Mundo and Amanda Meneses

Saw this great article on CNN.com about marriage. Marriage is meant to be forever.

Stay married if you want kids
By Leah Ward Sears, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Leah Ward Sears is a retired chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court and is a partner at the Atlanta office of Schiff Hardin, LLP. Sears also serves as the William Thomas Sears Distinguished Fellow in Family Law at the Institute for American Values and is a visiting professor on family law issues at the University of Georgia School of Law.

(CNN) — Much has been written about the Obamas’ marriage. The president and first lady have attested to the long and hard work it takes to stay involved and connected to each other while maintaining their separate identities.

Undoubtedly, sustaining a marriage is sometimes hard, as the first lady noted.

But the Obamas are an excellent example of how the fruits of marriage can be realized by those who are committed to reconciling their differences and “toughing it out.”

The problem is that, today, too few couples are willing to make such a commitment. Ever since California became the first state to sanction no-fault divorce law 40 years ago, with every state in essence following suit — some with certain stipulations — the most fundamental thread in the fabric of our American values, the institution of marriage, has been unraveling.

Before I retired from the bench a few months ago, it was my job as a judge to sort through all the issues rising, in part, from the growing lack of reverence many Americans have for marriage. In court, I often saw humanity’s worst behavior. I also dealt with teenage mothers, absentee fathers and parents who have never been married, often by choice.

I saw parents who didn’t seem able or willing to connect their children’s problems with their own failure to provide their children with the necessary road map to self-sufficiency and productivity. And these families didn’t just show up in my courtroom. They exist everywhere.

The U.S. Marriage Index shows a dramatic decline in the health of marriage in recent decades. America is a society that requires its citizens to make choices and penalizes them, often harshly, for the wrong ones.

As a child grows up, the guideposts should be: finish school; become a productive citizen; marry a person you want to spend your life with; and, if you want, have children. In that order.

But many Americans are failing their children because they have already failed themselves. They often enter the court system with domestic problems and low-wage jobs, slim educational credentials and no life partners.

It broke my heart to see so many children raising babies before they are ready: young people who made no connection between the poverty and chaos in their lives and the choices they had made.

My options in addressing these problems from the bench were limited. The courtroom is seldom the stage at which social change takes place. By the time these cases appeared in court, so much damage had already been done.

What our society needs is a solution on the front end. We should begin by considering six points:

Let’s stop glorifying single parenthood. Celebrity unwed parents like “Brangelina,” Halle Berry and the late Michael Jackson make matrimony seem unimportant and suggest that having a baby as a single parent is “cool” and even easy.

Our children need a reality check. Many young people think that having a child means that they will finally have someone who will unconditionally love them. They don’t consider, however, that babies do not and cannot love anyone but themselves, and they also take a tremendous amount of time, attention and resources.

Memo to single mothers by choice: When you decide to have a child alone in order to fulfill your deep need to parent, you may be deliberately substituting your emotional loss for that of your child, who will have to grow up without a father.

We need to respect the role of men as husbands and fathers when they do right by their families. Boys and girls need their fathers to love them and to model the sacrifice and commitment that bonds a married couple. Men who “man up” like this need our support and encouragement.

Our state legislatures should revisit no-fault divorce laws that allow one party to a marriage to opt out of it too easily.

Change now can result in change in the future. Although there are many success stories, children who grow up in single-parent families are less likely to enjoy the financial security, educational success and social skills of children living with their married parents. This only continues to fuel poverty and inequality in our country.

By the way, I’m neither a strait-laced goody-two-shoes nor Archie Bunker in heels. I would never condemn anyone who has had a child out of wedlock or who has gone through a divorce.

I was a divorcee, and with two children, I was also a single mom. So I know that these things happen. Indeed, sometimes they must happen. And because they do, we need to respect every family form.

But I’ve been around long enough to know that as marriage goes, so go our children. And with them goes the future of our country. Consequently, everyone — rich or poor, single or married or divorced, gay or straight, all races and colors, from the first family to the single-parent family — benefits from a vibrant marriage culture.

So the past couple of years I have been running more than I have in a long time. I have run many 5ks, 10ks, a couple of half-marathons and even the beast itself, the full marathon. Yes, the 26.2 miles of pain. Recently I read a book called Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.

It has intrigued me about this idea of barefoot running. Our natural running gate is best seen when we run without the thick soles on your average running shoe. When I trained for my marathons I had a lot of IT problems. This is a cause of striking with your heel first instead of your mid sole….so the critics say. A friend of mine has been running with these weird shoes called Vibram Fivefingers mentioned in the book Born to Run. He lent me an old pair and I took a stab at running in them. I ran 4 miles and I must admit it was awesome. I think I may be purchasing a pair of these soon. I’ll keep you posted. Below is a cool deal I found on barefoot running.

Our dog does not usually howl unless we get her going.  In this short video, you can see the whole family howling.  Pretty funny when Eli, my 1 1/2 old starts doing it.  Enjoy.

We are in the middle of an awesome sermon series at church called, Get that Monkey Off Your Back! The past couple of weeks have been awesome. There are great principles that people can apply in their life and bring change for the better. Check out the latest messages: www.thelifechurch.com

This next week, July 20-25 I will be in Papua New Guinea. It is an amazing opportunity to reach one of the least developed nations in the world. Our Church (The Life Church of Memphis) has the privilege of partnering with Joyce Meyer Ministries, and Healing Place Church, and Darlene Zschech for a series of gatherings, medical and dental outreaches, prison outreach, and a lot more.

Please be in prayer for us as we travel and minister to this amazing country. What an awesome opportunity to sow into the advancement the kingdom of heaven. We will try to do some video updates when possible. Don’t know what the connection will be like.

Things to pray for:
* Safe travel
* Everyone on the team to stay healthy
* Favor in the communities we’re serving
* God’s anointing on the messages, teaching, worship, and outreaches
* Jesus’ name to lifted high and people’s lives to be changed
* Churches in the areas we’re ministering to be encouraged and built up
* Favor with the local authorities and government
* Many salvations in all the opportunities we are able to share the Gospel

Today in church we had a wild experience. Thirty minutes into the first of three services at our Cordova campus, the power went out. We have had some bad storms and thousands of homes and businesses have been without power. Our guest speaker for the day, Pastor Dino Rizzo from Healing Place Church didn’t miss a beat. After power went out, he preached his whole message with the emergency lights on (really no light at all and no a/c on).

Then the next two services we did old school worship, just acoustic guitars and voices. Our team is so awesome, they kicked into gear…put some candles on stage, opened all the doors to get some breeze and had some church. It was pretty amazing as we had church, many people gave their hearts to God despite having no A/C, no light, no videos…no anything. As Americans we normally can’t flow without precious A/C, but people were charged up to have church regardless. I was reminded as Pastor Dino preached, when Jesus is in the mix…ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN! What an amazing day! For all the people that made a Fresh Start with God, they will never forget the HOT day in church, when they made a decision to follow Christ. Coming out of the darkness, into the light. A day that we will not soon forget. Thank you Jesus that you are not bound within our limitations.