Are You a Marriage Pilgrim or Fugitive?

In 1620, the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, their chosen location for a new way of life and freedom to worship God as they chose.  They had a destination in mind, and they put all their effort and thought toward that one pinpoint on the map.  When they sailed in sight of land, the collective "Hurrah!" from the travel-weary passengers must have rung throughout the heavens.

Pilgrims.  Destination known.

In 73 B.C., Spartacus led an uprising of slaves against the Roman Empire and fled as a fugitive from the Romans for two years.  Not wanting to suffer at the hands of the Romans, known for harsh prison conditions, torture and getting their prey as close to death as possible without going over the line, Spartacus took the role of fugitive.  Never safe for long.  No end to running in any direction that appeared safe.

Fugitives.  Destination unknown.  

In your marriage, which role do you play? Do you have a destination in mind that will make marriage more satisfying and allow for you and your spouse to grow together and build intimacy? Do you act as a fugitive and run at the slightest sign of discomfort or danger to yourself?


Stay and Work or Run and Hide?

Anyone out there not wanting to take the pilgrim route?  Planning, instructions, learning, praying, and a definite direction take the important roles in moving toward a solid, healthy marriage.  When you follow the plan you find yourself putting forth a lot of energy and time, but when you do, you find yourself reaping rewards at various intervals, and you can feel and see yourself and your husband moving closer to the goal.  You not only get a glimpse of a healthy and happy relationship, you begin to feel it, to know that it will last, and to feel fulfilled in your marriage.

Yet, how many times do we run and/or hide?  Maybe you run at the merest suggestion of conflict.  Perhaps you hide from the truth about yourself or about what your marriage really looks like on the inside.  You may run to what looks like a safe haven when you aren't on good footing in your marriage, and find yourself in deeper trouble and then set out to run from that.  The fugitive style of handling marriage promises lots of work for very little return.  You may run for months or years and find yourself farther away from comfort and love.  You can work very hard on your own spur-of-the-moment plans only to find yourself caught by another wave of distrust from a husband who not only can't read your mind, he doesn't understand that women and men are so different.


The Pilgrim Perspective

I say we do the pilgrim thing.  Take the plan (the Bible -- specifically Ephesians 5:21-33) and work toward each known aspect, keeping our focus on respecting our husbands and showing loving kindness in many small ways every day.  The greatest news lies in the fact that our biblical instructions come in a very short list!  Submit (honor, defer to, work closely with) to my  husband and respect him.

These two requirements cover everything, and if followed closely and with great care, they will lead you right where you want to go.  When you have had plenty of practice with respect and submission, you will find you have learned more ways to expand your horizons in marriage in godly ways.  You will learn to thrive as you head toward your destination.  You will no longer wonder, but wait for more and better.  You will, by following His plan and praying through your days, grow closer to God.

You will fail many times.  You will retrace steps or go off the path to check out someone else's travel route.  But, when you resolve to take that pilgrimage to a biblically sound marriage, you will never want for more.


The Fugitive's Route

The fugitive route will get you pretty far -- far from anything solid and safe.  You will beg for scraps from your mate, work furiously on your own agenda and promote your own motives with your actions and reactions.  You will look to people around you for guidance (human frailty) and short-lived successes that will fail in short-term and frustrate you in the long-term.  You will continue looking for more and better answers and keep running hither and yon ... searching.  You will seek and never find.  You will grow tired, you will compare yourself to others, you will feel like quitting.  Your hope for better will dim.  You will turn to friends before turning to your husband.  You may find relief in other relationships.  Your marriage will continue to thin as supply outweighs demand.  You will be a prisoner of your own inability to find peace and solid ground that you can claim as your own in your marriage.


It's Not Ancient History

Marriage is a timeless means of connecting a man and woman in a relationship that can and should last a lifetime.  No matter how many years they have together, a husband and wife will find joy and oneness together when they follow a time-tried route.

