Dear Blog Friends,

I have been away from the computer for several weeks as I recuperate from surgery.  My typing skills and endurance are limited, but my sweet husband thought he would write a note about our experiences together over the past three weeks.

Here’s his side of the story -

On the drive home, we reviewed the surgeon’s prognosis: 

Post-surgery, we could expect limited use of the arm and shoulder, lots of downtime, five-months of physical therapy and heaps of ice and pain meds.

Sheri had torn a tendon and needed rotator cuff surgery. I was getting educated on the complexity of shoulder injuries - the recovery would be tough and she’d need my help.

There was no doubt, no hesitation: I was up to the task. But the severity of the situation didn’t sink in until Sheri stated these five words: “You will need to cook”.

Was I dreaming? Maybe I dosed off for a second, you know, one of those out-of-body experiences. Had I momentarily passed to an alternate universe?

 ”Sorry, what did you say honey?”

 ”I won’t be able to cook. Handling food, lifting and working around the stove- Can’t do it. You will need to cook.”

Up to this point, my contribution to meal preparation has always been dialing for carryout. Chinese? Thai? Mexican? Sushi? Pizza? Not a problem!

Sheri and I are advocates of the “serving” value in marriage. Authentic servanthood means, without expecting something in return, tirelessly watching for ways you can love, support, praise, appreciate, protect and please your spouse - and then take action.

That’s not always easy. Serving opportunities often come at inconvenient times and usually when you’re not in serving mode. You need to be in a my-spouse-is-number-one mindset.  Your spouse comes first; you come second. Serving tangibly expresses your love to each other and makes your marriage stronger.

I love serving Sheri. But as we “mutually serve” each other, we find ourselves fitting into specific roles and tasks. Such as:

I wash the car; Sheri cooks.
I blow the snow off the driveway; Sheri cooks.
I wash the floor; Sheri cooks.
I make coffee; Sheri cooks.
I fix Sheri’s computer; Sheri cooks.
I wash the cat; Sheri cooks.

Cooking is not my spiritual gift.

Well, the good news is we did eat, and we ate quite well. Thanks to our church, an abundance of pre-prepared meals made me look like Wolfgang Puck.  Way to go, church!

My flat iron technique needs work, but I can now add “hair styling” to my list of talents.

I learned how to help Sheri get dressed and un-dressed and even gave her sponge baths. Hey, someone had to do it.

When life throws curves at your marriage, remember:

• Don’t complain.
• Be flexible; get out of your comfort zone.
• So you have more time to serve, free yourself from your “me” activities.
• Be proactive to your spouse’s needs.
• If you need help, surround yourself with your support system - church, small group and family - and let them serve you.
• Do whatever it takes.

Don’t forget to checkout additional articles on marriage at growthtrac.com

On an average day, I receive 100-150 spam e-mails about my love life and my need to wear *BLING *  while enjoying romance with my husband.  The other day after deleting another barrage to my spam folder, I turned to my husband and said, “Honey, did you know we need so much help with things in the bedroom?”  He started laughing.  And so began our warped sense of humor journey through saving some of the funnier suggestions for spicing up our love life.  I have taken great care to tastefully edit the material.

According to popular societal thinking -

It’s time to vitaminize your desire to help you prepare for action all night long and become her Drillosaur.  For frequent “getting busy”, she’s to wear nothing but her BLING. This will help you become an artist of love, because your performance in bed defines you.  You are guaranteed to experience love extreme.

Navigating the bedroom for Christian couples is difficult enough without sorting through the distorted messages that are sent via the internet and through mainstream media.  After 900 spam e-mails this week, a very clear picture emerged - it’s all about my needs and what I deserve. God’s love through the act of sacrifice and giving is entirely removed from the bedroom. 

There is an amazing richness and beauty within scripture that provides an incomparable set of instructions on intimacy in the bedroom.  Unfortunately, few couples pick up The Bible and read it together.  God’s design for sex is pure, good, wonderful, and perfect.  He thought sex was so important that he set aside an entire book fully devoted to it called Song of Songs.

This world sure knows how to mess up a beautiful thing.

