Chris Graebe: This is where we will look back and reflect on these moments right here. And so, being in all, posturing yourself with your hands open, heart open, eyes open, to see the wonder that is this marriage and family, uh, that’s the way we try and posture it for ourself and our marriage, and ultimately for our kids as well.
John Fuller: That’s Chris Graebe, and he and his wife Jenni are here with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. They’re gonna be sharing how you can bring some healthy, life-giving rhythms and patterns into your family. Thanks for joining us. I’m John Fuller.
Jim Daly: John, we talk about family a lot. I guess that’s the title, right? Focus on the Family.
John: That’s what we do.
Jim: I mean, I, I do find it humorous sometimes, people say, “Don’t make an idol out of family.” We get that. We’re not trying to tell every single person they’ve gotta get married. That’s between them and the Lord. But, we are here to talk about family, about marriage, about parenting. And we hope, uh, help you along that way so you can do it as best as you can. And one of the things that all of us tend to hit are these ruts where you get kind of out of sync, and you just start doing the thing. And then by the time you look up, five years has gone by, the kids are now seven and nine, and have we been as intentional as we needed to be as a parent. Hey, every time we can, uh, kind of wake you up to that fact to pay attention, that’s our goal.
John: Yeah.
Jim: And to give you great advice on how to correct some of the things that might help you do the parenting job better, or the family job better.
John: Mm-hmm. And to do it better now, while the kids are in the home, if they’re in the home. And, uh, Chris and Jenni Graebe are really, uh, qualified to talk about this. They have five children. They host the podcast, The Rhythm of Us, and they have a book, uh, with a similar title, The Rhythm of Home: Five Intentional Practices for a Thriving Family Culture. Learn more about the Graebe’s and this book when you’re at our website and we’ve got the link at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Chris and Jenni, welcome to Focus on the Family.
Jenni Graebe: Thank you so much for having us.
Chris: It’s good to be back.
Jenni Graebe: Good to be back with you guys.
Jim: You guys, yeah, that’s great, five kids. So I did a weird thing the other night. Jean and I were grabbing pizza. A kind of, uh, you know, like one of those little, uh, fashionable pizza places-
Chris: Oh, boutique.
Jim: … downtown.
Chris: Yeah.
Jim: And this young family came in. And it was awesome. They had three kids, one in a stroller. They’re, you know, getting pizza to go. (laughs) And as we’re walking out the door together, I said, “That is great, you guys have had three kids. That’s wonderful. I love seeing families.” And we get in the car, and Jean goes, “That was weird.” (laughs)
Jenni: (laughs)
Chris: (laughs)
Jim: She goes, “Why would you say something?” “‘Cause it’s awesome to see young families having children.”
John: I love family, yeah.
Chris: Oh, it is, yeah.
Jim: But she said, “That is awesome, but I think it’s a little odd to say that to strangers.” (laughs)
Chris: Well, when we show up at a restaurant, people are always like-
Jim: Oh, I bet.
Jenni: (laughs)
Chris: People, hey, like, they start rolling their eyes, like, “Here we go.”
Jenni: (laughs)
Chris: “We got five kids.” And then usually they come and like, “Your kids were so well-behaved.”
Jim: Yeah.
Chris: It’s like they’re, they’re waiting for us to ruin their night.
Jim: Okay, but fundamentally, you think if a restaurant, they should be ringing the bell, family of five’s here. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, you know.
Jenni: That’s true.
Jim: That’s money. (laughs)
Jenni: It is, for sure.
Jim: It is kinda weird that, that the culture has leaned away from having big families and see it as something negative. I just, there’s something in me that goes, wake up. I don’t want to see any more of your dog pictures. Dogs are great, cats are great, but kids are better. (laughs)
Jenni: They’re pretty great, yeah.
Jim: And you guys are experts on that, having five kids yourself.
Jenni: Oh, gosh. There’s so many. (laughs)
Jim: All right, Jenni. Let, let’s, uh, yeah, I’m sure this gets right to it. Like some days you had to be going crazy.
