Familyman Weekly – I Hate That Voice!

Hey Dad,

Greetings from a county park parking lot in Nottingham, PA. We’ve been on a speaking tour for about a week now and still have a couple of weeks to go. Actually, things have gone well…no RV break downs, no kid break downs, and my wife still likes me.

About the only thing that caused me a little panic was when my furnace quit working minutes before I had to speak on a really cold night. I checked fuses and finally, before we went to bed…it worked. Whew.

That’s the weird thing about life in an RV: as soon as we leave our driveway, I am one with the RV. My senses are on high alert, listening and sniffing. “Can you smell that?” I’ll say to my oblivious wife. “What was that noise?” I ask to my even more oblivious children.

Night time is the worst. I feel like I’m up every three minutes checking on things…open windows, the sound of thunder, the whoosh of the furnace blower and the click soon to follow.

The thought hit me the other night as I counted the seconds between whoosh and click, “You should pay as much attention to your wife as you do your RV furnace.” I was about to conk off when the thought kept repeating, “You’re so attentive to the needs of your RV, but you should be even more attentive to the needs of your wife. She needs
you to listen to her heart…not just her voice…but her innermost heart.”

I hate the voice in my head…especially when it’s right.

Sometimes I think I know my wife and take her quietness for granted when I need to listen with all my senses…”What’s the difference I feel in you, honey? I don’t know what it is…but I feel it. Tell me what you feel.”

Dad, you may not have an RV, but I’m betting you have something else that heightens your senses. Love your wife in the same way.

You ‘da dad,