I had the opportunity to witness a beautiful wedding yesterday.  Some may say that all weddings are beautiful; I would have to disagree.  For me, the level of beauty becomes evident in how a couple invites God into the center of the ceremony. 

As a marriage mentor, I’ve attended more than fifty weddings over the past twelve years.  Yesterday’s wedding was different than any other - it was a worship experience.

From the moment the guests were seated, the music drew you into God’s presence.   As the couple came forward to the altar, as with most weddings, the attention was on the bride.  However, the pastor immediately invited the witnesses in attendance into a story; the couple’s story, and how Christ had changed their lives.  After that, carefully chosen scripture told God’s story of how he designed marriage between a man and women.  He then brought the witnesses back into the fold by asking them to be supportive and loving, and to hold the bride and groom accountable for their vows.  

A hush fell over the room and a moment later the pastor prayed a prayer of Thanksgiving.  Then he paused and told the story of how this couple chose to court, rather than date.  Today would be their first kiss.  People sitting behind me drew in their breaths with a gasp and whispered, “No kissing, that’s amazing!”  The pastor instructed the new young husband to gently take his wife into his arms as a cherished and delicate piece of china, and enjoy the passion God had created between them with their first kiss.  The groom did an incredible job!

As the ceremony closed, the attendants broke into a song of celebration and dancing with the focus of joy and gratefulness to God.  They raised their arms and swayed and sang Alleluia’s.  I sat there and wondered if I caught a glimpse of how weddings were in Jesus’ time, where celebration and dancing occurred for a week.  My husband and I left the wedding ceremony with huge smiles on our faces.

I have a feeling this will be a wedding that is imprinted in our hearts and minds for a very long time.

I realized recently that I have become so single-minded on what is upside down in my life, that I fail to see the little blessings that God gives me everyday - such as a wonderful husband and so much more.

I am thankful my husband has been given to me as a gift for the past thirty-three years.  I am thankful for the two daughters and four grandchildren who provide me with oodles of smiles, hugs, and kisses regularly.  And I am thankful for a roof over my head, food in my stomach, excellent health, and friends who love me - standard thankfulness kinds of things.

However, I find I can become gray and gloomy and crabby and obstinate, and forget about the goodness that is all around me.  How childish to think that I deserve something, and that I can stomp my feet in front of my God.  Perhaps, when I can come before him without a little tantrum, he will realize my heart is changing back to a place of gratefulness, and things will fall into place once again.  I am thankful for God’s patience with me.

I love these two quotes I came across today on thankfulness.

Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough.      ~ Garrison Keillor

When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.                ~ Chinese Proverb

Praying you are able to see, with clarity, all the little blessings before you this Thanksgiving.

When you were making plans to get married, did you take “spouse classes”?

Thousand upon thousands of dollars are invested in educational goals, building and developing a career, and  becoming an expert in a chosen field.  Unfortunately, few of us choose to work equally hard at becoming a student of marriage. Think about it - what if the same effort in studying, reading, listening to lectures, and test taking was required to walk down the aisle and marry the person of your dreams? 

 To become a successful student of marriage, one needs to do the following:

• pay attention
• take responsibility for their actions
• exhibit a willingness to improve
• be observant and respectful
• participate and ask questions
• engage in meaningful conversation
• take the job seriously

Perhaps, a few spouse classes are worth pursuing?

For many husbands and wives, simply thinking about SI (spiritual intimacy) will start beads of sweat trickling down their foreheads.  The next thing you know they’re wiping the palms of their hands on the sides of their jeans, experiencing heart palpitations, tightness in the chest, and gastrointestinal distress.  Oh no, we need to experience this kind of intimacy together to have a better marriage?  

Absolutely!  I want to encourage you to keep giving SI a try in different venues.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy SI with my husband is through music.  I’ve shared before that music is turned on everywhere in our home - even the bathroom.  It’s the reason we were lead to start GrowthtracRadio.com a little over a year ago.  It’s a 24-7 streaming radio station with adult contemporary Christian music that includes marriage programming.  Today, there are over 10,000 streams a month.

