The Consequences of Your Choices Don't Wash Away

I didn't have a choice.
There was no way around it.
I didn't realize it until it was too late.
I take it back.
Let's start again.
The Devil made me do it.


We All Make Easy Mistakes

Mistakes?  We've all made them.  Bad choices?  Yep.  We make wrong turns in life, we ask for "do-overs" that don't ever succeed in erasing a mistake or a hurt.  When we do or say the wrong thing we can't take it back, make it disappear, change it into something else, fix it ... or forget it completely.

Whatever I choose to do counts.

Every action has a consequence.  Everything I say, do and think matters.  Every choice or preference leaves its own specific feedback in the lives of everyone involved ... even when I think I'm making choices that affect only me.  My choices affect my husband, too, whether he knows of them or not.

We all nod in agreement when we think of us all lumped in together, doing small "this or that" items that we know we shouldn't and then having to suffer consequences.  If I forget to return library books on time I will pay a fine. If I eat too much my clothing will not fit (like now, for instance). If I don't keep up with my family's laundry none of us will have clean clothes to wear.  Simple and straightforward, what I do matters.  I get it.  I understand.  No problem.

But.


Got Secrets?

It feels a lot different when sin sits deeper than the surface.  The hidden or secret things a person may do -- on the sly or within the confidence of another person -- that we don't want anyone else to discover don't come out of hiding easily, even when talked to nicely and offered a cookie.  Those secret sins, if uncovered, will change the way others perceive us.  Those secret sins begin to leak, like the juices from rotting food in the refrigerator, and cause people to sniff, wonder and search for the problem.  Soon, the whole place begins to smell funny -- you just can't stop it until you reach in there, find the bad piece, and remove it for good.

Recently, a couple of officers of our Parent-Teacher Organization at school found their secrets uncovered in a check-writing scheme, in which tens of thousands of dollars left the group's bank account and went to their personal accounts.  Someone caught a funny smell in the air, began searching, and within a period of time, the rotten thing showed.  The school district removed it, and now the police have the job of handling the situation as the law dictates.  Whether a fine or jail time comes to them in the future, the ladies will pay a penalty.

These women can find forgiveness from God, but the aftermath will take years to rebuild in the community and maybe in their families, as well.  Excuses they offered don't matter.  They lied and stole.  They have to get busy doing whatever it takes to show that they can handle trust again.

Secret sin has to be removed in order to live in harmony with our mates (as well as others around us) and with God.  God won't bless us with sin in the way, and our husbands won't be able to figure out our odd behavior, which secretiveness brings, no matter how we try to conceal the falsehoods and live as if nothing foul is leaching from the back of the refrigerator.

Choosing to deviate from God's path for you may appear in your life as:

- financial indiscretion or a shopping addiction.
- eating (too much or too little) in secret.
- having an opposite-sex friendship that feels fulfilling and seems innocent.
- lying -- of all kinds and sizes.
- engaging in an affair (emotional or sexual) with subsequent blame/rationale.
- uncontrolled electronic/technological activity.
- insert your secret sin here:  _________________


You Can Find Forgiveness and You Will Have Work to Do!

No matter what your poor choice(s),  your deviation from the right path, God will forgive -- if you ask with a contrite (sincerely sorry) heart.  A mighty thought to have is that all of us have the power to change, through His grace and mercy, and to climb out of the pits we have dug to higher and higher ground, led by Him, not by man.

But we won't be able to change the consequences, erase the wrongs we did, or make everyone touched by our thoughtlessness and selfishness feel warm and fuzzy, hunky-dory, and right as rain in one prayerful act.  

There's nothing like forgiveness to cheer up a human being.  At the same time, there's nothing like dealing with the consequences of our actions to keep us mindful of just how far our own selfishness and tunnel vision took us, and then, we see our husbands, children, friends and family alongside our jagged pathway, as if thrown from the vehicle ... bedraggled, hurt (maybe gravely), confused, distrustful, and in shock.

God will forgive me.  Then the hard part begins.