Jenni: Oh, absolutely. You know, we always joke that, you know, after that third kid it just starts getting chaotic, you know. And, and after-
Jim: That’s what I’ve heard.
Jenni: … you know, after your, you know, third week without sleep you’re like, what were all those things we said we were gonna do someday? What were all those things we said were important? Um, and that’s really where the book came from was just this really deep desire to be intentional. Like you said, like we don’t want to just forget all those things we said we were gonna fill our family life with. We want to be intentional. We want to make sure that these rhythms we’re filling our home with are lining up with our values. And we’re gonna have to sit down and, and put some thought behind this or we’re just gonna drift along with the culture around us.
Jim: You know, about half the listenership and the research that we’ve done have kids in the home, so you’re talking to moms and dads that they’re at where you were at. How do you even know that you need a rhythm in your family when you have three kids, four kids, five kids and rhythm is like the farthest thing from your mind?
Jenni: Well, the truth is we all have a rhythm of home, right? We have a set of habits that are carrying us, that are shaping us to become a certain kind of family. So the question really is, do we like that rhythm? Do we like those set of habits? Are they in line with our values? Do we like who they’re shaping us to become as a family? And if not, how do we make some changes so that we can head in the right direction as a family?
Jim: You know, Chris, I’m a terrible fix-it guy around the house. I’m pathetic. I, I confess it. You know, Jean does a lot of it. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but-
Chris: This is a safe place.
Jenni: (laughs)
Jim: Yeah, yes. This is safe. But I, you know, in that context, uh, let’s start with the YouTube video about what is a rhythm? (laughs) Tell me what it is.
Chris: Well, I mean, you know, when people say, we ask people all the time, are you in rhythm or out of rhythm? Pretty quickly, people can go like, “Oh, I know where we’re out of rhythm.” Right? So the idea behind us coming up with this book is saying, okay, we, we started with our first book, The Rhythm of Us. It was about marriage. This one’s like, okay, how do we take these same rhythms and, and bridge it to families? The same principles apply. Uh, but this idea of these five practical rhythms where people can go like, hey, what do I do today to get started, right? What are the five rhythms I can put my hands on?
Jim: That’s awesome. We’re gonna, that’s where we want to unfold. Starting with speaking life. So let’s describe that one. That one, first of all, is so important, speaking life over your family, over your kids.
Chris: We always, we look at that rhythm as almost like a cornerstone between the other ones because you can focus on serving and some of these others, adventure. But if you’re not speaking words of life to each other it, nothing’s in the words. Like what, I don’t hear what you’re saying because you haven’t said the things that mean the most to me. And so for us, we just, we as a value in our marriage that we started off early and now we do that with our kids. And we, we love this. I mean for me, I’m a, I’m a words guy. I love when, when Jenni will talk to me and share with me and, and tell me how much she loves me and all the things, right. I’m an affirmation guy. But our kids aren’t the same way and so I think if you can cultivate this atmosphere of speaking life into your kids, into your family, uh, there’s a massive amount of free that will come from that.
Jim: Yeah. Jenni, uh, I don’t know if it goes with gender generally. I would think moms are pretty good about speaking life over their children. I, I don’t know, I don’t have any data. But I think men can struggle more so.
Jenni: You know, for us it’s really the opposite. I mean it could just be personality type, like, like you said. Chris is really good at this for them, you know. If he saw a family at a pizza place, he would probably say, “Great job having those kids.”
Jim: Raising three kids.
Jenni: He would. He’d just, everything he thinks he says out loud. (laughs) Which is a different conversation.
Chris: Whoops.
Jim: And Jean would say, “Yep, I know that feeling.”
Jenni: Yeah, yep. It sounds like Jean and I are a lot alike. Um, but I have really had to work on this, you know, especially early on in our marriage. It wasn’t that I wasn’t thinking nice things, I just wasn’t in the habit of speaking them out loud, which is a really different thing, you know. We, if we don’t say them out loud, they don’t really count because the people that we love don’t get to hear those wonderful things we’re thinking. And Chris really had to say after a while like, “Hey, I’m gonna need you to tell me that I’m awesome. Like, I need to hear this from you.”
