marriage

Moving Past Disappointment to Gratitude

Oh how sad I feel right now.  I prayed and prayed and prayed.  I wanted your wedding day to be everything you wanted it to be.  And with COVID-19, it will be a different day.  I really believe that God is in these plans.  I believe that we will still have a blessed day for your wedding.  And we need to look forward to what will be.

Today, when we have to accept changing plans, it is a time to feel feelings and cry.  Cry out to God.  Ask Him to be with us as we face the disappointment of today.  Thank Him that he is with us.  Turn to Him.  Sit quietly with God.  Cry with Him.  Let Him comfort you.  Feel your feelings and ask Him for strength.  Tell God how you feel.  Ask our Blessed Mother Mary to comfort you and pray for you.  Ask God to help and he will help.

God didn’t cause the COVID-19.  He isn’t causing all the panic and the closed venues.  We didn’t cause this either.  Politics need to be put aside.  Families need to be together.  We need to begin again.

We will appreciate what we can do to celebrate your wedding.  I am so thankful for you and for your future husband.  You are a beautiful couple and your wedding will be beautiful.  It will be small and intimate and we will have such a celebration later.  And we will be together with you.  Praying for you.  Loving you.  Listening to you.  I am grateful for so many things.  I am grateful for you.

Love,

Mymom

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See others through the eyes of Jesus

I can’t think of a person who hasn’t let me down at one time or another.  And I’m sure that I have let others down many times.  God wants us to depend on Him.  He loves us and is always there for us if we turn to Him and put our trust in Him alone.  Only Jesus who leads us to the Father and works in us through the Holy Spirit.  If we can trust God, then we are free to joyfully love others and allow them to be imperfect.  We can love who they are and not who we wish they would be.  We are all imperfect humans trying our best in an imperfect world.  Our sense of sometimes feeling let down often comes from putting too much on the shoulders of that other person to bring us happiness.  Peace comes from those moments when we let Jesus take us by the hand and show us others through His eyes.  Accept, trust, forgive, love.

Love,

Mymom

How do I agree to disagree and move on respectfully?

Arrrg! I disagree with this decision you are making! It impacts me and I know you heard me but did you really hear me? I don’t want this direction to be a mistake. It will cost us money and time. We/you don’t have the experience needed.

Does this thought process sound familiar? Sometimes the littlest decisions can be big and divisive. Sometimes big decisions can be divisive too. When my husband makes a decision that I don’t agree with, I have trouble letting go. He is my best friend. I respect him. He is knowledgeable. I trust him. I ask his advice on many things. I tell him everything. And yet, when I disagree, it is hard to let go and let him make a decision and support the direction he is choosing to set.

What we try to do is let each other lead decisions that align with our expertise. My husband loves to do infinite research for making major purchases. I don’t have the patience for that so I will give him my wishes like I want a red car with 4 doors and a sun roof and I want us to buy it in the next 3-4 weeks. He will do the research and get it done.

I take care of all the monthly bill paying. I’m efficient and I work well with all the online accounts and I keep things paid on time. I also work with repair people for scheduling work at the house.

We have found our areas of responsibility and trust each other. A couple of areas are still difficult for us to agree on. We have learned to compromise for most of those areas.

Once in a while, we simply disagree. I find that when either of us take the disagreement personally, that can lead to a standoff. In these cases, we both lose. There may be consequences for incorrect decisions. There may be unexpected gains from good decisions.

If we disagree, it is good to hear each other’s point of view and then make the decision agreeing to disagree. Support each other in these decisions and always apologize if in an argument, I forgot to listen and support. In the worst case, we will lose a little money or time.

Perhaps the way to handle the situation is to trust that the outcome will lie somewhere between the best case and the worst case and we will learn to listen and trust each other all the more.  And we might learn a lesson or two.

But… As anyone who knows me knows, I sure do like to get my way. I thank God for a patient, loving, supportive, smart, and faithful husband.

God, please help me to let go of control and trust others, especially my husband. Help me to know that in all cases, You are there. Help me to learn to share my opinion and trust others to listen and make their best decision with the information they have. Help me to be supportive. Thank you for your guidance through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen

Love,

Mymom

Marriage: Be together even when you are apart

In my relationship with your dad, we see each other in the morning as we both wake and get ready for our days. We always say a goodbye with a kiss, a hug, and a prayer for the day. We greet each other with a kiss and a hug. We hold hands. We pray for each other.

