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What Makes a Love Story?

Posted in life, Love, Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged Commitment, Disney, Disney Pixar, Love, Love Story, Marriage, Stephanie Mayer, Twilight, Up, What Makes a Love Story? on January 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

I saw the quote to the left the other day, and pondered it’s words and message.

I have read all of the “Twilight” series (minus the last … one day I will get it read too) and really enjoyed the story it told. I also think that Stephanie Mayer is a brilliant and captivating story writer. But, would I call the Twilight books a love story? No.

And then I re-watched a video clip from the Disney-Pixar hit, “Up” …

It was in the short second half of the eight minute clip that starts the movie, that a love story is told in a most sensitive, genuine and real way. It is in the story telling of the life story of Carl and Ellie that a love story is constructed.

It is the story of a couple who were not perfect, who were not popular, who were not wealthy, who were not successful in all that they pursued, who did not achieve all that they had set out and dreamed of doing.

But, it was also the story of a couple who worked together, who dreamed together, who experienced joys and sorrows together, who were committed to each other … together. And it is that, their mutual commitment and doing together that enabled them to live the love story.

That is my idea of a love story. And I don’t believe that you need to be animated to live it!

Check it out …

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One Flesh

Posted in GOD, life, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Genesis 2, Marriage, One Flesh, One Person, Together on October 26, 2011| 2 Comments »

One flesh … just the combination of those two words makes us blush, or snicker, or raise our eyebrows at each other … in church. And when your adolescent child refers to yourself and your hubby as ‘one flesh’, well, then you know you have a story to tell.

It is not as if our kids have not heard the the phrase ‘one flesh’ before. It is one they have probably heard at church, at school (they attend a Christian school), and at home. The context in which they are familiar with it is from Genesis 2:21-24 :

“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

So, for our kids, it is simply a statement of fact … until … they reach adolescents, and their sexual awareness awakens. Then they too will blush and snicker when they hear those words. Recently though, hubby and I were ‘accused’ … at the dinner table … of being one flesh. You can imagine the looks that hubby and I shared, along with raised eyebrows. The mutual look at each other communicating, non-verbally, “they have no idea how true it is,” just about had us both in uproarious laughter.

Then, one of us had the ability to control our laughter and ask what they meant. The response was great! “Well you two are similar in how you answer us, and how you want us to live that you are like one person.” We all laughed, but hubby and I looked at each other, one of those eye-locked moments when we were truly of one mind, as we contemplated what was said.

I do not think there could be a more desired, less hoped for compliment that our kids could ever say of us.

You see our marriage is as far from perfect as is possible, we have both wronged each other in more ways than either of us would ever admit to any other living human being, and there have been numerous times when (validly, for the standards of the day and time we are living) we have both stayed together for the long term health and benefit of our kids. We have failed our vows and original commitment to each other over and over. We are individually, and together, flawed flesh.

Yet, out of the mouths of our babe, came the most beautiful words. And then it hit me, our ‘oneness’, our being ‘one flesh’ has far more to do with the one who put us together, the one who made us for the other, than anything that hubby or I could ever do. The story of our being ‘one flesh’ is one that reveals the Maker, and the miracles He does, despite our fleshly humanness.

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I Hate Divorce

Posted in life, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Abuse, Broken Homes, Divorce, I Hate Divorce, Irreconsibable Differences, Teens of Divorce on October 14, 2011| 2 Comments »

I HATE divorce!

That is the thought that crosses my mind almost every day at work. There is a moment, in just about every day that I go to work, when something happens, or I see something that reminds me of my disdain for the word divorce, and how devastating it is to those who it touches.

Please know that I am not one who believes that a woman (or man) should stay in a marriage where they are being truly abused by their spouse. No one should stay in a home, a marriage which is dangerous or harmful to their health. If indeed abuse is the impetus for divorce, and not irreconcilable differences, but the numbers might indicate more of the later than the former.

Working in a school gives me plenty of opportunities to see the effects of divorce on the children (adolescent and teenage) of the couples who have dissolved their marriages. These effects walk through the doors of schools by the dozens and hundreds, every day. I am amazed at the increasing numbers of students from divorced parents. I am even more amazed at how profoundly it does effect these developing adults.

I watch students struggle to do school work, when their hearts are breaking. I watch teens anxiety with … well, being teens (and all that comes with that package), while dealing with the lack of a sense of security that comes from mom or dad moving out. I watch adolescence struggle with peer relationships while also dealing with relationships with mom’s new boyfriend, or dad’s new girlfriend.

