A heavy heart...from Andrew's "sister".

Hello friends and readers of Andrew,

It is with a heavy heart that I write this. With Andrew's wife's permission, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jennifer Major and I'm sort of Andrew's adopted sister.

I'm here today to ask for prayer for Andrew and Barbara.

As most of you know, Andrew faces some significant health challenges. So until he recovers enough to resume his blog, I ask that you leave words of prayer and encouragement for him and Barbara, and pray for them both, as they need it.

My apologies for not going into detail, but suffice it to say, he is not well.

The Greatest Gift

Thanksgiving is over, and Black Friday has begun.

Actually, it began yesterday...Thanksgiving Day. Go figure.

I'm not going to vilify Black Friday. A lot of people really enjoy it, and for many, the hopes of a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving dissolve in a wave of snide criticism and bitterness. The mall's an escape. Granted, it would be better to solve the problems and live in harmony, but until then...yeah, the mall can be better.

And what should you buy, for that one-and-only person who chose to marry you, who chose to spend their life with...you?

I have the secret!

Lean in. Closer. We don't want to tell the world, do we?

Oh. Right. We do.

Well, here it is.

Get your mate what he or she asks for.

Requesting a gift is something beyond buying for ourselves. First and foremost, it's an outreach for approval...."this is what I like, and is that OK with you?"

Second, requested gifts are very often an expression of individual hope, a statement that says, "this is what I want to become". Approval plays a big role here, as well..."this is what I want to become, and will you help me?"

Third, a request is an extension of trust, leaving it in your hands to find that which was requested.

All too often, we buy our spouses mirrors, gifts that reflect what we want in life, or what we would like them to be.

I spoke with a man who was utterly shocked that his wife greeted his gift with pained indifference. What did he give her? A clothes-pressing machine.

And the formal, button-down husband who got a half-dozen tie-dyed shirts also got the message..."I want you to change", which he translated to "I don't really like you the way you are".

Maybe he did need to lighten up (he did, actually). But this wasn't the way.

Give the greatest gift you can.

RESPECT.

If you have the opportunity, please stop by at my other blog, "Starting The Day With Grace", for a grace quote - from an unexpected source - and a short commentary. It's at www.dailygracequote.wordpress.com.

Chosen To Marry

(Next week we'll start on our next series, "The Five Languages of Touch". Today is the day for a Thanksgiving-themed post.)

On this eve of Thanksgiving, it is perhaps a good opportunity to let your mate know how thankful you are for him or her.

You were chosen.

Think of that. You were wanted, above anyone else. Not just anyone else your spouse knew at the time, but all of those they had the future opportunity to meet.

It didn't end there. Your husband or wife has chosen to stay. In this age of drive-through divorces (which did exist in Las Vegas), your mate's chosen to stay.

Not because you're a thoroughly lovely person; no one is, all the time.

Not because he or she is 100% madly in love with you. Marriage tends to cure that.

Not because you're rich as Rockefeller and your spouse can't let go of the lifestyle...ever looked at the divorce statistics of rich celebrities and "beautiful people"?

It's because you were chosen, you're loved, and your mate made a promise.

CHOSEN, LOVED, PROMISE...THOSE ARE A GOOD REASON TO BE THANKFUL.

We hope that you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

(If you have the chance, please visit my other blog, www.dailygracequote.wordpress.com, for a quotation and a short commentary of grace in marriage.)

This post is linked to Wedded Wednesday, a compendium of really cool posts on marriage. If you click on the logo below, you'll be taken to www.messymarriage.com, which is the springboard to a wealth of information. It's run by Beth Steffaniak, who has a heart for marriage and a soul for God!

Zero Tolerance?

Last week a new hashtag emerged...high-school students were taking pictures of their "healthy" but unappetizing school lunches, and Tweeting them with #thanksmichelleobama, a reference to the First Lady's support of increasing the nutritional value of school meals.

While Mrs. Obama is being unfairly pilloried - she doesn't prepare the menus, after all, and we did need to move beyond pizza and doughnuts - the kids have a point. Some of the food looks like dog vomit, and would you eat "Spanish Rice" with no salt?

It's just the latest installment of the "zero tolerance" philosophy that has replaced reasoned thinking since the 1990s. If lunches are not nutritious...make the transition from pizza to bean curd immediately. That sort of decisive action will somehow make up for the years in which Pop-Tartswere considered one of the major food groups. Right?