I have to work really hard to get back the devotion, trust, love, and support of those whom I may have ignored, hurt, betrayed, deceived, or confused.  Did I say "work really hard?"  I tend to understate things when I'm not overstating them.  The truth is, I will not get off anywhere close to easy, and should I?  Absolutely not.   If I have acted carelessly, I should have to prove that I can act carefully.  I must take as much time as my victims need in order to regain their trust and all the other attributes that I have lost by my own choices.  I will live under a microscope for as long as it takes to show that I know I have done wrong, that I want to change, and that I work for that change.


God will not wash away the consequences.  The sin?  Yes.  The rest is up to me.  I must sincerely work at changing myself through prayer, learning, studying, sharing and communicating well with the man I married, as well as with those people in my life who should be in it.  Those I have invited into my life via the intrusive, wrong behaviors, I must usher out and close the door for good.  For the good of everyone involved!


A Sin Is a Sin, No Matter How Small

While committing adultery or grand theft don't seem the same as holding a library book too long or driving faster that the posted speed, all have consequences that we must face.

Continuing to try to hide, working to keep up appearances, hoping no one mentions a difficult subject or moves in the direction of your secret is no way to live.  Make the changes now.  Take on your own sin, take it to the Father of All and lay it out before him.  Every stinking, rotten detail.  And ask His forgiveness.

Then, get to work.  You can do it.  Know how I know?  You'll have God on your side.

Seven Marriage DIY Projects

Every marriage looks and feels different, both inside it and for those looking in from the street view.  We don't expect that, really.  As for me, I thought some sort of mold existed, and that my new husband and I would just snuggle right down into each role. Perfect fit, no trimming, no remelting.

We have melted and remolded.  It hurt a lot in some places and felt like a spa treatment (not that I've had one) in others.  Through all the valleys and at the top of every hill or mountain, we have changed.

In marriage, molds don't exist.  Instead, you have to take the DIY -- Do It Yourself -- approach.  You have a manual called the Bible, and you have an instructor we know as God.  He wrote the Book, so he speaks from it and about it with in-depth knowledge and a complete understanding based on experience.

In other words,  He has seen and done it all, and knows everything.  He doesn't practice, for He is perfect.  You can't have a better Contractor (Carpenter, Electrician, Plumber, Mason, and Lanscaper, too -- He does it all) than that.

In our marriage struggles and successes, for better or worse, in sickness and in health and for richer or for poorer, I notice some common projects that have a place in every union.  Yes, no marriage will ever perfectly match another, but every blessed one has some commonalities.

Seven Marriage DIY Projects

7.  Communicating.  Yes, we all talk, but we do not all know how to communicate our wants, needs, desires and reactions effectively.  Emotion must step aside and allow fact to stand as the measure of marital discussion.  Emotion has it's place, but not here in the framework.  Emotion plays an important role, but stands on its own, in a separate place.   I learned that the hard way.

6. Sharing emotions/feelings.  Knowing how each of you feels on a wide array of topics.  Not knowing precedes disappointment, discouragement and resentment, which build walls that shut out numbers 5, 4, 3 and 2.

5. Sex.  Having it often, scheduling it if necessary when life gets busy.  It's near the middle of the list because it's the glue that holds two the pieces of the project together. If you leave it out for long periods of time ... well ... the project will definitely become unstable.  Ask me how I know.

4. Friendship.  Many marriages begin with it, and some end without it.  Friendship needs to remain in to keep the common bonds, the connecting activities, and a general respect for differences each person will always have.

3.  Love.  It's the little things.  The fixtures that make the plumbing useful.  The paint and decor that make the walls beautiful.  The appliances that make the home functional.  The furniture that makes the home comfortable.

2.  Trust.  Trust runs through a marriage continually, like electricity.  Some switches or outlets don't see as much use, but in a pinch, you can count on them.  Trust maintains all the main functions of the build.

1.  Praying.  You can't successfully achieve Marriage without it.  I have tried.  We have tried.  Millions of people continue to try.  Use it well and constantly.  It will help you get where you need to go.

Get with your Contractor today to get started on the project that has been nagging at you for a while.  The interesting aspect of taking on a Marriage DIY project is that by handling one well, you sometimes ... dare I say usually ... work on some of the others along the way.  What better byproduct(s) can you ask for than that?

What kind of DIY plans do you have for your marriage?

Creating Ishmael, Not Trusting God

Meet Abraham and Sarah.  Two Old Testament retirees, working through their Golden Years, fully in the know that they have no children to sustain them in their old age.  No descendants to carry on the family line and traditions. Safe in the knowledge that they will not produce offspring.

