I was recently asked to speak at a bridal shower for a young woman from our church who is getting married next month. Which was a minor miracle in itself, I am not exactly an in demand speaker, but mostly I said yes because I feel like I know her pretty well, and also know a fair bit about her fiance. I am going to change their names in this blog, since they are the innocent victims of my brain's barrage. I decided to look
through my 15 years of blogs to find something profound to share about
marriage. Didn’t find anything--except this story about our first date, since our
recent Valentine’s day marks 50 years since that event.
I had gone out with Reed once before, but that
was a casual, “My church is having a taco night for college age tonight, wanna
come? As a broke college student, I would go anywhere for free food. But a
Bible college Valentine banquet is a really awkward first date. The speaker was
addressing couples in love. The message was about not sacrificing the 99% of
the things you like about your boyfriend/girlfriend for the 1% you don’t. I
only knew about 1% of Reed at that point and I wasn’t sure how I felt about
even that. As it turned out,
Reed was the first of four guys that invited me to that same banquet. For an
unpopular girl who never dated in high school (not that I wanted to, dating in
my high school was synonymous with getting drunk), getting asked out by 4 guys
was a Vatican worthy miracle. So I couldn’t help but wonder throughout the
awkward evening in my borrowed dress, if I shouldn’t have taken one of the
other offers.
But there is something irresistible about
someone who keeps loving you in spite of your response, in spite of yourself.
We got engaged June 25, 1976, despite a proposal about as romantic as the taco night
invitation. We were in his apartment after dinner when he said,
“I wanna marry
you.”
I said,”I wanna
marry you, too.”
“Will you?’(That was the trick question I was
unprepared for!)
Long pause . . . gulp . . . "Yes"?
Not only did he not get down on one knee, he didn’t even get
up off the couch. One year, to the day from that romantic milestone, we got
married. But I don’t want to dim the enthusiasm for your upcoming wedding
day with the story of everything that went wrong on ours. That is a fractured
fairytale for another time.
And since there
was no profound marriage advice in
my blog, I thought I would share with the bride to be some of the things I wish I’d
known earlier in my marriage:
My husband can’t read
my mind.
If Reed was capable of reading my mind, he would not have
given me a cheese platter as the first Valentine’s gift of our married lives. I like
cheese, but it felt more like an employee of the month reward than a romantic gesture
.After we had children, I was a stay at home mom, so my main contribution to
family finances was to save us money, not earn it. Part of that savings was by providing
meals at home but—3 times a day, every day, even for someone like me who enjoys
cooking, gets tiring. Sometimes I wanted to go out for dinner or for Reed to
pick up a pizza or burgers on the way home. But I felt guilty about the expense,
so I wanted him to suggest it. Somehow my brainwaves could not transmit that
message 14 miles to the airport where he worked. Even when he called and asked
“What’s for dinner?” and I said ,”I don’t know” he could not pick up on my
thought transmissions. After hearing this advice several years into our
marriage, at someone else’s bridal shower, I gave up the minding reading act
and just told him when I wanted restaurant food. He was happy to do so, always
had been, I just needed to say it.
I am not my husband’s
Holy Spirit.
When our kids are little, we parents are the ones who help
them apply Bible truth to their lives. Until they know the Lord and understand
how to listen to the Spirit, we play the role as the spirit in their lives. But
because of that, a desire to be helpful,
and a sinful desire to tell people
what to do, that can overflow into trying to be Holy Spirit Junior in our husband’s
lives. I’m sure the day I learned in Bible study that that was not my role in
Reed’s life was one of his happiest days in our marriage. Although I do need
frequent reminders from the real Holy Spirit, that he knows how to guide my
husband better than I do..
Embrace the
differences.
Men are different from women and those differences should be
celebrated—especially by the women. One of those differences is spitting. You
will not find a group of women standing around visiting and have one suddenly
turn around and hawk a loogie on the ground. That is a guy thing. I spent some
time contemplating why men spit. They produce more saliva than women but their
bodies are equipped to handle the load. I concluded that the main reason men
spit is because they can. But another thing that comes out of men’s mouths is
words. They do not have as many words to
spit out of their system as women do. "Anna", I know enough about you and your fiance to know you have a different
amount of words inside you that need to come out. That is something you’ll need
to figure out together. Both words and silence can be too much of a good thing.
And Anna, even after decades of marriage, you will sometimes turn to that
person you know and love more than anyone on earth and say, “Why on earth did
you even think that?” The answer, because
he’s a man, that’s why.
Timing is everything.
If the Lord blesses you with children, you will find them to
be the most angelic, adorable sinners
you can imagine. There is a tendency, after a long day supervising small sinners,
for a wife to want to hand at least one of them to her husband as he walks in
the door and say “Take this child!” Whether he has had a great
day at work or a terrible day, this is not an appropriate way to say, Welcome
home! If you know you need to discuss something which may be difficult (for
instance, putting that child up for adoption) just kidding. But seriously, save
some discussions for after a good meal when he is relaxed and satisfied. You
may have had all day to work out the perfect wording, but it will not matter if
your husband is not ready to listen. To discuss something on which you are
likely to disagree, save it for after "dessert" when hopefully both of you are
relaxed and satisfied.
You and "John" have
gone into this relationship as God has directed and we, your church family,
have great hopes for where He will lead you in the future. I would like to
close with a poem I wrote for my Valentine a couple years ago. May God bless
you both with long years together holding hands.
Holding Hands
We still hold hands,
but they are old hands
with age spots, crepey skin,
yet warm enough.
Those early years
short on money
long on kids, holding jobs,
just holding on.
And later on
our children have grown
our savings too, leisure time,
enjoying life.
Decades ago
I knew this day would come,
growing old, side by side,
still holding hands.
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