Tag Archives: Marriage

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Deuteronomy 26

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“And today God has reaffirmed that you are dearly held treasure….” Deuteronomy 26:18a (MSG)

When I teach customer service skills to my clients, one of the skills I talk about is the importance of using the customer’s name in your conversation. Names imply relationship, and you want your customers to feel that they are more than just another “customer,” “account,” or “call” you have to deal with that day. They are a person who is known. You communicate that by calling them by name.

The truth of the matter is that as a relationship grows and becomes more intimate we not only use each other’s names but nicknames and pet names emerge that speak to an even deeper level of knowing and being known. The opposite is also true. As a relationship breaks down, people stop using one another’s names and refer to each other with simple pronouns like “they.” Then, derogatory nicknames emerge that communicate our negative perceptions of the person.

In today’s chapter, God tells Israel that they are “dearly held treasure” and it immediately reminded me of my own dearly held treasure: my wife, and my daughters. In fact, “treasure” is a special word between Wendy and me; It has incredible depth of meaning in our relationship. What makes it special I will leave between the two of us, but suffice it to say that when I read that God affirms that His children are “dearly held treasure” I feel something very deeply because of the connotations that “treasure” make with the most intimate human relationship I’ve ever experienced.

Today, I am thankful for dearly held treasure. I am thankful that I can treasure my wife, my children, my family and my friends. I am grateful that God treasures me.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Deuteronomy 24

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When a man takes a new wife, he is not to go out with the army or be given any business or work duties. He gets one year off simply to be at home making his wife happy. Deuteronomy 24:5 (MSG)

Having been through a long-suffering marriage that ended divorce and having walked beside friends in their own marital struggles, I’ve found that the issues which plague a marriage are often present at the very beginning of a relationship. I’ve both experienced and heard many others say they could look back and see the problems which eventually grew to choke the relationship surfaced in the honeymoon and quickly spread through the early years of the marriage.

The first steps are critical to the success of the marital journey. The relational roles and patterns which are formed in those initial months very often set the course for the direction the relationship will take and the destination to which it will eventually arrive. This is not to say that couples can never overcome a rocky start to the marriage, but the truth of the matter is that they often do not.

How fascinating that God’s direction, given in ancient days, was for the groom to take a year off of work or war to spend at home with his bride. God makes it clear that time and proximity are crucial ingredients for the success of any relationship, especially that of marriage. Women are complex creatures in which men find eternal mystery. Unlocking that mystery requires our own God given sense focus, strength, and tenacity. If we go AWOL at the beginning of the relationship, it is very likely we will have lost the keys forever in our flight from responsibility.

It is said: “happy wife, happy life.” We men would do well to remember (and by that I mean we need constant reminder) that a woman’s happiness begins with a partner who is present, engaged and attentive. These ingredients do not guarantee the success of the relationship, but without them the odds of failure become a sure bet.

Random Thoughts, Wayfarer's Journal

Day 21: Something You Can’t Seem to Get Over

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30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 21: Something you can’t seem to get over.

I’ve come to learn that there are some events in life that you never truly “get over,” nor do I believe you should. They become a part of your journey. Some events, whether positive or negative, become a waypoint; they are a demarkation point of your life. They were a factor in determining your course, they become a part of your story, and a part of who you are.

When I was going through divorce I had a dear friend who’d been there before tell me that the day her divorce was official “was the worst day and the best day of my life.” I’ve never forgotten the words and have learned the truth of them. Friday, May 13, 2005 was a huge waypoint in the journey from which the course is forever altered. There are feelings of sorrow and pangs of failure that are forever attached to the event. And, yet, God is a God of resurrection and redemption specializing in creating new life out of things which have withered and died. I look at the present abundance of life and joy I daily experience and marvel at how the Creator never ceases His artistic pursuits of using broken, dead things to create new expressions of life.

 Resurrection comes with the prerequisite of death. There’s no getting over it.

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Wayfarer's Journal

Day 20: The Last Argument You Had

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30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 20: The last argument you had.

I had to think hard about this one. Because Wendy and I work together, play together, live together, and sleep together, we are around each other all of the time. Our daily arguments are summer cloudbursts: they arrive without warning, are largely inconsequential, are gone before you know it and then they are quickly forgotten. Thus, I had to think hard to remember one.

This past Friday I remember coming downstairs in the early evening. Wendy asked me in a curt tone if I had made any decisions about supper. I immediately felt snippy and replied in matching curtness that I didn’t know it was my responsibility to decide anything about supper to which Wendy complained in some fashion that I’d been upstairs in my office (and, I guess, clearly not communicating about supper). We then dropped the snippy tone and decided on something to eat.

That was it. Shocking, I know.

Does anyone know of a good marriage counselor? 🙂

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Random Thoughts, Wayfarer's Journal

Day 12: Things You Want to Say to an Ex

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30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 12: Things you want to say to an ex.

To all who can call me an “ex”:

Yes, I do realize what a blind, self-centered, insensitive ass I was.

I am so, so sorry.

Please forgive me.

I hope life is well.

Random Thoughts, Wayfarer's Journal

Day 11: Your Current Relationship

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30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 11: Your Current Relationship

I get the feeling that this set of blogging questions was written by a young person. There’s sort of a preconceived notion that significant relationships are a busy, revolving door.  But, I guess they do call it a blogging “challenge.”

I’ve already shared much in this 30 day challenge about my wife, and so with today’s question I’m focused more on our relationship and our marriage. I believe that in many ways we are a lot like every other married couple. Wendy gets cranky with my “dude-ness” as I leave messes behind, leave dishes on the counter, and get myopically focused on what I’m thinking about to the exclusion of anything and anyone else in the room. I am often frustrated with a dizzying plethora of female preferences and expectations regarding every facet of life in the house. Then there’s the personality differences with which every couple must struggle.

