The Bond of MarriagePeople talk about a bond in marriage. There is one. It is invisible but it is there. The preacher in Ecclesiastes describes it this way:It's better to ha
ve a partner than go it alone.Share the work, share the wealth.And if one falls down, the other helps,But if there's no one to help, tough!Two in a bed warm each other.Alone, you shiver all night.By yourself you're unprotected.With a friend you can face the worst. (Ecc. 4:9-12 MSG)The writer speaks of the "wealth" in marriage and what I can tell you is: there is great wealth in a good marriage. It is enough to have a good marriage and live in a small house and drive average cars. The wealth of your marriage will sustain you when houses and cars fall apart. He tells us "with a friend, you can face the worst." I like that a lot. The wealth in marriage will get your through the worst and it's important that the worst happens--even in the best of marriages. Marriages are strengthens by going through the worst, not around it.Marriage is about being a companion. The word "companion" means in French a 'beggar of bread." In marriage you will find yourselves begging for a lot of things: health when one of you is sick; comfort when one of you is in pain; satisfaction when one of you is discontent and joy when sadness grips your heart. It's better to beg for the bread of life together than to go it alone. This passage more than others in the Bible paints the truest picture of marriage that I know. I wanted you to know about it.The bond of marriage is the making of one story out of two stories. Alone, all you have is your story. But in marriage, it's not just your story that matters anymore. When you marry, you relinquish having an individual story. You begin in a new way. It's now, "our story." The man brings his own plot and drama and the woman brings hers. Both stories unfold in a new way. Marriage is all about knowing your partner's story inside and out. It's about sharing now in new scenes; new drama that will certainly unfold and blending the past into the present which will yield into the future.; being found; being discovered and being known so deeply that it takes your breath away.You will be more in love in your fifth year than you are in your first week. Your love in the 20th year will in no way resemble the love in your second year. It will get better with time as you work to build your relationship and never coast in it. At least you should be. I say that because the more time you share; the more stories you live together the more you will discover depths and strengths in your spouse that you never knew before. Time has away of testing these bonds and so does the drama of life. Let me be clear, your marriage will not get better unless you work at your marriage to be better. This needs to be the goal hold by both of you. I've found there is no 50/50 in marriage. Sometimes, I've had to go 80% and more and so has Mom. Rarely do we ever go half way together and it works. We're both strong, gifted, spirited and soulful and this requires compromise, negotiating and forgiveness.The glue to your bond will be this: understanding your need to forgive and be forgiven. You will find in your marriage that you will hurt and be hurt. You will disappoint and be disappointed in. The salve of forgiveness should be applied often and thick--without reserve. Anger drives wedges into the space between you. Hidden issues that you are not aware of are at work causing pressure and the pressure will build till one of you blows your stack. Be quick to forgive. Try to make it a rule to never go to bed angry. If you live with that rule, then you'll have alot of late nights to resolve the tension. But the marriage bed is no place for the tension that can arise. Deal with that in the den and keep the bedroom safe for openness, vulnerability and mutuality.Through the years, you'll find that particular issues will always seem to surface. I don't know what yours will be but ours are predictable and both Mom and I know the tender spaces and thin places that if we go there--we should only proceed with great caution, tremendous care and undeniable unconditional love. To go there in anger is to make more danger than you can possibly imagine.Always choose your spouse over your children. I've seen hundreds make the mistake of loving their children more than their spouse and it's regrettable when this happens. The marriage love is the most supreme, highest and most sacred bond on earth. The Bible says it is so and Jesus re-emphasized it in his teachings. So, keeping it first and the priority will help you as parents when your children try to divide you and split you--first in decision making and then later in competing priorities.Hopefully, you'll age well together. The smooth skin will become wrinkled and it's in the wrinkles and folds that make the deepest places for love to hold you. What will be incredible is this: as you age and change your love will grow and expand for all the changes and ways you will change. Don't resist the change because your marriage will grow and the love will expand.When you choose your spouse, you are choosing them for life--not a season.There will be nothing better for your own soul that to find and develop life long companion. This doesn't just happens. It means dying to yourself. Dying to your illusions about life and marriage and living in the truth with lots and lots of grace and then more grace when you have run out of grace--there will be more. There will be. Your marriage is a story that will have many plots and characters that come and go but central of all are the two of you. No one else should come in an be shared in your marriage. Marriage is for two not three.
