Love and Marriage

Today I am very excited Bill and I are going to a marriage conference put on by our church. When I say that the church we go to is our family... I mean it. It provides a safe place where this family goes to gain wisdom love others and let God be in the center of it all. I believe God brought us to Durango to be a significant part of this "community" (church) to make us better people. Not by the might or will of others but by putting God first in all of it and letting him work in our hearts and minds. Remember I said we were a church of perfectly imperfect people. When I look at my own imperfections and gain wisdom... God works in that. BIG TIME.

BK and I are also part of a small group. A group of amazing people who get together every Thursday night to study books some weeks and play games other weeks. Our children play together. We're honest, we respect each other (even in our differences) and we're blessed by these relationships.

Right now we are reading a book called Sacred Marriage (What if God Designed Marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?). This is one of those books that is giving me wisdom to see myself... to step outside of myself and think about the ways God would have me treat and love my husband. Even when I don't feel like it.

What I didn't reallize when I got married is how easy it is to keep a checklist. A checklist of the things I have done and the things my husband has not done. In talking with other women and men about marriage it is one of those things that is universal. It is totally human. And it comes out most vibrantly in the context of marriage. You live with the person day in and day out.. you see their faults moreso than anyone else you know. The other universal part is that this checklist is directly related to the thing Jesus died on the cross for... it is our OWN sin that makes it so easy to keep our checklists.

In reading this book this paragraph stood out to me. This is a paragraph written by a great Anglican writer William Law:

No one is of the Spirit of Christ but he that has the utmost compassion for sinners. Nor is there any greater sign of your own perfection that you find yourself all love and compassion toward them that are every weak and defective. And on the other hand, you have never less reason to be pleased with yourself than when you find yourself most angry and offended at the behavior of others. All sin is certainly to be hated and abhorred where it is, but then we must set ourselves against sin as we do sickness and diseases by showing ourselves tender and compassionate to the sick and diseased.

... when my respect slips into contempt, it's because I'm weak, not because my husband is failing. If I were really mature, I would have the same compassion for his weakness as Christ does. Respect is a spiritual discipline, an obligation of what I owe my husband.

Lord, please help me to have the spiritual discipline it takes to be compassionate for the weakness in others...especially my husband. Please show me how you want me to treat and love my husband. Lord, thanks for this awesome opportunity for me to learn more and know more about what loving well looks like to you. Bless this day, bless all my friends who read this. Amen.