There are water-colored ponies on my refrigerator door
And the shape of something I don't really recognize
Brushed with careful little fingers and put proudly on display
A reminder to us all of how time flies
Seems an endless mound of laundry
And a stairway laced with toys
Gives a blow-by-blow reminder of the world
That we fight for their well-being
For their greater understanding
To impart a holy reverence for the Lord
But baby, what will we do
When it comes back to me and you?
They look a little less like little boys every day
Oh, the pleasure of watching the children growin'
Is mixed with a bitter cup
Of knowin' the water-colored ponies
One day, one day, one day, right away
Hi, everybody. This is Max Locato.
You know, anyone who knows Dr. Paul Faulkner knows
that he has been a valiant warrior in the battle for families and marriages for years.
He is a best-selling author, a family therapist, and a well-known speaker
who has reached hundreds of thousands of people through his marriage enrichment seminar.
He's a great speaker, a great speaker, and a great speaker.
He's a well-known speaker who has reached hundreds of thousands of people through his marriage enrichment seminars,
his award-winning film series, and through countless personal appearances.
Paul brings a message of hope, change, and love to people who need to hear it.
Now, in this presentation, Dr. Faulkner will share with you
seven habits of highly intentional mothers.
The insights he communicates come from extensive research that he did for his book.
Dr. Faulkner went into the homes of 30 financially successful families
who had maintained a closeness and strength that was extraordinary.
This was accomplished even though the parents were involved in often stressful
and always busy, high-demand careers.
What he discovered were practical strategies that all parents can use
to make a difference in their families.
One characteristic that surfaced again and again was that these moms and dads parented on purpose.
With planning and purpose, these parents steered their children toward tried and proven values and goals.
And in this session, you will hear about the intentional mothers
who played such an important role in these families.
Now, here is a man who will touch you and change you, my good friend, Dr. Paul Faulkner.
We're going to talk here about two uncanny gifts of these mothers
and seven habits of these highly intentional moms.
What is it in us that yearns for the mama?
Almost beyond reason, there's something there that a mama, a gift, an uncanny gift that a mother holds over us.
The mamas hold a grip on us.
I see those guys at the football games, big 300-pound giants.
Take that ball, run through everybody on the field and slam that thing down on the goal line,
and then turn to the camera and say, hi.
That kind of ticks me. What's wrong with that occasionally?
We'll talk about him next, but you know, after he taught him how to catch a ball or something, maybe.
But that's in good humor. The mamas hold a grip on us.
Somehow, intuitively, underneath, the emotion, the compassion is just there and you can't get away from it.
Every little boy and every little girl needs a good mom and a good daddy. They deserve one.
We don't always get them, but we deserve them, and if we're in a position where we can do it, let's do it.
It's a great way to launch a better world.
Two uncanny strengths of these ladies.
One is an uncanny strength. I'm not talking about weightlifting, you'll see in a moment.
And the other is an uncanny gift. Let's go back.
An uncanny strength of women? Yeah. Did you know who?
I tip my hat to. That's those mothers who are either widowed, their husband is gone, passed on, or he's left.
And mamas there, rearing these kids, playing the role of both mom and dad.
Short salary, staying in there, staying in there, staying in there.
I tip my hat to you ladies. You've got an uncommon and uncanny strength, and God loves you for that.
But we're pointing toward male and female, husband and wife, striving to be that kind of person, that kind of mom and daddy.
It'll bless the next generation and the next generation and the next generation. That's what we're talking about.
I think so often of these strengths.
But listen to the children, let them tell you. Mom was so strong, she kept her sights in line.
She was a daily prioritizer. Making money was not important, but what kind of boys you grew up to be was important.
Another child wrote about her mom. Mom was such an influence, such a motivation for us, and she was the one that motivated dad to be the servant he was.
And another child wrote about her mother.
My mother's strength overwhelms me. The best illustration of her strength is when her parents moved into our home.
Somehow my mother managed to deal with two dying parents, three kids, and an in-and-out husband.
She never once fell apart, and she never neglected any of us.
How did she do that? I was in the middle of my selfish adolescent years, and I had no clue of the kind of emotions my mother must have had or the chaos she was going through.
Uncanny gift of strength. Women also have an uncanny gift of being wired different. You know what I mean?
I mean, men don't have this. Women are wired 440. They have wires going all over everywhere, connections.
Men are wired 12 volts, except in one place. They have two wires coming out, and they're bent.
I'm making fun of us. But there's more truth than you might imagine. For example, a woman's wiring between her brain halves is uncanny.
All of us have what's called a corpus callosum, but in the wife it's bigger.
The woman has a bigger one, and if size has anything to do with function, then she's able to crosstalk between brain halves better than men.
We operate on one side. I'm stretching this a little bit. We go around like this, you see, one side. She's able to use both sides better.
Now, that is...well, we've been looking at that for years. We call it a woman's what? You knew the word. Premonition, intuition. She knows.
How did she get that? I don't know. Now we can all say together, corpus callosum, that's where she gets it. Not necessarily true, but isn't that strange?
Maybe, well, maybe God gave it to her. I was, oh, it was 25 years ago, and I was going along my very fine way, and my wife said,
You know you might get fired. I said, I don't know how it was on earth, you know. And I did.
That beat me. How does she know this? But she did. And I find a lot of us men are like that. Kind of like my old dog, Shug.
You give him a bone, he takes that thing out and buries it. Comes back grinning, and says, I've got me a hidden bone over yonder.
And you look out there, half that bone's taken out of the ground. It's not hidden at all. He's just lying to himself.
And you hear some folks, I see this a lot in the office. Physicians, dentists, businessmen. And we think we're having a little affair, you know,
We don't call them big affairs. Little affair, and things are going along, and you think nobody knows. Why have the women been talking about that six months?
They know, they can just feel it. It's in the air. They've got big eyes and big ears and long, sticky antennas.
And they just hone me, and they major on that. They just can pick it up from the kids, the boss, the atmosphere.
Glad you're just telling me about somebody today. None of your business.
But what I'm saying is, call it whatever you wish. Thank God for it, you see.
It's funny and it's sad. But I've seen a number of men, and those of you that are counselors have as well.
And those of you that just got big ears and big eyes and long, sticky antennas, you know it's true too.
The guy will say, he says, well, and the wife comes in, she says, I'm leaving.
What? I'm out of here. I've had it up to here. Well, what's wrong?
Well, I have told you and told you and told you and told you for 17 years.
I don't remember anything. When was this? She says, listen, I'm telling you, it's for the children.
The children and I both have told you. Don't you remember? Remember what? And she's specific.
He says, well, I don't remember that. He said, what about supper tonight?
Now I'm being a little facetious, but I'm saying that mama's got it and us guys do well to develop some long,
sticky antennas and grow some of those sensitivities. It can be, men can do it.
