Category Archives: Marriage

Works-For-Me Wednesday: “Love, Sweet Love’

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Today’s edition of “Works For Me Wednesday,” hostessed by Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer, is a themed one on the subject of love in honor of Valentine’s Day. We’re asked to contribute relationship advice, romantic tips, Valentine’s ideas, etc. So I present you with various odds and ends. 🙂

♥ One piece of advice: I mentioned this several days ago, but something Elisabeth Elliot wrote spoke to me:

Many women have told me that my husband’s advice, which I once quoted in a book, has been an eye-opener to them. He said that a wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy.

So often we can get hung up on the few little things that bother us rather than putting it into perspective.

♥ Traditions: The only thing I do every Valentine’s Day is make heart-shaped cupcakes using some heart-shaped muffins pans. One year I made a big Valentine sign for the family using candy bars for various words. I forget where I had first seen the idea. I went to the store to get candy bars first, so I could see what was available and make up sentences using those words, then made up the sign writing out my “greeting” and replacing the key words with candy bars. Another year I made a little clue-finding expedition, cutting out a heart and putting a series of clues on the two halves which led to some prize, I forget what now. The kids really loved that and asked for it for the next couple of years, but I had exhausted my clue-making abailities. That was harder than I thought! I try to make a nice dinner that night — not all-out like Thanksgiving, but not hot dogs or fish sticks, either. I also usually buy or make cards for everyone. When the kids were little we made cards with them for each other, and I loved that — those are some of my treasures.

♥ Resource: Family Fun magazine and its web site are wonderful resources for neat, fun, and simple holidays ideas (crafts, foods, ways to celebrate). It’s Disney-owned, so there are a lot of ads for Disney stuff, and I wouldn’t agree with every philosophy or product they recommend, but the holiday and party ideas are great.

♥ Book: There are many great books on marriage, but I think my all-time favorite is The Ministry of Marriage by Jim Binney. It reall emphasizes that aspect, that marriage is a minstry to the other person.

♥ Funnies: This is something from my files I thought you might enjoy. I received it in an e-mail years ago, author unknown:

Pearls of wisdom from Grandpa on having a long, happy marriage…

Whether a man winds up with the nest egg or a goose egg depends a lot on the kind of chick he marries.

Many girls like to marry a military man – he can cook, sew, make beds and is in good health, and most importantly he’s already used to taking orders.

Too many couples marry for better or for worse, but not for good.

When a man marries a woman, they become one. The trouble starts when they try to decide which one.

Trouble in marriage also often starts when a man gets so busy earning his salt that he forgets his sugar.

If a man has enough “horse sense” to treat his wife like a thoroughbred, she will never be an old nag.

On anniversaries a wise husband always forgets the past, but never the present.

As I did for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, over the next few days I want to post some quotes, jokes, and such for Valentines’s Day.

In related news, as most probably already know, Shalee is sponsoring a “50 Cheap Dates” event where folks can link to their ideas for fun and inexpensive things to do for two. 🙂 I don’t have anything to share for that one, at least not that I can think of yet. I tend to be a homebody, and most things that we do involve the whole family. But we probably should do some of that kind of thing — I’ll be looking forward to gleaning some ideas from there and from this week’s Works-For-Me Wednesday. 🙂

(Photo courtesy of the stock.xchng) 

True for spouses as well as others

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A section of the e-mail devotional I received today from Back to the Bible, compiled from Elisabeth’s Elliot’s writings, had the following paragraphs, which I thought gave an excellent perspective for relationships of any kind:

It is always possible to be thankful for what is given rather than to complain about what is not given. One or the other becomes a habit of life. There are, of course, complaints which are legitimate–as, for example, when services have been paid for which have not been rendered–but the gifts of God are in an altogether different category. Ingratitude to him amounts (let us resort to no euphemisms) to rebellion.

Many women have told me that my husband’s advice, which I once quoted in a book, has been an eye-opener to them. He said that a wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy. It’s a down-to-earth illustration of a principle: Accept, positively and actively, what is given. Let thanksgiving be the habit of your life.