Jim: That’s great. (laughs)
Jenni: “This is really important to me.” And he was right, and over time it, I really did learn by his example that just speak it out loud. When you, when you think something nice, just take a moment, speak it out loud.
Jim: You know, it’s amazing when you look at like our counseling team. We take a look every month at the tally of what are the big headlines that are coming in, just so we’re aware. And you know, that, that breakdown in communication in marriage is always present in the top 15. And the reason I’m bringing it up, when you look at repairing damage in a marriage, this is one of the fundamental things. Can you just show appreciation for one another?
Jenni: Yeah.
Jim: And when you do that it’s like the human heart blossoms. It just opens up. We like to hear these things.
Chris: One of the things we, we discovered, we were doing a retreat and we were sitting there with these couples and they were kind of walking through these rhythms. And I asked them, I said, we asked the question, “How many of you saw speaking life modeled from your parents when you were growing up? Specifically, mom and dad saying positive things about each other in front of the children, which also trickled down?” 98% of the room said they never saw it. Never saw it. And people go, “I never even saw that. I didn’t model it. How do I do this?” And I think we all have to realize what we’re doing in our marriage, in our relationship is the foundation we’re setting for our children and the marriage that they will have. And so-
Jim: So true.
Chris: … we speak life to each other, then also speak life to our children as well because we wanted that to reverberate for generations to come.
Jim: Right. And that’s not a budget item. You can do that without spending money on dinner and roses and just speak life over each other.
John: Yeah, there was one part of this that I was really interested in, Jenni, and you know the story about a dad who kinda spoke about potential. I mean this is an element of speaking life. The potential he saw or set, I guess for his child. Talk about that.
Jenni: I love this story. So there was a family growing up for me that was a really close family of mine. And then when I went off to college at Belmont in Nashville, they ended up living just a couple hours away. So whenever I got, you know, kind of the desire for a home cooked meal, I was eating Diet Coke and popcorn probably, um, they would invite me-
Jim: Yummy.
Jenni: They would invite me over and cook a nice, um, home cooked meal. And, and it was one of those nights and I had been over with their family and they had several other people in the community over as well. And as the evening was dying down the other guests started heading home, and there was, um, a single woman there who headed home. It was pretty late, um, and Michael, the dad, I will never forget this. You know, I’m probably 19 or 20 and I just, I was observing their family ’cause they had an incredible marriage and family. And I was just always learning from them.
And he, he called out to his 11-year-old son who just happened to be walking by after she had left. And he said, “Hey Chris, will you call Miss Susan and just make sure she got home okay?” And I turned around to him expecting a normal, you know, 11-year-old boy’s response would probably be like, what? I’m not doing that, or that’s awkward. You do it, or whatever it was. And he just said, “Oh yeah, Dad. I’ll, I’ll do that.” And he went and called her just to check on her. And I mean, there was so much happening right in that moment.
Jim: Training.
Jenni: Right. I mean, he not only spoke to the potential in his son to be thoughtful, he was passing on the characteristics of thoughtfulness and kindness of thinking of somebody else. He could’ve very easily gotten up and done it himself, right? But then those character traits would’ve remained his own. But instead, he saw an opportunity to call out something great in his son and teach him the, the incredible value of caring for somebody else.
Jim: Yeah, no, that’s so good. What, and again, very easy example. You can do that. You just need to be thinking that way.
Jenni: Looking for those opportunities. Yeah.