Some days are so very busy. There is so little time to be part of each other’s lives when there is so much to be done. So you need to be part of each other. When we married, God brought us together. Two individuals making a marriage with God at the center. When we are together, we are complete. When we are apart, we take each other with us as we go through the day supported in our love for each other. Not together in time and space, but never apart either.

We have been married for almost 36 years. I am always conscious of my husband in my life whether we are together or apart. I go through my day independently, fully supported in God’s love and in the love of my husband.

We are away from each other 10-16 hours a day depending on our work, social, or service commitments. When we are home together in the morning, your dad makes me breakfast and we sit together for a couple moments and enjoy breakfast. In the evening we have dinner together most days although that isn’t always possible. For many years when our children were small, we would stop what we were doing after the busyness of the day, after the kids were in bed, and share time together. This is a time for rest and nurturing each other.

There are many seasons to marriage: a time to be young and dating, a time to be newlyweds, a time to raise small children, a time to counsel teenagers, a time to put those kids through college a time to help aging parents, and a time to be those aging people. Throughout these times there is always each other.

Schedule time for important conversations. I learned to keep a list of what we needed to talk about so that I could let my anger go and know that we would talk when we were both ready. I learned to listen too.

Be confident in your loved one’s love for you. When we doubt each other, our communication suffers and erodes the quality of our time together. Trust each other. Share each other with the world around you and then come back together in the intimate moments, in the sorrowful moments, in the joyful moments and in the ordinary moments.

Oh God, help us to see you in our relationship. Help our commitment, help our communication, strengthen our marriage, be at the very core of us. You are our God. Thank you for our marriage. Thank you for our time together. Help us to do your Holy will each day even when we have to be apart through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Love,

MyMom

Be glad to see each other

Our lives are busy. We work a job or run a business, we serve in our church and communities, we schedule time with family and friends, we spend time in prayer, we read, we exercise. Our days are so full. We often put ourselves and our spouses too low on our todo list. How can we reshape our days to put ourselves and each other higher on our lists?

We can start by greeting each other joyfully. When we see our loved one, we great him or her with great joy. I remember watching my parents greet each other after a long day at work. My dad would inevitably be late coming home. He had a demanding job that always had one more thing to attend to before he could leave for the day. My mom would try to be patient but would be overcome with frustration. She wanted him to be home on time for dinner and spend time with the family.

When Dad finally arrived home, he would sheepishly walk in and mom would let him have her best tongue lashing for being late. Here they were, longing to see each other yet unable to greet each other lovingly. It became a very bad habit for them.

If life’s demands give you only a short time with each other, make that time joyful. Every glance, each word, each touch should be in joy and love. Trust each other and Communicate your love for each other with a welcome and happy greeting. If you only have 5 minutes together today, make those 5 minutes count. This is true for each person in our lives. Make your moments together count.

Oh God, help us to see you in each other and in the moments of our day. Give us patience and joy. We thank you for the gift of each other and ask you to bless our time together with gratefulness and Love through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Love,

MyMom

What you say matters!

There is an old philosophical question “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”  My answer to you is that of course it does make a sound.  What you say matters whether or not anyone else is around to hear it.  What you think matters too.  You are to conduct yourselves at good and honorable people, examples of Christians in the world.  Sometimes you will get angry.  Sometimes you will hit your thumb with a hammer and you will want to curse.  When I have been the most frustrated; in a car, in the basement, in the woods, those times when I thought I could swear like anything and no one could hear me anyway, someone is always around to hear me.  Sometimes it is my husband, sometimes a stranger, sometimes a friend, sometimes a child who just happens to walk into the situation where I think I’m alone and no one can hear.  I really regret the times when I indulge in venting and fowl language.  It is always unbecoming of a Christian and reflects poorly on me.  When you are angry, say you are angry.  When you need to vent, vent in a constructive way.  Hold your tongue and go for a run or just take a deep breath and ask Jesus to help you to handle the feelings that you are having.  Your feelings aren’t wrong.  The permission that you give yourself to vent, curse, or act out is what is wrong.

Also, never, ever talk badly about another person.  The sarcastic comedy that has permeated our society for the last 40 years has just gotten worse and worse.  It has become so lewd and unrighteous that it is hard to find kindness in any man or woman.  We are asked by Jesus to love one and other.  We are also asked to love our enemies.  When we find it impossible to love, we can ask Jesus for help.  When we fail, we ask Jesus to forgive us.  Admit when you are wrong and ask for forgiveness from each other.  Pray for those who you find most frustrating.  They need our prayers.

