage.

So here we go...

• Pray for your spouse daily - take a minute (yes, 60 seconds) to pray specifically for your mate's happiness and comfort. Visualize good things coming their way, and ask the Almighty to guide their steps.
• Start the day with physical affection - take the time for a hug and kiss, first thing. It's become fashionable to say that our lives are so hectic that we "just have time to wave at each other as we pass", but we make the decision to allow this. So...we can make the decision to stop, and say, with our arms and lips, "I love you".
• Surrender the remote - if you watch TV together, try this...pick up the remote and hand it to your spouse with a smile, and sit down to watch whatever's selected, without any sort of negative comment. It's a sign of trust, and while you may have to sit through a few hours of NASCAR or Downton Abbey, you'll soon find that your mate's having to take the responsibility for the selection will bring up entertainment that you'll both enjoy.
• Give thanks- how often have you said "thank you" to your spouse for doing what they do every day? When the trash is taken out - give thanks. When they're going out the door to work - thank them for that. Recognize what your mate does. We all want to be special, and this is one way to make them feel just that.
• Give praise - give compliments freely, and in unexpected places. If you never say much about what your husband wears, saying "you look nice today" can leave him thinking about what you said for hours.(something to which he'll never admit!).If your wife does the cooking, don't just say that it was delicious after the meal. Say it smells nice, or looks appetizing before you eat.
• Give gifts - put small, thoughtful 'just because' presents where your mate will find them as a surprise. Things like a favorite candy bad, or a magazine that contains an article they'll find interesting. It doesn't have to be huge - just focused on your spouse's happiness.
• Anticipate needs - change the roll of toilet paper, replace the shampoo when it's getting low, and make sure the refrigerator always has what your spouse likes best. Make your mate feel like there's someone who's watching out for them - you!

These action items take little time, and once you get into the habit, not much thought. But they'll pay dividends in a brighter and happier life together.

And that will last a lifetime.

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When Bad Things Happen to the Very Nice You

Some people seem to have a charmed life. Everything they touch goes well, every investment pays off, every relationship brings joy.

Their children are perfect, and their parents are healthy into old age.

And they never get sick, aside from a fashionable case of tennis elbow.

And as for the rest of us...stuff just seems to happen. We totter from absurdity to disaster, and sometimes we balance on the brink of a terrifying abyss, signposted 'bankruptcy' or 'cancer' or 'the house just burned down'.

Bad things happen to nice people. Including us. Is there anything we can do to prepare, to make it easier? Is there a metaphysical surfboard that will allow us to ride over the waves of adversity?

Sure. It's called The Bible.

I'm not going to jawbone on the prosperity gospel (Jesus was RICH!) or tell you God's favor will keep you safe from cancer and get you the best parking places at the mall. Jesus wasn't rich, and God has better things to do than deliver you the most convenient place to put your Yugo.

Bad things happened to people in the Bible.

• Abel was murdered by his brother
• Noah was a laughingstock...until the rains didn't stop
• Hagar and Ishmael were sent out into the desert, to live or die...it didn't really matter to anyone except God
• Ruth and Naomi were widowed, and left their homes to become gleaners, picking up wheat that the harvesters missed (a step above going through trash cans...I think)
• Jesus was tortured to death at the age of 33
• Stephen was killed by people throwing rocks at him
• Peter was crucified...upside down.
• Paul was beheaded after a long trip to Rome

I'm not including Job because he was something of a test case - what happened to him was deliberate.

In looking over this list, you should get an idea...Abel, dead; Jesus, dead (but not for long); Stephen, Peter, Paul...dead, dead, dead. After going through a lot of pain.

They did not get Double for their Trouble, at least not on Earth.

Following Jesus, we are promised a Cross of our own, and persecution. You may take this to mean the following:

If you haven't been tortured to death, you're ahead of the game.

Yes, you'll have trials.

But you also have a God who braced the faith of the heroes of Christianity as they faced the unspeakable.

We have a God who died horribly, so that Death would be defeated and that, in the end, we'd have nothing to fear.

If you're going to survive death, can anything else really be all that bad?

The Ball Drops

And it's 2014, just now as I write this.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot...does that mean we should forget them? Might be a good idea, in some cases.

A lot of us make New Year's Resolutions.

A lot of us resolve not to make resolutions, and then secretly make them anyway.

My resolution is to live to see 2015, or die trying.

Sorry. Bad joke.

What about you?

Six Steps to A Fresh New Year

Hard to believe, but it's almost time for another calendar. Twenty-fourteen...remember when 1984 had an ominous ring to it?

Well...it was pretty ominous, if only for the music that was popular that year. Could have been worse, though. Could have been disco.

All that aside, a New Year is a new page. It has the feeling of a fresh start, and while a lot of people - including me - tend to play it down, we really shouldn't. Playing it down is turning your back on an opportunity.

What's the best way to start a new year? Almost everyone has their own method - and unfortunately, many of those methods result in disappointment. Goals aren't reached, resolutions aren't kept, and the shine of the new takes on a quick tarnish.

