Tag Archive | marriage

What You Can Learn From Parenthood

Mar6

ParenthoodPretty much on a weekly basis, I cry over Parenthood. I’m not talking about the actual state of parenthood, I’m talking about the TV show “Parenthood.” I was drawn to the show because it’s about family, but I was also drawn to the show because it takes place in Berkeley, Calif., a place near and dear to my heart. I love seeing familiar places and hearing them talk about the sports teams.

There is much I don’t like about the show: I don’t like the immorality. I don’t like the fact that they take things like premarital sex, abortion and drug use so lightly. Commenters on their Facebook page will tell you that they’re handling things very delicately and all, and, as I mentioned in a previous post (Speaking My Language) I shouldn’t expect people who don’t follow Jesus to embrace the things that He embraces, but it still makes me sad.

But what I love about the show is that they make family important, they don’t make the men into idiots, the adult siblings have a really great relationship, and children are valued, talked to and actually parented, not the way I would parent, but in a loving, concerned, I’m-there-for-you manner nonetheless.

When one of the siblings goes through a separation, her adopted son calls her from his dad’s apartment where he and his sister are spending the weekend. Why? He had a bad dream. All he wants is to talk to his mom.

The teenage boy of one of the sisters gets his girlfriend pregnant. She has an abortion without his consent. Who does he talk to about it? His mom. She loves her kids and they talk to her about everything. She’s been a single mom most of their lives.

Here’s the kicker for me: The patriarchs, Zeke and Camille, are still married after nearly 50 years. She feels like she’s put aside her dreams  for years to raise her family, so now she’s wanting to branch out. She spent a month in Italy painting, without Zeke. She wants to sell the family home, the place where everyone gathers and so many memories have been made. He doesn’t want to leave. It’s his home. But after spending a month without her while she pursued her dream, when his youngest son is indignant that they would consider selling his childhood home, Zeke tells him, “Your mother and I have been together 47 years, and we’ve been through a lot, we’ve been through a lot of milestones. She goes away to Europe and all of a sudden I’m left here at the house, I’m all alone, and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. And I miss her. I miss her like crazy. I realize that I love her a lot more than I love this house, and if selling this house makes her happy, then that’s what I’m going to do. So that’s about it, Son, that’s the ballgame right there.”

That is the ballgame. Zeke and Camille might not know a thing about having a godly marriage—one that honors God and is a window into the spiritual realm—but Zeke got it right: Oneness and commitment to his wife supersedes everything. No house is worth promoting isolation in your marriage. No other relationship means more.

Now he just needs to get that little bit of advice into his son-in-law, Joel. Sheesh.

 

Parenthood logo from tv.com

The Promise

Mar2

23 years. 8401 days. 3 miscarried babies. 3 born babies. 2 dogs, 2 cats, numerous fish, 3 hermit crabs and a bird. 8 vehicles. 2 apartments—one in California, one in Florida. 2 houses. Too many bikes to count. 1 husband. Together, beating the odds.

I’m glad I keep a journal, because I have written recordsc0079bb1f of so much that’s gone on in those 8401 days. 34 days before that count started, though, I wrote about what I thought the promises were that I’d be making that March 2nd day 23 years ago. Here’s what I said:

“The main thing I think I’m committing to is knowing him better than anybody else, and always being there to help make him the best that he can be. I’m promising to search out his innermost thoughts, and to listen carefully. I’m promising to point out his rough spots and to help sand them down, and to polish up his bright spots so they show up even better. I’m promising to let him know that I love him even when it may seem to him that no one else does. I will be his shelter. I’m promising to provide a home for him that is a haven, one he will be loathe to leave and anxious to get back to. I’m promising to reveal myself to him as I do to no one else. To let him point out the rough spots in me that no one else is able or willing to. I’m promising to let him take care of me and thus encourage that nurturing, caring, providing, leading attitude that comes from knowing you are really and truly needed. I’m promising to be the church to his Jesus. And it’s not going to be easy. But it’s going to be worth it.”IMG_3260

Happy anniversary, Hunny. It has definitely not been easy, but it has most definitely been worth it. Here’s to many, many more.