I’ve discovered one of the good gifts we receive is the opportunity to listen to and review new CD’s that will be released before they are available for sale to the public.  I have two recent favorites I would like to recommend.

Two weeks ago, my husband and I were on our way to church in a strange mood that bordered on somberness and excitement.  We had some dear friends coming to tell their story of hope, faith, questions, struggle, and illness.  The wife has been fighting brain cancer for nine years.  It just so happens we popped a new CD into the player by Steven Curtis Chapman called Beauty Will Rise.  From the first song to the last we rode a roller coaster of emotions as SCC pours out the anguish, the questions, and the trust he has in God after the death of his daughter, Maria.  I wish I had an unlimited bank account, as I would purchase this CD for all my family and friends.  It’s that good.  It will be released November 3rd.

There is a second amazing CD by Phil Wickham that will be released November 17th called Heaven & Earth.  This album captures your heart from the opening song called Eden to the last song.  I think I hit replay five times on Eden because it depicts the wonder of living in community with God every moment of the day.  We listened to this album continually for an entire Sunday.

Want to connect spiritually with your spouse without breaking a sweat?

Try a little music.

I experienced a huge dose of reality after returning from our honeymoon and immersing ourselves into the daily routines of married life.

I discovered my husband is weird. 

He did not like the brussel sprouts and broccoli I prepared for dinner, especially combined together.  My family loves this combination of vegetables covered in buttered bread crumbs and spices.  

Weird Man

As he cleaned up the dinner dishes, he threw the scraps in the garbage rather than the garbage disposal.

Weird Again

When I went into the bathroom to prepare for bed that night, there were wet towels on the floor and a hard crusty open tube of toothpaste sitting on the counter. 

Weird Once More

When we climbed into bed for the evening to snuggle - he passed gas and threw the covers over my head. 

Amazingly Weird

At the end of the week, we had to sit down for the first time together and pay bills.  His desire was to pay them all at once so they were taken care of for the month.  My desire was to break them up over the course of the month and put reminders on the calendar for the due dates of the remaining bills.

Double Weird

It doesn’t take long after the honeymoon to discover that your spouse does things quite differently than you do.

You’re Normal - They’re Not

It now becomes a mission in life to point out all the little flaws that are growing daily into big ones, so your spouse can correct them and become normal again.

Like You

Over the years, normalness continues to diminish until you believe the person you married resembles an alien monster, and you have to flee for your life to save your sanity.  The strange thing is - their eyes are still the same, their hair, their smile, and the person on the inside. 

Who’s weird now?

Last week there was a major decision to make with my husband that was plopped in our laps at the last minute.  I am not a last minute person.  I have to pray and have a sense of peace.  Discomfort about a decision gets the best of me because I’m unable to sleep.  It’s as though God is saying, “Wake up, I’ll help you work this through.  I don’t sleep, so neither shall you.”

As a couple, we sometimes use a decision making process similar to a stoplight.  We don’t move forward unless we both feel we can go through the green light together.  If one of us feels like a yellow, we proceed with caution before a final decision gets made.  If one of us feels like a red, then things come to a screeching stop.

While driving home, I expressed my discomfort to my husband.  I said, “I need to pray this through tonight or tomorrow morning, then I’ll be alright.”  He listened, said it was okay, and he understood.  As we tucked ourselves into bed, I gave him a bunch of kisses.  He paused for a moment and said, “Just so you know, I was thinking the same thing.  We need to pray this through.”

Sleep was intermittent Wednesday night.  I would try sleeping for awhile, except I felt as though I was being tossed around in my clothes dryer with a pair of tennis shoes.  I finally came to my desk, wrote out my thoughts and prayers, and asked God for nougats of wisdom. If this is good, give me peace.  If it’s not, then keep my heart restless.

At 3:30 am, I was still feeling that a yellow light was flashing in front of me (proceed with caution), and I could no longer keep my eyes open.  I needed sleep and hoped the morning would bring a fresh perspective.  As I crawled back into bed, my husband was processing his decision in his sleep.  It seems as though he rides his bicycle through an obstacle course with legs moving and arms flailing, bracing for a fall.  I was close to deep sleep when he smacked my hand - not intentionally. He swears he does this while dreaming.

