Lessons From Life

Welcome to a new series of blog posts focused on providing experiential wisdom and lessons learned from my journey.Quick background about me…if you’ve not read A Widower’s Walk: From Desert to Destiny. I married my high school sweetheart Jenny on February 14, 1992, (Valentine’s Day), and we had three children together: Lil Danny (1992), Hannah (1994), and Ethan (1997). Thus, at the time of this blog post, I’ve been a husband and father for 34 years.or context (and in case you’re new to Lead with Liberty Ministries), during a military move in December 1997, Jenny—pregnant with our fourth baby—and Lil Danny died in a single vehicle accident during a military move. Thus, I instantly became a widower and single parent to three-year-old Hannah and nine-month-old Ethan. Later I married Nora, who adopted Hannah and Ethan, and we had Lydia (2000), Ian (2003), Phillip (2007), Erik (2009), Noel (2012), Christine (2015), and Anders (2018). In laying out the timeline of my journey as a husband and father to share “what I bring to the table, “ I don’t pretend to have learned everything about being a husband or a father…to which my wife and children would quickly agree. For truly I’m still learning how to husband my wife Nora and lead our nine children…and recognize that I must do so until I die.
In fact, I believe that I’ve learned more about leadership from leading my wife and children than I ever learned with 21-½ years in the U.S. Marine Corps.
In the 2005 timeframe, while still on active duty, I began to mentor young officers who were just beginning their careers. I had observed and learned from dozens of men what to do (and not do) both on the job (i.e, in the military) and in their homes.
I began to write down and catalog these lesson learned and to share them with these young officers. Unfortunately, I lost those “stream of consciousness” notes and wished that I could find them to write a book along the lines of “What I Wish I Had Known as a Young Husband/Father.”
Thankfully, I found these notes recently on a misplaced external hard drive. Over the coming weeks and months, I will share these thoughts and the “war stories” by which I learned them with you, Gentle Reader.
For, as I have realized that my life is over half over based on my gene pool, I want to share this experiential wisdom with my children and future grandchildren. I want them to have stronger marriages and families and not have to repeat my mistakes in their homes.
So I promise you complete transparency in this effort, to include sharing my screw-ups, in hopes of helping more than just my children and future grandchildren. I have a passion to encourage young husbands and fathers, for I remember what it was like. I wish that I could have talked with someone about what does “right look like” when leading in my home.
So as we plunge in, I have not talked with thousands of people to create a scientific study of being a good husband/father. I’m only one data point…but it’s the one data point I know.
A quote I really like is attributed to Thomas Myerscough: “He that has an experience is not at the mercy of a man who merely has an argument.”
Thus, I want to share with you my experience and not just an argument or a theory.

Until next time.