These students are individuals who I feel such pity for, and who I admire greatly at the same time. They have such pain in their lives, and yet they show such strength to get through each day.

It was heartbreaking, one day, to look around at a group of students who I was familiar with. Almost half of the students in the grouping were from homes of divorced parents. I heard them discuss marriage, and divorce. Those students whose parents were divorced were the most adamant that couples needed to work harder, and not give up so easily. They also expressed that people needed to stop thinking of divorce as a way to end their problems.

How interesting that it was the ones who had been most affected by divorce who had the most uncompromising views of it. Maybe it was because, like me (in my experiential ignorance) they hate divorce. And, in their cases, they know what they are saying (or thinking) is true, because it is the life they live.

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What Saved Our Marriage … in Bed

Posted in life, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Bed, in Bed, Marriage, Sleep, Television, What Saved our Marriage on October 3, 2011| 2 Comments »

With our anniversary just last week, I’ve had marriage on my brain.

After twenty-two years we have had a spat or two. We have had our struggles with co-existing together. We have had times when it has seemed that we have had more differences than similarities.

A few years back I found something that may just have saved our marriage from complete and utter ruin. It is something that is so simple, and is available to all. It is also a cure without any cost (except for those who do not have this at their disposal).

My cure has made such a profound change in our marriage, that I am actually thinking of finding a publisher who would jump at the chance to publish and sell this idea to the public. I am convinced that it could top the New York Times Best Seller list. I am convinced that the title alone is one that Oprah would publish.

Now, you may be wondering when I might be telling you the secret, and the title, of this marriage enriching, life changing book … but, I am a little hesitant to tell you too quickly. I fear that you will read the title of my book, laugh hysterically, and then click off my blog post to look for a more ‘serious’ approach to marriage enhancement. This is a serious topic, and this approach did seriously improve my marriage … particularly in bed!

Okay, if you promise, in your heart (like, cross your heart, hope to die, stick a finger in your eye … kind of promise) to not click off my post until you read to the end, then I will share my secret with you … yes? Okay then, here it goes … the title of my best selling (well, in the future) book is … “How Moving a Television into our Bedroom Saved our Marriage.”

D O N ‘ T go to another blog, or Facebook, or Tetris … keep reading … it might save your marriage too!

You see, hubby and I, we are certainly a study in contrasts. Sometimes I think that the only thing we have in common is our three kids! He likes salty, I like sweet. He likes road trips, I like airplanes. He likes going to sporting events, I like going for a walk. He is a night hawk, I am a morning person.

It is in the last set of contrasts that our marriage was suffering. We almost never went to bed together! I am ready almost any night, any time after 8pm to crash my head onto my pillow … hubby is usually not ready until closer to 11pm. So, one day I (yes, I, not hubby) suggested we move a small television into our bedroom. And we did.

This meant that, finally, we would climb beneath the sheets at the same time. I lay my head on my pillow and start snoring (so hubby says), and he watches every news and sports highlight program available. And we can be together 🙂 Sometimes we even climb in bed and talk about our days, or have visits from one of the kids, or sleep, or don’t sleep …

Whatever it is we do once we get into bed, we get to spend the time there together … it is so much better than climbing into bed alone.

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Wedding Day Memories

Posted in life, Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged Anniversary, Life, Marriage, Memories, Wedding, Wedding Day Memories, Wonder on September 30, 2011| 3 Comments »

Memories are funny things. There are some details of the past that we remember, and other details are forgotten forever.

Twenty-two years ago today I went to a high school football game. My brother was playing on one of the teams, and my fiance was coaching that same team. It was a perfect autumn day … the sun shining brightly, the air crisp, the leaves on the trees in the early stages of turning from bright green to hues of gold and red. It is a day I remember so well, because it was the day of the biggest argument of our dating relationship … the day before our wedding.

I have no idea what we were arguing about, I can only remember the intensity of the emotions I felt. Obviously, whatever it was that had vexed us was resolved, and the following day I met him at the end of the aisle, where we traded in our individual lives for a future together.

The memories of our wedding day decrease with each passing year. If there are this many fewer memories after twenty-two years, will I even remember that I am married in twenty-two more?

But, what I do remember are the vivid broad strokes of our day.

I remember that our wedding started late, and it wasn’t because I was trying to be fashionably late … our soloist was flying into New Brunswick from Toronto, and his flight was late.

I remember that the pastor we had to marry us thought he was at a preach-a-thon … he spoke for about an hour after the processional, before actually marrying us.

