Taking Care

When you think about taking care of yourself what do you generally think of? Working out, being in shape, eating right, getting enough sleep and so on!? What about your heart, your marriage, your relationship with your children?

I have come to see the importance of taking care of myself in all those ways but even more important is taking care of myself by giving love and attention to my wife and kids. There is something deeply moving and intimate about spending real time with them that have become moments I will charrish forever. I am blessed to have a busy wife that is beautiful, a great mommy, and cares for others, who will slow down even for a TV show to sit with me and cuddle on the couch.

Most of us who have been married for more than five years don't give a second thought to what it felt like to be single and alone with no one to truly love and spend time with. Now, I think of how that felt often. I remember how much I wanted to be able to share my heart and time with someone that I was "In Love With."
God has blessed us with marriage and children. He has given us the gift of love and intimacy. Im not talking about sex, while that even has it's place in intimacy. I'm talking about the intimacy of two hearts joined as one in God's eyes and supporting each other in their hopes and dreams. Two hearts that join in hands walking on the beach, hiking in the Tundra (or the park for those who have no tundra). Sitting on a swing together, watching the waves crash on the shore, walking and talking, hugging, cuddling under a blanket, putting up Christmas lights, eating as a family at the table. The last one we started doing back in April of this past year (2010). Think about it, if you haven't eaten as a family at the table other than Thanks Giving or Christmas dinners, you most likely do what we have done for so many years even as children. You sit in front of the TV with no conversation because your attention is on shoveling mouthfulls of food into your body while you watch a show. There is no communication and just consuming. I never realized how good it feels to sit at the table and eat together. We connect more. Our girls love it that we sit as a family.

So, taking care of myself is implimenting things that have been done throughout history as a family that were good family practices and running with them. So now I run! I take hold of the moments and run adding them to my memories photo album. My heart is hers. The more I take care of myself, I take care of us. The more I hold on the moments of embrace, or the kisses, or looking into her eyes, I am taking care of us. Every time I hold my girls on my lap or bathe them in kisses and say "Daddy loves you" I am taking care of us.



Are you Taking Care?



Blessings,

Mike III AKA BIG DADDY