Such acceptance is not possible without a deep and abiding belief in the sovereign love of God. Either he is in charge, or he is not. Either he loves us, or he does not. If he is in charge and loves us, then whatever is given is subject to his control and is meant ultimately for our joy.

Happy Anniversary to us!!

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We celebrate 27 years of wedded bliss today. 🙂

Wedding close-up

Weren’t we young there??!!

Happy anniversary, honey!

Favorite Christmas memory

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Monrn2 has invited us all to her place at My Quiet Corner to share a favorite Christmas memory. She says:

Even if you do not come with your own Christmas memory to share, please come and just relax. The music is playing (turn up your volume), the fire is burning, hot drinks are served, plenty of goodies for everyone, and throws are available to keep out the winter chill. Today warm hearts of friends gather sharing a quiet moment of Christmas together here in “My Quiet Corner“.

Oddly enough, I don’t have any concrete Christmas memories from childhood — just wisps of little things here and there. Many of them will probably come flooding back after I post here, just like I can’t think of anything when my family asks me what I want for Christmas, but I think of several things just after! 🙂

One of my favorite Christmas memories is the first one my husband and I shared as man and wife. We got married Dec. 21 in Houston during a Christmas break of college. I normally wouldn’t advise students to get married while still in school. But I only had 3 courses left (I was one who had crammed 4 years into 5…) and my husband had two semesters. His adviser had also advised us to get married and felt my husband could concentrate on his studies better if we were. That’s highly unusual for an adviser to say, too — but, hey, we took it. 🙂

Being poor and not having much time, we did not have a honeymoon, but that was all right: we were excited about heading back to SC and setting up housekeeping. We spent our first night at a nice hotel in Houston, then went over to my mom’s house the next day to load up my “stuff” out of my bedroom into a U-haul truck to drive back to SC. Unfortunately, something went wrong with our car, so we had to stay another night. Being poor still, we didn’t have money for another night at a hotel, so…we spent the night in my bedroom. That did seem more than a little strange, let me tell you!

I don’t remember what was wrong with the car, but my step-father is a great mechanic, and somehow he and Jim got the thing running, and we were on our way. I think we may have spent a night in a hotel along the way, because we ended up arriving in Greenville, SC, very late Christmas Eve. We contacted the university faculty member through whom we were renting a little mobile home and followed him out to our new place — it was his new place, too, as he had just bought it in order to rent it out to students. He invited us to the Christmas banquet the school was offering the next day to all the faculty, staff, and students who remained on campus. We gratefully accepted his invitation, unloaded just enough stuff to go to bed, and fell in.

Bright and early the next morning, Christmas morning, we heard a loud banging on our front door. We couldn’t figure out what in the world or who in the world it could be. My husband scrambled himself together enough to open the door when what should his wondering eyes behold but a short grey-haired man — with no beard, no red suit, and a decidedly unjolly expression.

It turned out to be the man who owned the mobile home park. He had not been told that anyone new was moving in, and furthermore, he did not allow renters. He was very upset. I don’t know how the transcation had occured between our landlord and the previous owners without taking into account the need to contact the landlord of the mobile home park — maybe they each understood the other was going to do that. I don’t remember exactly what Jim told him: something to the effect that we were sorry, we didn’t know, we’d have our landlord contact him.

When we met our landlord for lunch, we told him the dilemma. He went out to see the man and they worked it out amicably: the man would allow us to stay.

This man (whose name escapes me) was a little old man who shuffled when he walked and looked like he would be no physical threat to a puppy dog, yet he was one of those people who somehow exuded authority, who seemed to convey that you didn’t really want to mess with him. He lived next door to the mobile home park and drove through it several times a day keeping an eye on things. He had pretty strict rules (which we appreciated). After that inauspicious beginning, we got along really well. We tried to never give him any reason to regret allowing renters into his park. It was the nicest mobile home park I’ve ever seen — a lot of trees and space between homes. We lived there happily for seven years.

Back to that first Christmas: after everything was worked out between the two landlords, we unpacked and settled in. We celebrated Christmas a few days late. We had a little 2-foot artificial tree that had been my grandafther’s (I cringe to say it was aluminum, but we were happy with it at the time. 🙂 ) We shopped the after-Christmas sales for ornaments, decorations, and presents. Two of our ornaments were angels made out of candle wax (maybe they were supposed to be candles — we used them as ornaments) who looked like us: a boy angel with brown hair and a girl angel with blond hair. We put those up next to each other for years until they melted in the attic of our current home.