Everyone's marriage will differ in scope and sequence, but the basics will show.  Love.  Respect.  Mutual submission.  A help-meet woman alongside her leader husband.  When you meet a couple who lives out their marriage this way, you know it.  They have contentment.  They have trust and honor in their lives.  They don't waver, they don't search outwardly.  They don't envy nor do they boast.

From Adam and Eve to you and your husband, any marriage that has followed The Plan and has looked to the Author of it for guidance has found it.  Those who follow The Plan want to share it with others.  It works.  When taken seriously and lived fully, it never fails.

Get into Ephesians and see how simple the directions appear.  Pray on them.  Resolve to imitate them, to live them, and to not look back at what the world has to offer.  The Bible will never change, while the world will change often and to the detriment of those who follow it.


What have you discovered when you have looked to the world for advice?  
If you have "gone Bible" in your marriage, what was the easiest part?  The hardest? 
How do you present a biblical marriage to someone who wants better?

Working Marriage Overtime

Whew!  It's the end of the day.  You have worked, cooked, cleaned, monitored homework, refereed arguments, greeted your husband, talked about your day, solved problems, paid bills, loaded the dishwasher and now the day draws to a close.  You have hit your comfortable spot on the couch and don't want to move.  A cup of tea, your favorite television show or book.  Ahhh.  Relaxation, at last.

Then someone wants-needs-asks something more from you.  Ugh!  Really?

As a wife, as a mother, as a member of a family, you usually find a way to move from that comfy spot to assist as requested.  I would like to say I do so without grumbling, but at the end of one of those "I don't remember ever sitting down today" days, I have let out a little (a loud) complaint or shown some (a lot of) annoyance at the interruption.

Wife, mom, woman ... human.  Weakness happens.  We can't do everything, but usually, we can do more than we think, and definitely more than we want.  We should set aside self and serve those we love, whether that love be by vow and commitment or by birth, not to mention by the sharing of  human characteristics.

That means we put everyone else first, not just those who share our home, our family ties or our friendship. 

For now, we'll focus on the one to whom we have committed our love:  our husbands.


Give a Little Bit

Paul writes in Philippians 2:3-12

“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."

Counting my husband as more significant than myself equates to selflessness as his mate in life.  Still working on it, I admit, but the trying counts!  Selflessness starts by giving little bits past what we feel like doing, and finding we can give a whole lot more.  Then, giving it. 

In marriage, selflessness means overlooking my desire to sit back and read all evening.  It means checking on the kids tucked in their beds when he asks.  It means staying awake, no matter how tired I am, while he finishes his bedtime routine so we can cuddle and talk before falling asleep. It means standing beside him as he works on home projects, ready to go-fer tools or  to assist as needed.  It means taking care of our home as close to his standards as possible ("House Beautiful" for him, "Country Living" for me) to ensure his comfort. It means knowing when to leave a party based on a twitch of his eyebrows because I see he has tired of social time and longs for home.  It means watching and listening for his return to our living space every evening to start it all over again.  Selflessness means anticipating, preferring, choosing, honoring, revering and focusing my efforts on him.  When I do, we both benefit.

In my case, selflessness also means enduring repetition -- his mainstay and my nemesis.  I do not do repetition well, I do not follow daily or weekly schedules, I fly by the seat of my pants most of the time.  Predictability in life gives my husband comfort, probably because so much of his day lies out of his control.  His comfort means my comfort.  And therein lies any reward I could want.

 Selflessness sits at the pinnacle of the Married Behavior "To Do" list.  If we live it, we will like it.  Taking on a selfless outlook does not mean I will lie across the threshold with "Welcome" printed across me, nor does it indicate giving myself to slavery or misuse in any way.  It means thinking of my husband's well being, his preferences, his desires and his overall needs, as well as the details of his life and being --- and focusing my attention on caring for him in and among those parameters.  It's care-taking of the utmost calling in marriage, and when done well and with an attitude of respect and love, it feels good, right and complimentary to me.  When done with even a hint of resentment, it feels hollow, incomplete and like a chore.