Always capable of a good miracle, God sends them word that they will, in fact, have a son.  Against the reality of Sarah's inability to conceive, God says, "Yep.  You will."  Sarah laughs.  How silly?  An old woman, not to mention a barren one?  Bear a child?  Impossible.

Sarah doubts.
Sarah feels skeptical.
Sarah turns pessimistic, even after leaving all she knew to travel with Abraham into a strange land, all based on a promise of God. All promises fulfilled.
Sarah decides that to make this promise of God come true, she must devise it in her own way, from her own understanding of her situation.  She is years away from Solomon's guiding wisdom:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

    and he will make your paths straight. 

~~Proverbs 3:5-6

These pre-Israelites trusted.  They followed.  They upheld the laws and turned their lives topsy-turvy at a single word from God.

But this time, not Sarah.  She created her own answer to God's promise.  She took her own route in the only way she could imagine conceiving a child:  by giving the job to someone else.

Sarah sends her husband to her handmaiden, Hagar.  Abraham questions this, but obviously doesn't see how a son will come to him without some intervention, either. Surely, he wanted an heir as much as Sarah wanted to provide one. He and Hagar conceive a son.

And so, Ishmael innocently enters the family line on a tangent.  As we may expect, Sarah doesn't like it.  She doesn't like Hagar's son receiving Abraham's attention. She doesn't like the uppity glances from Hagar. And later, when God's promise comes true in the birth of Isaac (a name meaning laughter), Sarah doesn't like Hagar's firstborn taking any time away from her own son, and fears the loss of her son's birth right.  She wants to get rid of the evidence of the plans she hatched on her own and go back to God's way, once she had proof of his promise in Isaac. God grants her wish, asking Abraham to dispense of mother and child to wander the desert. God leads Ishmael to father his own nation, the nomadic ArB nation. Sarah's distrustful plans still exist in the world in the present day, just as sure as the nation of Israel exists.

Have you ever created an Ishmael in your life? Have you sought God's answers and found yourself waiting, only to find a way around God's time and into your own, less lengthy solution?

Sarah didn't trust God's promise word for word. She took her own route to the conception and birth of a son, but wound up with only a lookalike, a manufactured version of God's plan.

I empathize with Sarah. When our first baby miscarried and left me empty and my husband confused and sad, I prayed for a replacement. I felt desperate in my desire to fill that void. The second we had doctor's permission to try again, I made procreation a full-time focus. I researched fertility signs and cycles. I read and formed my own hypotheses regarding the best opportunities to conceive. I scheduled prime conception days on a calendar and tried to pinpoint ovulation to allow for the peak of fertility to grace our efforts. I did all but choreograph our physical encounters.

I created an Ishmael called Stress and another named Marriage Neglect. They were not God's intended plans and I would suffer at their presence in my life for many years before God would send them packing through painful experience. God used them for good, ultimately, but not without ensuring I learned something important from them.

How many Ishmael's can you identify in your life? There are many to "conceive" for 21st Century women, a few of which may be:

- having a biological child, as Sarah wanted (I know this path, and I do not judge those seeking infertility options; they do have their pitfalls)
- active/involved children in society/academics/activities
- having it all (home, family, job, all the perks)
- making sure our families want for nothing
- a worry-free future
- doing more/better than the previous generation
- maintaining a "model family"
- wanting intimate friendship, or a circle of friends
- wanting emotional closeness with a spouse (and not getting it)
- focusing on optimum health/excellent physical being

What drawbacks, pitfalls or discomfort might any of these endeavors cause? Feel free to comment on any or all.

The lesson in Ishmael offers instruction on not going around God's time and not working doggedly so as to leave nothing to chance. Even if we do succumb to our own will above His, God will use our selfishness to carry out His plans, just as He did with Ishmael, David, and other biblical models.

God knows our hearts, just as He knew Sarah's. He knows we may use headstrong notions to encourage outcomes we have prayed for, and while we do need to take action, we need even more to listen and watch with more patience for God's direction.

My Ishmael production has settled down because God's peace has covered those areas well. I do know I have learned the feel of bypassing God's plan an implementing my own. Mainly, I feel an intense pressure and an uncomfortable drive to have or achieve something right now, or at least ASAP.