Oh God, help me to say yes when I mean yes and no when I mean no.  Help me to speak with grace and dignity.  Help me to hold my tongue and choose to handle my feelings in constructive ways.  Help me to see you in each person and love them.  Help me never to speak harshly about another but to be charitable and forgiving.  I can do these things through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Love,

Mymom

 

 

Book Recommendations: The Bait is Satan: Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense by John Bevere

I read The Bait of Satan in 2013.  At the time, I had no idea how hurt I was by my feelings of being offended.  As John explains in his book, there are many reasons to feel offended.  Our reasons are usually good ones.  Our parents, our spouse,  our children, friends, neighbors, co-workers, boss, pastor, fellow Christians, teachers…and the list goes on and on all have times when they offend us.   When I feel offended, I may choose to wallow in my feelings instead of having conversations and forgiving the ones who have offended me.  

John Bevere calls the temptation to feel offended and disrupt or sever our relationships with others, the Bait of Satan.  It is what Satan uses to hook us into not only feeling bad but to quit talking to those we legitimately feel have harmed us.  Falling into the trap of rightous unforgiveness is a sin.  These sins separate us from others and more importantly, turn our attention inward and separate us from God.

Jesus has told us, we need to forgive others always.  

Matthew 6:14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;”

Forgiveness is never optional as a Christian.  If we are to be forgiven, we must forgive.  Satan tempts us with the offenses of others.  His goal is that we be separated from God and others.  Worse, our separation leads us to other sins of gossip and treating others badly.

The Bait of Satan opened my eyes and I started forgiving others.  Occassionlly, Satan still catches me with his bait.  Most of the time, I’m able to recognize the offense and call it out.  When you have a conversation with the offender, you often find that you misunderstood the situation.  Their intention wasn’t to offend and even if it was, let them be, forgive, and do not be held captive by the offense.

Oh God, help us to recognize when we feel offended and to swiftly forgive others.  Help us to truly mean it when we pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”.  Through Christ Our Lord.  Amen

Love, MyMom

Listen, don’t judge

Many times I have failed to be present with you, to listen to your story.  I have jumped to conclusions and I have judged you from my own background and experiences.  I have tried to fix things for you and I have undermined your self confidence.  I’m sorry.  I truly want to listen and accept you where you are and trust you and God with your future.  You will have setbacks.  You will have successes.  You will succeed and you will fail.  Get up.  Plan your day.  Seek help.  Ask God what you should do next.  Spend time with Him in prayer.  I am praying for you.  I will listen to your story without judgement.  I will help when you ask.  

Jesus, Son of the living God, help us as we communicate with each other to listen and to see each other as you see us.  Amen.

Love, Mymom

Love is patient, love is kind

1st Corinthians 13.4, Love is patient, Love is kind, it is not jealous. It is not pompous. It is not inflated.

St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians is posted on my bathroom wall to be read often. I am so often impatient, unkind, jealous, righteous, and full of myself that I worry if I will ever get it right. When Paul spoke of Love, he was speaking of Jesus. Reread the passage substituting the word Jesus. It totally fits. Jesus is love.
Substitute your own name and reread the passage. I do that and see my inadequacies clearly. I see where I can love better. And reading it with Jesus’ name reminds me how He loves me even though I don’t love as I want to love. Jesus is patient with me. He is kind.

Oh God. Help me to love others and myself the way you love through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Transitions make us anxious

Transitions can be hard for most people. We resist ending one thing and moving on to something new. We feel angst. We feel uncomfortable. We may be excited or sad. However we feel, those around us will sense our uneasiness. They may not understand and may feel distance when really, we are trying to hide our anxiety.

Actually, we can’t hide anxiety. Most of us wear our anxiety all over our faces and in our body language. People we love the most may take our anxiety personally and think our stress is about them.

Children especially will see and feel our stress and the children in your life need you to communicate.
So does your spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend. Talk about how you feel and what is next. Talk about specific actions you will be taking and ask for help along the way. Remember you are loved and you are not alone.

Oh God, help me to communicate with my family and friends. Help me to ask for help from you and those who care about me. Thank you Father for your steadfast love through Jesus our Lord, amen

Love, Mymom