Waking Up Next to Your Best Friend

Some people say that they love being married because it's so great to wake up next to your best friend.

I think in my case it would be more accurate to say that I love going to bed next to my best friend... he generally wakes up well before I do, and I'm usually a bit of a bear in the morning.

On Love, for real this time

First of all, can I just say how great life feels right now? I'm sitting with my feet up, a grapefruit cake in the oven, about to enjoy my mom's amazing halibut tacos at my parents' house with some in-laws as well, I'm sipping a glass of wine, looking out at the world -- as far as the Beartooth Mountains -- that has that certain beauty that it only has just after the rain, appreciating the fact that I wasn't IN the rain, which we narrowly avoided because we were biking home and got inside just as it started to pour. Upon further reflection, I'm even more thankful that I have a husband who basically built me a commuter bike (based on one he bought at Goodwill for $10) and who is loving enough to challenge me to do the riding, but patient enough to go my (slow) pace and just smile warmly at all my whining! And all that exercise feels so good.

But that's not what this post is about.

What I've been thinking about is actually from a conversation that HH and I had a few weekends ago. It was prompted by a devotional book that we were given for our wedding. It's a decent book, but there are just enough pop-psychology and man-centered views in it that the great conversations we have as a result of the devo aren't generally prompted by his discussion questions but rather by our critiques of his theology.

In this particular devotion, he was talking about how our spouses need to feel needed. So I need to know that HH needs me in this relationship and appreciates what I contribute without placing conditions on me. If I don't feel adequately needed, then something is missing from the equation in our marriage.

To a certain extent, this is true. It's not going to be much of a relationship if we're not taking the time to acknowledge one anothers' contributions and to be vulnerable enough to be reliant on the other person.

But, as Ed Welch has so brilliantly pointed out, this can be a flawed and dangerous mindset if we're depending on the other person to fill our proverbial love cup. Because my love cup leaks, and HH will never be able to do enough to fill my cup. (As an aside, we like to joke that Migo has a leaky love cup, but since he's a labrador retriever whose sole purpose in life is basically to love and be love, I think that's okay. He's more like a love pool, where everyone's just supposed to jump in and get soaked.)

So we had a great conversation about where finding security and strength in one another needs to end, and where finding our ultimate strength and security in God needs to begin. It's going to create problems for even the best of relationships if I'm trying to root my identity in the fact that my husband needs or wants me.

A few days ago, this theme was revived when I was reading Tullian Tchividjian's blog, a post called Loved Forevermore. He also raised the point that when we look at our homes as a place of finding love, we are always going to be disappointed, not to mention protective, defensive and bitter. But when we see our homes as an opportunity to extend love to others, that's when we can have a joyous relationship that doesn't even necessarily *need* to be reciprocal.

And where do we get this love that we share in our homes? That's what the gospel is all about -- God, in his boundless love, has loved us forevermore. And because of his love, we are able to freely love others. Without condition, without needing anything in return.

I'd so much rather feel a desperate dependence on God's love than on my husbands; and I'll be better at loving both of them for it.

on Love

“[A]ctive love is a harsh and fearful reality compared with love in dreams.”
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

I have some more thoughts on "love" floating around in my head and either haven't had time to put them down, or blogger hasn't been cooperating when I have had the time. So that's all you get for now; perhaps more later. But that should be enough for now.

(quote comes from a blog post in First Things that I actually haven't read much of, but had to give credit where credit is due)

Song of the Day - "Country Boy," performed by Alison Kraus

More on "The Punishment Game"

Remember my post on playing the punishment game? I read an article yesterday that I thought complemented my point very nicely.

In "Louis Vuitton does not spell forgiveness," Debra D. Bass explores how men -- particularly abusive men -- manipulate women by buying them gifts. I obviously wasn't talking about abusive men, but just the general belief in our society and human nature that gifts (tangible or by doing favors/chores) can/should buy forgiveness (or at least softness that leads to easier forgiveness). And Ms. Bass makes this same point -- that a gift is no substitute for true reconciliation.

Here's the opening few paragraphs of her article.

married friend once joked that if her husband weren't such a screw up, she wouldn't have any nice jewelry. She's told this joke many times in response to a compliment about something she was wearing, and it never fails to elicit laughs.

Socially, we are taught that gifts are selfless, thoughtful and virtuous expressions of love, friendship or respect. We are also taught that a gift is a "get out of trouble" card. And the more expensive or rare or sentimental the gift, the more forgiveness it can barter.