We'll tell you next session about that. Women are the connectors. They've got this, the ability to connect.
For example, it's kind of like a telephone system. They hook in here and hook in there and they're trying as best they can to,
well, for example, sweetheart, would you take John to school to carpool today?
She's trying to get daddy and son together. Or would you pick him up after the baseball today, trying to get them together?
We haven't seen Aunt Claire in a long time. We haven't visited grandpa, so and so and so.
And so she's the one that's kind of getting them together. And I bet you that some of you guys,
your wife writes the letters back home to your parents. And that happens a lot, that she is the one that's out here.
Women, or mommas especially, or what you might call a systemic wonder. I mean, they can keep all these things going at once.
Have you noticed? It's kind of like that circus guy that has those long poles and he gets one plate and he spins that thing.
He gets another and spins another and gets another and spins another. He gets all these plates, just plates all over everywhere,
15 or 20 plates spinning and doing all that stuff. Now, women's like that. They get all kinds of things going.
Tell me some. What are some of the things that you have to do if you've got kids and husbands and all this stuff going? Anybody?
Laundry. Carpool. Orthodontist. We could just go on and on. All these plates are spinning. Men?
Well, they've got one plate. They love that plate. They can spin that thing. They say, honey, look at that plate.
Spin, would you? And she says, oh, sweetheart, because they've got to call attention to it. Oh, sweetheart, you're the best plate spinner I've ever seen.
I thought so. It's crazy, but that's kind of the way it is. Maybe I stressed it a little bit, but we're talking about she's a systemic.
She keeps all that stuff going at once. You remember there's a professor. He had a class. He asked the students a question.
He said, if a man opens the door, comes over, looks over, and he sees his wife at the sink, and then he smells something, he's aware that something's balling over on the stove.
The phone is ringing. One of the kids has the mother's shorts pulled down to her knees, and the baby's squalling over in the corner.
And they ask the class, the professor asks the class, what do you, under those circumstances? And the men say, anything I can do to help?
And the women say, kill that sucker if he can't see what needs to be done and do it. Is that about how far I missed that?
Well, that happened in the classroom. Can he see what needs to be done and do it? Does he have to ask?
We just say they're amazing strengths, uncanny strength, uncanny gift of sensitivity. Would you buy that?
Now let's talk about seven habits of these great mamas. One of them she prioritized, prioritized the family. It's number one.
And you ask the kid, it was over and over and over, number one. And some of these mothers, one of the mothers I remember interviewing, she said, I could have been a physician.
See, she knew who she was. She had confidence in herself. I could have been a physician. I chose to be a mother. That's what I'm choosing to do, and that's what I want to be.
On the other hand, there's that woman you read about over in Proverbs 31. She was a working mother out of the home. Now all mothers work.
In fact, I don't know whether they work harder than most of us men in the home. But this particular mother did a lot. Look at her. She selects woolen flags and works with her hands.
She's like a merchant ship bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it's still dark. She provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls.
She has some people she's managing and considers a field and buys it. She's an entrepreneur. She thinks it will make money, huh?
Out of her earnings, she plants a vineyard. Oh, another business she's got going. Or maybe it's on that field.
And she sets about her work vigorously. Her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable. She's a trader. Is that a third business? What is she doing?
Well, she's quite capable, quite gifted. The second characteristic of these women and our habit that they have is a spiritual interest. Their spirituality is really different.
Let me say a word about this going back. I have a quote here I'd like to share with you that kind of splits the difference between this family first and this spirituality.
Listen to this one. Some people always seem to notice things that other people miss. They catch the little touches that are terribly important but seldom obvious to people who never look beneath the surface.
They see subtle shifts in body language and hear delicate messages in other people's tones of voice and catch quiet hints that less sensitive people ever notice. They have discernment.
That's what women seem to have. It goes on. They visit good friends and hear delicate signals that all is not well. So they guard their tongues and say nothing that could make things worse.
She senses that her husband is keeping something from her and that he's secretly sulking behind his usually grumpy exterior. She soon catches faint hints that tell her he's having trouble at the job.
So she makes sure that she doesn't blurt out something that could make him feel worse. That kind of sensitivity is close akin to the spiritual sensitivities.
And in that area some of these people would say things like this. She gave me freedom to be me and what God made me to be.
After we left for school each morning she would go to each of our rooms and pray for us individually as the day began. Or another child wrote, I remember a children's Bible class that mom held in our home during the summer.
Now I also teach children in my home. Mom always encouraged all of us to keep our morning devotionals.
So when we talk about this family priority, this second aspect of spirituality, you see it just runs hand in hand. Sometimes these students would say things like this, these children.
She was in the business of raising a family, our four daughters, who were going to get out in this world one of these days and she did it with flying colors.
Another one said, sometimes in the middle of my life and my job and all the confusion of all the things that go into the world, I often stop and think of my mom and her simplicity.
Will I ever be like my mom? How did she hold on to the simple? She did because she had a priority.
I remember one of the priorities, one of the ladies, the spiritual priority was early in the morning she had kind of a telephone ministry in which she would call people before they went to work if they had any need.
And she knew about it. She'd call them before having encouraged them and tell them, I'm for you. And so right out of her home she developed a telephone ministry and other people picked it up.
And the first thing, everybody in the church that had a need, somebody was giving them a call and talking with them in the morning.
Another characteristic, and that is, it seems that a mother has the ability, the habit of giving to us, inculcating compassion and our passion, the emotional aspect.
Dad, said one daughter, pardon me, son, Dad gave me the gift of wisdom and strength in the mechanics of life. Mom gave me the gift of feeling and warmth.
She taught me to have compassion on people. She taught me a side of God that I would not have learned without her, the compassionate God.
I also remember my mom is always having someone as a project. She was working on somebody all the time.
It may have been someone in a divorce or someone that was poor or sick or someone that had drinking problems or whatever.
She always was counseling with someone about something, especially doing home Bible studies with people.
Mom always seemed to seek out those who were the most unlovable or the ones no one else would fool with.
She had compassion. She had passion on them.
And a child's little television cameras are taking pictures of that compassion and that emotion and telling years later this story.
One of the mothers had passion on the people in the inner city, in the over-the-rhyne area in Cincinnati, Ohio, tough neighborhood.
She would go into that neighborhood and she would teach these mothers how to teach their children.
And there's only one father in two city blocks that had a job. And she would go in and teach the mothers how to home school their kids.
Set up little bitty home schools around it because the children weren't going to school.
And then she'd talk to them a while and some of the other children in the neighborhood said, hey, can I get in that private school?
And so it became a real development, you see. And she was doing more than the government was doing.
And then she'd teach them something about marketing even.
Marketing M&Ms, marketing Snickers, marketing some of the stuff the kids in the neighborhood may want to buy.