Working Overtime

Marriage takes work, a phrase that repeats often,and for good reason.  'Cause it's TRUE.  It sometimes takes every effort to maintain marriage.  It can require incredible amounts of energy to bring it back from the edge of calamity.  Marriage can demand extreme patience to reframe it with grace, mercy and the care required to pick out the weeds and nurture it as it struggles to grow against the pressures and distractions of the world. It commands every ounce of self-control we have to manage personalities and preferences and not lose sight of the goal.

And when I submits to what marriage requires of wives, I find much ... more ... ease.  Willingly working selflessly for my husband fulfills me, satisfies him, and we find joy, peace, mutual respect, and desire to keep doing more toward receiving the supremely gratifying outcomes of this most important work as a couple.

If I'm going to work overtime, I want it to be at marriage.  The payment I receive for my effort comes through increased intimacy (emotional, physical, mental and spiritual) with my husband, a closer walk with God, a more positive outlook on this life, and a framework for helping others along their own marriage pathways. 

Anyone see a negative anywhere?  If so, point it out, will you? 

What do you think about working for your marriage?  How does selflessness work for you?  Have you tried it?  What's your story?




 

What Would Your Consumer Review on Marriage Look Like?

Married?

Whether you are or you aren't, you have a vision of marriage as a product. You can't put it in a shopping cart nor does one size does fit all, but marriage is a product that sells.  God created it and offered it to us, and we take Him up on the offer.  Millions of couples make a purchase every year, with upwards of thousands-of-dollar send-offs to holy matrimony, and keep paying for upkeep, renovation and repairs over the product's lifetime.

This week, I hope to post a few reviews on marriage from our twenty-two years of experience with the product.  I would like to offer them in increments of 5 - 8 years and see what I find.  You'll see what I mean -- for when you have had five years of marriage to call your own, a person can feel smug, self-important and accomplished ... and she still hasn't had to run interference on life yet.  Many marriages still have a house number on Easy Street for several years.  Some never lived anywhere but on Struggling Place.  All have the vision of Bliss Court.

I'm sure I will surprise myself and learn something I didn't know or understand before.  That's the power of writing like this -- it opens our eyes to what God wants to show us when we let Him have control over the process.  I feel curious and a little nervous to discover what He has in store, marriage-wise.  In our marriage, He has provided miracles when we felt impossibility.  He has provided healing when we felt ravaged by diseased spirits and broken hearts.  He has provided power by holding us up when we couldn't take another step away or closer together. 

He has provided.  That's the main idea in every marriage, no matter what its chronological age.


For today, I have just a general look into the marriage product.  You may notice it runs the gamut from secular to sacred in viewpoint, and that's no mistake.  I don't believe any of us follow a biblical model of marriage every waking minute, in every thought, deed and word.  We make mistakes, we compare, we judge, and we feel dissatisfied with what we have as compared to what we think we should have or could have. 


In the Beginning -- an Outline

Each engaged couple holds ideas of what marriage will be, where it will lead and what it will look and feel like before making the purchase. We invest in it with forethought and hope.  We insure our commitment to it by making supplemental purchases and arrangements commonly associated with it:  living space, furniture, linens, appliances, medical coverage, insurances, and joint bank accounts.  We They invest in the hope of the product we will soon own.

With the millions spent on weddings each year, clearly, we put a lot of stock in marriage, getting ready for it as one of the biggest life events we will experience.  We view it as enduring ... until we leave this world, and with that thought in mind, we begin investing early.

In the beginning, we have marriage all figured out, just as we have parenting down pat ... when we don't have any children of our own.  Theory always feels easier than practice -- the real life, in the trenches, in your face reality of life, whether we talk marriage or any other life matter.  In the beginning, we have it easy.  In the beginning, all we have is usually a dream that we picture ending in a fairy tale.  We do not have reality in mind when we start this journey.



