She and Pam Farrel share ministry. Please check out their website and their new book
This post was a big congratulatory splash of serenity to me today. Hope it is to you too!
It’s been said that married men should forget their mistakes. There’s no sense in
two people remembering the same thing.
It’s also been said that marriage is a relationship where one person is always right … and the other is the husband.
Those jokes are funny, but not too kind to the menfolk!
Unfortunately,
marriage is a sea of challenges that requires graceful navigation!
I was recently encouraged by a book about this complicated relationship.
Elaine W. Miller wrote We All Married Idiots, a book that examines
three things we will never change about our marriages, and then she offers
ten things we can all work on to improve the husband-wife relationship. (1)
In one chapter, Elaine talks about
learning to live with each other’s idiosyncrasies.
“Since living with idiosyncrasies is a part of marriage,” she wrote, “You might as well treasure those peculiar habits. One day you might miss them. I know I did.”
Elaine’s husband
Dan was a tapper. He tapped on things. “I think in his mind the whole world is his trumpet as his fingers play a perpetual tune,”
she said. “He taps the table when he eats, the steering wheel when he drives, the newspaper when he reads, the pulpit when he preaches, and my shoulders when he puts his arms around me.”
The tapping got hard to take. “If I let it,” Elaine said, “his tapping gets on my nerves. Many times I have said in an irritated voice,
‘Would you please stop tapping!’
“However,” she added, “when he was hospitalized and I was uncertain if he would live through the night, those words weren’t on my lips. I stared at his silent fingers, held his motionless hands, and pleaded,
‘Please, God, let me feel his fingers tapping.’
“Funny how our perspective on idiosyncrasies changes under different circumstances,” she said. “Many will admit the very thing that bugs them is what first enticed them to their beloved, and
what they will miss the most when their loved one is gone.”
I remember reading about a woman who hated her husband’s snoring. She complained and poked him through the night. But after the man died, she told a friend she’d “give anything to hear that man snore again!”
Those pesky idiosyncrasies are simply more proof that we are all unique, and the truth is, every marriage has them. It is our attitude that makes the difference. Elaine explains that love is kind (according to
1 Corinthians 13:4). And what does that look like?
“Being kind to your mate means overlooking those oddities that sometimes drive you crazy. The next time your love does the idiotic, remember this ~
you married an idiot and so did your spouse.” (2)
Elaine points out that the words “idiosyncrasy” and “idiot” both come from the same Greek root word (
idio) meaning “common man.” In other words, we all do things that are a bit eccentric or peculiar from time to time.
As I thought about this, I realized how many times
simple kindness and grace ~ and especially loving words ~ have acted like soothing oil in my own marriage. (Sometimes I can’t believe that my husband has put up with me this long!)
Rather than focusing on each other’s quirks, we’ve chosen to concentrate on what is good, pure, lovely, etc. (see
Philippians 4:8). Some of those pesky idiosyncrasies remain, but they aren’t “issues” anymore. We’ve learned to love and accept each other and
try to see each other through the eyes of the Redeemer we both love.
When I stop to think that God created me with unique idiosyncrasies ~ and He loves me ~ it encourages me to share the same kind of love with others, especially my spouse.
How about you? When you think about your spouse (or if you’re not married, a boss or a parent or someone else you have a relationship with on a regular basis), is there something that the person does that really bugs you?
Could love, acceptance, patience and mega doses of grace ease your frustration?
(1) Elaine W. Miller, We All Married Idiots (Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, 2012), p. 7.
(2) ibid, p. 7.
Elaine Miller is a member of the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA) and has authored two other books,
Splashes of Serenity: Bathtime Reflections for Drained Moms and
Splashes of Serenity: Bathtime Reflections for Drained Wives. http://www.splashesofserenity.com.