Riiight.

What it's really about is control; it's a convenient way to wield power cloaked in what seems to be common-sense justification.

Telling kids they can't bring a pistol to school is one thing; telling adults they can't take a pair of fingernail clippers onto an airliner is quite another. One makes sense, because it can marry immature intent with capability; the other is moronic, because fingernail clippers have no capability beyond clipping fingernails.

Is "zero tolerance" common in marriage?

I'm afraid it is. Consider these scenarios, which are disguised as House Rules -

• No eating or drinking allowed in the car
• No feet on the furniture
• Don't touch my tools
• ...and so on

Again, they seem reasonable within certain contexts, but in terms of  "real life" they are typically put up not only to protect personal boundaries...but to project power.

No food or drink in the car? Sure, it'll keep the upholstery clean, and give the illusion of keeping up the value...but cars lose value over time. Fact. Period.

It's kind of like an Asian observation of Western time-saving techniques..."when they've saved all that time, what will they spend it on?"

The interior may be pristine, but a car with 150,000 miles on it is still old.

Feet on the furniture? I personally don't like it much, but after a hard day, someone - like my wife - just needs to put her feet up in a safe place,where she can relax and watch some television.

But furniture is designed to be used, and if I occasionally overlook B's feet on the sofa, she feels at home,and I have allowed a small bit of grace to pass to her...the grace defined by keeping my mouth shut.

But she should never touch my tools. I would much rather she have to drive into town to get a hammer if she can't find "hers", rather than use mine.

I mean, she might break it.

What zero tolerance in marriage accomplishes is the maintenance of distance. It makes my wife feel not only like a second-class citizen, but one under constant scrutiny. On probation.

Zero tolerance is a prison.

Your thoughts?

In you have the chance,please stop by my other blog, "Starting the Day With Grace" at www.dailygracequote.wordpress.com.

Did You Notice Them? - Five Minute Friday

Once again, it's Five-Minute Friday, hosted by Kate Montaug. The challenge is to write for five minutes on a given "theme word", posted by Kate on Thursday night...and then stop when the timer dings.

Today's word is notice.

GO.

Did you notice them?

They were in Wal-Mart today - the elderly couple. He was wearing a cap that said "Korean War Veteran",and a windbreaker with a small American flag pinned to one lapel. There was a little Korean flag pinned to the other.

She was in a wheelchair. He was walking straight and tall, and pushing her. She pushed the shopping cart. Quite a sight.

Occasionally he would rest one hand on her thin shoulder, and she would put up her hand to touch his.

Did you see them in the canned-food aisle? He was trying to reach something on the top shelf, when a young, tattooed homie walked past.

The gangbanger stopped, turned, and then took down what the veteran needed. Then he pushed the cart through the store for them. He called the veteran "sir", and called his wife "ma'am".

Did you notice them?

Did it give you hope?

STOP

If you have the chance, please stop by my other blog, "Starting The Day With Grace", at www.dailygracequote.wordpress.com.

Respecting Your Spouse's Dreams - The Seventh Pillar

Today we're at the end of "Seven Pillars of Marital Respect", and it's fitting to conclude the series with a look into the future - the future held in your mate's dreams.

Most of us can assume that we have a relatively long and indefinite time to live stretching out ahead of us. We shape it through our daily actions, but we animate it through our dreams.

Hopes and dreams are what we used from childhood to propel us into tomorrow, to give reassurance that tomorrow would be all right, or much more than "just all right". Our dreams are sometimes what got us over a rough past, and can be the hook from heaven that can help us through a difficult today.

Dreams deserve respect, because they're the most personal and intimate part of a person...often hidden from everyone but God. They lift us up; not only the specific aspiration, but everything. They put a more pleasant and hopeful cast on life,and we all need hope.

Being entrusted with knowledge of your spouse's dream is a high honor.

And yet, it's often trashed. Consider the writer I know, who received some interest in a novel she'd been working on for years. She went to tell her husband about it.

His reply was, "Yeah, I guess it's based on something you read about." And he walked away.

I know the gentleman in question - he's given to offhand, cutting remarks, sometimes without a real desire to hurt.

But this time he did hurt. He devalued his wife's dream, and her enjoyment of the possibility of future success. She doesn't talk about her writing any more. Not to him, not to anyone. I don't know if she still writes.