Despite the trouble of that first Christmas day together, we celebrated in newlywed euphoria and were very happy. We’ll be celebrating our 27th anniversary and Christmas together this year. 🙂

To read more favorite Christmas memories and share your own, please join us here.

Richard Armour

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Some years ago I came across a poem by Richard Armour in a book that was a collection of quotes and poems about home and family. I just loved his poem — it was both sweet and funny. I began to research to try to find out more about Amour and to find the book this poem came from. It turns out he was a prolific writer who used to have a newspaper column called “Armour’s Armory.” He’s written about home and family, history, Shakespeare, and a lot of other topics. Unfortunately most of his books appear to be out of print, but fortunately you can find many at amazon.com for a dollar or two plus shipping. I ordered three in order to try and find this poem (plus one book on a different topic, Going Like Sixty. No, I wont be sixty for a while yet, but thought this book would be funny, and wanted to get it while it is available).

I did finally find the poem I was seeking in The Spouse in the House. The book jacket calls his verse “playful” and “human as well as humorous.”

Here’s the poem that first intrigued me and started my search:

Teamwork

A splendid team, my wife and I:
She washes dishes, and I dry.
I sometimes pass her back a dish
To give another cleansing swish.
She sometimes holds up to the light
A glass I haven’t dried just right.
But mostly there is no complaint,
Or it is courteous and faint,
For I would never care to see
The washing job consigned to me,
And though the things I dry still drip,
She keeps me for companionship.

Here’s another:

Down the Tube

I’ve seen my wife with anger burn
At something that I never learn:
The toothpaste tube I squeeze and bend
At top and middle, not the end.

She scolds me, pointing out my error,
Makes use of scorn and taunts and terror,
But I forget and go on squeezing
The toothpaste tube in ways displeasing.

In larger things we are convivial:
What causes trouble is the trivial.

I’ve marked a few more, but I don’t want to bore you by going on too long. I’ll leave you with the last one in the book:

Well, Come In

You can have your Welcome mats.
I ask for just a little more
When I come home from work, and that’s
A Welcome mate inside my door.

That’s a bit convicting to me — too often I’m a distracted mate.

Of course, since as far as I can tell he is not a saved man, there might be some objectionable things in his writings. I haven’t found any yet beyond an occasional mention of alcohol, but I wanted to be careful with a disclaimer in case someone else finds something.

The book was such easy reading that I finished it in a few days and added it to my fall reading list in my side bar. I’m looking forward to reading the others I bought and probably even buying some more. Hope you enjoyed them, too — you might be seeing more quotes from Armour in the future. 🙂

Love Story

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Barb over at A Chelsea Morning asked fellow bloggers about their love stories. Here’s mine. 🙂

I worked in the library at my alma mater for 4 1/2 years. That was the old library — they had just started building the new one my last year there. In those days, most of the books were in 4 floors of “stacks” behind the desk. A student would look up in the card catalog what book he wanted, fill out a slip, and bring it to the desk, then we’d run up and get their books for them (my job was also my major source of exercise. :)) Later on I worked the files, checking books back in and rechecking them for students.

Jim worked in the periodical room. I had actually seen him before across a crowded amphitorium when he worked as an usher. I thought he was handsome. 🙂 I knew he worked at the library as well, but we weren’t scheduled at the same times, so we didn’t meet that year (his freshman year, my sophomore year. Yes, I’m an older woman — by about 6 months). Finally at the beginning of my junior year we were scheduled at the same time and met. He was always a lot of fun to be around. There was another guy whose job was to put the books back in order and back on the shelves when they were turned in, and if it was not busy at the front desk or in the periodical room, Jim and I were assigned to help this guy. So we all got to know each other and had a lot of fun. Some time after Jim and I had been dating, he told me that at first he was trying to get the other guy to ask me out because this guy was very shy and didn’t date much. That guy declined, then Jim thought to himself, “Well, if she’s such a nice girl, why don’t I ask her out?” So he did. 🙂

