Replacements Unlimited

You were married for keeps, weren't you?  I'm quite sure I didn't see a clause anywhere reading,
"... unless he fails to perform up to my standards and vice versa." There's also that saying, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."  I beg to differ on that one.  Every dog enjoys a reward!

Think about it in terms of how we live our married lives.  Why did we marry in the first place?  Because marriage is a reward in itself, isn't it?  It feels like the culmination of waiting, hoping and praying for "Mr. Right" in our lives.  It feels like the fulfillment of dreams.  It feels perfect.

That's where our first warning should come.  Dreams and perfection?  What a way to build a lifelong commitment.  We can err by praying to a god of our own manufacture, without realizing we have done it.  We don't set out to create an idol, but when we come into marriageable age and start thinking "until death us do part," some of us girls start conjuring images of "husband" in our heads and trying to meet that perfection in the form of an unsuspecting male example, hoping he'll feel we fit his image of "Miss Right."

It's the humanness of our marriages that cause the trouble.  Mr. Right has no more hope of living up to our expectations than we have of meeting his.  We construct a god in lieu of God, Himself.  We forget to pray, listen and act in God's will because we edit and revise that to fit our "right now" wants.  Not only do we want the reward of marriage, we want immediate gratification in it.  That may cause us a kind of buyer's remorse.  Why did I do this?  Did I make a mistake?

Even with our human sense of time leading the way, God uses it, and He doesn't make mistakes.  We make plenty of them, and once we leave the church with a Certificate of Marriage in our clutches, we just live happily ever after, and merrily go along ... our silly, mistake-making idol-worshippers.

Ahhhhh ... reality!

As our hope of perfection begins to crack and crumble, it helps to know that replacements are available.  Everything in marriage, except for the man and woman at the core of it, have replacement parts.  God has a plan, remember?  He knows what we need, and he provided it within the pages of the Bible ... we just have to look, read, study and implement.  We have a choice, we have free will.  We are not His puppets, though we are his creation.  He knows us, and he came prepared.

First, we need to understand that marriage has two forms: God's Model and the Human Model.

We can begin from the start with God's Model (perfect in theory and in practice ... when we remember to practice), or we can eke out an "in name only" married life full of chaos and strife that will never, no matter how many self-help books or counseling sessions we try, achieve anything close to perfection.  The latter is the Human Model (imperfect in theory and in practice ... two for two!).

Thank God for replacements.  In marriage, we have a lifetime guarantee, and in this case, lifetime means for the long haul ... really and for truly until death do you part.  Nothing else in this life can match it.

To make good on that guarantee, it means doing things God's way.

God's Model for marriage will:

- replace selfishness  with  selflessness, generosity and a servant's heart
- replace lies and deception  with   truth
- replace worry for the future  with  enduring hope through Christ
- replace disrespect and bad attitudes   with  respectfulness and a positive outlook
- replace assumption and regret   with  communication and positive action
- replace controlling behavior  with  submissiveness that honors and edifies (builds up)
- replace doubt and longing  with  trust and peace
- replace opinion  with  fact
- replace demands and expectations  with  a giving spirit grounded in outreach
- replaces domination  with  cooperation
- replaces fear  with  hope, God's promises, and the peace that transcends all understanding (faith)
- replaces jealousy  with  honor and reverence
- replaces anger  with  understanding and joy
- replaces quitting  with  persevering
- replaces negative  with  positive

The following verses give reference to just a few of the items available in the Bible for marriage replacement parts.  Ephesians and Corinthians have many notes to read on marriage.  Genesis provides the first example of marriage.  Try Proverbs, and of course, Song of Solomon (Songs).  When you seek God's Word for help, you will find it -- commit your work to the Lord and he will establish your plans (Proverbs 16:3).

If it is selfish, self-seeking or self-righteous, you won't find help with it in the Word.

  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ³Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:2-3

  Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent (acting with or showing care and thought for the future) wife is from the LORD.  (emphasis and definition added)

Proverbs 19:14

  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Pray and plan, plan and pray, and choose God's Model for your marriage, no matter how "old dog" you think you are.  You can't beat the replacement part guarantee.

In-Law Invasion: The Sequel

"Honor your father and your mother,

so that you may live long in the land

 the LORD your God is giving you."

This verse from Exodus 20 speaks loudly, and repeatedly -- if you have already read "The In-Law Invasion" this may definitely sound like a rerun.  Nope.  It's not.