You Get What You Put into It

Years after a couple crosses the threshold, each mate has experience with how they have enjoyed marriage and how they've made use of its various features. Most have misunderstood their abilities and limitations within it, or didn't follow the directions and experienced breakdowns that may have required costly repair. Many couples have found deep satisfaction with the basic model and have moved along in fine form.   Others have found their version continually stalling or having mechanical issues; they compare with other models, wonder if they should have chosen differently, and keep tweaking in the old trial-and-error method.

Some couples have tried to exchange a broken marriage for a new one and found the same basic issues recurring.  Some have tried to upgrade to a new or different model, or to make modifications in the current one to suit their personal preferences.  Some have finally, as a last-ditch effort, prayed from the bottoms of their discouraged, defeated, desperate hearts and found that the Peace they needed and the Direction they craved had been there all along, they just hadn't activated the Warrantee.   

No matter how much each of us invested prior to it, no matter what our success or failure rates during it, and no matter how many tune-ups we have made to the original model, every married couple has something to say about marriage.


In Conclusion

I have written consumer reviews for more than twelve years on everything from children's books to kitchen appliances.  Putting my experience with a product into words for sharing with others gives me the joy of helping, allowing my experience to provide assistance in someone else's decision-making or ability to use a product effectively.  When something works as I hope it will, or better yet, better than I hope it will, I jot the details and explain with well-placed adjectives just what made me say, "Wow!"  In the opposite direction, when a hope-for experience with a product doesn't pan out, I can offer suggestions at how to adjust it, make good on the warrantee, or start back at the beginning and try, try again. 

In thinking of marriage as a product so many of us have tried and continue to keep in working order, doesn't it make sense to provide a review of it?   From one consumer to another, from one who has found the glitches and the sweet spots and has made it through each and every recall, to the pre-purchase novice who wants to understand and have a better handle on it before actually driving it off the lot? 

Shouldn't we share the "woes" and the "wows" and how we managed between them? 

For the sake of everyone in it and everyone heading toward it, we married people need to do some honest, accurate, God-inspired assessment on our matrimonial experience and get it out there for the world to see -- because people are looking.

Men and women want to succeed.  They need to know how to succeed.  They need understanding of the biblical model for marriage and the lessons between the covers of the Bible, and they need it in terms that make sense to them. 

It helps to see where someone else failed as long as that someone found God's intended path again and set out on it, determined to follow and not just dabble and wait for the other person to do the hard work.

Share.  Take on the challenge ... review marriage for those already in it and those who still window shop, but have the look that tells you, "I'm buying!"

Are you ready?

Share Those Feelings ... Ante Up!

Everyone has feelings he doesn't share.

The reasons for keeping mum vary.  Sometimes, I don't want to hurt someone else's feelings by sharing mine, especially if I believe they sit at odds and might cause more harm than good.  I might keep silent in order to avoid seeming selfish if my feelings have leaning toward something I want.  I can clam up because I think a listener may misconstrue my meaning and I hate to have to explain a difficult issue one second longer than necessary.  I will remain silent if I believe my feelings may be used against me.

I try for a Poker Face -- hiding my unsure feelings -- and usually fail.  Thank God, my husband can read me when my feelings lie at stake.  He is far better at poker than I am, but my bids come more easily.  I don't often see women playing poker in those high-stakes "professional" games, do you?  God made women transparent for so many good reasons.  Don't hedge your bets, ladies.  Ante up.  Go for the win, because in the marriage game, you both win.  If any other outcome exists, you're not playing by the Right rules.  

In marriage, when one of us doesn't share feelings out loud, the other spouse's radar begins to hum.  We try to read each other like players in a poker game.  One of us wears emotions around on facial expressions, in a tone of voice, in the acting out of attitudes, or just below the surface and ready to bubble up at any time with greater force than needed.  My husband sometimes hides his emotional cards.  So do I.  And, we hide them for all the "right" reasons already noted.  

In our marriages, poker faces worn to hide feelings provide deception for the owner's own reasons of self-protection.  Gol-ly.  Deception means lying.  Hiding our emotions means lying to a spouse.  Now that we have that covered, let's put a huge effort in at not doing that anymore, 'kay?  It happens easily, it unhappens a little harder.  God hates lying.  That says more than anything.