And they'd go to the wholesale place and they'd get an old sand roll and they'd buy some whole and they'd come back and they'd teach them how to mark it up.
And the percentage to mark up a snicker or whatever it was.
And then after they made a little money, then they were told how to save the money and how to give some money and how to open a bank account and how to open a savings account.
Is that good teaching? She's doing much more than the government was doing because she had compassion on those folks.
And her husband, by the way, was going in and feeding the guys on Saturday.
And yeah, he worked 60 hours a week, but yeah, he found time with his wife to demonstrate to the children passion and compassion.
Another thing these children said about their mommas was she's always there.
My mother was always there, whether it was for school or for church or home or away. My mother was there.
Didn't seem to matter to her whether I was a superstar or an all-soul ran. She was there.
My mother was a constant in my world, which is my in my formative years was ever changing.
Another son wrote what you would expect some of us to write. When I came home from school, my first word was mom.
And when she answered, I knew things were OK. The smell of the chocolate cookies she would make. Wow.
Another said, I just remember that she was always there, always smiling, always a comfort.
If there was one thing we could count on, it was that mom would be there and she could always make things better.
She was magic, intuition and magic. Isn't that interesting how we come up with these words for mama?
I don't know where the magic comes from or how you get it, but mom had it. It's the magic that makes a house a home.
Isn't that interesting for a son to write that about his mama?
And another son said, but the biggest thing I remember, she was always there for me. When I fell and got hurt, there's a big boy talking.
I mean, the guy has children of his own. He's remembering those days when he fell and got hurt.
Do you remember those days? Do you ever stump your toe? You don't go barefoot anymore, do you?
I guess our generation does. Anyway, stump your toe. I remember when your hands used to freeze and get cold.
I remember when you used to have ear aches. I'd go in, mama. Not daddy.
There was a compassionate tender side. You could just quickly...there's no question about it.
I love our dads, but that part of it you just kind of have to get from mama if it looks like.
I guess one of the things that happens with Gladys and myself, we travel a lot. Our kids are gone now.
We've got these grandkids. I'm so proud of them. But the house isn't the same.
When mother's with the grandchildren and I'm at home by myself, that house is just a house.
I mean, I hear things creak. Do you ever hear them creak? I never hear them creak. When she's around, they don't creak.
And ghosts and ghoulies walk around that house. But we can travel all over the world.
And I found out that wherever I am, old house, young house, any motel, if mama's there, it's a home.
She turns a house into a home. I think that's what mamas are for.
She's a cheerleader for the kids is what they say. Another habit of these mamas, being cheerleaders for the kids.
The fact that mama believed in you no matter what the task, what the date, what the grade, what the project, what the struggle.
She was my cheerleader unconditionally. I like that, unconditionally.
My mom was also a mom and a friend to all of my friends. Seems like our house was a community house.
Our friends would come and just sit around and talk with mom. Everyone loves mom.
She yelled at all our games. She was the loudest yeller on earth.
It didn't matter if you played the worst game in your life. Mom thought you did awesome. Isn't that great?
You need somebody like that, don't we? Somebody said, oh, that's awesome.
And you kicked the ball right where it shouldn't have been kicked or whatever. Awesome.
Mom always tried to make everyone feel important. She never put down any of my ideas.
She always encouraged me. Mama believed in us so much that we were convinced we could do anything.
I don't know how she managed it, but she made each one of us certain that we were the absolute brightest, best, most godly, most talented kid in the whole world.
You know what mamas are supposed to do, kind of. She allowed me to fail.
Allowed me to make mistakes. Mother's still there to pick me up and hug me. This child is writing as an adult and mother herself.
And you need to understand that in this quote.
And she's saying mother is still there to pick me up with her own children. Hug me even though I'm an adult.
And that's the best example of mothering I can think of. My mother is my friend.
Although singing her praises is long overdue, I rise up and call her blessed.
That was from a child who acted out a little bit. And is saying in effect, mama, I love you so much.
And you know number six is habit ingrained in mamas, great mamas. They're an encourager of their husbands.
They say things like, I believe that mom is the only reason.
Dead kept trudging through some difficult times at work. For several years she was his strength.
Wow. Child writing about a mom and dead.
The thing I appreciate about these mothers so much is they knew who they married and they loved who they married.
You see some mothers marry farmers. Those guys put in candle cane hours during the summer.
And then they're all around the house under feet during the winter.
Or maybe they married policemen and they loved a policeman.
Even if in one case they cut the head off a pig and threw it on their front porch.
And said some ugly things about the police and called them ugly names.
She loved that policeman, who he was.
Or maybe some of these mothers marry a coach.
And don't think that's not a tough life.
The coach we interviewed was working 90 hours a week, 11 months out of the year.
And she loved the ground that man walked on.
And all those children loved him. I asked the children one occasion, who's your hero?
And they said, dad is our hero.
These women encouraged and liked that coach even though he had a losing season.
And even though his friends are even talking about the coach.
Well what's wrong coach?
That's what we're talking about.
They hurt when the husband hurts.
What about the wives who married the guys in the military?
They love them right where they are.
Gone to war, gone six months, gone three months, whatever it is.
They love them right where they are.
They knew who they married and they loved who they married.
And what about that businessman, that executive, that entrepreneur?
He's working, the average executive, middle and up, will work between 55 and 64 hours a week.
And a third of them will work more than that.
They love him for who he is.
One of the ladies put it this way.
When he was gone on business, mom used to talk about how wonderful dad was.
And how lucky us kids were to have such a wonderful father even when he was on a trip.
I used to think, I can't wait until I get old enough to go on a trip and have mom say those wonderful things about me.
Another one of the businessmen was called away six months.
The company had bought out another company.
And he went away six months to work in that other place.
And he said, she never complained, never.
Even once.
It meant more to me than anything in the world.
Another woman married this businessman.
He was an entrepreneur trying to build his own business, you know.
She put it this way.
And those hours are ghastly sometimes when you're starting a business.
She said, I not only let him work those long hours, I was an encouragement to him.
See, that's the topic of this section.
She was a husband encourager.
I encouraged him in the middle of it because I knew and he knew that neither of us liked it.
We didn't like this.
But there were some things you had to put up with to get a business started.
And they did.
And there's some of the great, great parents that we talk about in the book.
One of the boys wrote, Dad was out of town a lot as most successful businessmen are.
But it was business as usual when Dad was out of town or whether he was in town.
The only thing that changed was dinner when he was out of town.
We could eat spaghetti.
These kids, what the kids remember is beautiful.
And another thing, the children said there were no long sighs like,
why can't you be home when everybody else's father is?
Or, why can't we take three week vacations?
And the children were saying, we saw none of that in these beautiful women.
Let me say a word or two about the guys, ladies.
If your husband is like most, chances are that we never are able to make that final test.
In other words, it's kind of like taking a class in college.