I remember that my mother in law wore gray … much cheerier than the black that her mother wore at her wedding.

I remember that, as I looked at my groom awaiting me at the end of the aisle, he was gray (like his mother’s dress), and looked as though he might pass out … so much for the groom’s look of awe at the brides glowing beauty …

So, not all memories are so sweet 😉 but, alas, my memories of our wedding day were also not all so depressing.

I remember a twinge of regret as my dad ‘gave me away’ to my groom.

I remember how confident I felt as I repeated my vows, and said ‘I do.’

I remember that when my groom slipped his ring (a most simple band) on my finger I could not imagine a more wonderful, a more exquisite piece of jewelery in the world.

I remember gladly signing my name on the marriage license.

I remember driving off to our honeymoon (a trip, by car, of over 3000 miles … one way … and hubby wonders why I have little interest in road trips), reliving the details of the day, together.

The memories of that day fill my mind and my heart at times like this, when we remember and celebrate our corporate survival, and our hope of many years to come.

Happy Anniversary Hubby

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Endurance

Posted in Love, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Endurance, Life, Love, Marathon, Marriage, Memories, Race, Short Track on September 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It is a rare thing for an athlete to have both a gifting for speed and for endurance. The short track runner needs to have the human equivalent of fuel injection … they need to start fast and keep it going to the end. The marathon runner needs to be able to pace his or her self … it is a long run, and so their energies need to be spread out over a longer period of time, running consistently until they cross the finish line.

Endurance has become, in our society, a word associated primarily with athletics. I am no athlete, but I do know that my natural tendency in living is that of the short track runner.

I can start well, I have amazing energies for short term projects (and if they are long term, they are still sitting, unfinished, in a closet in my house), I am fantastic at responding in a crises, I am a confident trouble-shooter. I struggle to know how to be balanced, I struggle to start anything slowly, I can easily shelve any project or problem when I get bored of it. I struggle to keep going when I cannot see the finish line.

When I think of the word endurance, I think … marriage.

This week hubby and I will celebrate twenty-two years of marriage together. To some we have already run a marathon (amen to that), and to others we have only completed a short track event. To us … it depends on the day 😉

Twenty-two years is more than half of my life (I was married w a y too young, at twenty … now your brains are all doing the math). I have quite literally grown up with my hubby. We have gone through our twenties together, we have gone through our thirties together, and now we are speeding through our forties (he, of course, is speeding through them MUCH faster than I). We have had the joys of sharing the births of our three children, and the sorrows of losing five others. We have moved, quite literally, from east to west, together. We have loved and learned and lived … together.

When we were first married, we were both so into it! We were so focused on each other, on making sure that we were meeting each others needs. We wanted to please each other, we wanted to love each other. As life has moved on our focus on each other has been back-seated by the million and one other important things in life … children, jobs, home, yard, church, friends, etc., etc., etc. It is so easy to see the motivation behind the Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond hit “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” …

She He

You don’t bring me flowers                                        You hardly talk to me anymore
You don’t sing me love songs                                     When you come through that door at the end of the day…
I remember when you couldn’t wait to love me
Used to hate to leave me
Now after loving me late at night                              When it’s good for you, babe.
When you just roll over and turn out the light… And you’re feeling all right
And you don’t bring me flowers anymore

Those memories of early in the relationship ‘short track’ love, can be a great and horrible wedge once you are into the endurance run of ’til death do us part’ marriage. It is so easy to remember and reminisce about the new (and young) love stage of relationship. Often it is easier to remember it than it is to maintain it. And it is easier to remember what your spouse used to do for you and I, than to remember what you (I) used to do for them.

This marriage thing … it is definitely an endurance run. And, it is a tandem run, as well … it means that the success or failure of your marriage is dependent on both runners giving their all, all the time. Keeping pace with where your partner is heading. Being alert to possible ailments or distractions, for yourself, and for your partner. It also means that, at times, you will be the stronger one, and you will need to pull them along when they are weak, or ill, or just not on top of their race. But another key element to running the race together is rehydrating, refreshing each other … sometimes that refreshment comes from being apart, but usually it means making time to be together.

