Marriage Moats-Feedback

Published: Sat, 03/30/13

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

The company that sends out marriage moats gives me a daily number of opens. I glance at it as I am swinging by to write a new one. The graph also reports any complaints or sales, and these are always zero. I don't look at them. But Opens is a burst of encouragement to keep me on track.

A few days ago the number of opens was zero. None. Zip.

Huh? Suddenly after three years everyone abruptly lost interest on the same day? I sent a question to the server and got back a canned reply about being sure not to sign people up without their knowledge. Not applicable. I felt a tad anxious about it but decided to wait it out. The next day was the same.

All kinds of doubts filled in the void. "It doesn't matter any more, so why try? Who was I to think I could write with substance anyway?" I mentioned it to John who called AWeber. They explained that the glitch was on their end and they were working on it.

The following day there were numbers again. I let out a little gasp. The moratorium was over. I could continue.

I thought about the impact of feedback. When John and I are having a conversation eye contact and nodding go a long way to letting me feel like my words matter. Throw in a smile, or reflective words and I feel safe. One time I was on the phone with one of my kids and the pauses after what I said seemed unusually long. Then I realized. He was playing a video game. I only had a small segment of his attention. I made an excuse to hang up.

It may look egocentric at first blush to want reciprocity. Give without any expectations. But there is a description of Divine love in the book True Christianity that reassures me.

The essence of God's love is loving others who are outside of oneself, wanting to be one with them and blessing them from oneself. TC 43

I guess even God likes to know we are listening.

Photo by Joy Feerrar

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