In college you can take the test and you're through with the course.
But when a man is trying to provide for the family, he never is quite able to say it's finished.
It's kind of like he meets the quota for this year and what do they do?
Raise the quota.
It makes that quota.
What do they do?
They raise the quota again.
What if they raise it the next time?
At some point, some of us come to the place to where we say,
boy, it just can't be done.
I can't, it won't raise again.
It's kind of like squeezing blood out of a tournament.
You come to the place where you say, it won't make anymore.
And lo and behold, some other guy comes in and squeezes more blood out of the tournament.
Some other coach comes in and wins with a losing football team that you've been coaching.
And you feel desperate, but not with these beautiful ladies.
They knew who they married and they loved who they married.
It's a beautiful thing.
I never will forget that picture of that physician.
He was seated here and his wife next to him and his son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren.
And he put his hand over on her leg and said, you don't know how grateful I am for this beautiful wife.
And he remembered the time and he began to talk with us about the times because he had a Thursday reserved.
And those Thursdays were the days he spent the morning with the children.
And then in the evening, he and his wife would dress up and go out for their weekly date, which is a good idea.
But there would be those times that he'd be at the door and ready to go and the phone would ring.
And he had somebody covering, of course, for him.
But the phone would ring and they would say, doctors, the man is swamped.
We've had an emergency.
Could you take, could you come?
And the wife would say, sweetheart, you need to go.
And he said, you know, never know how much I appreciate that.
And he said she would go back to her room, take off her nice dress, put on her robe, get a book.
That's the mother we're talking about.
Those kind of dear ladies.
And we men are really grateful for you.
And another thing, these ladies were funny.
They were humorous.
They were kind, gentle, sweet, all those kind of things.
But they had a great attitude, joyous.
Here's what the guy said.
These boys said, her sense of humor and infectious laughter often were the glue that held us together and lightened the tension for us all.
Another son said, no matter who started laughing at the table, mother was always the catalyst.
And I think after we got it started that we did it just to feel the cleansing power of the release of all of the day's tension.
And let that be washed away with waves of laughter.
And another child said, mother taught me the value of laughing at myself.
And she did it without a single lecture.
She did it by example.
But I guess my favorite is this son who said, my mom is not from this world.
No human being could do what she does the way she does it.
It says in Hebrews that we may entertain angels unaware.
I believe this passage.
And I'm proud to have an angel as my mother.
Are you kind of curious of what Gladys saw in this mother?
While I was writing this chapter in the book, Gladys came back and said, here's some things to be sure that you include or see what you think.
It's so well written, so concise, so tightly worded.
I'm going to read it just like it was.
She said, Paul emphasized these words, supportive, positive, praising a family, smiles, warm, cheerful, hugs and kisses, teaching, discipline, raising children intentionally, monitors but trust, spiritual, an example, unconditioned love, humor, laughter, fun.
Positive do plans for the family to take place of the negative don'ts, zest for life, creative, love of God and nature that rubs off on the family, sees the good, sees the lovely, the exciting side of life, serves family and others in continual prayer life, is involved in the church, love for the Lord shows in her life.
Family and Lord are priority, not money, not country clubs, social functions in society, but simple life involving time with the children is valued above all these things.
It says it well.
I guess when we come back around the whole picture and we get back to Lugana standing on the board, we have to say, mothers are really unusual.
I guess you could put it this way and I like this best of all.
Once again, in the library of life, mothers are the first book read and the last book put aside.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to Dr. Paul Faulkner's seminar, Raising Faithful Kids in a Fast-Paced World. Now here is Max Locato to say a word about Dr. Faulkner's book.
You know, very seldom do I pick up a book and read the entire book without stopping.
But that's exactly what happened when I received Paul's new book and tending just to read a couple of chapters.
But every time I read a chapter, it would lead me to the next and to the next and to the next. And before I knew it, I was finished.
And before I knew it, I had some real practical suggestions on how to be a better husband, how to be a better dad, and how to do it all in a very busy lifestyle.
I think you'll find the same. It's a great book. Spend some time with it, but be prepared. You might not be able to put it down.
Thank you for listening to these helpful sessions from Dr. Paul Faulkner's seminar, Raising Faithful Kids in a Fast-Paced World.
These sessions are additions to a five-lesson, three-video cassette seminar in which Dr. Faulkner teaches on subjects such as seven characteristics of great families,
eleven keys to create motivation, eleven keys to effective discipline, and much, much more.
All of these sessions were taken from Dr. Faulkner's powerful and popular book, Raising Faithful Kids in a Fast-Paced World.
If you would like to obtain the remaining set of videos or a copy of this enlightening and useful book, call your local Christian bookstore or call toll free, 1-800-858-4109.
May God bless you in your efforts to raise faithful kids in this fast-paced world.
There are water-colored ponies on my refrigerator door
And the shape of something I don't really recognize
Brushed with careful little fingers and put proudly on display
A reminder to us all of how time flies
Seems an endless mound of laundry and a stairway laced with toys
Gives a blow-by-blow reminder of the world
That we fight for their well-being
For their greater understanding to impart a holy reverence for the Lord
But baby, what will we do when it comes back to me and you?
They look a little less like little boys every day
Oh, the pleasure of watching the children growin'
Is mixed with a bitter cup of knowin'
So water-colored ponies will one day, one day, one day ride away
Hi everybody, my name is Max Locato.
In just a moment you will hear from Dr. Paul Faulkner.
He's a good friend of mine and you're going to enjoy this message entitled,
Seven Habits of Highly Intentional Fathers.
The strategies, the stories, and the enlightening quotes in this presentation
come from years of research that Paul did for his book.
For his research, Dr. Faulkner conducted interviews with some of the most successful families in America.
Families in which the parents were dedicated to high-demand careers
yet still achieved a high level of family excellence
in spite of time constraints and pressures that they lived with on a day-to-day basis.
The fathers you will hear from and about weren't perfect,
but their vision, goals, and dreams helped shape their children's futures in positive ways.
Now, here is my good friend, Dr. Paul Faulkner.
Well, my, it's good to be with you again.
This is a real pleasure to be able to visit with folks that are interested in the family,
talking about the family, better ways that we can do a better job with ourselves, our spouses, and our family.
I'd like to start with a little story.
And the true story came out of one of our magazines, Newsweek magazine, not too long ago.
And it's written by Christopher Babcorn who is a psychologist down in Bernie, Texas.
And he says that he struggled with this woman.
She came in and she's really hurting, and she's hurting more nearly for her 15-year-old son.
And he had been in gang memberships and alcohol and everything under the sun.
And he said, I listened to the mother's anguished story.
Are there any men in his life, I ask.
There was no one.
She had no brothers.
Her father was dead, and her ex-husband's father lived in another state.
And she looked at me, her eyes hopeful.
Would you talk with him?