If an idea comes from God I don't believe His way builds intense stress. I know my way does. When what I'm doing takes all my energy, time, thought, patience and kindness, I am well on my way to conceiving an Ishmael, and I need to stop, collect myself, pray for forgiveness and fir direction on the path God has for me.

Your turn! How do you handle the desire to create an Ishmael? What confusion or frustration have you found as you move through a self-directed process? How do you know you followed an alternate path and what happened to redirect you? Where is your Ishmael, now? Let's learn from each other!

Trust: You're Either In or You're Out

Do you trust?  Let's go one more.  Do you trust your husband? Only two answers apply.  Trust has a quirk in that anything aside from "yes" means no.

Maybe?  That leaves room for doubt, moving to "no".

Most of the time?  No, again.

Unless it has to do with money/time management/friends/other women/porn/lust/how he parents/making decisions?  No.


See the pattern?

In marriage, as in life, when it comes to trust you're either in or you're out.  Trust doesn't provide any grey areas.  It's complete, no matter how you look at it, how you'd like to bend it, or which direction you try to spin it.  Trust is absolute.  Yes or no.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.  ~James 1:12

Ah, marriage.  If marriage isn't living "under trial", I don't know what is.  If you have a husband, you have stood under trials of all kinds since the day you tied the knot.  You have had arguments, both face-to-face and one-sided.  You have disagreed.  You have felt unloved.  You have compared your husband to others.  You have judged.  You have been judged.  You have cried tears of sorrow, shame, frustration and anger.  You may have given birth.  You have felt emotionally outcast.  You have cared for a husband with illness.  You have felt left out.  You have been tempted.  You have smiled when you wanted to cry.  You have parleyed with in-laws.  You have tried and failed.  You have paid bills with short funds, created dinner out of fragments, and made the most out of the least.  You have felt insignificant.  You have felt second to sports on television.  You have experience loneliness in a roomful of people.  You have cried over spilled milk.

You trials may be more than those, and they may be different.  The point remains, married people have some suffering under their belts.  The suffering happens in doses at different times, and we never want it or think we need it.  Sometimes, we just don't like each other very well.  We irritate each other, make the other pay (unintentionally) for a bad day, and simply don't put our best face on for each other at all times ... when we should always!  Having trust in the relationship makes a difference in all these experiences.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.   ~Proverbs 3:5-8

We can always, without any doubt, trust God.  He will never fail us.  Our human marriage partners -- our husbands -- may let us down from time to time, and sometimes for a long time, but God never, NEVER will.  He makes promises and keeps them, because love never fails, and God is love -- the inventor and the master of it.

And so, what do you do if you don't have the trust you know would make the difference in marriage?  

You love.  

You love deeply and always, and with every fiber of your being.  It will be hard, it will break you into pieces sometimes, and it can hurt.  It may not be returned to you in ways you will hope, but it will make the difference to you in your heart, your mind and your spirit.  

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, 

because love covers a multitude of sins. 

~1 Peter 4:8

You can learn to trust, just as you learned to love.  You have to put yourself out there to do it -- you can't go into trust-building half-heartedly, but you can do it one-sided, just as you can do in love.  As trust is all in, so is building it.  You may have a few bricks fall here and there, but you can put them back, firmly seat them and keep working.  Each woman's blueprint will look different.  I can't offer you mine to follow, nor can your best friend give you hers and hope you will find answers you need in your individual situation.  

Trust is not "one size fits all", and neither is the love that we foster in our relationship.  

Examine yourself, examine your daily life and your actions/reactions.  Look closely at how you receive information from the man you married.  Do you wear an expression of distrust?  Change it to a receptive, listening, caring one.  Do you second-guess most of what he says?  Go with the words he says without reframing them in negativity.  Do you put his needs last because of your trust issues?  Put his needs in the first space on your list -- every day.  The only person you can change is you ... those around you will feel the influence of your example, but you have to walk it instead of talk it.  

You can demand change, but you won't get it from the heart.  You can write a contract for change, but a person will find loopholes and alternate routes.  You can orchestrate change, but your husband might like different music and will dance in a different way.  You can pray for change, but sitting back and waiting for it will get you nowhere.

