Margie and I discovered early in our marriage that we couldn’t go too long without taking time to evaluate how things were going. For some reason life kept spiraling out of control. Anyway, our calendar would be too full, we’d be stressed and irritated at each other, and so we’d plan a day to talk and pray and evaluate. It was always hard to find the time but essential before the stress and busyness and frustration got too far out of hand.

When Denis travels, things often go awry at home, and that is when we miss him most. I surely wished he’d been home when I struck Sember. It was an honest accident, but what followed was not my best example of how to parent. I wished he was around, so he could say, “Awww, it could have happened to anyone, even me.”