Forgiveness

This is a respose I made to a post by Josh Wong, entitled "For When You Mean It: But Have Trouble Expressing It". I thought it would serve as a good post on my blog.

... There is a lull time between the apology and the forgiveness. My suggestion is not to wait to give an apology. If you mean it, give it. Don't wait.

Now, because we are human, forgiveness may take some time. This is different than what the Bible says about Christ's forgiveness. When we ask for forgiveness, God forgives us without question. But even though women (and men) strive to forgive and forget, it’s much more difficult to do. Why? Because feelings were hurt. This is not just restricted to women. What women most desire from men is love. What men most desire from women is respect. When men mess up, women see it as unloving. When women mess up, men see it as not showing respect. If you don't believe me, think about it the next time something happens.

Back to my point about that lull time. After you (a man) gives an apology (and mean it), use that lull time to show love, instead of trying to figure out why they are not responding the way you would want. Some may have heard of it, but there is something called the "Five Love Languages". They are:

1) Word of Affirmation
2) Quality Time
3) Acts of Service
4) Gifts
5) Physical Touch

The key is figuring out what your woman is most receptive to (by communicating with her and asking her, preferably before any problems) and full-filling this language during that lull time. I know this sounds like it came out of a book, (probably has) but this is something I heard from women. Eventually, the woman will forgive (and mean it) when she can understand her feelings correctly and do whatever else they do during that time. The same thing goes for men. Except they are driven by respect. Their lull time is much shorter, for whatever reason, but the principle is the same. If they are shown respect, they will forgive and respond with love. It’s an endless cycle that needs to be met, even if only one sided for a short while. Ultimately, when you’re married, you’re supposed to live for the other person, and fulfill your spouse's needs before yours.

Tiger Cats - Greg Marshall Fired

You must have heard by now that the head coach for the Hamilton Tiger Cats has been fired. Greg Marshall, former head coach for the McMaster Marauders, headed 3 seasons with the Tiger Cats from 2004 to the 4th game of 2006. He won the CFL coach of the year award in his first season as a head coach in the CFL. If I remember correctly, he beat out Pinball Clemons for this honour. (Does anybody really know his first name?) Even though I am a huge Tiger Cat fan, I thought that Pinball Clemons deserved this title since he was an outstanding player, turned coach and brought his team into the Grey Cup to win the 2004 title. Either way, firing coaches in mid-season is totally a PR move. Since it is very easy to fire a coach when a team is doing badly, that is what usually happens first. As a player, losing a respectable coach in mid-season is hard since new relationships will have to be made with new coaches. Fortunately for Hamilton, Ron Lancaster has a history with the Cats. Lancaster has done great things for Hamilton, as well as bad things. He had a great playing career, arguably dubbed the 'greatest CFL player of all time'. He brought a team that was 2-16 in 1997 to Grey Cup contenders the following year. However, his loyalty to Danny McManus, served to be his vulnerability in 2003, starting him in 15 games, despite being one of his worst seasons of his career.

Regardless, the 2006 Tiger Cats have a lot of talent. Hopefully, Ron Lancaster can turn the team around and start winning games. In my opinion they should start with playing smarter and stop giving the ball over on stupid penalties. I hope Bob Young knows what he is doing.

Wedding Pictures

I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not, but the wedding photos have arrived. We got about 600 or so photos with our package. My ultimate goal is to scan them all and post them for all to view on my blog. As you can understand, this will take sometime. But come back often and check for updates. Our first goal is to select a photo to use for our thank you cards so we can send them out.
In the meantime, the photographers have posted a few photos to view on their website. They can be viewed from this link: The Art Of Weddings. Just click on "Karen and Steve". Comments are welcome.

Enjoy,
Steve