The person you can change = YOU.  Only and ever.  Everyone else will give you fits of frustration because you will have tried to be their own, personal, self-appointed Holy Spirit.  That never works.  From my own experience I affirm that!

Make changes in God's style, and change can happen.  BIG change.  Brace yourself for it!

Those who come from a place of lost trust know how it feels, and it doesn't contain any sweetness.  Whether you have done the damage yourself, or you suffered at the hands of your husband, the rebuilding can happen.  Like love, it takes time, patience and action -- three things most of us don't have when it comes to love and trust ... but the building of it and the power of it makes up for the use of our resources.  Bind time, patience and action with prayer, and you have a package that will deliver.

When you lean on God through trust-building, you also learn to trust in Him more.  He will guide your path, and He will hold you up when you feel you can't take another step.  You aren't in it alone, not for a minute.  But you have to make the connection, and keep it up every day.  

Feeling distrust hurts.  Feeling distrusted hurts.  Do your best to make the changes to help alleviate the pain, knowing that change lies in your hands.  You can't redistribute it, pawn it off, or pass the buck on this and find the peace of trust in your marriage, or in any relationship.  

Get with God and start on that blueprint, then follow it.  This is a construction project you can't afford to miss.

Ten Ways to Love: Trust without Wavering

What does "trust" mean?  Trust means to believe in someone's word completely.  Trust means knowing that whatever words a person speaks, it will remain valid; he will honor his word, come what may.  Trust means freedom from lies, the absence of deception.  Trust means ease in knowing someone, not having to bear suspicion or doubt in his actions, words or thoughts.  Trust means everything.

A solid relationship between two people cannot exist without trust.

In the Ten Ways to Love study of "Trust without Wavering," the seventh verse of I Corinthians chapter 13 speaks of the role of trust with an absolute boundary in the form of one word: always.

It always protects, 

always trusts, 

always hopes, 

always perseveres.

Nowhere in the Bible do we see commands, laws or statements that suggest modifications or meeting half way. No "sometimes", no "if/then", no "when" and certainly no "provided he does ______". God gives a strong parameter on trust when it comes to love.  Love always trusts.

Trust with your whole heart rather than just a piece of it. Trust, like faith, asks for sacrifice. We must offer up our fears, misgivings, control, and pride in order to trust. Without giving up these mainstays of self, we don't trust. We merely hold another at a safe distance, waiting cautiously for the other person to break our trust, to give us cause to doubt or to prove our misgivings right.   Mainly, we lie in wait, distrusting right from the start, when we offer this kind of behavior.

No matter where you are in your marriage right now, focus on trust.  Live in a trustworthy way yourself, and give your husband a view of what "always trusts" looks like.  Provide an environment for him that protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres, and by doing those things, you will find them coming back to you ... from him. Men who suffer from other ills of society -- addictions, deeply-hidden sins, or abuse may not fit this category.  If you have a physical or emotionally hurtful relationship, please seek appropriate help immediately.

Otherwise, protect with all your might, trust with all your heart, hope with all your mind and persevere with everything in you ... build a marriage on these strong foundations, and just feel the power of God at work.  Always!


Others in This Series:

• Ten Ways to Love: An Introduction
• Ten Ways to Love: Answer without Arguing
• Ten Ways to Love: Enjoy without Complaint
• Ten Ways to Love: Give without Sparing
• Ten Ways to Love: Listen without Interrupting 
• Ten Ways to Love: Share without Pretending
• Ten Ways to Love: Speak without Accusing
• Ten Ways to Love: Forgive without Punishing 
• Ten Ways to Love: Pray without Ceasing 
• Ten Ways to Love: Trust without Wavering 

The Text and "App"lication Parenting Dilemma

Do you hear the chitter-chatter of little voices.  "May I call a friend to come to play?"  "May I use the phone?  I need to ask about a homework assignment."  "Let me call Grandma to tell her about my report card!"

Do your children have cell phones? If they do and they're modern kids, they text more than talk.  The banter above happens very rarely in today's homes.  A mother of one of my daughter's classmates exclaimed in frustration over her 14-year olds inability to figure out how to leave a phone message on an answering machine ... she felt ill-equipped and too embarrassed to do so.  The mother wrote her a script to get her through the fearsome event!

The child is an honor student,  reading at college level.  But she's missing a link in communication.