No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes. ~~Psalm 101:7

Share the cards.  Stop hiding them, looking up furtively through your eyebrows, hoping to keep your expression or body language from giving away your hand.  You will both win if you share. 

Everyone who enters a marriage covenant needs to increase his "bids" on sharing feelings.  A terrific marriage makes a great "win", doesn't it?  Who doesn't want that prize?   Like some poker games, marriage stakes run high.  They mean so much to each person, and even small missteps can unseat the best players.  Poker faces and bluffs fool people.

In marriage, we're not out to confound or disconnect.  We're here to find and to connect.

We place bids in the pot by putting our feelings out there and then watching for how our spouse handles what we've offered.  In marriage poker, we play to win for both players.  When one of us has more in the center of the table the other has the sense to handle it with maturity and value what lies there ... out in the open ... offered in trust.   

In a marriage relationship, the more we bid the more we win.   How we play matters, and keeping our thoughts focused on the prize at stake makes the game not only more fulfilling, but more purposeful than any other human effort under God.

Tales of a Business Traveler's Wife: Loneliness

Business travel flew onto my radar more than fifteen years ago, catching me completely unaware of what it meant to my marriage.  My husband entered a new position in his company that promoted the practice of meeting customers on their home turf to better meet their needs, to promote business relations and, of course, to increase sales.

This meant he spent less time on our home turf.  The travel held an adventurous appeal with new cities, new people, new restaurants, and new experiences.  My husband brought back postcards, pictures and souvenirs from his jaunts to various locations.  I held down the fort and traveled to and from my school every day, learning to navigate expanses of life alone. 
Our daughter came into the world and the travel continued.  With my husband on the road or in the air a few days of each week, or home one week, away the next, I developed an Auto Pilot that I switched on as needed, letting me coordinate our daughter's care, housekeeping, and whatever needed doing without assistance from anyone else.  I didn't stop to think or to feel separated from my husband because "busy" kept me going.  Never a dull moment, never any down time.  Once I hit the pillow, exhaustion eliminated thinking about missing the man I married many nights.

Even with a full schedule, I did feel a bitter loneliness that I refused to recognize for years.  From the beginning, I learned to take the solitude in stride, using the time as my own at-home vacation.  I initiated home improvement projects and worked to surprise him on his return from whatever destination held him outside my reach that week. In our 75-year old house, the list of projects never ended,  taking most of my attention and a good portion of my time.  I watched whatever I wanted on television and cooked foods I liked.  I had never lived on my own prior to marriage, and here I was, doing it after marriage.  How odd.

Enter into the mix our son and our family's move to my hometown.  Same job, same travel but different routes.  The new surroundings and new home projects kept me going from morning to night, and growing children required more time and energy on top of it.  I was tired of everything never stopping, doing so much by myself.  This schedule kept my husband exhausted most of the time, too, feeling he had little time for himself or for getting anything done aside from work.  Double whammy.

Marriage wasn't supposed to feel this way.  Ours did.  I had no words to describe it and I never said a word to my husband about it.  I never once shared my feelings, because I feared causing him more stress.  I had stopped telling him I missed him due to that same fear, thinking that if I let the cat out of the bag I would lose my ability to keep up the façade I had constructed for the public to see, masking what lay underneath.  I had no idea that sharing my feelings would have given us a new level of intimacy and could have drawn us closer.  I had no clue that I could have alleviated some of the loneliness just by admitting I felt it.  I did not understand that telling my husband I missed him -- every time -- would bring out his protective side, rather than what I saw most of the time, which looked a lot like indifference.  Why take charge when someone else so willingly takes the controls? You get used to flying solo as a business traveler's wife.