Anyone who knows us will testify that Wendy is demonstrative with her emotions. She is never one to avoid a conflict when there’s something irritating her. I, on the other hand, am easy going and never one to jump into conflict when there’s a way I can avoid it to see if it will just go away. You get the picture. And despite the differences in our personalities there is a reciprocal positive effect that we have on one another. Wendy teaches me how to be more honest and forthright with my feelings as I help her understand that the first emotionally explosive reaction to something is not always the most accurate nor helpful to the situation.

Those are the daily realities of living together with our flawed and self-centered humanity. Nevertheless, those irritations pale in comparison to the love we share and the joy of walking the journey together. As I mentioned the other day, we are together all the time. We work together out of our home offices and we enjoy the same activities. We are together more than almost any couple our age that I know, and I can’t imagine living life any other way. It feels strange when I’m away from the home office for a day of client meetings. I can’t imagine of better, more complimentary companion. Theatre, movies, books, art, conversation, music, company, dance, wine, Cubs and Vikings. We share and enjoy so many things in life together.

Blessed.

Random Thoughts, Wayfarer's Journal

Day 9: Your Last Kiss

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30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 9: Your Last Kiss.

Just a few minutes ago Wendy was standing at the kitchen counter making pizza dough for dinner tonight. I love to sneak up on her from behind when she’s not expecting it, reaching around her for a hug and a kiss. It’s amazing how passionate unexpected kisses in the kitchen can be. When I worked at the book store in high school and college there was a book that was always on the shelf entitled Sex Begins in the Kitchen. I never read the book, but I’ve also never forgotten the title (and discovered that it is often true).

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Matthew 19

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Coffee Argument
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But Jesus said, “Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn’t for everyone. Matthew 19:11 (MSG)

On Sunday night, after a long day and a trip to Des Moines, Wendy and I returned home and got into an argument. Little arguments pop up on any given day. They come and go like a cloudburst on a warm summer afternoon; They quickly emerge out of nowhere and are just as quickly forgotten. Then there are the arguments that build like a perfect storm and you unexpectedly find yourselves embroiled in a conversation that runs deep into the heart of who you are as individuals, and who you are together as a couple. The storm raged back and forth until after midnight on Sunday as we navigated our way through the tossing waves of intention, thought, emotion, notion and behavior.

Wendy and I don’t just have a good marriage, we have a great marriage. And still, at times, it’s really difficult to wade through the muck that’s created when two selfish, sinful human beings get together. We’re both good communicators and we still find it difficult at times to navigate the relational mine field of marriage.

I’ve lived through the long struggle and pain of a failed marriage. I’ve now experienced the blessing of a truly great marriage relationship. Through it all, I’ve come to better understand and truly believe Jesus’ words about marriage. We live in a culture dedicated to exactly the opposite of Jesus’ teaching: everyone should get married, and if you don’t there’s something wrong with you. That’s a huge load of b.s. We might publicly shout “amen” to Jesus’ words, but in practice we run to on-line dating services, play matchmaker to our unmarried friends and family, and secretly wonder “I wonder why he/she is still not married” as if being single is abnormal.

Marriage isn’t for everyone. Many people are better off single. We shake our heads in disgust at the divorce rate in our culture. Yet, aren’t we to blame when we treat marriage as a relational idol, bowing to the notion that marriage is to be honored without question even when the individuals getting married are setting sail into a perfect relational storm inside a dinghy that looks like swiss cheese?  Are we to blame for the divorce rate when we treat singleness as a cultural disease and make single people feel second rate? How many failed marriages begin with desperate individuals jumping at any chance to have a wedding and get married?

I’ll step off my soap box now.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Luke 10

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Painting by Bueckelaer via Flickr and Jim Forest

As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen

. Luke 10:38-39 (MSG)

My wife, Wendy, and I are blessed to spend more time together than most couples I know. We both work out of a home office, so a normal day is spent in the house together. We eat breafast together, we eat lunch together, and we eat dinner together. If I take a break from my work, I usually walk down stairs to talk to Wendy. Much of our free time is spent working together on stage or in administrating the local community theatre. We worship together and serve together on the visual tech team at church. Wendy and I have an intimate relationship that is built on the foundation of shared time, shared space, shared interest, and shared conversation.

The story of Mary and Martha, and the simple lesson of it, keeps popping in my path the past few weeks. I was reminded of it once again in worship yesterday morning. So often I approach my relationship with Jesus like Martha, in which my relationship is really about doing things around him. Yet, Mary had the more initimate relationship with Jesus because she spent time centered on conversation with him.

My relationship with Jesus and my relationship with my wife are really no different. If I want to find intimacy in the relationship, then it’s going to require a foundation of time, proximity, and focused communication.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Romans 4

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If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That’s not a holy promise; that’s a business deal. A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise—and God’s promise at that—you can’t break it. Romans 4:14-15 (MSG)

There is a locked safe in the closet of my home office. Inside that safe is a marriage license which is stamped, notarized and filed with the county. My wife and I are legally married. Not once, however, have I had to pull out that contract and remind myself or my wife of this fact.

Before there was a contract there was a promise and a relationship. I love my wife, and she loves me. We are bound together by promise and trust, and this is reflected in thought, word, and deed each day as we live in relationship with one another. And believe me, with both of us working in our home office, we spend more time together than most married couples I know.

No wonder God uses marriage as a word picture of our relationship with Christ over and over again. I am drawn to Jesus by His promise, and by trust in what He has done for me (laying down his life). To think that my good works or legal obligation to perform religious duties are required to consummate the relationship, only perverts the beautiful picture of a gracious covenant relationship.

Today, I’m thankful for a relationship with Jesus that has nothing to do with me earning religious merit badges.