Children (including teens here) text more than we realize, both in number of messages and in content.  Used in secret, used independently, used without our knowledge, cell phones in "silent mode" vibrate in pockets all over the globe and allow kids to connect when the adults around them go about their business, ignorant of the activity.  Kids have codes to alert each other that an adult is in the room, they use ring tones at higher pitches on low volume so that older people can't hear the alerts pinging.

  

No more paper folded into tiny, tight football shapes for clever, discreet passing across desktops or in the hallways at school.  Kids pass notes via the ether, send photographs without consideration for content, or for the fact that the pictures and words can travel endlessly, cell phone to cell phone and even onto the Internet for wider distribution.  Forever.  Many adults have trouble with this concept, too.

Kids have unlimited talk and text because adults can't seem to keep the usage down to a minimum and don't want to pay by the minute or by the text.  Providers know how to draw in the customers with bundling and family plans.  "Family" is an operative, psychologically sensitive word in the marketplace and it works.  Many children don't have limits on the time they spend either online via Smart Phone or in the number of texts they send, or when and where they may use their technological devices.  They communicate at all hours, in all venues, and even when societal rules tell them they shouldn't (church, classroom, at the dinner table, in the middle of a social event). 

Kids -- and people in general -- wouldn't pick up a phone to verbally share the information they're texting.  They wouldn't pick up a book to find out the information they "Google" or Bing".  How many of us would interrupt in the middle of a social gathering to say, "Excuse me.  I'm going to use the house phone for a minute."  Would anyone really interrupt a dinner conversation to say, "Let me look that one up in the encyclopedia ..."   Would you?  No.  But many of us text it and surf for it.  Seems less invasive, huh? 

How does this differ from your early years of learning about communication?  Talking on the phone meant you were tethered to a wall with a cord that stretched only so far, possibly in a central location in the home, and within earshot of family. You had rules, time limits, calling zones to consider, thought to others wanting to use the phone, and thought to the importance of making the call at all.  Many families didn't take calls after certain hours, and never during dinner time.  We did not have answering machines, and we learned a sensible use of time and importance in making any calls at all.

The phone habits of our children don't provide these parameters, or at the least, very many that resemble them.

Today's children have grown up in an era of secrecy and self-direction against the grain of familial preference.   Parents feel their hands are tied by invisible cord -- with a known inability to corral their kids in their communication pursuits. Cell phones allow for hidden conversation, deceit, learned habits from unknown sources, and changes in attitudes that we would never support as parents. How much do you know about your child's cell phone habits?  Records.  Sure.  You can check them, but how do you manage the behavior that builds those records?  Do you know who they have on their Contact Lists, whom they contact most often, what types of information they send and receive?  You may have an angelic child who uses her phone only when necessary?  I do.  Yet the information that comes to her via the device is out of my control and most likely, without my knowledge. 

Do we, as parents, truly understand the freedom we give our children just by providing them a cell phone?  When we provide Internet access, we provide them the world.  In view of faith, what amount of good does providing our children with the world  ... without limits ... do for them?  The family computer resides in plain sight, but the cell phone lives on their hips, ushering in parts of life we may not know or expect.

"And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?"

Mark 8:36 

From before their birth we protected them by eating right, getting medical care, staying fit, preparing all the needs for their arrival to nurture them without room for error.  We boiled their pacifiers when they fell to the floor. We made sure the formula or baby food was the proper temperature. We provided healthy foods and we limited their television viewing from toddlerhood onward, and what they did see helped them learn, not just entertain.  We read to them, encouraged their creativity in art and song.  We enrolled them in classes for enjoyment and to grow their natural talents, checked their homework, and packed healthy lunches.

And then we bought them cell phones and found out what "lack of control" and "independence" really means.

Some parents, and my husband and I belong to this group, held off on the cell phone purchase for much longer than most.  Our daughter received her phone 2 months ago, and probably really was the last kid in her class to get one (she claims this is true).  The longer we held out and observed her peers and the general population -- and ourselves -- the more we wanted to avoid the reality that this phone would introduce:  more independence and participation in the outside world than we would allow in a physical, observable, tactile existence.  We are not overprotective parents, but we do believe that children need boundaries and strong guidance, rather than direction in navigating GPS. 