I See You

Feb13

IMG_7606This morning, I noticed this cryptic message on my desk. I would normally attribute this kind of message to my husband, as we have been known to hide a small flyer with the Geico eyes on a stack of money in each other’s underwear drawer. But he says he didn’t do it. Must have been one of my kids. Perhaps fans of stalker movies would be unnerved by such a thing, but my mind immediately went to the movie “Avatar,” which came out in 2009.

The premise is that a group of ugly Americans bent on mining a precious ore from the planet Pandora send in a specialized team to try to talk the indigenous people, the Na’vis, into moving away from the area where this substance is most concentrated. If they don’t leave, the company plans on wiping them out. Problem is, this place is where their central spiritual life lives. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but, in a nugget, “avatars,” or beings made to resemble the Na’vis, are controlled remotely by an amazing scientific process of a sort of mind control. Anyway, a crippled former Marine gets the job of an avatar guard for a team studying the planet for research reasons, gets separated from his team, and ends up falling in love with one of the Na’vi women. In the process, he agrees to infiltrate the people and try to convince them to move. What he learns changes his mind. They cannot be moved, and should not be moved, and the wealth-aquiring aspirations of the mining company are really evil. (Check out this link if you want to know more.)

OK, so, what does that have to do with seeing? Well, instead of saying, “I love you,” Jake, the former Marine, and Neytiri, the Na’vi woman he loves, say “I see you.” It goes deeper than just saying, “Oh yeah, there you are.” It means I know you. I am a student of you. I am invested in learning your soul.

I recently read a really great article by Dr. Kelly Flanagan (see “Why One Text Message is More Romantic Than a Hundred Valentine’s Cards) about how something one loves is something one searches for when it’s missing. It’s called “object permanence” and babies learn that as they grow. That’s why “peek-a-boo” works with babies. Now you see it. Now you don’t. When you show up again, the child is thrilled. But if you take something a baby is enjoying away from them, they won’t go and look for it; they simply assume it doesn’t exist anymore. Eventually, they learn that it’s still around somewhere, and if they want it, they need to find it.

Dr. Flanagan asserts that letting your significant other know that you’re thinking about them throughout the day is more a sign of how much you love them than the most extravagant of gifts. A text message saying “I’m thinking of you” once a day can do more for your relationship than a dozen roses once a year. When you’re not there, I’m searching for you. When we’re not together, a part of me is missing. When I’m with you, I really see who you are. I see into your soul.

More than 20 years ago I heard a wonderful sermon by one of my favorite pastors, Chuck Swindoll. It was titled “Love, Sweet Love” and it contained the ABC’s of what love does: I Accept you as you are; I Believe that you are valuable; I Care when you hurt; I Desire what is best for you and I Erase all offenses.

I see you.

Happy Valentine’s Day

My Way Or The High(er)way

Feb4

laundryI got irritated with my husband this morning. That’s not all that surprising. We’ve been married just short of 23 years; there’s been many moments of irritation before. What may surprise you is the reason for my irritation: He did a load of laundry. What? How dare he?

It took me a bike ride and some time of quiet for the Holy Spirit to speak into my heart and help me figure out why I was so irritated by that. What I came up with was this: When I saw him take the hamper out to the laundry room, my mind immediately said, “Oh good! He’s doing a load of laundry. One less thing for me to do today!” Then, when I saw a short while later that he had only done a very small load of things he needed, I’m afraid, well, I didn’t react very well. Thinking I could check one task off my list, I was disappointed to find there was still the bulk of the load to do. Thus, irritation set in.

