This post has some insider information for the guys, so ladies – you may either want to click away or share this with the men in your life depending on your take on all this.

I want to help you with something that I think will transform your marriage.

A day is coming that will present a defining moment for you. When this moment arrives, I want you to not only recognize it, but make it your moment to shine.

If you have kids, the time is coming when your wife is going to say:

I’m going away for the weekend.

Now she may not say it exactly that way. She may spin it to sound like she has a church retreat or reunion or girls weekend or grandparent’s funeral to go to, but the underlying message is going to be the same.

I’m going away for the weekend. And you’re keeping the kids.

The reason this is a defining moment for you is because how you handle this will speak volumes to your wife. How you handle this may become the basis for many future discussions.

If you want to make this your moment to shine, when she tells you that she’s going away and that you’re keeping the kids, you say one thing and one thing only:

I think that’s great. You deserve a break.

And don’t you dare flinch when you say it. LIke bees and dogs, women can smell fear when it comes to their kids’ caregivers. (I don’t think that’s actually true, but it serves the purpose of this post, so I’m going with it.)

The confidence you show in that moment will be a gift to her while she’s gone. If you’re timid or half-hearted about keeping your own kids for a weekend, she’s going to be preoccupied while she’s away and won’t get to fully experience whatever it is she’s doing.

Once you’ve got your wife out the door, here’s how you survive the weekend when mommy’s away:

Relax. You can’t undo in two days what the two of you have worked together to accomplish as parents in the preceding years. You’re going to be fine.

Take charge. You’re not the babysitter. You’re the dad. You’re not 50% of the parenting equation, you’re 100% of the equation. Expect that your kids treat you like kids should treat a parent.

Keep routines. You’d think that throwing caution to the wind and being spontaneous and crazy would be the best recipe for a mom-free weekend. And it might be. My experience has been that with little ones, keeping up routines and rhythms (mealtimes, naps, snack times, etc.) is a great way to know where you stand. There’s value in having some milestones during the day for you – and the kids – to look forward to.

Have fun. I realize I just wrote about the value of keeping routines, but try to do some things you wouldn’t do on a typical weekend. If you normally play in your neighborhood, drive across town to the park with the new play structure. Stay up late and catch fireflies. Amp up the fun a little bit.

Accept help. Like it or not, people think dads are idiots. So when you’re alone with your kids you’re going to get all kinds of offers for help. Your wife’s friends are going to offer playdates. Your in-laws are going to offer to feed all of you. If you want, take the help.

Solo parenting isn’t easy. You’ll work your tail off for the whole weekend your wife is away. But when Monday rolls around and you head back to work, I guarantee you miss those kids in a way you never have before.

When your wife comes to you with the magic words that she wants to get away for a weekend, give her the gift of a worry-free break. And seize the opportunity to connect with your kids while you’ve still got ‘em under your roof.

A handful of couples from our small college had this tradition of getting together every Memorial Day weekend.

The last time we got together, before everyone went home, we found this great field by a lake with a mountain for a backdrop. We took a picnic lunch and threw the frisbee and talked.

We looked like what you always see people doing in Ralph Lauren ads. Lounging in the grass. Running around with friends in clean clothes. Picnicking.

Even though we have a few pictures from that day, the memory is etched in my mind because I count it as a rich experience.

One of the reasons we’ve made rich experiences one of the three key things we will pursue as a family is that rich experiences create new realities.

Here’s what I mean:

Rich experiences can give new meaning to a person, place or thing

The lakeside field framed by the mountain where we had our picnic? We’d driven by it most of the weekend. It wasn’t until the last day that someone suggested we take a picnic lunch and a few games down there.

I have the chance to drive past that field once a year or so, and when I do I’m instantly back there with my friends on that Memorial Day. It’s sacred ground now.

Rich experiences create space in relationships

If I learned anything from that day out in the field, it’s that thirtysomething me doesn’t have the same stamina as college me when it comes to chasing down a frisbee. I think the same was true for most of us, except for the ones who didn’t have kids. For some reason they seemed to have a little more spring in their step.