Exhausted, I dragged myself out of bed at 7:00am, and prayed some more at my desk.  Finally, I felt I had a green light in front of me.  I was no longer restless.  I knew I could live with this decision, and God was a part of it.  We wouldn’t be moving ahead blindly. My husband walked into the office, asked how I was feeling about things, and announced he had a sense of peace too.  Green light. 

He made a phone call. 

We made it through another major decision…together.

A friend recently sent me a clip from a show that ran from the 1950’s through the 1970’s called the Honeymooners.  It starred Jackie Gleason and Sheila MacRae who played the characters of Ralph and Alice Kramden, a couple living in Brooklyn, NewYork in a small apartment, trying to make ends meet.

I watched an episode on YouTube the other night, and laughed out loud at the interaction of this couple.  Whenever Ralph would become extremely frustrated with Alice, he would say, “To the moon, Alice, to the moon!”  Classic comedy, but a very interesting and raw truthful picture of what marriage can be like at times.

I’ve had moments in my marriage where I wished I could send my husband straight to the moon with a one-way ticket.  I could wave at him on very clear nights through a telescope in my backyard.  When I reflected on my desire to send him on a moonwalk, often it was due to sheer frustration when he wasn’t seeing things my way, or when I refused to look at things from his perspective.

One of the silliest disagreements we ever had was over the correct way to clean a toilet.  My husband calls it, ‘the bucket method’.  One simply gets a small bucket filled with water, dumps it in the toilet, and the water miraculously disappears.  By using this cleaning method, the toilet is completely cleaned below the water line.  I looked at my husband and said, “Are you serious?”  He said, “Of course, this is the ONLY way to clean a toilet.”  My reply was, “Since you do such a wonderful job honey, I’m sure you would be happy to make this your weekly chore.”  He hired a housekeeper two months later.

To-the-moon moments in marriage usually are the result of a spouse who doesn’t agree with your way of doing things.  After all, your way is the right way.  How can you possibly be wrong?  There might be alternative solutions to completing a household task or making a major decision.  However, we become focused on only one possible outcome - ours.

Before a decision is made to build a lunar landing module in the backyard for your spouse, a few moments of self-reflection might be beneficial.  Your spouse may have some great ideas, if you’re willing to listen.

The weather in Chicago has been beautiful as Fall approaches.  I love the colors this time of the year with the pops of bright yellow, orange, and red dotting the landscape.  And, more than anything, I love the smell of burning leaves, hay rides, and apple cider.

When our daughters were young, I would take them on mother/daughter camping weekends in the Fall.   We have quite a few harrowing stories of escape from wild animals.  The most dramatic story is the one where white rapids were whirling through the middle of the campground nearly washing our tent and all belongings away in the aftermath of a downpour.

Recently, I was sharing these memories with my husband with the hope that I might inspire him to go camping with me.  Last Sunday after church, he said, “Why don’t we stop at Cabela’s and have a look around?”   Mind you, I still have all of our original camping gear, and I’m thinking a really cheap fun weekend.  I did not want to discourage him.

Cabelas’ is a manly store.  One can’t help but walk down the aisles and grunt several times.  I’ve never seen so many fishing poles, lures, and flies in all my life.  Add hunting rifles, camouflage, and deer urine, and you have a weekend of sheer manly delight.  However, my dear husband cringed when he saw a video in the store of a woman shooting a deer with a bow and arrow.  He has a soft spot for animals and feeds our resident chipmunk in the backyard.

As we were standing by the camping gear, I whispered, “Honey, what’s better than zippering two sleeping bags together and snuggling?”  His response, “A nice warm snuggle in our bed at home.”    I reminded him, “We have an air mattress to make the tent more comfortable, and I’m willing to slave over the Coleman stove to make you chili and cornbread for dinner, and eggs and pancakes in the morning!”

We left Cabela’s with a bag of maple nut goodies.

I’m still waiting for a response to my romantic weekend camping idea.