Do we want our children to Stumble Upon it when we have avoided skinned knees and trips on the curbs all their lives?  Do we feel that  taking a chance in Tumblr fits our moral compass?  Do they really need to Pin It?  Must they Find it on Facebook?  Does it really enhance their experience to compete in Four Square online rather than a face-to-face game of the real thing on the playground?

Does the good outweigh the bad?  When did we lose the spirit and the need to teach morals and ethics to our children, not only in word but in deed?  When did we leave so much to them, a world full of unchecked information, when in a few years we will want to carefully guide their practice sessions in an automobile and make sure they have excellent control before allowing them to drive alone?

Cell phones are not bad.  The Internet has tremendous usefulness to us.  They are tools that have amazingly good uses.  What self-control, limits and lines to we put on that usefulness, and how do we teach it and model it?  How do we direct it for our children's benefit?  How do we go about protecting them and guiding them and providing the best examples and experiences for them to take into their futures with these devices available for their use ... at their discretion?

They can't look up when they're so drawn to looking down, into the screens of their phones.  Can they feel the Holy Spirit's guidance more strongly than the vibration of the phone in the pocket? 

What do you think?

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Forsaking All Others: Opposite-Sex Friendship

An Internet search conducted today using the words "opposite-sex friendship" will deluge a searcher in a waterfall of choices; findings flood the search landscape in everything from scholarly articles based on university and think-tank studies and surveys to blog articles and message boards based on personal experience in which you can almost feel the opinions and experience pulsing in the comment sections.

Generationally, male-female friendships have expanded in number and in scope, and their very existence seems to indicate something unusual on the social curve.  Prior to 1974, no one had even conducted a study of these friendships.

One supposition I make on this lack of "data" is that in older generations, male-female friendships sat at a surface level, more formal, more business-like or acquaintance style.  My parents' friendships were forged with other couples, and they included widows and widowers, single people who needed companionship, but they did not include separate friendships with the opposite-sex.  I can see the shock on my mother's face at the mere suggestion.  That would be wrong, it would look improper, it would be improper for her to associate with another man in a close and personal way.  My grandmother's generation held a narrower view, and I can still hear my grandmother refer to church and neighborhood men as, "Mr. Young," or "Mr. Olson."  Lines existed.

Today, we hold a loose leash on "How to Relate to Others," and even fewer lines of certainty drawn anywhere.  Divulging of personal information to any listening ear prevails in an atmosphere of café and coffee shop meet-ups, texting, instant messaging, e-mail, social network platforms and comment section banter.  Reins on conversation topics grow looser, responsibility and self-control have relaxed their grip through the dumbing down of conversation that contains an overabundance of information.  What our conversations lack in importance we make up for by the number of texts we send.  We communicate more and say less, but in the case of friendship, we often say too much.  Our world tuned into friendship and "feel good" in lieu of imposing safeguards and setting limits.  We have ditched respectability and grabbed for familiarity on all levels.  We want to know and be known.

I'll just get it out there now:  most people are missing God.  Those holes in life they're filling?  God-sized.  Many people agree with this and know where the snakes lie in the grass ... people who don't know this seem to keep adding more activity and more people to life in order to fill those spaces.  Without God in there, they're feeding a vacuum.  A black hole of need.

What does this do to marriage?  What about male-female relationships outside the bonds of marriage?  Should a married man have female friends or a wife have male friends, each enjoying social time separately?  Sharing activities, deep conversations, and meeting together when each finds free time?  Texting and e-mailing any time of day or night?  Are there implications to consider?

Is it okay for a wife to want to hang out with male friends while her husband wrangles the kiddies and manages without her? 
Is it okay for him to want to go for coffee or see a concert with female friends while she takes on the roles at home on her own? 
Is it right for her husband to feel uncomfortable that she has male friends whom she makes time to see relatively regularly on her own?
Is it right for her to feel uneasy about his female pals with whom he texts or spends time in person? 
I have my own answers:  Two yes and two no.  Not in that order.

Whatever happened to that vow you made?  The one stating that you will "cling only unto each other, forsaking all others"?  "Cling" doesn't mean hang around each other's necks like baby chimpanzees, but it does mean "hang on tight to what you have right here.  And what does forsaking mean, anyway?

forsaking  present participle of for·sake (Verb)

Verb Abandon (someone or something): Forsake the idea for a better one. Renounce or give up (something valued or pleasant): "I won't forsake my marriage principles".

