Marriage Moats-Enough

Published: Sat, 09/29/12

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

I have always been intrigued by the story of manna in the book of Exodus. The children of Israel collected food each day. Some gathered more, some less, but everyone had enough. They were tempted to stockpile it for the future, but God said to only collect for one day. Tomorrow there would be more.

And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Exodus 16

It is tempting to glance around and notice that other people have more than I do. More success, more fun, more children (well, there's not so many of them), more quilts (not so many of them either actually).

But the manna story tells me that regardless of the size of the pile, we each have enough.

Sometimes when I am scraping the bottom of my contentment bowl, I grumble.

"This marriage support program is not working. There are too many people hurting, and a myriad of reasons to give up."

Then before I have a chance to lick my spoon clean another dollop appears in my bowl. Like this email.

I feel that reading your email daily reminds me to see my husband with compassion , caring and friendship. It is a daily reminder for me to work on myself as I tend to get annoyed with him very quickly. He doesn't do things quite the way I want hahaha.... If I am kinder and caring that is what comes back to me. I tend to expect my husband to come at me with all kids of love and affection and he just doesn't. In the past I have let my resentments pile up, now I take the initiative myself and he is very happy to reciprocate.... Instead of feeling unloved I realized that he just isn't an initiator. I guess through your moats and this email I realize I will have to make an effort every day for the rest of our lives..... I've given and then sat on my laurels waiting for something in return. Today I realize I'll just keep giving. I've been married 17 years, slow learner/ always learning! Thank you for your constant reminders.

I chewed on that for awhile. It was sweet as honey.

Photo by Joy Feerrar

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