Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Every Guy's Favorite Word

Our church services have been covering a series about marriage. I just can't believe how timely God speaks to us. Usually I'm raving on and on about marriage (it elicits such a lovely response from my sisters), but if you were to ask me right now to rate ours, the score would be not very high. It's nothing major, definitely fixable, just another tale of a marriage pushed to the back burner in the heyday of work and kids.

We're catching it early enough so that the husband is like, "what problem?" Lucky for him that he has such a sensitive wife, otherwise he probably wouldn't see the problem until after I've gone insane. No D word for us, never ever. Murder, maybe, but never D.

So we've been sort of working on things when along came this sermon series. I had a few issues with last week's message. The pastor was talking about how husbands have to show their wives how much they care. As an example, he pointed out how he stays at home in the mornings to help her get their kids ready for school because his work schedule is flexible. Excuse me, but if this is the nicest thing he can think of that he's done for her lately, then they're in trouble. Because he's the dad; he's supposed to help with the kids! He's doing it for himself and the kids more than his wife. I suppose she's being romantic every time she does his laundry and scrubs his toilet. But it's a good lesson for what can happen in a marriage: romance is forgotten.

This week's message (from a different guy) totally hit the nail on the head. Among his nuggets: Marriage is the best battle unit God ever designed and The essence of marriage is not the absence of conflict.

The solution? Be vulnerable, depend on God, and be disciplined about communication. I find it interesting that he doesn't just say, "communicate" but rather "get disciplined about communication."

That means somewhere between passing each other on the way to work/home, in between all the kids' activities, regardless of one being an early bird and the other an owl, we've got to communicate.

And not just through a blog.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think this was a great blog you wrote. I think it happens it most marriages especially when you been married for awhile. Though I do not have as many children. I will let David read this.I think he needs more communication