For more of those fifteen years than I like to admit, I did not walk closely with God.  I took our children to church, helped them say bedtime prayers, said a blessing at mealtimes, and prayed my own prayers on occasion.  I owned a Bible.  I helped at Vacation Bible School each summer and joined church committees.  Yet, mostly, I filled a pew. I filled it at a slightly higher level than most people.  I held positions in church, after all.  So did the Pharisees, for whom Jesus listed a whole lot of woes (Luke 11: 37-54) as they perched in their lofty positions, completely bereft of actual faith.

I had no idea how to pray.  I did what I thought covered the bases.  Lots of requests, a few praises, no confessions.  Spilling my lonely heart's contents to God would have changed things, which I learned in larger struggles later on, but I did not feel the draw.  I had committed too much to Auto Pilot and the plane was going down.

Looking back over these years -- the majority of our married life -- I see the patterns and the struggles and the inability to face my own fears and to address the problem because I felt too uncomfortable to name it.  This inability to state the fear or to name the trouble reminds me of the first few "Harry Potter" books (JK Rowling), throughout which everyone fears to utter the name of the enemy, Voldemort.  Finally, Harry has the foresight to realize that naming the evil makes it less overwhelming, gives it a handle that allows a person to take hold and face it ... and with help, learn to conquer it.

God would have provided that conquering power to me.  Had I prayed it out, the way I do now, I would have felt that amazing uplift of God's Spirit ... like an airplane rising off the runway.  I would have felt His guidance systems holding me at a level place, and even when turbulence and storms hit, I would have felt his might and power, holding it all together better than the fuselage of a plane protecting my traveling husband.  He would have given me the power to name Satan as my accuser, my tempter, my constructer of facades and my fear, and provided all the conquering I needed.

Loneliness hurts, and when I felt lonely, others could not recognize it, even my husband.  Loneliness showed up looking like pride, getting in the way of uttering the words, "I feel alone," or, "I don't want to do this by myself."  It succeeded in letting self-preservation prevail rather than letting out the secret that handling life without a mate on board made me long for something I couldn't have.  I longed for him to be home (still do!), couldn't wait for him to walk through the doorway (still can't), and then wouldn't know how to express those feelings once he did arrive home, because the floodgates opened and let out every emotion I kept to myself for too long.  No more! 

God and I have worked on this, and I know that He was there all the time, back when I didn't bother to ask for help.  He kept me going through all the tasks I set for myself, and held me up behind facades that protected me from others knowing my secret struggle.  He knew my heart, and carried me through the days and nights when my husband couldn't be near.

Still today, He knows I feel lonely without the blue-eyed gentleman I love so dearly.  I can't not miss the man! 

"Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."  ~~Mark 10:9

The difference these days lies in the sharing of truth.  I miss my husband while he travels and I tell him so.  He misses me, our children and the comfort of home and he sends me messages as often as he can, sharing his excursions, some of the interesting points of his work, and sending photos of himself in various locations throughout his trip.  For these connections, I fully appreciate technology!

I also fully appreciate God letting me in on a fact:  my husband has more to miss than I do.  Talk about an epiphany!  My inward focus allowed me see and feel my own loneliness, and to not take into account my husband feeling the same way.  Or feeling worse.

 I know that God didn't create me to be a business traveler.

God created me to be right here, taking care of things while my husband takes on the business world in cities around the country and sometimes across the world.  God created me to manage the home front, to be right here waiting, making home "home" for a man who misses out on its comfort far too often.  He provided a way for my husband to provide for me and our children, and to use his travel knowledge to take us to new places once in a while, and to use his abilities at catching flights on time, finding his way in unknown places, and demonstrating impeccable hotel etiquette for his family to respect and learn from when we go out into the world in our smaller ways.

I will never not miss my husband when he travels.  I will feel lonely and solitary at times, even in a crowd.  Having God guide me, holding me steady over bumps I cannot see and through experiences I haven't gone through before on my own, gives me interesting perspective.  It helps the loneliness have purpose, because from it, I appreciate my husband's presence even more.  Loneliness teaches me that God is my comfort, and that one day, in his Ultimate Care, loneliness will not show up on my radar ever again.

Joining with

today!