This Week’s Quick Hits:

How many of these “Winter Trivia” questions can you answer?

1. What is the total number of sides on all snowflakes?

2. Winter Festival of Lights takes place in which country during winter?

3. A black bear’s pulse can drop to how many beats during winter?

4. In the 1968 historical period drama The Lion in Winter, which James Bond actor made his cinematic debut?

5. How many snow particles fall from the sky every winter?

Jennie Lusko joins me to talk about flourishing - even when we feel like we are failing.

Read: 

My goal each year is to read a book a week. For 2021 I fell a little short at 48. From the reviews I do, you probably have figured out I read a wide variety of books. I have divided them into these categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, History, Biography, Sports, Relationship, Book That Made Me Look at Things Differently, Leadership, Health, Doing Things Better, and Best Overall.

Here are my 2021 Winners:

Best Fiction Book: The Atlee Pine Series by David Baldacci. Atlee Pine is an FBI agent who encounters exciting cases working in the Southwest. Her search for her twin sister, who was kidnapped when they were six, is the thread that runs through the entire series.

Best Nonfiction Book: The Future is Faster Than You Think by Peter Diamendis and Steven Kofler 

Best History Book: The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell

Best Biography: The Boys by Ron and Clint Howard

Best Sports Book: The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict (The story of Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots)

Best Relationship Book: Relationship Goals by Michael Todd

Best Book That Made Me Look at Things Differently: At Your Best by Carey Nieuwhof

Best Leadership Book: Multipliers by Liz Wiseman

Best Health Book: Keep Sharp by Sanjay Gupta, MD

Best Book on Doing Things Better: Make Your Bed by William H. McRaven

Best Overall Book: Spiritual Intelligence: The Art of Thinking Like God by Kris Vallotton and Karen Garnass, MD

Listen:

The Awesome Marriage Podcast is still on vacation. Look for the first episode of 2022 to drop on January 18, 2022. 

Watch:

Children at the Center

Is there balance between your kids and your marriage? Is there something that needs to change? Let’s dig deeper into this in this week’s Awesome Marriage YouTube Channel Vlog.

Insights:

Selfishness and The White Flag

After the last two Holiday Editions of the Dispatch, let’s get back to “White Flags.” Chris Tomlin and Passion recorded the song “White Flag'' in 2012. It is one of my all time favorite songs. Why? In my marriage and in the marriages of many people that I talk to, the answer to many, if not all of our problems and issues, is to surrender to God. Today let’s talk about selfishness.

Do you remember the first time you were selfish? Probably not. I tend to remember the things that cast a better light on me than my selfishness. 

I remember seeing selfishness for the first time in my children. I was amazed when this perfect little child that had been so sweet and innocent grabbed something from another child with force and said “mine!” Wow. I remember thinking, “where did that come from? They never saw me grab something away from Nancy.” 

It was then that I began to understand my own sin nature at a much deeper level. I am basically selfish and unless I let God change me, I can be a wrecking ball in relationships.  

I never thought I would be selfish in my marriage. It was not like I plotted selfish acts against Nancy. It just happened. I was selfish. My needs, wants and desires came before her. I was number one and she was number two, or three, or ten. I guess I thought I could just steamroll over her, but I forgot she was also a Type A personality. She was not one to be steamrolled easily, if at all. There were conflicts, and fights, and hurtful things said. Being selfish in my marriage was not working.

This one was all about me. It was hard to blame it on Nancy. The bottom line was that I was selfish and if my marriage was going to work that had to change. As I listened to the lyrics of “White Flags” I could not get these words out of my head:

We cannot win this fight Inside our rebel hearts.

That’s it, isn’t it? I have to surrender my selfishness to God. I have to believe that His plan for me and my marriage is better than anything I could ever orchestrate on my own. He will not change anything in me or Nancy that is not good for us individually and in our marriage together. It is surrender time again. I lay down my selfishness at the feet of God and let Him make me new. I raise the “white flag” and Love has truly won.

A Next Step:

• What are the selfish areas of your life?  

• What do you need to lay at God’s feet in surrender?

Winter Trivia Answers:

1. Six

2. Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

3. 8 beats per minute (40 plus in the summer)

4. Timothy Dalton

5. At least one septillion (one followed by 24 zeros)

*Some links are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Every dollar made goes directly to the ministry of Awesome Marriage to help couples build awesome marriages. We only promote products we truly recommend.

As we wind down 2021, I want to pause my current Dispatch format and focus on the New Year and all God has for us.  

Dr. Kim

Did You Know:

• In 1908, the first ball was dropped to celebrate the new year in Times Square.

• On average, 11,293 babies are born on January 1st each year

• There are about 360 million glasses of Champagne consumed every New Year’s Eve

• The first Tournament of Roses Parade was held in 1890.

• The poem “Auld Lang Syne” was written by Robert Burns

New Year’s Trivia:

1. Which film was released on New Year drawing the highest box office sales?

2. On New Year's Day, who failed to pass an audition for Decca Records?

3. What does “Auld Lang Syne” mean?

4. In which year was the New York New Year Eve’s ball NOT lowered?

5. On January 1, 1971 what kind of commercials were banned from American television?

“I Am the New Year”

Author Unknown

I am the new year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time.

I am your next chance at the art of living. I am your opportunity to practice what you have learned about life during the last twelve months.

All that you sought and didn’t find is hidden in me, waiting for you to search it but with more determination.

All the good that you tried for and didn’t achieve is mine to grant when you have fewer conflicting desires.

All that you dreamed but didn’t dare to do, all that you hoped but did not will, all the faith that you claimed but did not have—these slumber lightly, waiting to be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose.

I am your opportunity to renew your allegiance to Him who said, "Behold, I make all things new."

Words of Hope for 2022

• "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." ~ Jeremiah 29:11

• "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." ~ Isaiah 40:10

• "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17

• "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." ~ Romans 5:8

Trivia Answers:

1. Avatar

2. The Beatles

3. Times Gone By

4. 1942

5. Cigarette

Louis Cassels wrote the column “Religion in America” for United Press International from 1955-1974. For many years, he struggled to find an effective way to communicate the depth and real meaning of the Christmas story. 

In December of 1959, Cassels wrote “The Parable of the Birds.” Soon after, legendary radio host Paul Harvey, whose show reached as many as 24 million people each week, would read the “Parable of the Birds” every Christmas. It became a tradition for Harvey and I hope to make this an annual tradition for the Dispatch. Enjoy!

The Parable of the Birds

The man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a scrooge; he was a kind, decent, mostly good man, generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn't make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

“I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite. That he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. So he stayed while his family went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read the newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound, then another, and then another — sort of a thump or a thud. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window.

But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window. Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, trampled through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them. So he hurried back to the house, fetched breadcrumbs, sprinkled them on the snow. He made a trail to the brightly lit wide open doorway of the stable. To his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow.

He tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms. But they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn. And then he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me…that I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how?

Any move he made tended to frighten and confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

"If only I could be a bird," he thought to himself, "and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear, and understand."

At that moment, the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sound of the wind. And he stood listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.

"Now I understand," he whispered, "now I see why you had to do it."

“Because Jesus is God Incarnate, made in human likeness, "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the father."  - Philippians 2: 10-11