It seems the lowest moments in marriage offer up the biggest opportunities to show love and grace to our spouses. You get devastating news-almost ‘bring you to your knees’ news. You feel a surge of panic, a wave of nausea. You know your vows will be tested, your faith will be challenged. Perhaps its an action on your spouse’s part and your capacity to forgive and show grace will seem like a ‘supernatural’ ask. This of course is complicated further if you have been experiencing a shaky marital walk before this unwelcome test.
Or maybe it’s not a catastrophic low moment. Maybe it’s a run of the mill, everyday disappointment. Maybe he responded to you with a hurtful tone to his words, or her words were absolutely cutting, unkind, provocative and disrespectful and he/she visibly winces or recoils knowing there will be a grenade launched in return, because this has been the nature of your dance. Maybe he or she didn’t follow through with and errand or a chore you were counting on him or her to take care of and now your schedule is compressed, you will bear more pressure.
The countless disappointments are rich and fertile ground, an opportunity to do the opposite of how your spouse would expect you to respond. The eye-roll, the huff, notably audible sigh, (aggressive dish-washing) all tempting responses as we focus on yet again how unfair life is. Marriage offers never ending opportunities to respond with grace and love when our spouses are expecting to be shamed, mocked, criticized. Mercy and grace given-in a moment when they are face to face with the knowing they don’t deserve it. Buried within that moment of choice is the opportunity for positive influence. An opportunity to lead in love. An opportunity to offer the unexpected. An opportunity to offer safety.
What if you offer up what you would wish for if the tables were turned? We all want grace, we all yearn for mercy, so why are we so stingy when it comes to giving it out? Do we hesitate because we are afraid we won’t see it come full circle? When we suffer amnesia as to what was done at Calvary for us-the price that was paid for our sin (all of it-birth to death debt-paid for in full) it becomes so much easier for us to fire flaming arrows at those who disappoint us. We focus on our good and ‘their bad’. We think we are better than we are and they are worse than they are. We zero in on our perceived virtuosity and their failure-we judge, accuse and refuse to forgive. We fail to love.
So what do we say? What can be done? How do we change the dynamic, the dance, the pattern?
- What if we started each day meditating on that which was done for us-every day first thing. Taking time to remember the sacrifice made on my/our behalf. He went first. He loved me before I loved Him. He who has been forgiven much, loves much. We love because He, Jesus, loved us first. I think that is the start. I didn’t have to earn it, in fact, there is nothing I can do to earn it-His love is freely given.
- Then the Ask. The prayer-that we would be given the grace to extend the grace. Because when we stop and think about it, after all, grace is a supernatural thing. Grace is the perfect pride-busting ingredient that changes everything. It doesn’t come natural to we mere humans. We don’t have to teach kids to retaliate. We don’t have to teach kids to kick sand at each other or fight to the death for the stuffed animal, we need to teach them to share, to forgive, to overlook an offense. We need to learn to give grace, to bear the burden of the at-times-unfair, to have our spouse’s ‘6’.
May we lob less grenades and offer up a safe place to land when our spouses disappoint, knowing we have blown it plenty as well, knowing we too yearn for a soft place to land.
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