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Everyone sleeps.
If someone is not sleeping, they make noises about it to anyone who
will listen, because in the absence of complete rest, we crumble.
There is something tender about sharing this vulnerable time with
your spouse. Your guard is down, you disengage with your surroundings,
your heart rate slips into an easy rhythm. The blood supply to your
muscles increases, and your body has a chance to heal.
When my children worry about a small cut, I reassure them that
God fixes hurts when our eyes are closed, to keep His work a secret.
Marriages sleep too. They sway between fierce and frantic activity that
jumbles and bumbles through our extended days, and slumping into bed for
those truncated nights.
But God is efficient with the scant hours in which we submit to His safekeeping. Some marriages simply heal.
I have read studies that track unhappy marriages over time. In a
surprising number of them, five years after reporting that they are
dissatisfied with their relationship, husbands and wives respond
differently. They tell the researchers that they are now content. This
is not always a result of counseling or drastic changes. Sometimes
couples just grow.
I know I did. I used to complain about things that seemed
unconscionable to me a few years into the game. Once I ranted to a
friend that John had clipped all the oleander bushes and left the
trimmings where they lay. Didn't she think that was terrible? She
paused.
"Well at our house I do the trimming and the picking up," was all
she said. Unfinished gardening fell off my list of unforgivable sins.
At another turning point I was rock certain that John's tendency to
not hand in receipts meant that he does not love me. I built a frenetic
case of righteousness in my mind. Then I let it go for awhile. I slept
on it for a year or so. Now I am calmer about it. I try to rescue the
receipts from his email and pockets and submit them. He has not really
changed. I have.
Sometimes we need to close our eyes and let God do the healing.
"You can close your eyes, it's alright."
www.caringformarriage.org
Photo by Chara Odhner
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