Jim: Chris, let’s go to the next one, the rhythm of serving. I like that. I think we tended to make that pretty complicated though. You know, we set up a time to go serve at the animal shelter and, you know, Jean organized all that. But it, it didn’t just happen. It was some thought, which sometimes people have a hard time getting over that, that barrier if it’s gonna take a lot. But speak to the rhythm of serving and how you can make that a little easier. (laughs)
Chris: Yeah, I think, I think for Jenni and I, the five rhythms even we looked at our marriage, it was one that we both kind of was on the bottom rung for us. We had to learn how to serve each other, right. And then, you know, you have kids and you go, okay, cool. And then there’s the natural like, you know, obviously you’re young, we need to help you and do that. But when we talk about serving there’s kind of this whole other level. One of the things we talk about a lot is really there’s so many different ways we can serve our kids. And we say enter their world. One of the best ways you can serve your children is just by listening to what they’re saying. They’re, they’re saying more than we can ever possibly imagine, but sometimes we don’t just stop to listen to what they’re saying. And when you enter their world and you can serve the, okay, what are you saying? What do you need right now? Okay, great. Great example. Um, one of our daughters, she was just, she, she loves to read and be by herself and so, uh, she asked Jenni if she could clean out the bottom of one of our closets so she could go and have a reading corner.
Jenni: This was in the middle of 2020, so.
Chris: Okay.
Jenni: All of that-
Chris: Everybody needs a minute.
Jenni: … togetherness, the introverts needed their, their space.
Jim: Yeah, I need to create a space.
Jenni: Yes.
Chris: So she, she listened to her, entered her world and she cleaned out this space in the closet. She had a little flashlight in there and she was reading her book, and the flashlight kind of seen something sparkly in the corner. And just a little back story, at the time Jenni had lost the diamond on her wedding ring and we had no clue where it was.
Jim: Yikes.
Chris: Well, she had lost it doing laundry and it turns out five months later, it was at the bottom of this closet. And our daughter comes back in, she goes, “What is this, mommy?” And it was-
Jim: “My wedding ring.”
Chris: It was the diamond for her wedding ring. Which you just go, okay, we entered her world. We served her and God blessed us by bringing that back around. And so serving doesn’t necessarily mean just doing the laundry and giving them food and running them to the thing. It’s, it’s listening, entering their world and discovering what God’s doing in them right now.
Jim: Yeah. Jenni, let me ask this question. The difference between enabling and serving, um.
Jenni: Right, yeah.
Jim: I, I think when I assess my parenting, I may have been a bit more of an enabler. Uh, you know, to rescue them a little too quickly.
Jenni: Yeah.
Jim: Uh, but speak to both of those. Um, sometimes you need to lean one way or the other, but speak to the danger of the enabling.
Jenni: Yeah. I think what we want to be careful that we’re not communicating is that you do everything for your kids because then you are enabling. And you’re also harming them because we’re robbing them of this opportunity to learn to do things for themselves, right. So there is a difference between opportunities to care for my kids and serve them and listen and dignify them. There’s a kind of help in serving that dignifies them and then there’s a kind of help that harms them by robbing them of the opportunity to do things for themselves.
Jim: What, what is the motivation for a parent who is over enabling? I mean, what, what’s happening for them? They see that as I’m a great parent. It gives them some kind of satisfaction, I would think.
Jenni: Sure. I, I would think so as well. And I think that there’s probably all different personality types with different motivations for doing that, but I think, you know, the times where I’ve caught myself doing that, it’s usually just it’s easier.
Jim: Right, it’s faster.
Jenni: It’s easier to do it myself.
Jim: That’s true. Boom.
Jenni: You know? And it’s, it’s, I’m probably gonna do it better because I’m a little bit older. I’ve had some more experience.
Jim: Yeah.
Jenni: But when I remember like, oh, my goal here is to build that character, like we talked about, you know, to see those opportunities where, okay, yeah, I could just do this myself. Or, I could give them this incredible chance to grow into the person I’m praying they’ll become. Then I can take that extra minute and let them do it themselves.
Jim: Yeah.
John: Yeah. And that, that training is a form of serving because you’re not solving the problem, you’re, you’re helping them understand, uh, this is how you can solve the problem. Yeah.
Jenni: Absolutely.
