{"id":1770,"date":"2016-03-01T07:48:16","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T12:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/?p=1770"},"modified":"2016-03-01T07:56:46","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T12:56:46","slug":"excerpt-from-the-new-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/excerpt-from-the-new-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Excerpt From the New Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I get closer to finishing my second book, I wanted to share an excerpt. I’ll save the details around the concept\/premise of the book. The working title is;; Stop for a Moment: 60 Seconds to Look Around and Find What Matters Most<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Look for a late summer, early fall release. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

Children<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Eileen and I had been married for over 7 years before we had our first child. As is it is with life, some of that was planned, and some was not. We weren\u2019t entirely sold on being parents in the beginning, so we decided to wait a few years. As the years passed, we began to feel the longing. We both figured it would be an immediate thing. It was not an immediate thing. We waited 3 \u00bd years before Lauren arrived. The process of waiting, medical testing and feelings of doubt was tough.<\/em><\/p>\n

I stopped giving advice on parenting after our first. Especially, since I felt so ill-equipped to be a father. Later on you realize most parents feel this way. It was tough for me. My dad was the only model for human fatherhood and he never said much to me, so I felt alone to figure it out. Fortunately, my relationship with God helped immensely. One thing was clear then, and now, there is no such thing as a perfect parent.<\/em><\/p>\n

After my son was born in late 2001, I started realizing the power of influence. I came to understand that often your kid\u2019s behavior and view of the world is heavily based on what they see in you. That\u2019s one of the biggest reasons I value forgiveness. You never know how important forgiveness is until you do something that you deeply regret. I\u2019ve had many lessons in this area.<\/em><\/p>\n

As my kids are now in their teens, I\u2019ve discovered the need to let them know I\u2019m listening. I make sure to verbalize my feelings for them, and to let them know that I pray for them everyday. I may miss the boat on college planning or a homework assignment, but they will know how important they are to me in the areas that matter most.<\/em><\/p>\n

Questions to Think About:<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Do your children know they are loved? Does your home echo the sound of \u201cI love you?\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. Do you spend too much time trying to teach, versus listen, to discover and encourage?<\/em><\/li>\n
  3. Are you modeling behaviors that would produce light or darkness?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As I get closer to finishing my second book, I wanted to share an excerpt. I’ll save the details around the concept\/premise of the book. The working title is;; Stop for a Moment: 60 Seconds to Look Around and Find What Matters Most. Look for a late summer, early fall release. Enjoy! Children Eileen and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,82,7],"tags":[556,633,1854,30,325,823,180,369,333,1855,557],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-news-and-updates","category-relationships","category-wellbeing","tag-author","tag-book","tag-book-excerpt","tag-books-2","tag-children","tag-epic-living","tag-eric-pennington","tag-parenting","tag-parents","tag-stop-for-a-moment","tag-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1770"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1773,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions\/1773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}