So we rested a lot and we talked a lot. And when we talked a lot we did it knowing that we were in the final moments of our time together. So maybe we were a little more real, a little more genuine, a little less polished, gave a little more of ourselves up in what we said.

It’s a good feeling when you have the space to go deeper in a relationship with someone because you either have plenty of time, time is running out, or because you’ve shared something amazing together.

As you live the intentional family life, use rich experiences to change the rhythm and interrupt the momentum of your family from time to time. When you do, you may find that someplace or something has new meaning to your family and that you have new space in your relationships to move deeper.

For several years I was on a committee in town that decided how to give away $1 million each year.

For a full day, representatives from nonprofits would come make their case about why they deserved a piece of the pie.

The stories they brought were truly inspirational. They told of families cared for in the wake of catastrophe, marginalized kids mentored and fed, and the homeless receiving shelter.

Every year, as the day wore on, I found myself thinking, “There’s so much to do. I’ve got to find a way to help.”

And for the day, I’d commit myself to a new life of service to my community.

Back to reality

After the  checks were written and the meeting was over though, it was back to reality. Back to the pressures of my full-time job and my responsibilities at home.

And those community needs would slip back into the place they normally occupied, somewhere low on my list of priorities.

I wonder if that has happened to you.

Have you ever felt stirred to pitch in and help a nonprofit or volunteer group or ministry? Have you see where your talents meet their need? And then, have you discovered that you just can’t give it the time that you wish you could?

Daydream

What I want to do today is let you daydream a little bit. Pretend for a minute that – instead of being the most scarce – time is the most abundant resource you have.

If everything else would get done – the bills would get paid, your kids would be fed, your friends would still like you – where would you invest more time?

Maybe you’ve wanted to join the Rotary Club or Junior League. Maybe you’ve wanted to take art classes at night. Maybe you want to write grants for nonprofits.

Let’s hear it.

Where would you give your time if you knew you would never run out?

My parents have a ceramic sleigh that acts as the centerpiece of their table during the Christmas season.

On Christmas Eve, when our family gathers to swap gifts and share a big meal, the sleigh is full of small wrapped presents.

These “sled presents” are nothing extravagant – a tiny flashlight, a harmonica, lip balm – but they’ve been a regular feature on our Christmas table for as long as I can remember.

They are part of what makes Christmas Eve different from any other night for me. That one little element adds an extra level of excitement to the night.

Traditions add drama to our experiences

When I think about some of the more memorable scenes from my life, it’s pretty evenly split between once-in-a-lifetime moments and moments bathed in tradition.

The reason tradition enhances our experiences is because it adds drama. And when I say drama, I simply mean that those moments are transformed from something mundane or rote into something bigger.

You could go to the funeral of a total stranger and I’ll bet you’d get chills if a bugler played “Taps”. Somehow the tradition of that song on a solitary bugle takes the mind away to places like smoky battlefields, battered flags, and to things like loss, and struggle. Those 20 seconds of music, for some reason, join you to all the others who have gone before.

Traditions recall past richness

When our first child was born, my wife slept through part of the night while Pitocin dripped in her IV. The nurses woke us up in the wee hours – the ones you can’t really call night and can’t really call morning – to get things moving.

To get my head in the game, I bolted to the cafeteria and got a big cup of coffee.

I loved everything about the hospital where all three of our kids were born, but the coffee was horrible.

I ran back up to our room, we had a baby, and everything turned out great.

Two years later, when it was time for our son to be born, I couldn’t wait to get checked in to our room and get a cup of that nasty coffee. The flavor of it took me right back to the amazing experience surrounding the birth of our first child.

That’s what traditions do for us – they let us relive moments that have slipped away from us.

What’s a tradition or ritual that adds richness to your experiences? What’s a tradition you’d like to start in your family?

I work in a bank.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but banking is a pretty crowded field. You probably drive past five or six banks on the way to your bank.

Since the landscape is so competitive, we’ve got to be on the lookout for ways to stand out from the crowd. I’m convinced that one way to stand out is by having different conversations with our customers than other banks are willing to have with theirs.

