SML #180 - connecting questions
LESSONS LEARNED
It’s dinner.
As we’re looking at a couple of questions looking back and forward for the new year.
“What are two of our favorite memories together this last year?” Making two turkeys together for Thanksgiving.
“When did we feel most connected?” When we laugh together.
Questions like that.
This isn’t a long conversation. Just a couple of informal minutes between bites.
Then I ask, “Who have you been becoming this past year?”
And she says, “Yours should be ‘Not being a knucklehead.’”
I slapped the table and laughed.
I love when we feel light and safe enough to be blunt and joke with each other.
But wait - then I realized this was a real thing.
For about a year I’ve been trying to be more purposeful in showing appreciation.
I’ve been telling her things about who she is and what she does that I spent a lot of years not really appreciating.
For example, I’m more sensitive now to notice the wonderful peacemaking response she made to some contentiousness in a text group she’s in.
It was a graceful response that made things better not worse.
And I’ve told her I was a knucklehead to not care to notice how good she is at so many things that I’ve taken for granted.
That’s what she was saying in the “who I’ve been becoming” question - “not being a knucklehead.”
It was funny and it was a compliment. She likes me becoming that more.
I have a growing list of questions that I like, and we actually use them. I probably ask a few per month.
They’re not supposed to lead to any big deep conversations, but of course a few might. It’s just a way to care and connect.
We don’t sit down just to do this. We did some in the car the other day on the way to the mall.
I’ll skip around to which ones feel right at the moment, and we might talk about 2-3.
Here’s my list of year-change questions for right now -
▶️ What are our 2 favorite memories together from this past year?
▶️ When did we feel most connected?
▶️ When did we feel most like a team?
▶️ What are we genuinely grateful for as the year changes?
▶️ What are you most proud of yourself for this year? (We can also make it “here’s what I’m most proud of you for this year.”)
▶️ Who have you been becoming this past year? How do you feel about that person?
▶️ Knowing what you know now, what advice would you have given yourself at the beginning of last year?
And here’s some looking ahead to this year -
▶️ What do we need to start doing?
▶️ What do we need to stop doing?
▶️ What do we need to keep doing?
▶️ What do you (we) want to practice more of next year?
▶️ What do I (we) want to believe, or trust in, this next year?
▶️ What’s one way I can be more helpful to you this year?
WORTH REPEATING
“When we genuinely believe that inner transformation is God’s work and not ours, we can put to rest our passion to set others straight.” - Richard Foster
WORTH TRYING
Seven Instagram accounts that have helped me think and be married...
It’s ten seconds here, thirty seconds there, or a 90 second video max. Let the messaging add up over time.
Marriage -
Parenting adult children -
How relationships including marriage work -
What it looks like when God is real -
Thank you for reading!
"He crowns you with steadfast love and mercy." - King David
You matter.
Gary
JUST IN CASE . . .
The Simpler Marriage Instagram is a bite-size on-the-go version of the kinds of things you get in this letter. Not the exact same content, but the same approach. If you’re on IG, you can see and follow HERE.
If you find the tone or attitude in these letters helpful, I wrote A Family Shaped by Grace from the same posture you get here. Everything in it applies to marriage, but it shows how it also applies to kids, grown kids, in-laws, etc. Here it is.