Just speak with him about what he's doing.
Maybe if it came from a professional.
And then her voice trailed off.
It couldn't hurt.
And I did speak to him, he said.
Maybe it didn't hurt, but like most counseling with 15-year-old boys, it didn't seem to help much either.
He denied having any problems, and everyone else had problems, but he didn't have any problems.
And after a half hour of futility, I gave up.
Now listen to this paragraph.
I have come to believe that most adolescent boys can't make use of professional counseling.
What a boy can use and all too often doesn't have is the fellowship of men.
At least one man who pays attention to him, who spends time with him, who admires him, a boy needs a man he can look up to.
What he doesn't need is a shrink.
And so what we're talking about tonight quickly is five things that dads do, they provide,
and then we'll talk about seven habits of highly intentional fathers.
Just like we talked last session about seven habits of highly intentional mothers.
So what we want to say at the outset is this, that fathers need their children just as badly as children need their fathers.
And children who grow up without their fathers are worse off.
This comes from one of the nation's leading child developmental specialists, Yuri Bronfenbrenner.
Children who grow up without their fathers are worse off economically, educationally, psychologically,
every way we can measure than children who grow up with their fathers.
Judith Walderstein, another expert in the area, observes that young divorced fathers,
often separated from their children, seem to have their development blocked.
In other words, not only do children need their fathers, but these fathers, and many don't realize that, need their children.
She says a father's development is blocked.
Some, she says, never recover a sense of purpose or direction.
They cannot grow up into a fully mature men outside the structure of the family.
Another one, David Blankenhorn, another expert in the field, said children endow a man's life with a larger meaning.
They confer a special blessing on their worldly endeavors.
Children make it possible for a man to believe that he's lived a good and a purposeful life.
And of course, you know what the prophet says, he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,
and the hearts of the children to the fathers.
That's what we're about tonight.
Turning hearts as well as turning heads and thoughts, because these fathers do some great things.
They protect.
Men are trained to protect to the point of death, the women, the children.
When things get tougher and tougher, you rely more and more on those guys.
They also are trained to provide.
That's just what men do, they provide.
We take a vow when we get married, in sickness and in health and adversity and prosperity, so long as you both say,
we're going to provide.
It is a vow of taking care. In fact, the good book says a person's worse than an infidel if he doesn't take care of his own.
And we know that, and that's one of the things that daddies do, fathers are trained to do.
Another thing that fathers do, and that is they're the moral leaders of the home.
Not just leaders, the moral leaders.
One of these fathers said to me, he said, the husband and the father is the moral leader of the home.
Not the wife, not the grandparents, not the church, not the public schools, it's the father.
And furthermore, he is the mentor to these children, especially the boys.
He's a mentor to the boys because at some point in life, that young boy is going to quit being a child.
And he can hang out, and usually does, the children do, with the mama.
But there comes a point when childhood dies, and that little boy has got to become a man.
And a woman, a mama, can't exactly teach a boy how to be a man, like a man can teach a boy how to be a man.
And sometimes when the fathers are not there, the uncles and cousins and some other men can kind of move in,
but no one can ideally teach the young boy how to be a man better than the daddy.
And that's why it's so important.
And he keeps on being an important part in that boy's life.
Furthermore, daddies provide the daughters with a confirmation of their femininity.
And he says to her, this is beautiful. We love to see young daughters do this, and young daughters need to see their fathers.
And they need to think in terms of looking out there.
In fact, one of the daughters says, my father is a point of reference.
This is what men are. He's appointing me. And when I see other guys, I kind of measure them up against my daddy.
It's a point of reference. And those are the kind of things that daddies are made to do.
But let's talk about seven habits now for a moment.
Seven habits of these highly intentional fathers.
What did they do that made them so effective in these families we got to look and talk with?
Well, number one, they gave time to the children.
I mean, they were out there spending time.
One of the things that you'll find them saying is that these fathers...
Well, let me just tell you the story of one of the writers in the newspaper college.
He said, I don't know what we did with fathers when we were playing dolls.
We had all these little cutout dolls, and there was a father.
And so we just kind of took the fathers, didn't know what to do with them.
We just kind of stuffed them under the mattress and said, they went to work.
And that's kind of how they saw daddies.
But these kind of daddies were not stuffed under the mattress.
These kind of daddies out there giving time to the kids.
They came out from behind the newspapers, came off the golf courses, and were there present with these children.
I guess you could put it this way. If you want your son to be a chip off the old box,
the old box got to be around to be chipped on.
Or someone else said, you know, it's hard to bond to a moving object.
If the thing's moving all the time, how do you hook to it?
And listen to this criminologist, Ken Hayes.
He said, it's difficult for youngsters to grow up.
And if anybody ought to know, it would be someone who deals with the children of adolescents that are criminals.
It's difficult for youngsters to grow up when their parents are too preoccupied to parent.
If family and home take a back seat in every situation, no book, no professional can help you.
It's kind of like oxygen. You know, you're going along and things are looking good,
and they cut down a little bit on your oxygen.
Well, you can do all right with a little less oxygen.
They cut down a little more. It's kind of going up a mountain.
Just a little less, a little less.
But there comes a point in time, if you don't get enough oxygen up here, you begin to affect your brains.
And I think we could say the same thing.
Get your children to get along without dad and son.
But if dad just keeps staying away and keeps staying away and keeps staying away, what does that say to the kids?
It says you're not the priority, you see.
Distance is the curse of fatherhood.
The further away you are, the less able you are to influence.
It's like playing basketball.
If you're right up under that thing, you can dunk that thing.
You've got a sure shot if you're up close.
But the further you get away from the basketball, the goal, boy, you've got to lob it down.
You've got to chunk it.
And if it's a full court, you might be able to hit the three points from the other end of the court, but the chances are very unlikely.
That's what we're talking about.
Another thing that we're talking about, these fathers, in given time, it needs to be unstressed time.
Listen to another physician well known by many of you, I'm sure Dr. T. Barry Braselton.
He's a professor of child development at Harvard.
He said everybody's in such a hurry, and adults end up transferring that anxiety to their children.
And that's not good.
I guess what we could say is this.
At some point in time, we need to make a decision.
The father just has to make a decision.
And let me just share with you something that Bill Havel said.
He said it so well, I'll just quote it.
He said, hurried men tend to skim life, skim wife, skim kids.
It's crisis mode living.
The B word, balance.
We get touched occasionally by seminars like this, but then by Tuesday night, we're right back as business as usual.
How many are willing to hear? How many are willing to act?
How many lessons? How many sermons does it take?
Pretty good if it kind of grabs you and shakes you a little bit.
Boy, we've been to sermons, we've been to lectures, we've been to seminars before.
But how many does it take before we just decide, hey, we're going to quit this?
Given time.
Beyond that, I think number two, second habit.
And that is you make, you give your heart to your family.