Letters to My Children: Chiefly About Life
[youtube]https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OynlzqtxmY[/youtube] Ten Things I Want to Impress Upon My Children by Stephen W. SmithIt's called imprinting. If you take a moment and watch the 40 second video, you'll see a man who has imprinted on the brain for four baby geese that he is the new Mother Goose--and that he should be followed, mimicked and imitated.This is what I'm realizing now in being a grandparent. I became the sort of male Goose for my four sons. They mimicked what they saw me do. My actions, right and wrong deeply imprinted their souls. As a counselor, I can trace how a person handles conflict by asking about how they saw conflict expressed in the home. You can do the same with love's beginnings by asking, ' How did you experience love from your parents?' Some imprinting is good; some is necessary and some is in need of redemption.I confess that I did not do everything right as a father. In the early years, I was obsessed with my work. I worked way too many hours helping many other people and at times feel like I gave the left-overs to my wife and children. Call it Absentee Imprinting. Thanks be to God--I was able to see my wicked ways and make life altering choices. I became a father who was engaged-- a dad who cared--an involved male role model speaking into the impressionable souls of my four boys.
Imprinting is the very serious work of spiritual formation. Here are some things I find myself thinking about ---wishing--hoping and longing--to imprint before I leave the planet:1) Now I want to imprint that tenderness is more powerful than strength.2) I want to imprint that love is the only power that really transforms--not obedience.3) I want to imprint that no job is ever worth becoming an absentee dad--no job.4) I want to imprint that being a great husband will be make you become the greatest of dads.5) I want to imprint that delighting in your child will become your greatest gift you can ever give to your sons and daughters.6) I want to imprint that you need to figure out how you need to delight in your children and be about that work more than the vocation you are involved with right now.7) I want to imprint that the souls of your young children are very, very impressionable and don't ever think they are not watching, mimicking and modeling.8)I want to imprint that before you yell at your children, walk away and get a grip on your own unresolved issues that are causing you to become so angry.9)I want to imprint on my own sons that their greatest model of how to father is learning from the God of Jesus Christ.10) I want to imprint on my sons and daughters in love to be careful about being overly committed to technology because no iPhone, internet dialogue or on-line shopping will ever replace the sacred moments you could be watching your child instead of watching the computer screen.Questions to Consider:1 What three things would you like to imprint into your children's minds so that they will NEVER, EVER forget?2.As you reflect on your on spiritual formation, what three things do you feel your own parents or guardians invested in you that you will take to the grave?3. How do your values differ from the world's values of what is important to leave behind? Author's Note: I'd really like to hear from you about your thoughts on this concept and title as it may morph into a book of some form with many of these ideas fleshed out. So please--I invite the feedback and leaving comments. I will help me determine the viability. Thanks so much)
The Greatest Gift of All
Few of us can ever fully understand an event in life unless we have experienced it. Life, itself has become my greatest teacher. I know about cancer because I am married to a cancer survivor. I understand the heart and dilemmas of a missionary because i have shared that journey. I understand the private agonies of a pastor because I pastored churches for over 25 years. I know what it is to be a son; a father, an uncle and husband because as a man, my role and soul have been intertwined into each of these identities.I often heard grandparents talk about the joys of being a grandparent and it just sounded like mindless chatter. I would sit and listen to their stories about their grandchildren doing certain feats and saying the "darn'dest" things. But honestly, it would roll in one ear and out the other.My life has changed now because of the greatest gift of all. I have a grandson. His name is Caleb. However, I am still calling him "Baby Beloved." One of the old Jewish prophets reminded us that God, himself would sing over us and delight in us (Zeph. 3:17). As I hold Baby Beloved, I find myself singing over and over a little song, I've already made us which simply says, "Baby Beloved, you are Baby Beloved and I delight in you with the greatest of delights." It's not made up. It's so deeply true. I think I wondered what this experience would be like: Would I fall instantly in love? Would my heart swell with pride? Would the trajectory of my life be altered forever? The answer is simply "Yes!"Last night, Caleb was a bit fussy. No one could seem to settle him until I took him. My big arms made a cradle and I sat in a rocker and just sang my little "Baby Beloved..." He quieted and his eyes became a window for me to peer into his 9lb 10oz soul. I looked into his heart and his eyes looked into my heart and then it happened. I knew that I have been given the greatest gift of all. Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, little Baby Beloved has woven his own place in my heart.I love him! I really love him. I told Gwen that if we got the news that something was wrong, we'd get on a plane and fly across the world to be with him and for me to sing "Baby Beloved" to him.There comes times in our lives when hearing that lullaby is all we need. "Baby Beloved, you are Baby Beloved" will calm the heart and still the soul. Now I know more than ever before why Jesus would "often" withdraw to lonely places to be alone with God. There in the sanctuary of nature amidst olive trees and mountain's shadows, God would sing over Jesus. "Baby Beloved, you are Baby Beloved and I delight in you with the greatest of delights."