Like water to a weary runners body, time away, as a couple is not just a nice thing to do, but it is necessary if the marriage is to be kept alive. Sometimes it can be accomplished as easily as taking a walk together, or going to bed early and locking the door (there is nothing so disturbing to adolescent and teenage children, as a closed parents bedroom door, BEFORE they go to bed … their response is equal to the classic ‘heebie-jeebies’ … personally I am thinking of investing in a ‘do not disturb’ sign … just to keep shocking them … I figure my goal in life is to shock them before they shock me 🙂 … but, I digress). Sometimes it is a dinner out … not with another couple, but alone, making eye contact and talking. And, sometimes it is a day or more away, together, to reconnect just as a couple, and rediscover what it is that drew you both together in the first place (sometimes that is more advantageous than what is keeping you together presently … if it is not a happy and productive leg of the marathon).

So, we pace ourselves, my hubby and I … and hopefully we can make a time of refreshment possible … so that we can keep pressing on to the finish line … together, in tandem.

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I Miss Everything about You

Posted in Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged I Miss You, Love, Marriage on May 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

All day this song has been going through my head …

I’m not sure if it was watching the recent Royal Wedding, or hormones, or, simply enough is enough … I want hubby back home!

He left on March 22 (my birthday, but I’m not bitter …), with our youngest two. They drove to Florida (?????), as part of his sabbatical. After just short of four weeks our oldest daughter and I flew (we are much smarter) to Florida to spend a week with them, and bring home our younger daughter. So, now I’ve been back (without son and hubby) for over a week, and I’ve had enough!

I loved sleeping alone … for the first few weeks … no snoring (or, at least no one to tell me I am snoring), no news programs at bedtime (only DIY Network), no middle of the night traipsing to the bathroom (there’s no one there to startle me, while he’s doing the traipsing … and seat warming), no house-awakening sighs, because the dogs breathing woke him up (maybe because the beast is sleeping on his side of the bed?).

But now, I am not loving the solo bed experience … no one to warm my eternally chilled tootsies, no one to explain the news to me (really I do get it on my own, but I like how he tells it, better than Lloyd Robertson), no one to kiss good night (although the beast does love to hug), no one to say … I love you …

Separation has been good. And I even recommend it! And, honestly, we needed it. It has been … a … year(s) …

So many things get in the way of loving each other. But mostly it is our individual, independent, focus that keeps us from concentrating on striving for ‘us’. His job, my job, his responsibilities, my responsibilities, even ‘our’ kids. But if the pyramid (and I’m not talking some Amway pyramid scheme) of our priorities is out of whack, then everything crumbles.

As I sit here, I realize that we give lip service to how God is no. 1, our marriage is no. 2, our kids are no. 3 … but where do we spend our time? Matthew 6:21 says, “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I guess you could even substitute ‘treasure’ with time (where you spend most of your time, that’s where your heart really is), or money (where you spend most of your money, that’s where your heart really is), or thoughts (what you spend most of your time thinking about, that’s where your heart really it). Either way, I know I have been a hypocrite in what I say is my treasure, and where I spend my time, my money, and my thoughts.

So, hubby …

“I miss those blue eyes

how you kiss me at night,

I miss the way we sleep

I miss the way we breath

I miss everything about you

After all the things we’ve been through

I miss everything about you” …

There’s more I miss … but mom is probably reading this one! 😉

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The Worst Advice I ever Followed

Posted in GOD, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Advice, Marriage, Submission on May 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Advice must be the most free-flowing thing out there! There’s advice on our tellies, there’s advice at work, there’s advice from our computers, there’s advice from friends, hubby’s, and (of course) our mother’s, and, once one reaches the archaic age that I have reached, one receives (unsolicited) advice from our kids!

Sometimes advice is good, sometimes bad, and, mostly, ignored! (why is is that I always seem to ignore the good advice, and follow the bad? Will someone out there please give me advice … just realize I will probably not follow if it is good).

I live my life determined to NOT REGRET the choices that I make in life. That does not mean I do not make errors in my choice-making. It just means that when I make a decision, I believe that, in the end there will be good from it, even if the only good is character-shaping (and man, have I provided character-shaping from my life’s decisions). And, if I did make a rotten decision, with adverse affects on my, well, my mantra to myself is always, ‘suck it up buttercup’, or ‘you made your bed, you lie in it’!

There is one time, though, that still haunts me. It wasn’t just the advice that was the problem, but the source of that advice. And, every time I am reminded of it, I wish I could kick myself squarely in the behind!

It happened a number of years ago.

My hubby was in the midst of a period of professional decision-making, and, as any wifey knows, job-related decision-making by hubby will have a ripple-down affect on said wifey. And I was not in a ripple-down frame of mind!