Let your heart, not just your head.
These fathers let their heart be wrapped up in their children.
They loved them, they adored them, and it was just obvious.
And here's some of the things the wives would say to validate that.
They would say things like, when he was home, he was home.
Another wife said, he never brought any work home.
And another guy said, and by the way, I need to tell you some background.
This guy worked for one of the largest motor companies, car companies in the United States.
He was in management representing and working with the union.
The union didn't like, and they had some real problems going back and forth.
And he was the middle man trying to work things out.
And they would hang buckets of urine over where they knew he was going to be.
And they'd tip it and pour it on him.
And he sometimes changed his clothes two or three times a day.
But his children said when he came home, that he came, when he got to the bridge,
he dumped all of the day's work right there at that bridge, a literal bridge.
When he crossed it, he said, that's it, that's work.
And his children validated that when he got home, he was happy, he was upbeat.
Nothing negative about the job ever crept into their family life.
That's what we're talking about, those kind of guys that could cross the bridge.
I'm talking about guys that are like Gene Starling, the coach for Alabama,
also a National League football coach.
And 90 hours a week is how many hours he put in.
And it was tough. And I asked the children, well, who's your hero?
They said, daddy's our hero.
How did he become a hero? 90 hours a week.
Well, one of the reasons, they took off a whole month once a year,
and all the family came out and they spend a whole month out there on the farm.
But another reason is he brings the family and the business together.
And they enjoy football as much as he does.
They talk it all the time. They're into it, they're around it.
And he said, they're talking, after the game they'll be talking around the table.
And they'll say, well, why did you run that play on the fourth down in one yard to go?
And he explained it to them, and they say, uh-huh.
And then he said, but what really kind of gets me is when my wife says,
well, don't you do it again.
But you see, the fun and the humor, that's what we're talking about.
And the children said, when we came out of the ballpark and drove home,
when was a draw? Daddy was in the family again.
We were having a ball. It was family time.
That's what we're talking about, guys.
There's another family. I was in their home and we were talking with them.
And they got so well acquainted, I began to rib them a little bit.
I said, you said, you know, how do you know? Daddy's working 60 hours a week.
And she said, yeah, how do you know that he really got involved in all that?
Oh, we can just tell he loved us, you know. He just twinkled in his eyes.
I said, twinkle in his eyes? What do you mean the twinkle in his eyes?
She said, well, you know, I said, no, I really don't know what you mean by the twinkle.
It's hard to write, twinkle in the eyes, that's all you need.
He said, well, and I just kept backing and pushing.
Finally, they just broke out, you know, and they said something like this.
Well, when he comes home, he never plops into a chair and turns on the television.
He takes you on trips. We eat together. We talk. He helps put us to bed.
He took us into the own business trips. He took us with him on Saturdays, one at a time.
It was in his eyes, the little things, calls on the phone.
He was never too busy. He'd have come straight home in any emergency.
Now, there's the kid who's telling you who a great daddy is.
And they're saying he did this and this and this and this and this.
And that's what we're talking about tonight, guys.
What about the guy? What about the guy that his wife got up and got the children off,
did all this stuff every day, five days a week, six days a week.
It was the sixth day, just kind of laid around.
But on Sunday, the husband gets up, gets the children ready,
fixes breakfast, dresses all the children, combs the hair,
and all she has to do is get herself ready to go to church. Is that all right?
I think five children. Five children.
Now, they did have a vote in the family and decided that he really didn't need to comb the girl's hair anymore.
Oh, what about the guy that made moving fun?
Can you believe that, ladies?
If you've been moving around very much and you know how they move in retail business and other businesses,
one family, lots of families I've talked with, moved on an average of once a year.
For the first few years, they were married.
And this guy made, and he was with Ford Motor Company, and they just moved all over, and he made moving fun.
And this is the wife talking. I said, hey, tell me more about that.
She said, well, one time, my daughter had been told, you know, if we're going to rent this piano for a year,
and if you still like playing the piano at the end of the year and things look good, daddy said,
I'll buy you a new piano, one you want and like. It'll be yours from then on.
A good one. And boy, she did good.
And about the year's end, daddy came in one day and says, got you a piano.
Oh, you do? You got my piano? What kind did you get?
He said, oh, it's a Baldwin or whatever it was.
Oh, daddy, where is it? It's in Detroit, Michigan.
Ah, well, is she willing to move? Yeah, it's a little motivator, isn't it?
What she wanted. That's tough, but there are ways he found.
And then he went up, he'd take a week off.
When the family came up, he had good ideas about who could be a good doctor, where the school, where the church, where the...
All those kind of things mothers have to get in. Plumbers and doctors and dentists and a jillion things.
And he'd be with them and they'd go see the highlights of that part of the country.
Make moving interesting.
Well, see, I wasn't creative enough to come up with half these ideas,
but the point is we can use somebody else's idea when things like this happen.
Fixing breakfast.
Five of these 30 guys fix breakfast every morning for their kids.
I said, I do that. Coffee and toast.
They said, no, Paul, we're talking about eggs, bacon, whatever you want.
That's hard to believe. Some of these pretty big guys.
And he said, yeah, not only that, but if you had to leave in the morning,
if he had to go before we got into the kitchen, it'd be warm in the oven for us.
Is that all right?
Now, what about this guy? I think this is told by Bly.
He tells a story about this guy that's in the middle of the night.
He thinks he hears his son throwing up in the bedroom.
Bad news.
Well, most of us would wiggle around, squirm, act like we're asleep, make our wives up.
And she would get up and go take care of the problem.
Not this guy. He slips out of bed, lets those covers down, goes down at half-past.
And sure enough, it's bad news.
Now, I mean, it's all over everywhere. On the quilts, on the bar, on the pajamas, on the cat.
The cat is all covered and running the walls just out of sight.
Takes that boy in, cleans him up, and puts the clothes and the sheets down in the laundry,
and gets the sheets back on tux, and gives the cat a bath and blow-dries the cat.
And then slips back in the cupboard and doesn't say a word.
Now, that's man.
I don't know where we got this idea that to be a man you had to be six foot five,
and chew and spit and drive a pickup with a gun rack and grow hair on your back, do you?
But somewhere we got a crazy idea. We got it from the movies.
We sure didn't get it to what makes great children, what makes great husbands,
what makes great fathers.
Well, those are some neat, I'll tell you something else.
Not only do they give the time to the kiddos and they have the family at their heart,
but they got big eyes, big ears, and long, sticky antennas.
Have you heard that one before?
They learn to develop and grow them.
They know the size shoe the boy wears, and they just grow, grow, grow, grow.
They know his schoolteacher's name.
They know his Sunday schoolteacher's name.
They know his friend's name.
These guys are in touch with what's going on with their kids.
