Marriage Advice from a Luau

Marriage Advice from a Luau

About two and a half decades into our marriage, I received some advice that created one of those famous Oprah aha moments – “I’ve never looked at it exactly that way before.”

We were at a luau in Hawaii, celebrating our 25^th.  We were seated with two other younger couples, one on their honeymoon and one celebrating their 10^th anniversary.  About half way through the meal, the young bride made a request. “You’ve both been married awhile, so tell us your best advice for a good marriage.”

I have no recollection of the advice I shared with the newlyweds. But I will forever remember what the 10 year wife said. “Always choose what pleases your spouse. If you both do that, you will be happy.”

I have to admit this advice kind of rankled me at first. Our marriage was a progressive one, born of the 70’s.  We were equals.  I wasn’t the little woman bringing iced teas to his recliner, like my grandmother’s generation. We had dual careers. We shared the household and child rearing responsibilities. We practiced give and take. Not give and give. Besides, my marriage had 15 years on hers. I must be doing something right.

Her words lingered.  My brain is wired to think about things a long time before taking action. Eventually I remembered her second sentence. “If you both do that, you will be happy.” The other half of the equation became clear. Hers was a ‘give and get’ philosophy, because they both played the give game.

Then my thoughts smacked me upside the head, as they often do. My husband already tried to do what pleased me most of the time. I was used to getting my way. I enjoyed the benefits of being princess. And I had let the equation get unbalanced in the name of equality. The irony settled upon me.

Sometimes Christians can use scripture to justify imbalance in marriage in either direction. We can be selective with scriptures telling the wife to give to the husband or the husband to give to the wife. So we have to remember they are both two way streets. Paul wrote of the comparison between husbands and wives and Christ and the church.

Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church –a love marked by giving, not getting. [Ephesians 5:25 MSG]

While humans can never achieve the perfect love that Christ has for us, our love can take on His characteristics. A love marked by giving. And when both spouses practice that kind of love, the giving comes back in the form of getting.

Fourteen years have gone by now.  My luau advisor is approaching her 25^th anniversary. She has no idea how much her thoughtful response to the bride impacted me. My husband and I continue to be students of her wisdom, ever trying to win at making the other person happy. Give and get. It beats give and take.

Drink Cherry Coke and Other Advice from Mom

I’m plowing through the bitter part of the annual bittersweet Mother’s Day weekend. There’s nothing sweeter than celebrating my own motherhood and nanahood.  I’d love to be Ms. Positive all the time, but I won’t pretend. The sting of missing my mom goes deep and I must let it soak in a bit before I can move on to the sweet part of the celebration.

One thing I’ve learned is that grief itself is simultaneously sad and joyful. It breaks my heart that she didn’t get to hold any of her great-grandchildren. Yet what joy to look at pictures of her holding each of her grandchildren for the first time. I wish she could have been at my kid’s graduations and weddings. And I’m happy she was at mine.

Right after Mom died, someone gave me the book Momilies®: As My Mother Used to Say . . .®   by Michele B. Slung.  With joyful sadness I’ve been thinking about some of the things my mom used to say. Whether your mom is still with you or not, I hope you remember some of your favorites too.

Here, drink some cherry coke. When we were growing up and got sick, this was her go-to remedy. She knew that most childhood illnesses could be waited out with a little patience, TLC and a prayer with anointment from the tiny bottle of rancid olive oil she kept in the cabinet.  If it was super duper serious, we got anointed on the way to the doctor and got a cherry coke on the way back home.

Just breathe the name of Jesus. I was probably about 9 years old the first time she gave me this advice. It was in response to some anxiety I was feeling at school. She repeated it over the years to make sure I knew He was the one who would always be there to help me. When I was sixteen and starting to take the car by myself, she advised, “If you see you’re about to have a wreck, just breathe the name of Jesus. That’s all you’ll have time for.”

What one generation does in moderation, the next will do in excess. This was usually in response to my complaints about my parents’ strict rules. The corollary was ‘if I give you an inch, you’ll take a mile.” I’m pretty thankful for all the inches she didn’t give me.

If you’re noticing a theme here, she was a godly woman who taught me that it’s ALL about Him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17 [NIV] 

Outside of God and her family, the other topic she took seriously was making her home lovely, which reminds me of two pieces of advice she had for my home.

That light needs a brighter lightbulb. Ok, this only happened once, but it sums up her view that just about everything can be improved.  The problem was I didn’t agree with her about the wattage over my kitchen sink. She delivered this advice and implemented it the week she stayed with me after the birth of our first child.  Her cooking that week was awesome and much appreciated. Her lightbulb services were not. I bit my tongue and changed it back to my favorite wattage after she left.

Your bed will look better if it’s a little taller.  She said that as she lay bedridden the last few weeks of her life.  Really, Mom? Was that the most important last piece of advice you had for me?  Yeah, it was. She had already given me all of the important life instructions. Besides, home décor is next to godliness.

Seven Ways to Widen Your Margin

My favorite part of retirement is having wide margins in my schedule. When we travel, we like a pace that leaves room for lingering. When we’re at home, I sometimes have days with nothing on the agenda that HAS to be done. Even on the days with scheduled events, it isn’t back-to-back like it was in my career days. Margin leaves room for the unexpected or spontaneous.

But you do not have to wait until you retire to enjoy margin. In the last decade of my career, I began to find the small things that made a difference in the width of my margin. The hard truth is that you create margin in your schedule the same way you create it in your budget.  You take it out first and then protect it like a mama bear. Margin is created by reserving time, measured in seconds and minutes, or months and years.

1)              SECONDS: Find the natural short pauses in the day to do your deep breathing. Waiting at a traffic light. Waiting for the microwave to ding. Waiting for the kids to come out to their chauffeured ride home.

2)              MINUTES: Schedule meetings/appointments that are in your control for 50 minutes vs. an hour or 25 minutes vs. a half hour. The cushion gives you time to breathe or get to your next meeting or do a few emails or use the potty, for crying out loud!

3)              HOURS: Decide how many week nights you are ok to have something on your family’s agenda and start saying “no” after the max is scheduled. This might mean limiting your children to only 1 or 2 extracurricular activities. It may require reducing your own hobbies, volunteer, or work commitments, or a million other good things that you could do, but choose not to in order to create margin.

4)              DAYS: Plan vacations well ahead, and put money down on them. Then you can say “Sorry, this vacation has been scheduled for months and I’ve already paid for it.” Protecting vacations is easier if you have the corporate culture and leadership that role models it. If not, you become the role model. Remember that vacations don’t have to come in whole weeks. You can take ‘half’ vacations if your employer supports it. Work mornings and take the afternoons off for a week or two. Take every Wednesday off for the whole summer.

5)              WEEKS: The kind of margin that is measured in weeks usually comes uninvited. We experience illnesses or injuries that require recovery time. Don’t be a hero and try to cut your recovery time short. You’re not that irreplaceable. Resist the temptation to cram a big to-do list on top when you start feeling better.

6)              MONTHS & YEARS: A couple years before retiring, my mantra became “Practice retirement.” Not only did we practice living on our retirement budget, we also began creating wider margins in our schedule. It made my career much more enjoyable. Wished I would have started practicing that a few years earlier.

7)              ETERNITY: If you plan to spend eternity with God, practice the margin of eternity now.

Be still and know that I am God. [Psalm 46:10 ESV]

Eternity will be an infinite margin to worship Him. Create margin to be still with Him now. In the quiet of the margin we remember what we already know. He is God.