John: Well, Chris and Jenni Graebe are our guests today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And, uh, this terrific book is available to you, it’s called The Rhythm of Home: Five Intentional Practices for a Thriving Family Culture. Get a copy of it from us here at the ministry. We’ve got the link at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Let me ask both of you to respond to this one. Uh, the third one, seeking adventure. I think that sounds like fun. That’s where I would like to be.
Chris: (laughs)
Jenni: (laughs)
Jim: That’s the parent I want to be.
Jenni: It’s your favorite rhythm.
John: It’s so you.
Jim: I’ve got an idea.
Jenni: (laughs)
Jim: I just, Trent sent me a note the other day and he said, “Dad, I’m just feeling nostalgic. I just love the fact that we shot rockets off at the park, nighttime and no lights, Nerf fights.” And just all those things. That was fun, I enjoyed that so much. But do you define it? What does it mean to seek adventure?
Chris: Oh, this is by far my-
Jenni: I mean this is his favorite.
Chris: This is- this is my by far-
Jenni: (laughs)
John: You guys.
Chris: I knew it.
John: You have stories.
Chris: Yeah. I mean, you know, we, with five kids, you know, some are wired inherently for adventure and some are like, nope. Keep the feet on the ground. Adventure looks very different for each one of them. So but we, but one of the things we try and explain to people, people go, “Oh, well, you know, maybe I don’t have the budget. We can’t go on a big trip.” They immediately go to like the big trip and, and there could be adventures in every single day. You know, you can go, hey, we’re gonna break out of the monotony of wake up, go to school, homework, go to bed. You know, you can go today we’re doing and you just kind of e-brake on the emergency and you go, hey, we’re gonna go to the park today. We’re gonna go to the jump, you know, place. It could be something free. We’re gonna go to a waterfall. You know, adventure, we’re all wired for adventure. I think, you know, Christ was the ultimate adventurer, right?
And he called us to this wild life. And so I think we’re all wired for it. I think some, some of us are just pre-programmed to go, I don’t think I wanna do that. And so there’s a story we write in the book about how we ended up, we took the kids skiing and the, the two older kids, the three younger went to ski school. But the two older kids, you know, they were like, “Hey, we’re gonna go off.” I’m like, “Okay, great.” So we’re like cool, we’re just gonna enjoy some us time on the slopes. And you get on a chair and you’re like, “Okay, there’s, it says blue and it says black on that.” I was like, “We’ll just go up and do the blue.” Well, and Jenni’s like, “Are you sure there’s a blue up there?” I was like, “I looked on the sign.” We get to the top, there was no blue to be found. It was just straight black diamond with powder everywhere and we’re like, “We’re gonna die.” We’re literally gonna die.
And it almost happened because we were just scrambling. I’m looking at my wife, I’m like, “I’m never gonna see my wife again. She’s buried in the powder over there.” And we finally roll our way out of the mountain, get down. We’re like, “Oh, we’re never doing that again.” And then we’re like at the lodge going like, “Okay, we need a minute.” And then we look up and we see our, our daughter. And they, she comes walking around the corner, she’s like, “Guys, we just got stuck on the black diamond.” I’m like, “What?” So they both, so we’re on our adventure, they’re on their adventure, but we get to come together and celebrate that like in them is the spirit of adventure that we, we’ve had the opportunity to craft. We’re over there dying in the powder, they’re dying in the powder, but we get to come together unified and share an amazing story of how we both just walked through some insanity, came out on the other side. It was just a really bonding moment.
Jim: Jenni, let me aim this at you, the, the freedom to fly. I, you know, again, I don’t mean to always talk in those terms but moms can struggle a little bit with that, you know. Like, that’s dangerous. I mean, Jean and I, my goodness, they’d ride their bikes down the driveway and she’d say, “Well, how come their helmets aren’t on?” I know, you know, half of you are gonna say, okay, you should. Yeah, I know that but they just jumped on the bike and they went down and they came back, and put your helmet on, that kind of thing. But sometimes we can wanna wrap our kids in bubble wrap. You know, man, we didn’t have safety belts in cars when I was a kid. I used to jump in our station wagon and, anyway, you get the point. Just react to that. I guess the mechanism if you’re the father or the mother to relax that safety bubble a lid, little bit and let your kids fly. And then the other side of flying.