One of my friend lawyers, that when there's a divorce contested,
and she asks, and it's a man not treating his wife good at all,
he'll ask, oh, what is your child's doctor's name, your pediatrician?
They don't know.
She knows they don't know. She hasn't found one yet that knew.
And what we're saying is these kind of guys were aware.
Let me tell you, let me show you another thing they were aware of that's really interesting.
They're aware of the difference between what it takes to be a successful career man and a successful parent.
And this is a list. I'm just going to read four or five of them.
To be a successful career person, you need a constant striving for perfection,
but to be a father, you need tolerance for repeated errors.
Would you buy that?
Here's a note. To be a successful, you need to be efficient in the business world,
but as a father, a tolerance for chaos. Would you buy that?
To be an efficient businessman, a concentration on the essentials,
but into a father, the ability to digress and smell the roses.
Isn't that good?
Or to be a successful businessman, a preference for concise information,
but to be a father, a willingness to listen patiently, to prattle,
to help develop a child's articulateness.
Is that okay? That's right, isn't it?
Or an insistence on high standards to be a businessman
and a genuine tolerance for a lack of certain abilities to be a great daddy.
And these great parents and fathers knew, they were aware and loved all of those gifts,
great or small, of the kids, because they were aware, they were in touch.
And that's neat. Lamar Alexander, twice governor of Tennessee, head of the education under Bush,
he wrote a book, six months off, and in that he talks about being a very sensitive one of these kind of fathers.
And he did it this way. He said, you know, when I was governor, the second term,
I noticed sitting at the governor's table when we were eating, I was at one end, my wife was at the other end,
our children were around the table, and I kept noticing that the children's chairs kept turning more and more
toward the mama's end of the table.
And after the second term was over, we took six months off and went to Australia
to see if I couldn't turn those chairs back toward my end of the table a little bit.
Isn't that an insightful way, the sensitivity to be able to see big eyes, big ears, long, sticky, and tannic?
That's the man. That's the man. Not only that, but these guys, another habit, was these guys spotlighted special events.
I mean, Pat Cash. You remember in Wimbledon when he beat Lindell?
He actually climbed up the stadium ramp to get up to his father, way up there, but his father was there,
and he gave him a great big bear hug, and even the reporter said, man, it's enough to make a grown man cry.
His daddy was there. You remember Derek Redmond?
Do you remember the Olympics when he ran, and his daddy pulled that muscle, and his father came down there?
Daddy was there. Arm around him. Helped him finish.
Well, what would have happened if daddy hadn't been there?
I don't know. We can make it without dad, but it's a whole lot easier with dad.
My dad didn't get to come to very many of my track mates. Not his fault.
But there was one he came to when I was in the university.
Over at Old MacMurray Stadium, it was a conference meet, and my wife-to-be was sitting there with him in the stands.
And it had been raining, and it was muddy as it could be.
I think I was wearing football shoes to throw the javelin. I couldn't get a foot planted. It wouldn't stay.
And my distance was short, and I was way behind. I couldn't even get off the throw.
And I knew what I could throw. It just wasn't working.
And then the last throw, the third throw, I was able to get a good plant, and I threw that thing.
And I knew as soon as it left my hand as a winner, it would have lost.
That's not important. What was important was my wife-to-be said that my father, unlike him, a very quiet, shy person, unlike me,
jumped to his feet and said, that's my boy.
I guess really kind of for the first time I knew I was owned. I'll look back at that with precious memory.
I'm saying to you guys, you never know what pictures your children are taking of you.
You never know. A spotlight special event. So what about the guy?
He was selected to be on the board of one of the largest retail companies in the United States.
And on that day when they called the board meeting, his son was playing a football game. He said, I can't go.
I've got to be at my son's football game. They said, that's okay. You don't need to be on the board anyway.
And that's all right. He went to his son's football game.
What about that quiet, shy guy right here in the Dallas area?
When I visited their home, he didn't say very much, but when he did, there were great one-liners that just popped.
He was one of the guys that said, you know, it's fault driving. Hit the target, it's the bulls-eye that's tough.
You know, one of those kind of guys. Well, his children, his boys said, boy, when I was playing football,
I could hear my father clear across the stadium on the field. Can you believe that?
Quiet, shy, reserved. It's hard to get him to speak in the house, but on the football field,
he's playing here clear across the field. That's the kind of father that we're talking about.
It's just to spotlight those special events. They did it, and it says to the child,
I'd rather be here with you than any place in the world.
And those guys will never forget those significant events any more than I would.
Or they spotlight special children, special things with the special children.
The children got to telling me about letters that they would write. They would write long letters.
They would say, awesome. When the father was out of town, they wrote. Or they called.
And when they wrote, and our call back, they wrote long letters or they talked with mama a long time.
Then they'd talk with every child separately. Long distance is cheap.
When you're dealing with your children, it's real cheap. You just discount it.
It doesn't cost anything to talk with those. One of the parents and the fathers would do homework
with the children on the phone. That may take 30 minutes or 45. Who cares?
It's worth the money because it says to the child, you're that important to me.
It says it more than if you were sitting there with them.
So those are the kind of things great dads do. They spotlight these guys.
I remember one father came in in a briefcase.
And he'd come in with his briefcase and his daughter and say, oh daddy, let's go through your briefcase.
So he'd sit down and he'd open it up and they'd go through his briefcase.
Now how many daddies would let a daughter go through his briefcase?
This daddy not only let her go, I guess he decided that in addition to that, maybe it'd be helpful if I got her.
So he came in and brought her a briefcase.
And so at the end of the day when he comes in, he opens hers, she opens hers, and they talk about what's in their briefcase.
Is that okay? Spotlighting these special kids.
Or again, what about the father, the mother, pardon me, the daughter that said, oh my, I know my dad,
he never said this, but I know he never enjoyed music and music recitals.
But he never let me know it and he went to every one we had.
Always went and always sat and always cheered, you know, always clapped.
Are the fathers that would go with, take their business, sons and daughters on business trips with them?
To Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, wherever they were, he'd go and take.
Pretty neat, huh?
Got to tell you about one of these guys, he was a farmer and an insurance salesman, both.
And he was a speaker. He would go out and speak to the insurance salesman to help them
because he was multi-million dollar roundtable seller of insurance.
And he'd take his daughter, one time he had his daughter out there with him and he was speaking along.
He said, sweetheart, do you remember the time that I won the million dollar roundtable award three years in a row?
And I said, no, I don't guess I do, daddy. He said, do you remember the times we used to go on Dairy Queen dates?
Oh, yeah. So what do the daughters remember? Dairy Queen dates?
My good friend and colleague, Carl Brekeen, talks about his son having to go with his daddy on one occasion
when he was rather reluctant to, to help somebody with him move back into Abilene.
And it dawned on his son later on that, or to Carl really, that his son honored him more for the sweat of helping a widow
than for a doctor's degree and two master's degrees and all that kind of stuff.