For us, I think it means asking a customer, “What do you need this money to do for you?” when they start a relationship rather than simply taking their instruction. Knowing what the customer really needs their money to do for them (grow, stay safe, generate income) is the key to recommending the right solution. And recommending the right solution creates a better relationship than simply taking an order.

But it all hinges on having a different conversation.

Deep relationships are interwoven with different conversations.

One way you can tell a relationship has some legs is if someone is willing to go below the surface to engage you even when it’s uncomfortable for you and/or them.

My wife opened my eyes to this a few weeks ago.

She said that in the days after our miscarriage in 2008, her friends kept their distance for the most part. Not wanting to upset her or poke at the wound, they didn’t say much about the miscarriage.

One friend stepped out of her own comfort zone and asked her while they were riding somewhere in the car together: “So how are you doing with everything?”

My wife says it meant the world to her that someone asked. Especially when the answer was almost certain to be, “I’m not okay.”

Do you want to intentionally deepen a few key relationships in your life? Start having different conversations with those people.

When I was in high school, I had a friend who loved to be the center of attention.

He drove a big red 1970 Ford F100 pickup truck when everyone else drove Hondas, Jeeps and BMWs. He had the lead role in all the school plays. He wasn’t afraid to do what needed to be done to get a laugh, or more importantly in high school, a date.

For a long time that boisterous nature rubbed me the wrong way, mainly because when someone close to you wants to be the center of attention, sometimes you get dragged into it too.

Let it Be

At some point, I figured out I couldn’t change anything about my friend. The guy was just being himself.

What I know now is this:

You can transform a relationship simply by embracing the personality of the other person.

When you embrace the personality of the other person:

• you stop expecting them to be an extension of yourself
• you are better equipped to relate
• you can more readily deal with him/her as a whole, rather than parts you like/don’t like

As we move toward deep relationships, I think we’ve got to value the people we’re going deep with by embracing their personalities.

Have you seen this principle at work in your own friendships / family / office relationships? What would you add to what I’ve said?

At some point in my childhood, I can remember hearing my parents tell me:

“Do your best. Remember, you’re a leader.”

As a kid, the “you’re a leader” part threw me for a loop, because I pictured leaders as army generals and guys in marching band uniforms with the tall hats and batons.

Cut me some slack. I was a kid.

All that to say that my definition of “leader” was a little fuzzy.

These days, I see things a little better. I understand that I do have leadership roles, some of which I have chosen and some of which I’ve sort of matured into.

The intentional family is fertile ground for leaders. To stop the flow of culture and say as a family, “No, we’re doing it our way” will build the character and leadership of everyone in the family.

With that in mind, here are five things I know about being a leader:

I need to show the path. Most of what I do in my professional life and in the community is about taking people from where they are currently to where they want/need to be in the future. I never expect someone to take the entire journey in one step, but that’s probably what they think I’m going to ask them to do. I’m most effective as a leader when I show a clear picture of a destination but then show the specific path toward that destination and ask for one step at a time.

I need to make decisions. In my mind, I have this awesome study with ceiling-high bookshelves and a few windows and a nice big desk with a big fat Mac for writing. That’s where I go to figure out hard problems or work on decisions that need more research than I can give in just a quick moment. The only trouble is, the study is fictional and the time to figure out hard problems and research things is fictional, too. They don’t exist. I constantly put things off until later thinking I’ll be able to make a better decision under better circumstances, but I never go back and make the decision or the better circumstances. For the things that don’t need the counsel of my wife, the best thing to do is just make a decision and move on.

I need to value people with my time. How we spend our time with people will communicate a lot to them. They’ll see whether we’re fully present, whether we’re generous with our time or whether we treat our time as something to be earned. For the sake of relationships, time is best used as something to be given freely for the benefit and building up of the other person.

I need to look for who’s next. Good leaders attract other leaders and good leaders raise up other leaders. So when you see an organization with one leader, you’ve got to wonder what’s really going on there. It’s a mark of success and maturity to bring up people in professional and community contexts to move into the roles I occupy now. In the context of family, it means pouring into the kids to give them eyes to see in increasing degrees the opportunities and responsibilities all around them.

