One Wonderful Year Together … sparks notwithstanding! Susan and I have officially been married one year today, and a wonderful adventure it has been. But admittedly there have been times this past year when we rubbed one another the wrong way and, of course, that’s when the sparks would fly.
Okay, no marriage is perfect. Why? Because people are not perfect and marriages are made up of two uniquely-different creatures, one woman and one man. Now if you were to ask almost any wife, or husband, if they have the perfect mate, without doubt their answer would be a hearty laugh!
Oh, I don’t mean sparks of fireworks magnitude. Just little sparks that come from those times when we annoy and frustrate each other. You know, those times of minor misunderstandings or small disagreements. For instance, last evening I got a little bothered (Read: miffed, out of sorts, grumpy …) because Susan failed to call me to let me know when she would be home from her office.
If you will remember, Sue is an M.D. in charge of an insanely busy practice for the elderly. From time to time she will have meetings with members of her office and/or provider staff, meetings that run long. So last evening a meeting, planned to last about an hour, ran two and a half hours. Wowzer! Then afterward Sue had charts and notes to finish, the newly-installed electronic records system to work on, several death certificates to finish, a patient/family phone call to make, plus she was on call and her pager was ringing off her belt. Then the inevitable happened, her computer locked up! Near tears she threw her hands up and said, “ENOUGH!”
Susan called just after the computer melt down to let me know that she would have to bring some of her work home. She was gracious and apologetic that she had not let me know she would be later than usual. When she arrived home (a five-minute drive from her office) I pressed the issue, telling her that she needed to communicate more, let me know when plans change, yada, yada, yada. You know, all those logical things husbands say when they are building their case. In the midst of my lawyerly rambling to win my case, however, I overlooked the simple fact that Susan had already surrendered and confessed that she was guilty and that she should have called earlier than she did. She had gently pulled the teeth right out of her old grizzly bear hubby and he was too puffed up to recognize it.
So, was I right? Maybe technically, but her heart beats my logic every time. And I believe that’s how our Lord would have it in most cases. Love should win out, bringing peace and joy and forgiveness in a marriage.
Praise the Lord for bringing this wonderful woman to me, for His teaching her how to respond to me, and for giving her such a sweet and gentle spirit to love me as she does … through sparks and all. We have no doubt that when we have a disagreement or “dust up,” it was allowed by the Lord for the purpose of teaching us valuable lessons in how to live together and bond as one. And in the process He asks us to bring our problems to Him, small or large, then He increases and mellows our love for one another through it all.
So when you see those sparks begin to fly, do what we do. Take it to the Lord and ask Him, “Help us out here, Lord. Solve this problem for us and teach us how to love each other more today than we did yesterday. And increase our love for You also.”
Lord bless you until next time,
Carl Peters
The short section of my writing I’ve chosen this month is from my novel, Transgression, chapter one. As you read, let your mind visualize these words as a Technicolor motion picture, playing out before your eyes.
From his vantage point inside the dark foyer the pastor watched three mothers herd a gaggle of six or seven youngsters — the whole rag-tag army chattering their heads off like a flock of autumn starlings on a farm fence — past the church toward their next trick-or-treat conquest.
One youngster, outfitted as a smiling rubber-faced President Nixon, came tripping over his older brother’s rolled-up pants and suite jacket, borrowed for the evening. Another, a Cinderella princess, followed, pulling the hand of her little sister who was a newspaper-stuffed pumpkin tonight. A fourth little one was dressed as a tiny baseball player in a striped uniform. Mother carried Babe Ruth’s plastic bat because he’d been using it to whack and poke every other goblin and princess he passed in his rounds of the bases.
One more-mature kid, a six-year-old, broke away and ran up the wide walkway to the front doors of the church. He pressed his nose against the glass, cupped his hands on either side of his face, and strained to see into the darkness through his own mirrored reflection. He was hoping to get some treat here. He remembered the small white box of red and green sugar-coated gumdrops, cream-filled chocolate drops, and colorful hard candies and canes he’d received here the Christmas before when he was an angel in the church pageant. Tonight he was dressed, more appropriately, as a devil.
“A suitable caricature of his true nature,” or words to that effect, his mother had told the other moms.
“Goodbye, David,” she called. “Hope the goblins don’t get you.” This nonchalant warning was working well on Davie this ghostly moonlit night.