The very first time he asked me out, I was scheduled to go on a nursing home ministry in another town, so I had to decline. That’s always a little awkward for the guy, because even though it is a plausible reason to say no, he can’t help but wonder if there is some other underlying reason. But the day I was supposed to go, it snowed, and our ministry for the evening was canceled. As I was leaving the dining common after dinner, I saw him waiting for me. He still doesn’t remember saying this, but he greeted with me with, “Well, since you can’t serve God, would you like to serve mammon?” (Can you believe I did actually go out with him after that? :P)

We began dating, and I really enjoyed my time with him. With other dates I was always a little tense and nervous, but I think because Jim and I had gotten to know each other at work, I was more relaxed. Even though he was a lot of fun, though, I wasn’t sure about the relationship going any further — I wanted a guy with a sense of humor, but I wanted a little more than that to him, too. Well, as we continued to get to know each other at work and through dating, I began to see a bedrock of character. I saw him intercede for a student at work who was having problems and needed to go home, and discovered his compassion. I saw his genuine kindness and concern for others. I saw that there was an underlying love for God and a desire to please him. I saw his “sanctified common sense”. I realized that spirituality in a man could manifest itself in a quiet undercurrent rather than overflowing waves. (Another very fine young man had asked me out several months earlier, and as we sat down together, he took out his Bible and shared a little mini-sermon. I’m certainly not opposed to sharing things from the Bible with each other — Christian friends can and should, and dating couple should feel a freedom to do that as well. But this instance left me a little cold — there was no sharing or interaction. The young man was a ministry major and had certain ministry requirements to fulfill each week. I sort of wondered if I was his preaching opportunity for that week. 🙂 I had just become a Christian in my later teens and was fairly new to dating Christians and thought, “Okay….it this what it’s supposed to be like?” It took a while to realize that a guy didn’t necessarily have to pull out his Bible and convey a message for him to be considered a spiritually-minded man. 🙂 But I mean no disrespect at all to the young man in question — he was a great guy who loved the Lord. We just didn’t hit it off.)

So…I was discovering there was much more to Jim than a sense of humor, and I was finding myself more and more interested. I had two areas of struggle, though. First, I had been engaged before, so I knew it was easy to confuse feelings with the Lord’s will. Secondly, in my circles around that time, preaching to teen-agers routinely included appeals for salvation, surrender, and “full-time Christian service.” I had been saved at about age 17 and surrendered my life to the Lord for anything He wanted me to do. The next logical step seemed to be “full-time Christian service,” and the opportunities for that, as far as I knew at the time, were to be a missionary, marry a preacher or a missionary, or be a teacher in a Christian school (I didn’t know that there were so many more opportunities to serve God until later. 🙂 ) I had thought for a long time that the Lord wanted me to be a missionary, but through a variety of ways the Lord didn’t seem to be leading that direction. Jim was not planning to be a preacher: he was a Physics major. So part of the struggle with whether or not things could progress with him was the struggle with what the Lord wanted me to do with my life. After a long while I came to the conviction that all Christians are supposed to be in full-time service to God, not matter what our physical occupation. And God reminded me of something I had forgotten: just before Jim asked me out, I had grown weary of “dating games” and told the Lord I only wanted the guys to ask me out that He wanted to ask me out — and Jim was the very next person to ask me out. And He reassured me that since I had been earnestly seeking and asking for His leading all along, there was no reason to doubt that this was the way He was leading.

So once I felt I had the “green light” from the Lord, I felt I could continue on in the relationship with Jim. We had been dating for about a year and a half when we got engaged, and were married six months after that. That was almost 27 years of wedded bliss and three sons ago. 🙂

I can’t believe we looked so young!

(By the way, the Lord has reinforced that truth over the years that all Christian are — or should be — in “full-time Christian service.” Jim has had opportunities to minister to and witness to people in the course of his work who would likely never come to a church service or who would be guarded and defensive with a preacher. And He has shown me that ministering to my husband and family first, then just doing whatever is at hand needing to be done at church or even in the neighborhood is a ministry in itself.)