3 Simple Happy Marriage Secrets

The small things we say and do every day or don't say and do every day will create a picture of a happy loving marriage or sad drama of cranky lousiness. Here are 3 simple things you can do to make a happy loving marriage in your home.

From Laurie Puhn's article in New Jersey Family (I liked this article so much I picked up 20 copies from the Library - they had tons - and cut out the article to give to all of my friends) I didn't learn some of these things until year 19 of marriage (this year) so hopefully I am helping you out sooner in your marriage journey.

First, let's put our mate first, every day. When one of you walks in the door, immediately greet each other (Not the little kids or your computer first). Or, if you see your kids first, greet them, but don't stop there. Find your spouse. A gentle touch on the shoulder with a simple, "Hello, how was your day?" warms up the night. If you're on the phone when your mate gets home, end the conversation. Yes, your spouse's arrival takes priority over others.

Second, say "good morning" and "good night" to each other every day. These statements bring to mind that it is a good day or night because you are together. Not surprisingly, in our online research we found that 25 percent of couples don't consistently say good night to each other, and of those, during the prior year, 70 percent had thought about breaking up.

Third and finally, show love by highlighting your mate's positive character traits. Pick one out every day, and if you think that's hard, simply look for the little things. Make comments like, "I love you for (fill-in-the-blank)." As an example, one day I told my husband, "I love you for leaving a new tube of toothpaste on the bathroom sink for me to use, that was really kind." (Tracy's example:  "I love you for taking out the trash each night, that is really kind of you.") And one of my favorite compliments (which my husband knows) is to hear him say some variety of, "You are such a good mother because you have so much patience with the kids." Interestingly, in our research, when we asked people whether they'd prefer their spouse compliment them for being good-looking (a visual compliment), or kind (a character compliment) 84 percent answered, "kind."

A positive daily communication routine is the way to keep love alive when you don't have time for a vacation or hand-in-hand sunset walk in the park. For romance to thrive during child-rearing years you have to choose it, or loose it.

My Challenge to you is to try and do these 3 simple things each day and see if your spouse notices you being extra kind to them. I bet you a million bucks that they are going to love it and you will feel closer as a result. Happy Loving! t:) 

Galloway Christmas Video 2011

Here is a link to our Christmas card from our family to yours. Thank you so much for all of your support and prayer this year. Together we will continue to do great things!

Galloway Christmas Video 2011

What Matters

For each of us eventually, whether we are ready or not, some day it will come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no more minutes, hours, or days. 

All the things you collected, weather treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else. 

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or owed. 

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.      

So too, your hopes, plans, ambitions and "to do list" will expire. 

The wins and losses that used to seem so important will fade away. 

It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived at in the end.

It won't matter if you are beautiful or brilliant. 

Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So.... what will matter?

How will the value of your days be measured? 

What will matter is

not what you bought, but what you built.

Not what you got, but what you gave.

What will matter is

not your success but your significance.    

What will matter is

not what you learned but what you taught. 

What will matter is

every act of integrity, compassion, courage, and sacrifice that enriched or empowered and encouraged others to emulate your example. 

What will matter is

not your competence, but your character. 

What will matter is

not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you are gone. 

What will matter is

not your memories but the memories that live in those who loved you. 

What will matter is

how long you will be remembered, by whom, and for what.

A life lived that matters is not of circumstance,

but of choice.   

This is my Favorite Quote from an enlightening documentary about Curing Cancer called "Dying to Have Known"

The Wonder of Wonder Voyage

This past week I was privileged to serve Wonder Voyage in New York City for the week. I stayed at Father's Heart Mission in the East Village with a small group from North Carolina and a larger group from Texas (everything is bigger in Texas;). Sleeping with aprox. 16 girls and ladies on air mattresses in the second floor of the mission and going out on adventures or service projects each day was thrilling.

It has been over 8 years since I was a youth pastor and I MISSED being with teens SO MUCH. I enjoyed every moment with the groups and Jason from Wonder Voyage. So many laughs. So much fun. I can't explain how I felt except to use one word. Effortless. It was effortless for me to serve the teams, tour them in the city and take them on outreach with New York City Relief - The Relief Bus. I felt more happy, more comfortable, more in my element then I have felt for a long time.

Even in the most challenging moments when we were leaving outreach in the Brox and the subway station shut down as someone had fallen on the tracks on the line before our stop. We were forced onto the street with over 300 people who had built up waiting for the train and is was a mad chaos. I took the team and made a quick decision to not squeeze on the local buses that were overflowing with people to go to the next subway stop (which I thought would not be working as well since it was on the same line). Instead I said lets pray for taxis to get us to meet up with the rest of the team at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This truly would be a miracle as taxi's do not travel to this really bad area of the Bronx. We had not seen one all day. We would need 3 taxi's to get our team out of the madness that was unfolding on the streets as a mass exodus was fleeing from the subway hole - all looking for a mode of transportation. "Here on the street we are going to pray?" asked one of the teens in a surprized voice. "Yes." I said then we gathered our group in a circle and said the shortest prayer "Lord - help us find Taxi's, amen" I asked for the oldest kids to come with me and divided up the rest of the team with the two wonderful female leaders from the Texas team Louis and Mother Kathy. Approaching the traffic filled street in the ghetto I saw a black town car with an african american guy driving. I knocked on the window and asked if he was a Taxi, he shrugged as if the answer was maybe depending if I was a cop. I asked if he could drive a group to the Met in Central Park for 20 bucks. He said, oh no way and took off. Surprisingly, a few cars behind him was another black town car. This one had a clip board on the front seat so there was more chance this guy was semi legit. I asked him the same, he said yes, yes, hurry before the light turns green. I put Louis and her teens in the car and sent them off with $20 cash that I thank God Mother Kathy had available for each of the taxi's. Right behind that one was another black town car that did not stop for many people trying to hail it before us. They stopped for us and in when team number 2 with Mother Kathy. Within 1 min. the last of us hopped in another black town car and off we went.