People who screw up are taught that gifts can be traded or at least leveraged for forgiveness.

How many women might instinctively soften after a quarrel if their husband or boyfriend brought home a shiny necklace or stylish watch the next day? How many would take the gift without an explicit admission of guilt? And would that be wrong?

The tricky part of this equation is that gifts can be really nice to get. A gift is a tangible object that says, "I was thinking about you." But it doesn't mean "I acknowledge, understand and take responsibility for what I've done."

(by the way, as far as I know, this article wasn't written by a Christian, just an observer of human nature)

Hopefully not too many people who read my blog are in abusive relationships, but I'll say again what I said before about subscribing to this false view of "reconciliation:"

The scary thing is the same question I asked someone in a mediation a few weeks ago -- "How much is enough?" At some point, he's not going to be able to do enough for me to forgive him. We've got to find another way to be restored to each other.

Also scary is how remarkably similar this "theology" is to our natural tendency to believe that we need to work our way back into God's favor. Does God insist that we pay penance before being restored to him? No! And since God does not treat us in this way, we have no right to treat our spouses in this way.

Avoiding "the punishment game" in this way is a great way to live out our identity as forgiven people.

Two vids for my Husband

A couple of videos today in honor of HH...

First, he got a cold or a mild version of the flu yesterday. It was bad enough that I made him stay home from work (I came home at lunch and he was dripping in sweat, which put the kibosh on working that afternoon!), and he ended up getting an extra 4-5 hours of sleep during the day, which hopefully helped him kick it. No, it's not the swine flu. Although he claims to have caught the new virus when I dragged him to his least-favorite store for my weekly shopping. Anyway, this is in honor of HH having a man cold:



Also, since I was gone for the second half of last week (5 days total), I got to experience being the one away for the first time in our marriage. Poor HH claims he didn't know what do to with himself. And as soon as I got home, I was resting up, then back to work, then he got sick ... I feel like I can't get enough of him. I can't remember what movie this song comes from (seems like it's a chick flick that I've watched over and over -- anybody know?), but this is what I was thinking of regarding dear ol' HH this morning:




Have a great day, everybody!

Top Ten Things I've Learned in My First (Almost) Eight Months of Marriage, part four

The last and final post. Here are part 1, part 2 and part 3.

1. You will experience God’s love in new, amazing, and unimaginable ways. J, this is my prayer for you, because it’s not automatic. But I pray that you will gain through your marriage to C a fresh sense of how deep God’s love for you is because of the gift he is giving you of marriage to C. I think this is possible in two ways. First, I pray that you will experience God’s love coming through you. In the moments when you’re angry, when C has hurt you, when he’s completely oblivious and he just doesn’t get it, may you be able to draw from the wellspring of the way Christ has loved you and love him selflessly and mercifully in a way that is far beyond your own power.

Secondly, I pray that you will experience God’s love coming to you through C. So that when you’ve hurt him, when you can’t seem to get out of a rut of negativity, when you’re wrestling with the same issue for the millionth time, when you’re just so emotional that everything is traumatic, I pray that you will be surprised by the grace and mercy that your husband shows to you. It is an astounding and beautiful picture of grace when I am acutely aware of how little I deserve my husband’s love in a given moment, and yet he serves me and he loves me tangibly anyway.

Let me close with Philippians 1:9-11, “And this is my prayer: that your love [for God and for one another] may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.”

Many Blessings, to you, J, as you enter your new life and marriage with C.

With Love,

Molly

Top Ten Things I've Learned in My First (Almost) Eight Months of Marriage, part three

(Click here to read part 1 and part 2)

Here are a couple of quick ones, since I didn't want to make the shower last all day :)

5. Tear Down Every Wall When You Feel It Going Up. Sort of like my previous point, don’t let issues go unaddressed. The walls that grow between couples are built one stone at a time, and they’re also dismantled with a lot of work, one stone at a time. You have the great opportunity right now to keep that wall from forming at all.

4. Keep Your Desires (“Needs”) in Check. You already know this – marriage is SO not about you! You will be disappointed at things C does or things he doesn’t do or things he doesn’t do enough of. Keep perspective on what your real needs are, and what are just desires. When C seeks to bless you, be blessed, even if it’s not quite what you were hoping for. Perhaps more importantly, seek to regularly bless him, without expecting anything (even acknowledgement) in return.

