Taking The Journey

For most of my life I have been target oriented. When I would take off on a road trip I would tell everyone to use the bathroom now, because we are not stopping until I need to fill the gas tank. There would be moans and groans, but everyone would settle in not believing I would make them wait. Five minutes into the trip someone would test my resolve and find out I was serious. Three hundred miles later, tears streaming down their face, they would break for the door as the car barely swings into the station. I had a schedule and was committed to keep it. I didn’t consider anything but the destination or planned stops. Speeding through life and later regretting I didn’t slow down.

Psalms 77:19 “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen”.

Marriage is about the journey. Too often we lose sight of everything around, because we become focused on the next landmark. First may be getting through the wedding and then staying married through the three, five or seven year itch, depending on who you talk to. We rush our relationship through the next big landmark so we are not caught in the tragedy of statistics. By being worried about reaching the next big date in our relationship we miss out on the amazing moments with our special someone.

It is important that we slow down and experience the journey. No map or schedule is going to get us through each day, because each day holds its own adventure. Relationship is about learning and developing together. Embrace each day as a new opportunity. It’s a time to get to know something else about each other. As a newlywed do not focus on preparing for that time everyone tells you that you are going to run into trouble in your relationship. There is nothing to say when or why you will struggle in your marriage except if you do not work on it every day. When you stop listening and taking time for each other, problems creep in. Depending on how diligent you are, will define when those struggles will occur. By working on your relationship together each day, those times will be nothing more than a transition in maturity, and you will gain new strength from it.

As you are married longer some things may become routine and lost to the mundane. It is important to relate and recognize this change in relationship and find ways to encourage each other. Life is filled with a series of events so it is important to learn new ways of communicating through them. Showing appreciation to each other for maintaining the routine can be even more important than the rewards for exceptional events. Remember to tell each other how much you Love each other and reinforce it with action. By assuming the other knows leaves an opening for small things to become big issues.

Don’t be in a race to reach the next destination, but be compassionate to each other. Stop when you need and check in with each other. Slow down when your spouse voices a need. Enjoy the journey. You will reach your destination, but be a lot healthier for it.

Stages of Relationship Mini-Series Introduction

Living life is far more exciting than any movie you can see on the big screen. Take a step back and look at your life. What is it that marks events in your mind? Understand that memories are associated with emotions. Those deep seated reflections or moments with grandma as a kid or the day you made the winning play in high school. They are all connected to an emotion. Understand, not all memories are pleasant, just as emotions are not limited to one response. Parents, pastors and friends try to offer advice based on how we have handled events in the past. By listening to them we gain wisdom that prepare us for the future.

Proverbs 22:17, 18 “Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips”.

Marriage is so much more than meeting, living and dying. The unique complexities to the marriage relationship have enabled a whole commercial industry to be built around the subject. Just like the reality sex sells. Much of our retail and service market money is tied to marriage and family. Take for instance the societal traditions and expectations around the wedding alone. The wedding dress market makes millions every year. Even when the economy is down people are falling in love and getting married. There are locations set aside and landscaped just to offer the right setting for the fairy tale wedding, at a price. That happy marriage is expected to run into hard times so there are counselors attaching family to the front of their title to attract couples to them. Marketing professionals spend a large portion of their time designing advertising around family. The auto industry shows the family car with five star safety rating or the resort with great family vacation packages. Communities use slogans like “great family community”, spotlighting features like walking trails, parks, and activities. And let’s not forget books, magazines, and yes even tabloids all capitalize on the topic of relationships and marriage.

Rather than falling into the pitfall of chasing the next fad or scrambling to have the perfect fairy tale, I would suggest understanding the stages of marriage and how to navigate them yourself. Create a tool box just for your marriage. Remember every marriage is unique. Not everyone is exactly the same, but there are landmarks that are similar and with the right tools and processes the changing landscapes of your relationship can be successfully navigated. Just like when you are building something, you must have the plan, the parts, and the tools to put it together. Marriage is very similar to that building. By being prepared and filling your toolbox with the right tools you do not have to become another statistic.

Society likes to place a number on life’s failures. They put others down in order to build themselves up or maybe to make more money selling the next cure-all. Rather than measuring your relationship on the failures, understand it is a process. Over the next several weeks I will describe the stages of marriage in more detail. Exploring dating, engagement, being newlywed, sex, children, careers, loss, transition, retirement, health (or lack there of), and even death and some ideas how to navigate through them. Life is more than living and dying. You need contact with others and to feel value. You must feel and experience. In order to feel value you need to learn how to value others. So in summary, people are not tools, they are imperfect human beings filled with living emotion. Value your spouse, love them, and bring your tool belt along for the adventure.