I don't think the husband meant to do this; I believe he just wasn't interested, and wanted the possibility of having to listen to her description to go away.

Sometimes, the intention is malign, through a basis in fear. Some people feel threatened by a spouse's dreams, worried that they'll be somehow left behind.

Some simply don't want their spouse to achieve something separately, like the wife who kept putting trivial roadblocks in her husband's opportunity to take art classes...his clothes would smell of paint, and how could he justify being away from home one night a week? And what would the neighbors think, with him pursuing such an unmanly activity? Eventually he gave up the idea. I wonder if he might have been a modern-day Monet? We'll never know.

Togetherness is great; but God made us as individuals, and as long as one's hopes don't carry one away from commitment to the marriage, it's wrong to crush them out of fear.

What can you do to support your mate's imagined future?

• Listen and learn - encourage your husband or wife to share their hopes for their future, without forcing a link to your together future. Make an effort to remember the details, because it's the details of a dream that bring it to life.
• Contribute - offer to help, but be sure it's an offer you're willing to meet...if you're married to a writer, you may open yourself up to reading endless drafts of a manuscript. (If the writing's really bad, chalk it up tho the "for worse" part of the marriage vow and keep smiling.)
• Give space - some people, usually men, will get so bullish on the subject of their spouse's dreams that they'll take them over in an effort to ensure success. "I want to do it myself!" isn't just for kids.
• Celebrate success - understand what the milestones of success are, and celebrate their attainment.
• Share your own dreams - be willing to be vulnerable, and share that which moves and motivates you

There's clearly a lot more that could be said...how to allocate family finances to support the restoration of that '32 Chevrolet, how to share household duties in a way that allows the writer to write...but their successful negotiation has to come from respect.

Please share - how does your spouse support your dreams? And how do you support theirs?

(If you have the chance, please visit my other blog, www.dailygracequote.wordpress.com, for a quotation and a short commentary of grace in marriage.)

This post is linked to Wedded Wednesday, a compendium of really cool posts on marriage. If you click on the logo below, you'll be taken to www.messymarriage.com, which is the springboard to a wealth of information. It's run by Beth Steffaniak, who has a heart for marriage and a soul for God!

Communication Breakdown

It happens in every marriage - suddenly you and your mate seem to be always at odds, talking at cross purposes...and you know it.

"You're not hearing me!"

"You're not letting me finish!"

"Now you're mad at me"

"You just aren't comprehending!"

Sometimes this is symptomatic of a deeper rift, when a couple has started growing apart. In those cases, counseling is definitely called for. run, don't walk, because if you can't communicate, the drift will only get worse.

But sometimes it's a "Wizard of Oz" paradigm...the lack of communication feels huge, but it's really just the Little Man Behind The Curtain. It's trying to be big and powerful and scary.

The only way it can harm your marriage is if your harm it yourself, in reaction to fear.

Our communication style, both talking and listening, is governed, to a large degree, by our emotions. Emotions are the mot changeable thing about us; a sad song can depress some people for a whole day, and finding a dim on the sidewalk can cause jubilation.

And so it goes with the way we talk to our mates. Generally, it all works out pretty well; they know our ups and downs, highs and lows,and unconsciously make allowances.

But sometimes, like two waves meeting at the peak, our 'bad' corresponds with our mate's 'bad', and we're suddenly talking at cross purposes...and at each others' throats.

How does a minor miscommunication escalate?

Simple. By labeling. If a couple isn't on the same page, saying "we're not getting through to each other right now, let's talk later" defuses the situation.

But when one or the other says,"You never hear me!", it's both an exaggeration, and an accusation.

The label of chronic miscommunication has long legs, and it sill survive far past the time when the original issue is forgotten.

How to avoid it?

• Banish the words "you always" and "you never" from you speech and thought.
• When a conversation starts going south, try to end it with the promise to talk later.
• If the conversation is ended, don't reignite it. Some of the most damaging arguments come from a sharp but short disagreement, ending when one party leaves the room...and the he or she comes back to stir the pot, and it gets far,far worse.

What are your thoughts? How do you avoid letting a temporary breakdown in communication hurt your marriage?

If you have a moment, please visit my other blog, "Starting The Day With Grace" at www.dailygracequote.wordpress.com for a quote and short commentary on marriage.