3. You Will Learn So Much About Yourself! You’ll discover these emotions, these potentials for fears and insecurities and jealousies that you didn’t know where possible, either in degree or in kind. Remember that each of these fears is an opportunity for you to deepen your trust in God, and each challenge is also an opportunity for you to root your identity and your security more deeply in Christ.

2. Guard Your Heart; Don’t Be Content With Surface Solutions. One thing I’ve so appreciated about HH is that he is not content with surface solutions to things that are bothering me. An example: if I am frustrated because I think he’s spending too much time on his computer (for work or play), I’m prone to say, “Let’s limit your time on the computer to X hours per day.” He, on the other hand, wants to understand why it’s bothering me, what I’m seeking to accomplish through him spending less time on the computer, and why I had such a hard time voicing my frustration until it was at a boiling point. It’s a lot more work to do that, but I appreciate his impulse to not put a bandaid on a gaping wound (or what has the potential to grow into a bigger wound). When you’re feeling frustrated or dissatisfied, don’t just seek to change your circumstances; look for ways to change yourself in those circumstances.

Top Ten Things I've Learned in My First (Almost) Eight Months of Marriage, PART TWO

...continued from yesterday...

6. Don’t Play the Punishment Game. I love the saying that “bitterness is the poison we drink hoping someone else will die.” Isn’t punishment a fruit of bitterness? I don’t know why I never saw this in previous relationships, but I’ve been realizing recently how incredibly unproductive it is to play punishment games – which for me often looks like the silent treatment. I’ll be well into what I think is a very effective silent treatment when I realize that HH doesn’t know he’s being punished. More than that, though, I’ve been realizing that in trying to hurt him, I’m also hurting myself. If I really do believe in this “one flesh” business, am I not damaging myself by damaging my relationship? If I really believe that this is a lifelong commitment, I’m going to need to deal with whatever the issue is (or get over it), sooner or later, and isn’t is going to be harder later? I’ve actually thought to myself several times (and this has to be the Peacemaker Ministries employee in me), “Would I want to be dealing with this with the help of a mediator in 10, 15, 20 years?”

Of course, you can’t always will your way out of that anger, in which case I pray, J, that God will plant a little seed in your mind of how ineffective and counterproductive those tactics are … and that it will be his grace that will make you uncomfortable with your response. Even if you’re caught in a Romans 7-like battle, where you’re doing what you know is wrong and you don’t want to, but you just can’t seem to help it, I pray that you’ll keep fighting that battle.

******

I'd been debating adding this to the devotion, decided not to because of time, and then at the last minute ad libbed one more thought on punishment games. It went something like this:

One more aspect of "the punishment game" that I'd encourage you to avoid is making your husband do something to get back into your good graces. In our marriage, it goes something like this: HH does something and I am angry at him. He then has the opportunity to get himself back into my good graces by doing me favors. I'll wake up in the morning and realize that he feels badly about something because I can hear him doing the dishes. Or he'll express feeling guilty because he doesn't feel like he's been doing his fair share around the house lately, so I'll tell him that he can make up for it later by, say, vacuuming or (better yet), giving me a back rub. (Back rubs are seriously an idol for me!).

There's nothing wrong with my husband seeking to bless me through tangible acts of service. But this isn't seeking to bless, this is seeking to appease. And I've discovered that in my own heart, it's a bottomless pit. Maybe emptying the dishwasher this time will work ... but next time, he's going to have to empty the dishwasher AND vacuum (at this point, someone at the shower chimed in, "and fold the laundry!" so I suspect I struck a nerve!). The scary thing is the same question I asked someone in a mediation a few weeks ago -- "How much is enough?" At some point, he's not going to be able to do enough for me to forgive him. We've got to find another way to be restored to each other.

Also scary is how remarkably similar this "theology" is to our natural tendency to believe that we need to work our way back into God's favor. Does God insist that we pay penance before being restored to him? No! And since God does not treat us in this way, we have no right to treat our spouses in this way.

Avoiding "the punishment game" in this way is a great way to live out our identity as forgiven people.

Top Ten Things I've Learned in My First (Almost) Eight Months of Marriage

I was asked to give a devotion at a wedding shower yesterday and received a couple of requests for the text of the devo, so I decided to post it here. It's in the form of a Top 10 List and since it's pretty long, I'll break it up into a couple of posts over the next few days. Here are lessons 10, 9, 8 and 7.