It was becoming more and more obvious that he was ready to make his decisions, but that he was awaiting my frame of mind to swing to his side of the brain (a near impossible feat for any female brain cells to do). I always hate it when hubby is certain of a decision, because he becomes a not-so-subtle salesman, and I HATE salesmen! (just so you know, he is not usually in this ‘salesman’ frame of mind … only when I am on the ‘other’ side of an issue)

So, I sought advice from someone that we both knew, had enjoyed learning from, and he even had professional counseling experience. I told him my quandary, and awaited his words of wisdom …

“The Bible says for wives to submit to your husband, maybe this is an area where you need to do this.”

Okay, ladies … do … NOT … load … your … guns!

I do need to admit that I chose to say ‘obey’ in my vows. I am not against the concept of submission! As a matter of fact, in my idealistic, fully female brain (heart and soul), I do believe that marriage works better if submission is involved. But, what I have come to know and understand more fully, about submission, since taking the ‘bad’ advice, is that it goes both ways! It is mutual submission that is required of us, and that my requirement of submission to my husband, is as serious a Biblical and mariatial commitment as his requirement to love me … as Christ loves the Church!

Ladies, this is where we’ve got the easier part! And ladies, who are not married, if the love in your life (now, or in the future) is not willing to love you as much as Christ loves the Church (remember Good Friday? Christ loves the Church THAT much), dump him like yesterdays news!

Now, I’m gonna go off on a little ‘momma advice tangent’ here …

If he loves you that much …

-he will honor your body ’til he’s committed to you at the alter (HIS sacrifice … well, maybe yours too, but, if he’s really loving you like he’s supposed to … hands off!)

-he will not hurt you … period! Okay, hurts will inadvertently happen, but his decision-making will be focused on honoring you! And that, baby girls, does not hurt!

-he will desire to know you. Now don’t go, goin’ all biblical on me with the sexual connotations of ‘knowing’ you … he will strive to know you, better than he knows his favorite sport team, better than the latest political polls, better than the names of every vehicle that drives by … because Christ knows His church like the back of his nail-pierced hand! And your sweetie is required to know you like that!

-he will love you to the point of death. Sounds a little over the top, I know, but Christ is the example here, and that’s the distance He is willing to go for you.

But, I digress …

So the advice I took, and the advice-giver …

He was (probably still is) a very profession-focused, successful, well celebrated Christian man. Who, in the years following, after profession-seeking thousands of miles from his family (wife and children), was divorced. His children, I am sure, profoundly, affected.

In his drive to achieve his PERSONAL professional goals, which he did, he lost sight of the second part of the biblical reference he had quoted to me. And, in the meantime, lost the most intimate relationship, the most grand opportunity to follow Christ’s model. The one earthly relationship that Christ so values, that He uses most often as a metaphor His love for us.

So, I am still kicking myself in the behind, but …

So, my character is still being shaped, and I have no regrets, and I learned a lesson or two, and the bed I’ve made, well I lie in it … but it’s not so bad …

^“Wives,

understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ.

The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church,

not by domineering but by cherishing.

So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership,

wives should likewise submit to their husbands.

Husbands,

go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church

—a love marked by giving, not getting.

Christ’s love makes the church whole.

His words evoke her beauty.

Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her,

dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness.

And that is how husbands ought to love their wives.

They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.”

Ephesians 5:22-28

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Just a Regular Day?

Posted in FAMILY, GOD, life, Love, Marriage, The Kids, women, WONDER, tagged Hope, Life, Regular, Wonder on March 10, 2011| 3 Comments »

It has been ‘just a regular day’ today …

6am – alarm goes off (but what if it hadn’t?)

7:30am – kids awaken (but what if they hadn’t?)

8:30am – start work (but what if I had no work that I love?)

3:30pm – purchase produce (what if I had no means to do that?)

4:30pm – prepare dinner (what if the cupboards were bare?)

5:30pm – eat dinner with family (what if I had no family?)

10pm – dream bedtime (what if I had no bed?)

There are many ‘what ifs’ in each and every ‘regular’ day. They are the what ifs that, if they were different, if they altered, my regular day would be catastrophic, disheartening, life-changing. I spoke to a teen today, whose uncle (with young children) is dying. No day is ‘regular’ for him, anymore. Today his wife and children wish for a ‘regular’ day again. As an excitement junkie, I can easily become bored with all things regular. But today reminded me that ‘regular’ can mean real, beautiful, satisfying, worth-living-for … LIFE. And it’s better than the alternative.

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