SML #195 - the ‘awesome list’

LESSONS LEARNED

I was going to have dinner with some guy friends.

She said, “Great, I can eat cereal for dinner.”

I said, “Well, if it wasn’t for me, you’d be a stick. You eat like a bird.”

She said, “If you weren’t here I wouldn’t be fat…” Then she added, “but I’d be lonely and sad.”

It’s funny because she’s far from fat. And she felt like she needed to add something in case she hurt my feelings.

I put that quote on my list.

In recent years I’ve started a list of simple, crazy, unique things I appreciate about her.

Most of it is stuff I used to take for granted. Now I see it as stuff that makes her “her.”

Some of it is stuff I used to think was negative, such as her no-nonsense bluntness. But now I love it.

Part of the list is “Famous quotes.”

“If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t be fat. But I’d be lonely and sad,” is on it now.

Others --

“I like my clothes, I just don’t like them on me.” She was tired of looking for clothes for a wedding we were going to.

“There are too many shoes in the foyer, 6 pairs of mine and 2 of yours. You need to get rid of 1 pair of yours.” She said it with a totally straight face.

“There’s only room in this family for one hellcat.” Again, totally straight face. It was a joke, but also profound, that only one person at a time should be mad.

“Everyone knows that. So that’s 10 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.” Sometimes I want to process something out loud. So I’ll say it and ask her to listen and give some feedback. She said those words with a straight face after I thought was expounding on something profound and new. Twenty years ago we could not joke like that.

“When I was a kid I used to keep poems and songs in a black garbage bag.” She said this offhandedly years ago. I wish I could go back in time and see those poems and songs. And why a garbage bag?

Examples of other things on my 'glorious human’ list of her -

Hardee’s is Arby’s. When she says Hardees, I’m supposed to know she means Arby’s. How am I supposed to know that? I just am.

She works in the yard wearing slippers. This is normal. One time I was digging a 60-foot long trench to prep for laying pavers for a walkway and she insisted on helping. In her slippers. With a shovel. I have pics.

She hates sharp knives. She says, “Every time I use a sharp knife I cut myself.” She knows that technically dull knives are more dangerous than sharp, but not to her. Her main knife is a small wood handle paring knife that she’s used for decades.

Another thing on the list is my appreciation of how she broke the cycle of passing on negative things from her upbringing.

There were some things growing up with her mom that she didn’t want to repeat. She hasn’t repeated them, she’s redeemed them.

I won’t share the details, but I’ll share the summary words I shared with her -

“Some parents just keep reproducing what their parents and grandparents did - it just keeps going. Not you - you broke the cycle.

You kept the mom-love that your mom had, but you didn’t repeat her inability to live it out with her kids.

You stopped the chain reaction, and started something new and good.

You made things better, and your kids are making things better.

You’ve influenced the world by doing things well and right.”

You could call this an “Awesome List.”

It’s a list of things you love about the person you love.

It's the things that make them unique and that no one else but you might notice and appreciate.

I think this is an act of intimacy that connects you and softens you toward your spouse.

I wish I’d done it earlier. I only started it about 5 years ago. When I was 70.

You're married to a unique human being.

What would be on your list?

WORTH REPEATING

“Love, joy, and peace, are at the heart of all Jesus is trying to grow in the soil of your life.” - Jon Mark Comer

WORTH TRYING

We can thank God for our spouse in 5 seconds.

That’s all it takes.

If we want to mention specific things for 5 or 10 more seconds, that’s good, too.

If we do it every day for awhile, maybe a few times a day, something starts shifting.

Thank you for reading!

"Your gentleness made me great." - 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.​
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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.