A LOVE NOTE TO MY WIFE!

Let me formally welcome you to the second half of the year 2012. It will be your winning half in Jesus name!

I was just thinking, “Why do we wait till we lose something before we appreciate it?” Especially when it comes to people and relationships, “why do we wait till it’s too late before we verbalize or communicate our appreciation to the significant people in our lives?”

I think if we make appreciation a regular occurrence in our relationships, especially the significant ones – our spouses, our children, our parents, and our close friends – the quality of those relationships will increase. And guess what? The world will be a better place for us all to live in. Not just on the big days – weddings, birthdays, anniversaries etc. – as important as these are, or for the big things, but for the regular, everyday events and stuffs that they do and we are grateful for.

Encouragement makes the world go round. Let’s learn to appreciate the people in our lives. Appreciation makes you appreciate. A Yoruba adage adds, “When you appreciate people, they do more.” So true!

It’s not as if I’m perfect at this but I’m trying and I can see the difference it makes in my relationships. Occasional text messages, ‘thank you’ notes, phone calls just to say “I appreciate you” etc., you can’t run out of ideas if you’ll just think – nothing elaborate or gorgeous but something tangible enough to let the other person know that you notice their efforts.

As an example today, I’m just so thankful and appreciative of my wife and what she does to make our home what it is. And here in doing that, I just like (with her permission though) to reproduce a note I wrote to her on her birthday earlier this year.

“Olufunmilola, thanks for sharing your life with me. Happy Birthday, baby!

You epitomize sacrifice, strength and passion, and I’m yet to meet someone whose intuition is as sharp as yours.

You’re my stabilizing strength, you sharpen my focus, and you push me to excellence when I’m reticent. My success is really yours.

People might not see your profile on facebook, but many do not know you’re the real “book” behind the “face”!

“Many daughters have done virtuously, but you excel them all. Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman (like you, Olufunmilola) that fears the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.” (Prov. 31:29-31)

I love you bad, baby! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ( February 8, 2012)”

So, who is that significant person in your life? Your spouse, your children, your pastor (and oh! How pastors need to know that you appreciate them! I should know that.), a friend, an employee, your employer or boss, your parent.

Get up now, and do something! Appreciate them before that relationship depreciates. YOU WILL SUCCEED!