******************

J,

In some ways, I feel barely qualified to give a devotion for a wedding shower, since it was less than a year ago that I was sitting in your chair, feeling incredibly blessed, and being showered with gifts and with words of wisdom from somebody who’s been walking this walk for years. But in other ways, I think I’m in a great position to speak to you, because some of the lessons that you’ll be learning and the adjustments you’ll be making are so fresh to me still. And that’s what I actually want to focus on today, are some of the lessons I’ve been learning (and I’m definitely still in process) – and so I’ve titled this “Top Ten Lessons From My First (Almost) Eight Months of Marriage.” I hope this will be an encouragement to you, both in terms of what you can look forward to, and also in terms of what you might want to look out for.

10. You are Embarking on an INCREDIBLY Fun Adventure. We come from such a rich church tradition of studying God’s Word and seeking to understand who we are before God and how our sin affects how we act toward God and in our relationships. I hope that in your counseling and your other pre-marital work that you’ve been learning tons about yourself and how to thrive in your marriage. But I hope that you also aren’t losing sight – which I was prone to do sometimes – of what an incredible blessing God will be giving to you in marriage. After HH got engaged, I received a simple note from a friend that read, “A lot of people will tell you how much work marriage is, but I’ve mostly found it to be a lot of fun.” (It helps that she’s married to an incredibly easygoing guy!) But both parts of her statement are true – some parts of loving and serving C, and the sacrifices you’ll make, will be some of the hardest things you’ve ever done. But God is giving you your best friend, in a specially designed relationship, in a permanent, covenant relationship modeled after how God himself loves us, to multiply all of your joys, to make even simple things like making breakfast special, and to carry your burdens and your sorrows with you. This doesn’t mean that God is withholding his joy from single women, but there’s no doubt that this is special. Enjoy it, and guard your heart from taking for granted that you get to share life with your best friend.

9. Disappoint Early and Often. This is actually advice that some of our friends gave us about a month after we got married. They weren’t talking about disappointing each other, but about disappointing our parents and in-laws, especially when they both live in the same city. Even though you love both families, J, you’re going to find it hard to figure out how much time to spend with which family and how to divide your holidays, etc. They both love you so much that they’ll take every bit of time that you’ll give, but I think our pastor’s advice in his marriage class from last year is invaluable – “be a ‘we.’” Strive to be on the same page with each other, decide ahead of time and communicate your plans clearly, and be sure to create time for your new family during special occasions when eventually you’ll want to have some established family traditions of your own.

8. You are the key to C’s success and happiness. I don’t mean this in a hoaky, Oprah, believe in him and he can do anything, sort of way. But there is a very real sense in which your support for C will help him be a better leader for your family and will set him free to pursue his goals, for his career, for your family, for your spiritual well-being. There are SO many proverbs about what a curse a bad wife can be – a bitter, complaining woman who seeks to undermine what her husband is trying to do; Proverbs says that’s it’s better for a man to live under the dripping edge of a roof than to live with a woman like that. Now that’s awfully negative, but I think women are particularly susceptible to the temptation to be subversive, to undermine what our husbands are trying to do if we don’t agree, rather than having an outright discussion and then choosing to submit if we still can’t come to agreement. J, strive to respect C, to build him up to his face and to others, to support his efforts, and to be a joyful life partner for him. It will be very difficult for him to be all the man he could be without you helping him get there.

7. You can’t make C successful or happy. What? Didn’t I just say that you were the key to his success and happiness? Yes; but that truth has to be held in tension with the fact that there are limits on how much you can control your circumstances or your husband. I may feel this more than a lot of women because I work with HH, but there are times when I feel so tempted to either manipulate the circumstance or to manipulate him in order to achieve what I think is the best outcome. I suspect that you will have times when C comes home from school, and later from work, when he’s frustrated, he’s tired, or when he’s planning something you disagree with. J, these are great opportunities for you to not try to “do,” but just to love on him, and also to pray for him. You can’t control his heart – if he’s struggling with discontentment or discouragement or is angry at how life is treating him, do your best to search your heart with regard to how you’re seeing God and C, encourage him without badgering him, and, most importantly, point him faithfully to Christ. As much as we’d like to be the perfect solution to all of our husbands’ problems, what they – and we – both truly need is God, and God alone.