Children take different pictures than what parents take.
But I guess one of my favorite stories is a submarine lieutenant.
I'm a lieutenant in the United States Navy. I've been on the submarine force and spent the last 25 years.
Out of the eight years on board a submarine, I spent about four years underwater.
To be with my wife and son, aged four, while I was at sea, I learned some great ways to keep in touch with them.
And he lists a page or so and I've just got to list some of the things he did.
While I was home, I'd have my wife take pictures of the things Matthew and I would do together,
sliding down the slide, swinging, building the blocks, playing with cars, trucks, whistles.
So he had all these pictures and he had put them eye level on the refrigerator where the boy could see them,
not a picture of the daddy up on a mantle. And so the daddy boy could remember what we used to do.
Number two, I'd write 14 letters to my wife and son in the three days before we'd submerged for three months.
Each would be addressed and stamped and I'd put a date and pencil on one of the corners
and have the chaplain on the submarine tender mail them once a week.
So they'd get a letter from me once a week even though I couldn't write from a submarine. Good thinking.
Number three, I'd also buy a small inexpensive gift for my son and I would wrap it and put a date on it.
My wife would give it to Matthew on those days about once a week. Pretty neat.
Number four, I would leave little place cards, notes, those little yellow sticky memos throughout the house
telling them that I love them and I'm thinking of them and this is a big hug and a kiss for them from me.
And I'd place those cards and notes under their pillow and under the sheets in the linen closet about four or five towels down
and a pair of rolled up socks in the son's drawer, a pair of his jeans, pants, pockets, and a pair of my wife's sexiest panties.
Guess I read too far there.
In the tissue box about fourth way down the freezer, I would unwrap some of the frozen food and foil and place a note there
and dollies under the lamp in the living room and if she didn't find them I know she hadn't dusted.
And then he says, ha ha, after that one.
Under the next bar of soap on the bathroom closet, under the last plate in the kitchen cabinet,
and these little, what he calls, time bombs of love would brighten their day and bring joy to their heart.
Though I must confess there's some selfishness involved. During the three months underwater you get the fear of being forgotten.
All of this may seem like a lot of work, but the dividends are pure gold.
When the submarine crew finally comes home, I've seen some smaller children turn away in tears and scream from the man that mama calls daddy.
My son would run through that mass of people yelling, daddy, daddy, daddy, jump into my arms with a smile that goes from ear to ear
and hugs around my neck that no one could break.
And of course it was like having a honeymoon with my wife every six months.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that one of those hidden cards I gave to her had a movie ticket and some babysitting money for a much needed break.
Is that a good guy? Isn't that neat? Creative? You just can't say enough about a guy like that.
Well, not only then have we talked about how these fellows gave time, had the family at heart, had great big years,
were very aware of what spotlighted special events, spotlighted their children, they spotlighted their wives.
One guy, president of the corporation, had two phones on his desk, one just for his wife.
He said, two women in my life, two women, my mama and my wife.
The only one who had the phone number. His own son didn't have that phone number until he became president of the company.
Isn't that something? And if the phone rang three times and dad didn't answer it, then it meant he'll call you back.
And so, just another one. Love letters were written. These guys I remember reading, one of the people,
wasn't reading, somebody was telling me the other day that her father wrote her mother a love letter every day of their life.
And I think at that time it was 47 years, something like that. Isn't that neat?
We're not saying everybody has to do this, but we say, isn't that the fact that somebody is, says so much to us.
We could do something. Oh, and by the way, good daddies don't miss anniversaries and birthdays.
I don't know why it is, but that's very, very, very important to a mama. I mean, very important.
I need to say that again. Very important. And some of us are not aware. Our eyes are not developed well.
Our ears are not grown out yet. But that is big time.
Well, these people, the last thing, the seventh habit of these great guys, and that is they're just fun.
Have you noticed how many times we end up with fun? It's just almost every time you end up, they're fun folks to be around.
They did fun things. The coach, for example, his children talked about that they wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning
and mom and dad just be downtown playing ping pong in the basement, just going after it.
2 o'clock in the morning. Can you imagine? Crazy people. Children loved it. They were fun to be around.
What about this guy? Well, he's president of the university. Pancakes. He's a pancake breakfast maker.
He's one of the guys that makes breakfast. And every time he makes breakfast, if it's Halloween, they're orange pancakes.
If it's Christmas, they're red pancakes. You know, St. Patrick's, green. Can you imagine? Green pancakes.
Well, he said one Christmas he's making them and he did something wrong and they blew up.
And they had the biggest kick out of the time the pancakes blew up.
And then there's that family that has, they have a special fun on Halloween Day. They invite everybody in the nearest country
and they have their out there on the Middle Tennessee farm and they bring all these kids in and the adults and others
and they just scare them all to pieces. They just have a ball. People come out of the swamps and fire comes down from a hay fireball
and a headless rider rides across, but then they end up with a devotional and it's just a beautiful thing.
All these different fun things these people do. One of my physician friends is kind of bald headed and at parties.
He's a crazy guy. He sticks empty coke cans on his bald head and everybody wonders, is this my physician?
Do I need a second opinion? So we're just saying that these people are fun to be around.
But the one liner again, you ready for the, we'll close with a one liner again.
This guy said, Paul, I know I have been a success. I know I've been a success when I come home and there's a little nose
that's pressed against the window pane. That's a daddy. A God fearing daddy.
And may you be one of those if not now decide to be. God bless.
Thank you for listening to Dr. Paul Faulkner's seminar, Raising Faithful Kids in a Fast-Paced World.
Now here is Max Locato to say a word about Dr. Faulkner's book.
You know very seldom do I pick up a book and read the entire book without stopping.
But that's exactly what happened when I received Paul's new book.
And tending just to read a couple of chapters, but every time I read a chapter it would lead me to the next and to the next and to the next.
And before I knew it, I was finished and before I knew it I had some real practical suggestions on how to be a better husband,
how to be a better dad, and how to do it all in a very busy lifestyle.
I think you'll find the same. It's a great book. Spend some time with it, but be prepared. You might not be able to put it down.
Thank you for listening to these helpful sessions from Dr. Paul Faulkner's seminar, Raising Faithful Kids in a Fast-Paced World.
These sessions are additions to a five lesson, three video cassette seminar in which Dr. Faulkner teaches on subjects such as
seven characteristics of great families, eleven keys to create motivation, eleven keys to effective discipline, and much, much more.
All of these sessions were taken from Dr. Faulkner's powerful and popular book, Raising Faithful Kids in a Fast-Paced World.
If you would like to obtain the remaining set of videos or a copy of this enlightening and useful book,
go to your local Christian bookstore or call toll free, 1-800-858-4109.
May God bless you in your efforts to raise faithful kids in this fast-paced world.