The Wonder of Marriage

This past week my wife and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary!  It was been great thinking about the past 10 years, how much has transpired (e.g., 3 kids, 3 homes, graduated from college, 2 jobs, multiple moves, etc.), and considering how fortunate I am to be married.  My wife is amazing and is the anchor of our home.  I am so grateful that she puts up with me and teaches me how to be a better husband and father.  She truly completes me.  I believe that marriage is ordained of God and is part of His plan.  This knowledge has a profound influence in my marriage.

There are several things about marriage that are important to me:

1) Marriage is often depicted as something that people can get in or out of as they please, almost like shopping around for cars.  Marriage is an eternal commitment between my wife and me.  Irrespective of frustrations and challenges we are both committed to each other because we know that are relationship can be eternal.  Honestly, it takes work to sustain our love.  My goal (although I fall short often) is to put the needs of my wife above my own.  This is true love. 

2) Marriage is between a man and a woman.  Marriage is so important in God's eternal plan that he specifies that it is to be between a man and a woman.  I say this with no hard feelings or ill will against those who advocate same sex marriage. While I respect their desires to live and act as they please I do not support the act of marriage for people of the same gender.  My experience is that only when we follow God's plan are we truly happy and blessed.

3) Marriage is worth all the challenge and effort.  For two months this past summer I lived in Ohio finishing up work while my wife and kids were in the West.  This gave me must more "free time" (although I found myself just as busy).  Near the end of my time apart from my family I reflected on how I felt during our absence.  Obviously, I missed my wife and kids dearly, but more than that I was struck at how flat my life felt.  My life was not as meaningful or rich.  Sure, I did not experience the frustrations that come with parenting, but my life was not nearly as rewarding.  It was a good reminder to me of how important marriage and family is and that there will be no greater joy which we can experience in any other pursuit.  I feel sorry for those who put off getting married or starting a family.  Nothing has been more rewarding and worthwhile to me.

Below is a picture taken by my 7 year old.  It is not the best picturs, but it sadly the only one we have from our anniversary.  I look forward to another 10 years and more!

David Blunck

We do Hard Things

In our family we have a motto - "We do hard things."  It is human nature I suppose to avoid things that are hard or challenging.  Yet, it is through setting goals, tackling challenges, and trying to become better that we grow and develop.  As parents it is important to not shelter our children from hard things.

A week ago we had one of those opportunities to do hard things.  We had nearly a foot of snow fall over two days.  So we piled snow around the base of the trampoline and then my oldest and I slept outside in our "snow fort."  My second son was going to sleep with us as well, but he ended up sleeping inside because of some poor choices.  My oldest son loved the experience!  He was more teachable and humble than any other time that I can remembered.  We talked about school, his choices, things that concern me, and he proudly showed me how well he could do math in his head.  He loved sleeping outside and felt proud of himself for his accomplishment.  the next day he told both of his grandma's about his feat. I will admit that I did not sleep well and would have preferred to sleep inside, but the next morning I knew that it was worth it becauseI had helped my son do a "hard thing." 

Below are pictures taken the day after our adventure.

The entrance to our cozy abode.

Nothing is better than snack in a snow cave.

My second son enjoy hanging out with his brother in the fort.

Integrity Diligence Excellence

As I prepared to become a professor I wanted to summarize what I value and what are the expectations for the students.  The sign board is what resulted from this process.

Integrity - Making the morally correct decision, even what no one else will know.  If we do not have integrity then we are not true to ourselves.  The students I advise know that any form of dishonesty will result in them being removed from the group.  Any form of dishonesty from the students I teach will result in them failing the course.  People can take away from us many things (e.g. money, fame, etc.), but they can not take away our integrity. 

Diligence - Working consistently and not allowing ourselves to become distracted by things which are not important.  Any success that I have been blessed with I attribute to the talents God gave me and to working diligently.  I am grateful to a father and mother who set an exampling of working hard.  I have seen many people who have tremendous talent and abilities, but who don't apply themselves and so never succeed. 

Excellence - Doing our best with the resources we have.  We gain the respect of others as we do quality work and do our best.

So, if you are ever in one my students or work with me - you know what I expect and what to expect from me.

David L. Blunck

Family Duty

I had an interesting experience yesterday that is worth sharing.  At church we are assigned families to check on and to help spiritually and physically. I am assigned a single lady who uses wood to heat her home to reduce costs.  She was out of wood so yesterday I arranged to go and get some.  Prior to going I stopped by her son's house, who lives three houses down.  Her son is about my age.  As I walked up I noted that he had a small amount of firewood himself.  He was not home so I went with two of my boys to get the wood.  We came back to her house and proceeded to unload and stack the wood.  It takes a while to unload and stack wood when your help is a 9 year old girl (her daughter), and 7 and 3 year old boys :). At some point her son came  home (I think while we were unloading), but did not come over to help unload the wood.  I will confess that I was also frustrated by the situation.  I took the lead on helping this dear lady while her physically capable son has wood and is not taking care of his mother.  Now it is not my place to judge her son, and perhaps he has challenges I don't know about, but it is hard for me to think of any reasons why he should not take care of his mother.  It is our duty  to help our family and to not allow that burden to be shifted to others until we have done everything in our power. 

 

Thinking about this experience has caused me to think about my parents and how well/or not well I take care of them.  It is easy to take advantage of those we love and to be selfish.  I hope that I can teach my boys to take responsibility for their family.  I am grateful for the opportunity that I had to spend that time with my sons and to teach them about service and manhood. 

 

David Blunck

Perspective

I have been struck recently about the enabling or crippling power of perspective.  I am working to receive tenure as a college professor.  In five (or fewer) years my credentials and accomplishments will be evaluated by my colleagues to determine if I warrant receiving tenure.  I will need to leave the university if I do not receive tenure.  At times the challenge and significance of receiving tenure has weighed heavily on my mind.  At these times fear of the worst situation (i.e. no tenure) begin to weigh on my mind and I find myself becoming paralyzed.  My actions and motivations start to focus on responding to my fears.  Contrast this to my goal of becoming tenured in 4 years (yes, I told this to my boss).  When I think of this goal I am motivated to work to have the accomplishments needed for tenure.  The goal of early tenure is a  motivating force which compels me to work hard and to do my best.  For me, two different perspectives regarding the same work lead to two vastly different responses.  I can't help but wonder how other perspectives are helping or hindering me in other areas of my life.

David Blunck

Purpose of this Blog

I recently started a new job as an assistant professor at a large university.  I have enjoyed the challenge and opportunity of teaching and mentoring students.  I realized, however, that there are many "life lessons" for which a formal classroom does not facilitate sharing.  More importantly, these are lessons that I want to share with my children who are still quite young.  This blog is an opportunity for me to share things in this life that matter most to me.  I hope to share the context for the life lesson or how I learned it. So, I share my thoughts to the world for anyone who thinks that they have merit or value.  If nothing else I have grown from this opportunity.

Very Truly,

David L. Blunck