Jenni: Sure.
Jim: Whatever that might be.
Jenni: Absolutely. You know, and like Chris said, like we’re all wired to fly. We all need adventure, whether we instinctively know that or not, the truth is nobody wants to get to the end of their life, or our kids get to the end of their time with us as a family and look back at all the things we wish we had done. Nobody wants to do that. We want to marvel at all the adventures we said yes to, you know. And sometimes as parents that requires us stepping outside of our comfort zone, you know. Like, God will call our kids to things that are way outside of my realm of comfortability.
And I have to choose in those moments, okay, if God is calling them into this, am I gonna say yes? Am I going to give them that freedom to fly and cheer them on as they go? Or am I gonna cling to that comfort and to the safety and look back and wish that we had said yes to some of those things?
Jim: And there’s sometimes you need to do that.
Chris: Well, the same thing can be true, you know, we want that for our kids. But the same thing needs to be true for our spouses. There’s moments where our spouses have some dreams and we need to kind of water those, to go, hey, I’m gonna give you the freedom to fly in this. Because again, all of this comes from if we want it in our kids, we have to model it in our marriage. And I think when, when a spouse comes behind and supports the other one in a way to go, I think it’s time for you to step out, have an adventure because you’ve been talking about this dream for a while. It’s time for you to fly. There’s something powerful in that.
Jim: It’s really good.
John: You know, kina related to this is family mottos. We did not have one, I wish we would have. You know, kinda had a driving theme, but I, I guess you’ve got one about trusting God in writing the story. So this relates I think to the letting go and the freedom.
Jenni: For sure.
Chris: Yeah. I mean, look, we all believe. We love Jesus in our house, right, and we, we believe that the God has a plan for us and that He, if we bring Him in on the equation, that we can write a pretty powerful story. And so we try and incorporate that into our kids’ lives and our marriage and everything we’re doing to say, hey, what, what is God doing here and, and how is He moving in you and how is He moving in this season and moving in our family. And so we just truly believe that, that you know, when we look up, like we want the story to be amazing. We don’t want, we want our kids, we don’t want us in our marriage to look back and go like, ah, we left it on the table or whatever. We want to go, man, that was a wild awesome ride and what a powerful story, and God was at the center of it the whole way.
Jim: That’s so good. You know, we’re coming up to the last few minutes here, but we’ve covered the rhythm of serving, the rhythm of seeking adventure, uh, the rhythm of, uh, speaking life. That’s where we started. The fourth one is this idea of the rhythm of slowing down. Man, if any culture needs this, it’s our culture in North America ’cause everybody’s running fast and we’re trying to get things done and it’s almost like our marriage and our parenting become a checklist. You know, have I done all the right things today for Jean? Have I been a good dad today, and spent 10 minutes with each of the boys? It shouldn’t be that. It’s got to be that organic kind of thing. But when it comes to this rhythm of slowing down, A, I guess, how do you identify it and then how do you do it?
Jenni: Yeah. I mean this is arguably my favorite rhythm. I love this one, I think because I need it so much, you know, as a mom where I’m always looking at my to-do list. And there is a lot of things on my to-do list with five kids and a house to run. It’s never empty and, but if I’m not careful I can let myself get so consumed with getting things done that I miss out on the sweetness of family, you know. The best part of my day is never crossing off those things on my to-do list. It’s always the moments that I chose to slow down and savor whatever moment I have with my kids. And you said, what’s the best way to practice this? There are several ways we, we outline in the book, but one of the easiest ways to start practicing this is just to let your kids take the lead. Um, and this has happened so many times for me, I’m lost in laundry or getting things done around the house and one of my kids will invite me in to join them in some kind of activity. Whether it’s getting on the floor and playing LEGOs, or making a batch of, you know, pretend cookies or just going for a walk in the neighborhood.