I need to grow. The only reason I know any of this stuff is because God has seen fit to put me in places where I can see it playing out. I’m growing into these things as I see good leaders do them. But these aren’t the only things leaders do, so I need to maintain a student’s heart in the hopes of seeing more.

Those are five things I know about being a leader. What one thing would you add?

I’ve had several conversations with people lately about the idea of being more authentic.

I’m drawn to authenticity in other people. Even if I don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with other people, as long as they own who they are, they get a lot of credit in my book.

I value authenticity and I’m drawn to it, but it’s something at which I have to work. It’s not natural for me. My tendency is to be a chameleon and be different people in different environments. But I’m working hard at it, and thanks to God’s sanctifying grace, I’m getting there.

In the context of relationships, here are three benefits of authenticity:

Being authentic sets realistic expectations. Here’s what happens if I’m not being the real me. Intentionally or not, I wind up communicating to you that I have skills, gifts, inclinations, attitudes, strengths, weaknesses, compassion, you name it, that I don’t actually possess. Somewhere along the way, the fact that I don’t truly have whatever the thing you thought I had is going to get exposed. Give it enough time and it’s just going to happen.

When that moment comes and you discover that reality isn’t what you thought it was, you’re going to be disappointed, because here’s the crash course on expectations:

• What I received was better than what I expected = Great!
• What I received was the same as what I expected = Okay
• What I received was not as good as what I expected = Boo!

Being authentic gives other people permission to follow. It takes a few degrees of vulnerability to move from where most of us live toward a more authentic day-to-day life. But when you start being more authentic – showing people more of who you really are – they’ll follow. They’re just waiting on someone to go first. No one wants to be first. Be a leader and go first.

Being authentic lets more work get done. I knew something was bugging MC the other night so I asked her what was wrong. She explained the issue and then said:

“That’s what’s bothering me and I have no clue why it bothers me so much.

I loved that statement. We were able to talk through the why, which wound up being more helpful than trying to analyze the original issue. We got more done because we both knew what was really going on.

Does authenticity come naturally for you?

One of the things I’ve learned in the years Mary Craig and I have been married is that it’s good to pray for her.

When I pray for my wife, I’m most able to see her through the lenses God uses instead of my own scratched and clouded set.

I pray for Mary Craig for many reasons and at different times. I pray for good times we share and I pray for the hard times, too.

Here are a few of the things I ask God to do in her life:

I pray that God will grow their relationship. I hope that she would be more moved by Him, stirred to know more of Him, and inspired to seek him ever more fervently.

I pray that she would have the stamina to be the mom that she was made to be. It takes an unbelievable amount of energy to be a mom. It takes supernatural energy to be a great mom. My wife is a great mom, so I pray that God continues to feed her with the energy she needs to be the great mom that she is.

I pray that God would give her rest. You know what’s like cold water to a thirsty soul when you’re the parent of small children? A tiny bit of rest. I pray that in Him, MC would find the rest that she needs.

I pray that He would tell her who she is. It’s easy to figure out who you’re not. Every commercial will show you the car you don’t drive, the skin/hair/body you don’t have and the vacation you’re not on. Social media makes it worse for moms. Pull up Twitter and all of a sudden you get to read about your friend who took her kid on nine playdates, had coffee with a friend, went to women’s Bible study, made drapes for her living room, ran four miles, worked half a day as a litigation attorney, hosted a fundraiser for Guatemalan orphans, ran four more miles, cooked dinner and wrote 11 blog posts. Social media is good at creating a smokescreen of inflated expectations and exaggerated reality that pulls our focus away from the unique work God has given us – and us alone – to do.

In the world that tells her so loudly who she’s not, I pray that God would whisper in his voice – the one voice that matters – who she is.

Do you pray for your spouse? What kinds of things do you pray about for him/her?

The bookstore is full of baby care and parenting books, but nothing teaches you about parenting as well as the act of parenting does.

I’m curious about your family life today compared to what you imagined it looking like. So let’s fill in this blank:

Family life is ____________________ than I expected.

Post your response in the comments. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say!