Go together like a horse and carriage..... is that song stuck in your head now?? Or maybe I'm just showing my age here and you don't even get that I'm referring to a song, and have no idea what I'm talking about...
Anyway, today my subject material involves love and marriage. Lastnight was our first Marriage Mentoring session. SCARY!!! Well, we met once previously with the couple we are mentoring, but that was just to get to know them and have them fill out an assessment. Lastnight was our first time sitting down with them to go over their assessment, to look at specific issues, and walk them through negotiating their way to solutions. Of course, all things involving Marriage Mentoring are confidential, so I wont be going into details of the session...just how the meeting and the time leading up to it affected me.
I was soooo nervous the couple of hours or so before they came over! It's crazy the thoughts that can spin around in my head at times. I was fearing that the evening would be a flop ( it wasn't & actually some good progress was made ). I imagined Paul and I fumbling through the material and not making any sense to our couple ( it wasn't, & the tools we were given in our training worked beautifully ). I feared that our becoming mentors was a mistake and that maybe we were wrong in feeling that this was "one of our callings" ...I mean seriously, if you look at what we have been through...how could we ever be mentors!? Wait a minute, back up...that statement / question didn't even really make sense. We have had our struggles. OH so many! But, the fact that we made it through such trials and dark days, and actually came out on the other side still very much in love...I guess maybe, just maybe that could add to what we bring to the table... anyway, that was not at all the sort of thought that was going through my mind then.
As we waited for their arrival, I wasn't as calm and contemplative as I am today writing about it. Lastnight, I was a bundle of nerves and literally scared my sweet puppy as I let out a YELP and did some aggressive running in place as I saw them pull into the driveway ( why I do these sorts of things??? I don't know...maybe they help let off some steam ). I had been sooo hoping they would cancel our session due to the icy road conditions...can you say selfish?! Ugh, I hate when I go there...when I start to value MY emotional state, comfort zone, nerves, return to calm, more than the needs of somebody else! Ugly...ugly...ugly!
Now that it's over, I am SO glad I didn't get my way! To see a couple move past division, tension and arguing, to actually laughing together was so cool! Sending them away all prayed up, hopeful, and with some concrete steps to take over the next week, leading them toward healing in their marriage...beautiful! So, I guess this post is to share a fear that I have been dealing with, and also a victory...all of the nervousness was still there, the physical uncomfortableness, the doubt, the sweating. But, with the help of my great guy, and the prayers we said together earlier in the day, the fear didn't get to stop me, and the evening was a success. Yay!
In closing out today's post, I thought I would share something that occurred to me this morning during my devotional time. I had been reading about love, how we are commanded to love one another, what love is supposed to look like in a marriage...and how often we fall into thinking of the word love in completely the wrong context. With song lyrics, movies, tv programs, magazines, and books all portraying love as an emotion, that we can be overcome by / swept up in / fall out of...it really can mess with us. I even remember asking others now and then when they asked me for relationship advice , " do you love_________?". Today's reading really hit me. Love isn't just and emotion. It can be at times, but more often it should be thought of as an action. So today I am asking myself, " do I love my husband Paul? ". Right away I think of my feelings about him, how I really do adore him and feel warm and fuzzy about him, but with what I have just learned, I will tweak that question a bit and ask myself , " how do I demonstrate my love for Paul? ". That changes things quite a bit, and puts the focus on love the action, rather than just the feeling. Then I begin to wonder if I do demonstrate it enough...if I could be doing more...puts a whole new slant on things. And I have to imagine that once we love others more ( in actions ), how much more loved they will feel...and what a great affect that will have on the whole relationship...so cool!
So, that's something I will be working on today. I hope you can take something away from today's rambling. Will you believe in yourself about an area of your life that wasn't so great in the past? Will you move forward in a new thing, even though you might have to yelp and run in place first? Can you try for today, to look at the word love differently, and ask yourself honestly, " do I love?" ...and think of it in the action sense rather than just the emotion? I hope you will give at least one of those a try...I'm guessing you will be happy that you did!
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