So...here are some suggestions that I hope will help, and that I pray will keep the coming year shining, in some small way.

• Get a new calendar. Even if yours has an extra month or two...start with a fresh one.It's a visual reminder of newness, and doesn't drag all the notes and appointments and their associated memories into the coming year.
• Start the new year at work in a new outfit, or at least a couple of new accessories. 
• Don't make any resolutions. At All. Stay off that road to disappointment.
• Eat out somewhere you've never been...even if it's choosing a local hamburger place over the Golden Arches.
• Hang a picture of somewhere you've never been, but would love to visit. Don't make it a 'resolution' to get there this year. Just keep it as a hope for 'someday'.
• Clean the screens on your TV and computer.They are a window on the world.

Simpole things...almost trivial...but each of them will give you aquick feel-good glow, and taken together they'll help you get the coming year off to a bright, fresh, and positive start.

Missing the Christmas Target

Did you have a nice Christmas? I hope so, and hope that you're looking forward to 2014.

Too many people, though, didn't enjoy the Christmas experience. Putting aside (hate to say it that way) those who lost loved ones, dealt with illness or financial burdens, or had otherwise overwhelming external events, there are a host of ways to ruin Christmas.

All of which can be boiled down to one reason.

Putting oneself first.

In all of the dinner-table arguments...someone just had to have the fun of goading another until the argument began. Someone just had to be right. And the stakes? Nothing. Over 99% of arguments don't matter. They're just rearranging the rubble of the past.

In all of the 'must be perfect' Christmas preparations, where tempers fray and feelings get hurt, are the family and guests the first concern of the partygiver-in-chief?

Not likely. The main concern of this individual is his or her ability to live up to expectations that are made up of commercial images of the 'perfect' Christmas, and bright shiny - and overglossed - memories of what childhood Christmases were like.

It's a moving target. You can't hit it. So the arrows hit bystanders, instead.

But heck, at least it was satisfying to hit something, right? On the theory that breaking a dish or putting a fist through a wall helps win an argument.

Finally, there's the Dreaded Gift Exchange. You don't know what to 'git' someone, and instead of focusing on the potential needs or desires of the recipient, you look to your own need - the need not to look bad, or cheap, or unimaginative. Instead of being a joy, it becomes a burden.

Is this what Jesus would want in celebration of His birth?

Finally, perhaps the very worst thing you can do is to give your .spouse the feeling that you'd rather be somewhere else...back home with your real family.

Usually, this doesn't come from malice. It comes from homesickness, gleefully fueled by advertising and stupid sentimental songs.

When you hear "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and say, sadly, "only in my dreams", you may be honest...and you're also opening a wound that will never fully heal.

If your spouse's family is also out-of-town, he or she may retaliate in kind, and you'll be living similar Christmas wishes, that of being apart.

But if you are your spouse's only family, and the home you share is their only home...what then?

If any of these happened, don't sweat it. You'll have another chance next year.

You hope.

The Real Meaning of the Day

Three-thirty am. An accidental poisoning, and a night of PTSD flashbacks.

Heck of a way to start Christmas.

Or maybe not, because there's no Currier and Ives moment, not gift, that would make this OK.

The carols fall flat, and I dread the morning of PBS music specials. I just can't face them right now. Where's that convoy escort job in Helmand when you need it?

But even nihilism has its limits. You might live through the work you hope will kill you.

On the other side of the darkness, then...what?

A baby, in a bed of straw, in a place far away and long ago...and here, and this very morning.

God, caring enough to come back for us.

Not as some awesome giant heaven-king, blinding us with white-gold fire. A baby, that we can pick up and hold.

A God we can protect.

And in so doing, we save our souls.

What Really Happened?

I recently saw a TV preacher who tired to make the point - and I don't know why - that there was an interval of between several months and over a year between the birth of Jesus and the visit of the Magi.

This, based on the words used in the KJV. "Babe" for the birth, as described by Luke; and "young child" as described by Matthew.

He also used as evidence the story the Herod ordered the killing of every child under the age of two, and not just babies.

As I said, I'm not sure what the point in doing this was/

But I do think it's kind of dumb. It messes with the traditional interpretation of the Nativity, and looks to re-interpret events of the past based on our 'present knowledge' -and, more importantly, our present prejudices.

In other words, we're tending to look at things and saying, "This is how we would act, so this is what probably happened".

Not considering that we are very different from them in many ways. We are softer, and while our knowledge base is broader, our faith is shakier.

If we had been kings of old, would we have taken off to follow a star? Probably not. Even if told by God to do it?

We probably would have talked ourselves out of it.

We're not strong, even though we wish we were. That's why it's important to hang onto what we can, and the places where faith and our culture are interwoven are really the best handholds of all.

As Christians, we're attacked by humanists from all fronts - and one of the favorite avenues is the perception of inaccuracies in the Bible.

The Nativity story is a tiny part of the Gospels. The timing of the Magi's visit is utterly unimportant to the meaning of the events.

But it is important to the way we celebrate Christmas, from songs to Nativity scenes.

It brings us together.

Don't mess with it.