Hard to comprehend

How do you handle tough situations? 

We all handle them differently. When we find ourselves faced with difficult times and don't know where to turn we often turn to those we care about and trust most. During the past few months and through hours of research into the types of people we surround ourselves with I have figured out a couple things. 

One of those things is that not all of our friends are helpful. Not everyone should be a source of support and advice. For instance in the book Boundaries in Dating the doctors who wrote the book specify that those you reach out to during relationship problems shouldn't be the people who only take your side or beat up on the other person. 

We should be reaching out to people who openly listen to all of our concerns and problems but are also willing to listen to all of the ways in which we have decided to cope with these difficult times. We should be reaching out to people who have heartfelt messages intended to help both people involved. They should be wise and level headed enough to help us see not only our significant others faults but also our own faults. 

We should be reaching out to people who have our best interest in mind and have mature ways of dealing with issues. Obviously that leaves one question, are you the type of person i'm describing? 

As a friend we tend to feel a lot of empathy when our friends come to us with difficult situations. Sometimes we forget that how we react directly effects how our friends will respond and what they may do. Are we acting out of love and in the best interest of those  involved? Is what you're saying or doing supporting the decisions that person has decided to make? 

When I say supporting I do not mean you agree with their choices and I don't mean that you say nothing to oppose their choices. What I mean is that you give mature, sound advice outlining the pros and cons. 

Often times we get caught up in emotional responses hell bent on anger, not realizing that these emotional responses can isolate the person from the solution they were seeking.

I guess what i'm getting at is that over the past year I have tried to distinguish not only who are the type of people I can really trust in difficult situations  but also the ways in which I can be one of those people. 

Because not even your best friend is the best friend for every situation. 

So, as I sit back watching people attempt to help their friends in unhealthy and negative ways I fight back the urge to assert myself into their moment. Why? Because if i'm going to talk about handling situations maturely, I can't let my burnt fuse get the best of me, as they have chosen to do. 

Marriage is . . .

As many of you know, I have dedicated a year of my life to studying love and marriage. Relationships and myself. I have dedicated a year to getting to the bottom of what it is that creates a healthy marriage and coincidentally a healthy home for my children. 

And over the past few days I've been wondering, what is marriage? 

Here's what I have come up with, from the mind of a never-been-married child who still has much to learn and can only hope to someday have what I have discovered over the past 7 months. 

Marriage is a list of vows. Vows are promises. Marriage is a list of promises. But really marriage is quite simply a promise. 

It is a promise to grow together, to understand and accept change in one another. To hope for the best and prepare for the worst in each other. 

It is a promise to share life with the other, to get excited about the little things, and also about the big. 

Marriage is a promise to make mature decisions about the other. To remember that you are not the only person who matters now [not that you ever were]. It is a promise to think of the other when making life altering decisions. 

It is a promise to treat your spouse as you would like to be treated. To listen to the other person, to talk at no end all about life, love, your dreams, and your fears with the person whom you have chosen to spend your life with. 

A promise to spend your life with that person. You have chosen this person, that one, out of the billions of people on this Earth - you chose them - and you promised that they would be more important than any other. Promised. 

It is a promise to make plans together, to laugh together, to cry together, to cheer each other on, to search out every nook and cranny in the other. A promise to respect the other, to love the other, to value the other - even in their imperfections. 

Marriage is a promise to forgive even the most unforgivable in the other. Because we are human, we will fail. We do fail. Every day. You promised to love the failures and to pick each other up no matter how far you fell. 

A promise to inspire hope in each other. To pursue God together. To pursue life together. To take a genuine interest in what the other would like to do forever, because you promised to be a part of that forever, together. 

It is a promise to recommit when you have found yourself truly separated from one another. To look upon the ways you have failed each other and remember the vows you took on day one - to come back to that love. To take one step forward, and then two, and then three - toward the future you both want. 

It is a promise to remember that this is your best friend. The one who looked you in the eye on the day you wed and said "till death do us part." 

It is a promise that no matter how fun the outside world is, nothing could be better than growing closer to your partner each year and looking back on all of the times you almost failed. A promise to try your hardest because crying yourself to sleep through the hard times is worth the laughter and the love during the good times. 

A promise to remember how much life would truly stink without that person around. A promise to remember that no matter how green your neighbors lawn looks, they have the same grass as you - they just might have taken better care of it. 

So you're promising to water your grass, to cut your grass, and to watch that green grass grow with GLORY.

Because at the end of your life, when you look across the table at the person you gave yourself to years ago, you will see the person who knows you better than anyone, who loves you further than anyone ever will, whose seen you at your worst as well as at your best. 

The person who never walked away from you.
because they made a promise . . .

 . . . and kept it. 

Love is a choice

Over the past several months I have been reading many books that delve into the topic of love. One reoccurring theme in each of these books is the difference between love and being in love. Difference you say? Why, what difference is there? 

As C.S Lewis points out, being in love is but a mere feeling. A feeling which brings us on a roller coaster of emotion and feeds into our imaginations and our spirits. But again, it is only a feeling. And feelings, they go away. In his book Mere Christianity, he asks the question "who would want to feel on top of the world every single day for the rest of their lives?" How exhausting. He then leads us into love. Love, being a quiet subtle choice that each of us makes upon marrying our best friends. 

Love is a choice. It is a choice to remain partners when the feelings of being "in love" come and go. It is a choice to stick by the vows you have taken. Which, again, C.S Lewis points out that these vows are promises. Promises that so few really listen to - and so many choose to ignore. To keep these promises is to keep your integrity - to stand by your word to the person you chose to promise your whole life to. 

A choice. A choice to work hard to fall in love over and over again - but to stick around even when the feelings of being in love have dulled to a quiet whisper, waiting to rear it's head when the time is right. 

When we hate, our hate grows stronger and stronger. We choose to dislike - and we choose to become angry. In doing so our interruptions grow stronger. They fill us with a contempt that runs deep. 

But when we love, when we choose to love and to like - to seek out the good in others, we truly love. It, too, grows stronger and stronger. 

C.S Lewis recommends pretending you like someone, then pretending you love someone. He is referring to the scripture "love your neighbor as you love yourself" but I chose to carry this into my love speech. Because  when we choose to love our partner as we love ourselves the same logic applies. We may love ourselves but that does not always mean that we like ourselves. In fact there are many things we don't like about ourselves - but we wish ourselves better people. We wish that others would treat us a certain way. So why, then, do we choose not to treat our spouses with the same respect? To treat them as we would like to be treated. 

As you can tell, C.S Lewis as made quite the impact on me. 

I hear so many people explaining away divorce with the reason "maybe they weren't in love anymore." Well, maybe they weren't - but that doesn't mean there wasn't love anymore. It means that the feeling we had melted away to something, that if properly tended, can grow into something so much more beautiful than being "in love." 

Falling out of love shouldn't be a reason for divorce. It should be a reason to rekindle that love. 

And I am sure that you will find, after all that time, you are still very much in love.