SML #190 - fave, notice, witness 😊
LESSONS LEARNED
Last week we stayed in the house where my wife lived with her family when we met 57 years ago.
We were going to visit the old hometown and I saw it was on Airbnb. We grabbed it.
She lived there with her mom and dad, 2 brothers, and 3 sisters, for maybe 7-8 years in her mid-late teen years.
It’s where I picked her up for dates.
The front steps are where I first told her “I love you.”
I had never been inside the house. She hadn’t been inside in over 50 years.
What would it be like to go back to a place like that, filled with memories of family and a younger self?
She was quiet when we got in the house. You could tell the wheels in her heart were turning. Over some time she said a few words.
“It’s sad, but a good sad…”
“It’s weird, I feel so comfortable here, so safe…”
“This is where we’d sit and talk with mom…” Long pause.
“My sisters and I slept in this room. Three of us…”
“We all shared this bathroom (8 of them). I don’t ever remember anyone getting mad waiting for someone to finish and get out.”
It’s a small bathroom.
“Marilyn and I hid in the bathroom closet one time when my big brother was going to use the bathroom. We held our mouths and laughed and laughed. He never knew.”
Later, when I wasn’t looking, she told me she went back into the closet to remember.
Sometimes you live in a house for 50 years and all your memories are still right there.
And sometimes you go back to a place you never thought you’d see again and get to feel your emotions pick up where they left off.
The emotions were good. I didn’t know if they would be.
I’m grateful I could feel first-hand that those were happy years for her. I got to share something that was sacred to her.
I’ve heard three phrases about marriage recently that I’ve been thinking about.
I mentioned them to Brenda and she liked them.
One is,
“Marriage is having someone to be a witness to your life.”
And you witness theirs.
You’re co-witnesses of the same thing, but from different postures.
I got to be a witness to Brenda’s heart being in a space she hadn’t been in since we were married.
We’ve been witnesses of each other’s life since we met in 1969. And we both know we each have a witness of the whole thing.
That’s a new marriage concept to me and I like it.
Another phrase is,
“Marriage is someone to notice life with.”
Someone to notice the everyday stuff, the world, family, people, and mostly the little pieces of everyday living.
We each have a unique take and unique responses. It’s an everyday humanness that we share.
And the last phrase -
“Marriage is living with your favorite person.”
For most of us it probably started out as getting to live with your favorite person.
But over time we can become unfavorites of each other. Not on purpose, but time and life have a way of unfavoriting. And it can stay that way a long time.
However, we can still become each other’s favorite person now, and it can become even better than the first version when you married.
I know because it happened with us, and we’re each other’s favorite person now more than ever.
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
Maybe we just notice times when we get bugged - or super-bugged - by our spouse. And maybe we ask ourself:
What kind of person do I really want to be here right now?
What kind of thinking or response would I want to have if I was that person?
When I do this, I’m not trying to make myself be that kind of person. That’s a process.
But the process starts with awareness.
For me, I try to invite Jesus into my awareness. “Lord I don’t like how much I’m bugged right now, so I want you to be here with me.”
Thank you for reading!
"You alone O Lord make me dwell in safety" - King David
You matter
To ask a question or share what's challenging you, just hit reply.
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.