I'm Going to be a Pappy!
I'm sitting in my son's ho
me in Fayettville, NC. We've been here for a few days waiting on their first baby, our first grandchild to be born. It's quiet now. There's been lots of activity because a few hours ago, Katie, my daughter in love, gave the first signs that Baby Beloved is going to arrive soon.They are off to the hospital and we are sitting here in the waiting mode.Waiting.It's what you do when you cannot move forward. You wait at the traffic light for it to turn green so you can go. You wait in line at the store until it's your turn to be checked out and pay for your groceries. You wait till you meet the right person you want to marry. You wait until the right job opens up that is perfect for you to step into. You wait for a baby to be born.We hurry up through life so we can wait for the next thing to happen, don't we? We move fast, only to be stopped again because we cannot keep moving forward. We have to wait.In life, there are many Ecclesiastical seasons told to us in Ecclesiastes 3. "There's a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born--which is today hopefully for my little grandson. There is a time to be active. And there is the thing called waiting.Waiting is never a passive act. When we wait, something else is happening in us and around us. We wait and become more excited. We wait and become more anxious. We wait and more understanding comes. We wait. Waiting is the posture we assume when we have to practice the sovereignty of God. We relinquish action when we wait. We turn our hands over and say, "I'm done. It's yours, God." Waiting reminds us that we are not in control. Waiting reminds us that life is not ours to orchestrate, to give, to determine or to control. Waiting is a necessary teacher.So, as I scan my conscious mind right now in the waiting process of little Baby Beloved to make his great appearance, I wait in the realization that I am: flooded with memories of me being in the position Blake is right now for four times in my life--in the birth of each of my own sons. Now as a grandfather, I am not nervous. I am not concerned. I am not sweating. I am not filled with anxious thoughts. I am quietly sitting here and talking to God. I am saying over and over in my mind, "Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy." I am breathing a prayer which is short that simply says, "This child is yours. You formed him before the foundation of the world. He is already the beloved before he draws his first breath. His is the beloved."When one waits, like Lazarus had to wait, we sometimes feel that God tarries and Jesus lingers. I hate it when they do that. That sacred cadence that makes them seem to move ever so slowly. But waiting teaches me that time is not mine to control. I am not the author of what time my grandbaby will be born. I am not the author and I am not the finisher. Waiting affirms to me that God is in control.Having waited on the delivery of my four sons, now I wait for my own heart to be delivered to a new identity. We've been laughing about what I want to be called as a grandfather. I'm choosing the name, "Pappy." It's a name that to me is endearing. It's a name one must wear with age. It's a name I will choose to be called and grow into loving hearing myself being called by this name. It's something close to the Hebrew word for "Abba" which Jesus offered us in his intimate name for his Father. It simply means, "Daddy." I will be a Pappy in a few hours and until that time arrives, I will simply rest in being the Beloved of God myself.I will rest in this realization.I will wait in this truth.I will relish in the implications for me and for my new grandchild.