Kevin Andrews Loved God, Loved His Wife, Loved His Family and Loved His Nation

By being mindful of the example we set — both in the habits we encourage and the behaviours we avoid — we’re not only guiding our children’s actions today, but also building the foundation for the kind of person they will grow up to be.

The tradition of asking a father for his blessing to marry his daughter reflects this human intuition of responsibility of care. As we welcome each child’s spouse into our family, we entrust them with our child’s care and commit to supporting them in this endeavour.

What we call each other and how we address each other impacts the sense of trust and safety in our relationship. Let’s make the names we use for each other a blessing.

I attended the Dads4Kids Men’s Leadership Summit last weekend (9-11 August 2024) and had the privilege of giving the Father’s Blessing to all who were there. As requested, here is a copy of the blessing.

Towards the end of July, we celebrate World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. This year (2024), the theme is loneliness and references Psalm 71:9 — “Do not cast me off in my old age”.  

Vows are not just words. Unlike a promise, which is typically made between people and may be private to them, a sacred vow is made to God, or before God as a witness. It is never totally private and carries accountability to the person (or people) to whom we made the vow and to God.

An elegant tribute to motherhood.

Lorenz suggested that a baby’s cute features trigger a nurturing response in adults, encouraging them to care for and protect them. Research has confirmed Lorenz’s theory many times over in the decades since.

Do you already have the “perfect” plan designed for your children’s lives? As mothers, I believe this is a particularly difficult area to manoeuvre. Wanting the very best for our children, we can get our hearts set on the best preschool to the best college.

Every engaged couple needs to discern their own path. Downsize, divide, delay, or go deluxe – whatever path they decide in this era of uncertainty, the vows they make on their wedding day will be one thing that stays the same.

Listening to ‘Unplanned’ made my wife and I deeply grateful for Squish, and deeply grateful to her birth mother and father for staring down every challenge they faced to give this beautiful baby the gift of life.

Contempt has been identified as a corrosive relationship pattern among couples headed for bust. An expression of despisal, contempt is the toxic cousin to criticism.

Waiting teaches us humility and patience – essential virtues for healthy relationships. It opens a space for reflecting, allowing us to stop ‘doing’ and to simply be aware… of ourselves, our world, the person before us.

Despite the promises of Hollywood and fairytales, the perfect marriage is the one that helps us grow the most. And that’s not likely to be a marriage without hardship or trouble.

Rather than just burying it or pushing harder into an argument, we try to take a step back to privately ask ourselves some why questions: why am I reacting this way? Where is this coming from?

Over the past decade, we’ve frequently had frustrated husbands or wives approach us for help. This led us to create the BreakThrough course for individual spouses in distressed marriages.

Recently, we came across this quote from Simone Weil, a 20th-century French philosopher, Christian mystic and political activist. “God and humanity are like two lovers who have missed their rendezvous. Each is there before the time, but each at a different place, and they wait, and wait, and wait. He stands motionless, nailed to the spot for the whole of time. She is distraught and impatient. But alas for her if ...

2018 was a breakthrough year for me. The preceding few years had been particularly difficult, thanks to some bad decisions on my part, both in business and in my relationships. Looking back, I had fallen into passivity and failed to see the warning signs around me. Even when I was paying attention, I was slow to take action, and came close to losing my marriage and everything I had worked for. ...

Walk through any quality ’80s film, and the reoccurring theme is staying power. Daniel LaRusso, Rocky Balboa, Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo? Staying power. Axel Foley, Ripley (Aliens), John McClane, Mr Miyagi, and Maverick? Again, staying power. Add to this, characters played by some of the 80’s best female actors: Meryl Streep, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathleen Turner, and Goldie Hawn. Their undeniable hidden strength is staying power. Look at the ...