I believe the initiating of opposite-sex friendship happens when we stop being close friends with our spouses and the drift to opposite shores begins.  Most definitely, a spouse should not serve as our only human connection, but marriage is our most important connection, the one we should cultivate first, above all others.  Forsaking all others.   Giving up friends does not mean giving in to control -- if a husband demands an end to all friendship, by all means, think harder than that.  But, if a husband wants that male friend to hit the bricks, please lay those bricks now.  Your marriage matters more than does your social life.  If you feel a stronger pull to socialize, and if the pull feels any greater than social interaction, you are on the wrong road.  That yellow sign up there at the top of the page is the one to obey:  DANGER, WRONG WAY, TURN BACK.  Proceeding with caution still leads in the wrong direction.  You must turn around and do it completely.

We can't know another person's heart, but we can guard ours with everything we have.

Marriage requires giving your best to your spouse, not dangling leftovers in front of him.  If you're hanging with others often, same or opposite sex, you aren't ... simply ARE NOT giving your best to your husband. If you share thoughts and feelings with that opposite-sex person for the purpose of evaluating your marriage, you are not giving your best to your husband.  If you associate with that friend for the feeling of closeness he or she provides, you are not giving what you should to your marriage; you are cultivating a relationship with the friend.

A friend (female!) and I share a smile over this upended quote,

The grass is always greener where you water it.

If you put the energy into marriage that you would allot to an opposite-sex friend, you would see results.  If you take your marriage seriously, you will want to make it greener.  People don't marry to fail, but they fail to keep watering, weeding, fertilizing and taking utmost care of the marriage they planted in the first place.  When you begin to keep watch over another relationship, you divide your time and you cannot focus the way you should.

Friendship entails sharing.  Life troubles arise.  Trouble garners sympathy.  Sympathy asks for comfort.  Comfort shares emotions.  Emotions connect.  Connections link hearts, and even the happiest marriage can find itself sabotaged by an external friendship that grew too far without pruning of twining branches.

Opposite-sex friendships might remain completely platonic.  They certainly can.  However, there is always, always, always, ALWAYS potential for temptation.  Illegal U-Turns happen.  People run red lights and exceed speed limits.  People make wrong turns and figure they'll explore a new avenue and see the sights as time allows.

Opposite-sex friendship has to have brakes.  Emergency brakes, too.  In such friendships, a guard has to always exist.  God provides that guard in the form of his Spirit within us ... but we have the free will to make choices, and that makes the difference.

The truth is, good things -- positive relationships -- can start out innocuously.  They can begin during a phone call, at lunch, in a bowling alley, during work, at the grocery store, at the kids' school, and in church!   An invisible ball, usually static and centered in platonic relationships, begins to roll.  It might go unnoticed for a while, but soon, that ball has inched past the center ... the safe zone.  Feelings -- distinctly male and female -- can rise.  When the Spirit alerts you, how do you respond?  If you don't have lines drawn, if you don't listen to the small voice of the Spirit, you don't.  You simply follow the ball.

Marriage is more important than any friendship.
Marriage means sacrificing for husband/wife, for the sake of the other, which offers benefits for both.
Married people must live transparently, having no secrets, holding no cards under the table.
Marriage focuses on the other person, not oneself; service and giving trumps asking and receiving.
Marriage joins a couple in every possible way, and the rest of their lives need to fall in line of importance around it, not the other way around.
Marriage is a lifelong commitment, not a chance and not a maybe.

Marriage is more important than meeting for coffee, than playing a sport of joining a club and connecting with other people of similar interests.  Marriage is more important than any other commitment in life.

Pray about your friendships, to sincerely ask for God's direction, not rely on our own feelings and needs (which fail us all the time).  Bringing it up to God and listening intently for the answer, which may come as a feeling of aversion to those opposite-sex friendships, or a need to back away and set limits, will happen.  If you're on the fence in a friendship, looking at the greenery, hop off into your own weedy, brown grass and get watering!

We can't know for certain where friendship will lead, but we do know where marriage will take us.  With the focus on what's right and proper, with what we vowed to do on our wedding day, we make the right choice.

A true friend will understand.

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