So anyways.. congrats! You found my secret public journal/ diary thing where I share my thoughts with whomever cares to know them. Its a quiet Saturday morning at the start of August and my child is napping in her highchair and will hopefully remain that way for at least 30 more minutes. (The highchair reclines into a bed situation if you're at all imagining her head being all slumped over)
Shane and I just celebrated our 3rd marriage anniversary and it was a lovely reminder of still being best friends and whimsically in love. I say reminder, because life can be busy and chaotic and its possible to find yourself questioning where you're at with everything. No worries, we're doing great. In fact, trying to master the restart... again. Because here's the deal.. you start off all in love and get all this energy from serving each other and trying to anticipate the others needs and getting a rush from being selfless. Like, "Oh, you're eating popcorn, I'm sure you'll be thirsty, let me get you some water before you even realize you're thirsty" or "you've had a long day, let me have supper ready and the house picked up and your towel warming in the dryer for when you get out of the shower." *sigh* If you're married without any small humans... keep on doing that thing. Because, we added a human and it's easy to just..ask and expect things from eachother and become more self-focused when you both feel like you're carrying all the burdens.
Shane works fullllll time and I'm more part-timey. He carries the financial burden on his own and whatever my paycheck is usually goes into savings or extra payments on the house. He works hard and comes home tired and exhausted. But I have the baby all day which can be a lot and then the house and when Shane gets home I want help and a break and just a moment to think. And he gets home and he wants a break and a moment to think. And pretty soon you're not all in sync like you need to be if you're running a three-legged-race. You start going opposite and tripping.
I'd say 90% of our conflict is when we are WANTING from eachother without much giving and having unmet expectations. And you have to keep restarting and apologizing and thinking more on what you can do for eachother and then lifting eachother's burdens comes more naturally and doesn't seem like extra work and it frees up everything. At least, that seems to be the wisdom I've gleaned lately.
Anyways, keeping walking with the Lord goes a long way for not getting too focused on yourself and your own wants and desires and burdens. My sis-in-love has been saying lately, "Quiet time doesn't have to be quiet" and that is actually very inspiring to me.
In college I'd go off on these retreats and wake up by a lake and do my quiet time with coffee on a dock or in a meadow or on a porch on some foggy misty morning that just made everything so...intense.
"I sensed God's nearness".....I'm finding in my adulthood that slowing down doesn't necessarily MEAN coffee by still waters. And God's nearness doesn't leave you and just because you're not having some major feelings of peace and tranquility doesn't mean you're not near to God. Peace in your heart doesn't eliminate chaos from your life.
Shane works fullllll time and I'm more part-timey. He carries the financial burden on his own and whatever my paycheck is usually goes into savings or extra payments on the house. He works hard and comes home tired and exhausted. But I have the baby all day which can be a lot and then the house and when Shane gets home I want help and a break and just a moment to think. And he gets home and he wants a break and a moment to think. And pretty soon you're not all in sync like you need to be if you're running a three-legged-race. You start going opposite and tripping.
I'd say 90% of our conflict is when we are WANTING from eachother without much giving and having unmet expectations. And you have to keep restarting and apologizing and thinking more on what you can do for eachother and then lifting eachother's burdens comes more naturally and doesn't seem like extra work and it frees up everything. At least, that seems to be the wisdom I've gleaned lately.
Anyways, keeping walking with the Lord goes a long way for not getting too focused on yourself and your own wants and desires and burdens. My sis-in-love has been saying lately, "Quiet time doesn't have to be quiet" and that is actually very inspiring to me.
In college I'd go off on these retreats and wake up by a lake and do my quiet time with coffee on a dock or in a meadow or on a porch on some foggy misty morning that just made everything so...intense.
"I sensed God's nearness".....I'm finding in my adulthood that slowing down doesn't necessarily MEAN coffee by still waters. And God's nearness doesn't leave you and just because you're not having some major feelings of peace and tranquility doesn't mean you're not near to God. Peace in your heart doesn't eliminate chaos from your life.
Your life can still seem chaotic and people in your life can still be awful and mean and malicious and you can feel like God is just running in circles around you without stepping in but that's not reality.
Reality is Him laying a steadying hand on you to keep you from fighting back, and providing comfort and healing when the woundings don't stop. We aren't promised heaven now, we're promised heaven later, and we often mistake our tastes of heaven as affirmation that we've got it "Right."
Reality is Him laying a steadying hand on you to keep you from fighting back, and providing comfort and healing when the woundings don't stop. We aren't promised heaven now, we're promised heaven later, and we often mistake our tastes of heaven as affirmation that we've got it "Right."
Perhaps I've just become a little more cynical, but I'd like to think I'm just an optimistic realist. Because life is actually kind of ugly sometimes. And being a Christian, believer, person of the faith doesn't exempt you from that stuff. Sometimes the worst people you know are people who also claim to be believing Christians. And you have to..."Fellowship" with them... and it's like rubbing a blister raw over and over and never getting to be healed. And you REALLY have to pursue the Lord to keep from being bitter and horrible back to them. And its frustrating because you think, "How long must I keep turning my other cheek?" and the answer is, "For the rest of your life." LITERALLY years.
So anyways... another pro-tip for to the marriage thing, don't let your battles with awful people become something you battle your spouse with. Like... just because your spouse is trying to guide your attitude to a better place, does not mean they're siding against you.
Ha.. so anyways.. I find it funny that I live on a pond. Every day my few is quiet waters and a windmill and little fish sometimes splashing out of the water. I have the perfect combo for perfect quiet times everyday. But if you're heart isn't quiet, nothing is quiet. And I'm learning that what goes on inside me is a whole lot more important than my circumstances on the outside of me.
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