Now once we were in I realized that this person could not have been in America for more than a few days to a week. They could barely speak English and of course all the cars only took cash and had no meter. He did not know how to get to Central Park from the Bronx so I had to guide him (I have never driven that route either) into Manhatten and then onto the Met. I was hopefully that the probably less than legal cabs carrying my Texans knew where they were going better than mine did.

Thankfully we all arrived safe and sound and only 15 min. late joining with the rest of the team at the Met. Whew. I have to say though. The challenge of getting our team under almost impossible circumstances from point a to point b was really thrilling. I felt like I was able to snap into action and take control of the situation with ease and most importantly pray and then give glory to God for in a real way "saving us".

I loved the whole week. I am amazed at how much we walked and how much we did and I am most thankful for all of the leaders and teens that were so wonderful to be with. I am so very very very happy.

Here is a link to the video I made throughout the week as a gift to the teen so that they would not forget their wonderful week in New York City.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqS0bJ_X6PU

Don't Walk By My humble attempt at a Mini- Documentary

What an awesome life and husband  I have...

3 Wonderful Wedding, 2 Amazing Adoptions, and Suffering as a Cherry on Top

Mom and Paul saying their vows with Juan

This summer has been the summer of weddings for me. First my mom who has been single for 30 years gets married to a wonderful man named Paul on the Annapolis Bay with sail boats sailing by in the background. You see it is never to late to find someone to love. Juan performed the ceremony, Corban and Connor walked her down the isle and it was just truly wonderful. Mom and Paul have just bought a sailboat and they are going to sail to the Florida Keys together each winter, how romantic!

Kelly, one of the girls who was a leader in our U-turn youth group just got married. It has been a dream of hers since she was in Jr. High to one day get married and have a family. She was so discouraged as she waited year after year after year and found no one who would love her. She was hoping to fall in love that first year of college I am sure. But nothing happened. Year after year went by and it looked as if her dream would never come true. 7 long years she waited to meet that special someone and 2 weeks back they had a beautiful garden wedding and she is off on her honeymoon as I write this. I am so happy for her and her wonderful husband Matthew.

Sweet Kelly and her man Matthew

Lastly, Jessica. Jessica is one of the most amazing girls I have ever known. She is smart, caring, funny, beautiful, a wonderful person all around with confidence to boot. She and her twin sister Julia were in our youth group as well years back and were very involved in the church. Jessica and Julia were adopted from India to a wealthy white couple that attended our church at the time. These parents were always strange, saying odd things, being argumentative, religious in the bad since, super controlling and always disappointed with Jessica, one of the most amazing girls ever to be in our youth group in the 10 years we were youth pastors. Recently I was in the mix with Jessica as she let me see the abusive hate e-mail's her parents sent her. I was horrified at their insanity and cruelty. They disowned both of their adoptive girls (who by the way have done nothing wrong, Julia works for a US Senator in DC and Jessica taught college and is now working at a law firm in Phillie doing social justice). They did not attend both of their weddings. They told them they never want to see the girls ever again, not even on their death bed, for no reason whatsoever. First the girls were abandoned by their birth parents in India, now their American family has rejected them once again.

Upon receiving this news and reconnecting with the girls I decided immediately to make sure these wonderful young women know they can be part of our family. Julia has a son Cole who I would love to treat as a grandson or a nephew. I don't know for sure if the girls feel they can trust me after being so abused. I am not sure if they understand how deep my love and acceptance runs for them. I think of them every day. I feel as if they are my own children, or my own sisters (depending on what makes them feel more comfortable). I watched them grow up in my youth group from young little girls into God following women. I remember all of our long talks as they were teens trying to decide which path to follow with their lives.

So, I was at Jessica's wedding a few weeks ago and I could not have been more happy for her. She married a Princeton graduate who's major was Theology and who loves the Lord and Jessica with all of his heart. Sweet Andrew. Up at the front of the Bride's side of the church the first 3 pews were empty as no family came, not even grandparents, nothing. I didn't care what anyone thought, I went up front and sat on the isle (2nd row back) so that as she walked down the isle she would see my smiling, approving, loving face. Behind me was her current pastors wife, behind that was Julia's mother-in-law. I was so thrilled that there were 3 strong, loving Godly women standing there to show Jessica that she is not alone, we are by her side.

It is amazing what God has in our futures. Sometimes we get stuck in a rut and think that this is the way it will always be, but that is not true. Things are always shifting, always changing sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. But, I believe that when you put the Lord as number 1 in your life and equally as important allow him to mold you, change you, work out the hard spots with pressure and rubbing that sometimes hurts, you will come out smoother, softer, and more displaying the image of Christ and the fullness of what He created you to be. I was reading in Isaiah this morning about: how can the clay say to his maker, your doing this wrong! He is the maker, He is the creator. You know when I was sick for many years (and still have my struggles with this now and again). I felt so angry at God. How could He let this happen to me? I have served him with all that I know and am for as long as I can remember and he let me suffer horrifically. I really could not come to terms with that for a really really really long time. But, someone said once (I think it might have been Joyce Meyers www.joycemeyers.com) that God never promises us that we will not have hardship and suffering in this life, why heck we can probably guarantee that it will happen to everyone. But, He does promise that when you go through that hardship and suffering... you are not alone. He is there to hold your hand and walk with you. That is the difference between an unbeliever and a believer. When we come to Christ many of us think it will be hunky dory from here on out, no. That's not going to happen. But, he is there with us in the valley's, we are not alone.

Andrew with his wonderful wife Jessica