And honestly, I wish I could say I just stop what I’m doing and I just say a hearty yes to every single invitation. But I don’t always because I feel the way of getting everything done. But the times where I’m able to slow down and say, “Yes, let’s step into this moment together to build relationship,” those are always the best parts of the day. And the truth is that’s where our relationship with our kids is built. When we slow down to, to take that time to just be with them, what we’re communicating to them is I delight in you.
Jim: Uh, lastly is this idea of staying in awe of God. Uh, this probably could be one of the best for the family. Who wants to take that one?
Chris: Yeah. I mean we, we love this one. It, it was kind of a sleeper rhythm where we both go, wow. And when you, when it hit it was like, yes, we need this. I mean this place itself on various ways, but like, you know, cultivating that in our kids, helping them see the wonder of their life and life around them. Uh, we see this play out in our current nine-year-old. She sees a sunset and she makes sure everybody stops. She’s like, “Mom, Dad.”
Jim: I love that.
Chris: “Look at that.”
Jenni: Yeah.
Chris: And she’s like, “Let’s take pictures of it.” And for us, we look up and go, “Okay, there’s a lot happening.” We’re gonna look back on this, on this marriage and this family and go, okay, what, what happened? There was a blur and I’m sure for you guys, the same thing, you, but we try in, to be as present as we can in the moment. I’m a futuristic guy, she’s a nostalgic look-back. But God has been good to help us so when we find ourselves in the midst of that moment where there’s a trampoline, kids are jumping on the trampoline and we’re, they’re hitting volleyballs. There’s a fire in the backyard. We look at each other and we talk about this in the book, we call it the, this is it moment, where we don’t ever have to look back and go like, one day we wish. We go, no, no, no, this is it. This is where we will look back and reflect on these moments right here. And so being in awe, posturing yourself with your hands open, heart open, eyes open to see the wonder that is this marriage and family, that’s the way we try and posture it for our self and our marriage. And ultimately, for our kids as well.
Jim: Man, think of that. What a, what a great place to end, unfortunately. But what a wonderful premier on what we need to be thinking of as parents, you know. Your suggestions on how to slow down, how to stay in awe, speak life over your family, those are simple things that if you do them, I think you’re gonna have a far healthier family, right? Which is the goal and, uh, boy, that speaks volumes too to people watching you who maybe don’t know the Lord. And they’re going, “Something’s different with your family. How come you have that kind of joy?” Isn’t that good?
Jenni: Yes.
Jim: Man, so good to have you. Thanks for being with us.
Jenni: Thank you for having us.
Chris: Thanks for having us.
Jim: And let me turn to the listener and the viewer. Focus is here for you. We have so many resources. We have, uh, Christian counselors that can help you and talk with you and point you in a good direction. We have seven traits of effective parenting assessment, which is free. Just come and take that assessment. It’ll show you in a good way the things that you’re doing well and pat you on the back, then it’ll say, “Here’s something you might want to do a little better.” It’s a great tool and it’s free, again. And we want you to get The Rhythm of Home by Chris and Jenni. It is a great resource. I wish I would’ve had this when my kids were younger or teens and implemented many of these things. We did it by accident and we didn’t do them all well, so get this resource to build that kind of healthy home that you want.
John: Yeah, make a donation today of any amount, either a monthly pledge or a one-time gift and we’ll send a copy of The Rhythm of Home to you. You can donate, uh, online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call us. Uh, we’re at 1-800, the letter A and the word FAMILY. 800-232-6459. We hope you enjoyed today’s episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and join us next time as you’ll hear how you can design a fun intentional date night.
Preview
Jay Laffoon: And if you understand coming into it what, what the so-called purpose of this evening is-
Jim: Yeah, that’s good.
Jay: It becomes a lot easier to put the phone down, to focus on your spouse and to really make a concerted effort to meet them where they’re at.
End of Preview