Are you a married person living with your in-law family or with your biological parents?  You have a completely different perspective than I have of how to honor them.  Do you live in the same town, or at least, the same area code?  Your version of "honor your father and mother" adjusts to your circumstances at that distance.  Do you live in a different country or on a different continent?  Your vision of honoring looks and feels different from mine.  We all have a different idea of what honoring parents (biological or in-law) should look like or can look like, but at the same time, we are all in this together.  Our honoring should look a lot the same, no matter what the relationship or the distance between people.  We need to uphold each other in this practice and cheer each other on to doing it well.  We should even share ideas and prod each other when we aren't doing as well as we might.

As wives, we need to praise our husbands in their honoring efforts and spur the family on to practice honoring more carefully and with more gusto.  Women excel in the area of exhibiting emotion/feeling, and thinking of and acting on ideas for honoring parents comes more naturally, sometimes, than it does for men.  Think of something to do and start the ball rolling, encouraging your mate to join you. 

I'm curious if you feel more disconnected and distant when living farther away, thereby giving you more of a sense of how to honor parents?  Or, does the saying, "Out of sight, out of mind," pertain to you and parental relationships?  Does living close by or with them give you proximity to them but not practice in honoring them because you take them for granted?  Or, do you live life too closely with them, knowing their every move and change of mind?  Do you feel them grating on your nerves rather than plucking your heartstrings?  Do you honor them, near or far, with thoughtfulness and care, visiting, making plans for dinners and outings together, sending cards or gifts and keeping them updated on the grandchildren's growth and activities?  If not, you should, and you can start right now.

Our attitudes and actions mean everything when it comes to relationships with our parents and in-laws.  God gave the commandment to honor them for a reason, not just as another line to round out the list and balance the stone tablets more evenly for Moses to trot out and proclaim to the Israelites.

My own parents live nearby, and we do not honor them as well as we should.  We often take that nearness for granted.  My husband's parents live several hours away, and we think more about how and when to share with them throughout the year, but sometimes  see through lenses of obligation, rather than honor.  We also spend a good deal of energy planning for failure in advance of visits here or there.  I can from experience, a lot of it lives in our heads.  We live in fear of expectation we cannot meet or in moments of anxiety over what might transpire.  We focus more on possibility than on reality, and we don't often assess ourselves in word and action during and after encounters.  Every relationship takes work.  It takes work to enjoy success, and it takes a different kind of work to suffer failure.  Why do we not focus on success as a target all the time?  It's all in attitude!

This current "invasion" of the in-laws has had its ups and downs, but often, our attitudes create and/or maintain both.  I have jerked my husband's chain a few times when I shouldn't  (and didn't mean to).  I have made a few comments that turned more toward disparaging than uplifting, and I heard it happening.  Being more in tune to my own actions changes the dynamics.  I pay attention more closely to what I say and do, and I find less opportunity to poke any sleeping bear in the area. 

We all need to try harder in this relationship-building.  Honoring.  Thinking before we speak, acting kindly, and living the Golden Rule.  Do unto others as you would have others do to you.  This verse disallows retaliation, kicks vindication to the curb, and slams the door on selfishness.   

I believe that some of our awkward behavior, when it comes to in-law or parent relationships, comes from the parent-child relationship we learned as children.  Parents are in charge, right?  Then, parents visit an adult child in his or her natural setting and circumstances provide a whole new level of anxious feelings and fears of rejection ... as if our parents will judge us harshly for misbehaving in some way we cannot calculate or forecast.  As if we might let them down, disappoint them, or otherwise incur disdain for not living up to their raising of us.  We want our parents to accept us as we are.  We have always wanted that, deep down in our hearts and in the forefront of our minds.  We also want them to accept our spouses, our children, and our way of life.  Our spouses want the in-laws to accept these things, too. 

We never want to feel rejection.  We want gold stars on all our efforts, and we want to know that they understand us and appreciate what we do day to day.  Yet, living in this adult world, we put up short walls that end up as speed bumps in our relationships.  We strive for perfection:  clean house, good food, well-mannered children, smartly appointed décor, and quality entertainment between riveting, multi-faceted conversation.  We set unattainable goals of "The Perfect Visit" or "The Perfect Thanksgiving," or "The Perfect Christmas." 

We plan for perfection while anticipating failure at several levels.  What a mess!

Let's get down to brass tacks and see life as is.  No perfection possible.  Television and movies do not reflect reality and paint an impossible visual image to duplicate.  We are not actors with a script.  We don't get instant replays.  We don't have endless energy and the ability to read minds and interpret every mistake and misspoken word. 

We need to do one thing:  honor others.  Always.  When we vow to do the best we can, no matter how tired we are, or how much someone else aggravates us, we will have a better outcome.

It's a given.