But, since David and I have been going through a marriage course called re|engage, we’ve learned to quickly ask forgiveness. We’ve already talked and forgiveness has been granted, along with a reminder that his way is not wrong, it’s simply different, another lesson we’re learning in our marriage study. He needed clean underwear before he left for work, thus the small load on a quick wash. I simply saw it as selfishness. It’s not like he caused me more work, he just didn’t cause me less.

Differences. They’re what make us unique people. So why is it that so many couples don’t celebrate their differences? How often do we read that celebrity couples have split up due to “irreconcilable differences”? Irreconcilable. Cannot be reconciled. As in, we can’t figure out why we’re so different? Or we just don’t want to have to deal with it?

I could have easily kept my irritation this morning. I could have left David feeling disrespected because I felt my way was better instead of hearing the reasons why he did what he did. Even then, I could have persisted that my way was better. But that’s not really what matters. My marriage, and letting God make it what He wants it to be, matters.

Why let the differences tear us apart? Instead of my way, I choose the higher way.

 

photo from http://www.wlu.edu

Tandem Living: Being There For One Another

Oct22

20130718-162721.jpgOver the last couple of months, I’ve been talking about how marriage and tandem bicycling mirror each other. It’s been pretty fun for me. There is one more thing that I thought I would talk about as I wrap up this series. More often than not lately, David and I have been riding our individual bikes. I ride as early in the morning as I am able, before it gets hot, and David needs to go to work. But even on weekends, we ride our separate bikes, because the workout is better. We’re still riding together, just not on the same bike.

What matters in our individual riding is that we are attempting to make ourselves stronger. What makes that bearable—especially to one who is not an exercise fanatic—is that we know we are on each other’s side. David is cheering me on in my attempts to be healthier. I pretty much have couch-potato tendencies if I don’t really work at overcoming them. I need all the encouragement I can get.

The same applies to how we approach our family life. I spend so much time focused on others, that I really have to work at taking time for myself. That’s really hard. Responsibilities never go away, and, in fact, more keep wanting to jump onto my already overflowing pile. Ignoring them isn’t an option; controlling them is crucial. When I feel overwhelmed by my responsibilities, and have to focus on them rather than David, I need to know that he’s on my side.

We just got back from a week of working in California. The day after we got back I had to jump right back into teaching, grading papers, getting ready for report cards and doing my magazine copy editing. Thankfully, David was able to take some comp time and go to the grocery store, clean the house and do some loads of laundry. Because we value the couple of times a year that we can work together out of town, the responsibilities when we return have to be shared.

We have to have each other’s backs. If I felt like my husband resented my responsibilities, I would be lost. I have to know that when the responsibilities are again under control, he will still be there, because he’s been encouraged before to be strong, and he’s been encouraging me the same way.

Previous to the both of us working at this out-of-town conference, David had been gone for 10 days. That left all the duties of the household and the kids on my shoulders. But that’s OK. He needed to be gone; I needed to pick up the slack. That’s the way it’s done. He encourages me to stand strong, and I encourage him.

Right now, our old tandem bike needs a lot of repair. We haven’t been riding it because we don’t know if it’ll make another trip before we have a chance to fix it—or replace it.

Thankfully, our marriage isn’t in the same boat. Yes, this has been a busy time since we returned from California. We haven’t spent any time alone. We haven’t talked through any issues that are weighing on us. We haven’t had a whole lot of fun. But that’s OK. It happens sometimes. We know we’re not in trouble because we are committed to each other and are on each other’s team. Sometimes we find ourselves simply standing on the sidelines, cheering on the other person. And sometimes that cheering is all we can hear.

And in the end, absolutely none of this would be possible without the strength that God gives us. The Holy Spirit is essential if we are to keep going. Does my husband feel loved by me? Only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Do I have the strength to face the pressures of each day? Only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Can we get back on track with those pesky responsibilities put in their places and the priorities back where they belong? Absolutely, because not only are we on each other’s side, but we have the Creator of the universe right there with us.