Gary Chapman - The DIY Guide to Building a Family That Lasts: 12 Tools for Improving Your Home Life

2019 by
GARY CHAPMAN and SHANNON WARDEN

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Some names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Edited by Elizabeth Cody Newenhuyse
Interior design: Erik M. Peterson
Cover design: Faceout Studios
Cover photo of table and chairs copyright 2019 by Westend61/Gettyimages (647331513).
Cover photo of pens copyright 2019 by Adha Ghazali/Shutterstock (1019514556).
Cover photo of notebook copyright 2018 by Mart Sans/Stocksy (1914607).
All rights reserved for all of the above photos.
Gary Chapman photo: P.S. Photography
Shannon Warden photo: Gina Childress, Picture This Photography

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chapman, Gary D., 1938- author.

Title: The DIY guide to building a family that lasts : 12 tools for improving your home life / Gary Chapman and Shannon Warden.

Other titles: Do it yourself guide to building a family that lasts

Description: Chicago : Northfield Publishing, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019009731 (print) | LCCN 2019017266 (ebook) | ISBN 9780802497840 () | ISBN 9780802419149

Subjects: LCSH: Families--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Families--Religious life.

Classification: LCC BT707.7 (ebook) | LCC BT707.7 .C47 2019 (print) | DDC 248.4--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009731

ISBN: 978-0-8024-1914-9
eBook ISBN: 978-0-8024-9784-0

We hope you enjoy this book from Northfield Publishing. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought-provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products that will help you with all your important relationships, go to www.moodypublishers.com or write to:

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Chicago, IL 60610

Dedicated to my wife, Karolyn, daughter, Shelley, and son, Derek, with whom I have experienced numerous home renovations!

To Mama and Daddy (Kenny and Sandra Prater), thank you for loving and lasting and showing me how to do the same. To Stephen, Avery, Carson, and Presley, you are my dream team! I love being all-in with you.

Friend,

Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.

The proceeds from your purchase help pay the tuition of students attending Moody Bible Institute. These students come from around the globe and graduate better equipped to impact our world for Christ.

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EVER WATCH A HOME IMPROVEMENT show on television? Or maybe youve done your own home improvement projects. It is truly amazing to see the big revealthat moment when dreams and hard work result in a beautiful new space or completely renovated home. What used to be old and out-of-style is now transformed and fresh! We ask ourselves, Why did we wait so long to do this?

My coauthor, Shannon, and I enjoy home improvement shows and projects. However, we specialize in a different kind of home improvement. Were marriage and family counselors who have the great privilege of sitting with individuals and couples who are dreaming of a new home life. They dont want a new family; they just need new tools to improve the family life theyve got. More specifically, they want to communicate more effectively and love their family members better. They want to figure out how to encourage their children, create more peace in their home, and establish and maintain more effective boundaries.

Do you see the similarities in the home improvement we talk about in our counseling office and the literal home improvement? In both cases, frustration or boredom with the old leads to increased desire for change. Desire leads to plans. Plans lead to action steps. And action steps lead to a beautifully transformed home or home life.

Literal home improvement and home life improvement do, of course, have their differences. One difference is that people can pay contractors to renovate for them as opposed to them having to do renovations on their own. Improving our relationships doesnt quite work like that. As counselors, Shannon and I dont go into a home and create an all-new home life for the people with whom we work. Instead, we help people learn to DIYdo it yourself.

In our counseling role we listen, help people clarify their relationship goals, and collaborate with them to make plans and take steps to accomplish those goals. We also teach and help people develop new insights and relationship skills, or tools they need to improve their home life. It is our clients who then have to decide how motivated they are to tackle the changes they need to make at home to accomplish the new home life they desire.

Thats the hard part, isnt itthe follow-through! Think about it. If you and your spouse have some negative communication patterns that have built up over several years, reversing those patterns doesnt happen overnight. Both of you have to commit to make the change, make daily effort toward the goal, and little by little positively reinforce and sustain the good changes that youre making together as a team. Sounds easy, but its not, because we all run out of steam over time. We get lazy, take our relationships for granted, and assume that theyll hold up indefinitely despite not only our lack of significant improvements but also our lack of basic relationship maintenance.

We dont just struggle in our marriage relationships; we also struggle to be the good parents we desire to be. Shannon and I regularly work with parents who say things like, I need to spend more time with my children, but Im just so busy with work, and I dont want my child to be the only one who doesnt have the technology the other kids have. These parents, like many others, are trying to create better work-life balance and healthier boundaries. Theyre not trying necessarily to be perfect parents; they merely recognize and want to change some ongoing issues at home before its too late and their children are grown and gone from home.

You likely can relate to these examples and recognize areas for improvement in your family that have needed attention for a long time. You may have even tried over time to make those changes, but just havent had the success you hoped for. But you havent given up! Instead, youve committed to investing in your family and home life. Thats why youre reading