Our neighbor across the street walks. I see him on various streets, at various times and various states of (un)dress in our neighborhood. Walking. Something inside me thinks I should be doing that too.
So, I started walking.
After two days and two walks, God has started teaching me some things about my marriage.
Learning About Marriage While Walking
I don’t have to be so serious
There were several times on my walks when I stopped and just enjoyed what was around me. Colored leaves, acorns, some random ball-like-seed-things that smelled like pine, a rock that was in the middle of the sidewalk, ripe for kicking. A huge pile of leaves, ripe for stomping.
I get wrapped up in being ‘an adult’. In being serious. I take myself and my marriage too seriously sometimes. Yes, I believe my marriage is the most important worldly relationship I have…but I still take it too seriously.
As Michael Shevack says in his book Adam & Eve: Marriage Secrets from the Garden of Eden (amazon link) – ‘Always Remember, you are dust’. Remember Genesis 2:7?
I forget to be humble, because I take myself so seriously. I start to think that the whole story is about me. A good way to cure myself from seriousness is playfulness. I need to play more in my marriage.
Pay attention to my wife and her life
I went to a local shopping center for one of my walks. I didn’t ‘power walk’ inside the mall, I walked around outside. I had no idea that the main street by this mall had sidewalks. It has huge trees lining one side, so I just assumed trees and grass covered the whole area. I was wrong. I hadn’t paid any attention before.
Over time, if I am not careful, I start assuming that I know my wife better than I do. I believe I know how she’ll answer questions, or assume that she’ll always respond a certain way. I take her for granted, and become blind to her as a woman and my wife.
I stop paying attention to little things because I believe my blanket assumptions are just as correct as they were a month ago, or yesterday.
Pain is temporary in walking and marriage
As I was making my way back towards the mall, I started to get a pain in the ball of my foot. It was cramping. Hard. I felt like I was done. Maybe I should turn around and go back to the car. Call it a day.
Then I had another thought. Just breathe through it. Breathe into the pain. Imagine your breathe going straight to the pain. As I turned the corner, it had stopped hurting.
Breathing is a good thing when pain happens. Especially when your conversation with your spouse gets heated. The cool thing is that pain is only temporary. You might have scars and battle wounds, but you can make it through the pain. If you focus on the pain, it will kill your journey.
You both have to say – ‘Yes it hurts, but we are going on together’.
It takes work and you’ll be winded if you haven’t done it for a while.
Walking is a low maintenance exercise, still, I was tired. My legs were hurting a bit — Yeah I know — stop whining!
The point is – if you get out of habit – It’s going to seem like harder work. You’ll feel the pain of getting back into the routine.
It happens when you stop communicating or having sex, or whatever you are dodging or not doing right now in your marriage… getting back into it is going to be work. But it gets better if you keep at it.
God has been here the whole time
My personal time with God has been on the lax side lately. Ok, I’ll be honest — the past couple years. For some reason, after I read the Bible all the way through about 5 years ago, I can’t make myself spend any time in it – other than following along during a teaching or looking something up. (Any ideas on this one –how to get back in the habit? Don’t tell me “Daily Reading” chart! I’ve tried. Fail.)
Walking has given me a couple minutes to reconnect with God to tell him what’s going on with me. It’s given me time to be quiet and listen. I’m looking forward to more of this time for my relationship with Him.
My personal belief is that the closer I am to God, the better my relationship with my wife will be. Things seem to line up better that way.
Stu & Lisa have been married 8 years (together 11) and have a heart to encourage couples in their marriages. They live in Middle Tennessee, have an awesome 6 year old, and a mutt named 'Boo'.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post! Thank you for this. While I connected with the whole article, the part that resonated with me is the “God has been here the whole time” part. I too read through the entire Bible about 5 years ago and since have been struggling mightly to get back in it. If anyone has solid suggestions I too would be up for reading them.
Russell -
Thanks for the comment! I appreciate not being the only one who has a desire, but hasn’t gotten back into the Bible again. I am with you – would love to hear of others who have been away, but have gotten back into reading consistently.
Good observations. Especially the part about how difficult walking or loving or sex is if you get out of the habit. Some years ago my husband and I promised one another that we would keep our sex life active – no matter how tired, how busy, how ill, how distracted we might become. When we made that promise, it seemed silly. We were young. Passion swept us away regularly. Why did we need to promise?
But we did promise and we kept that promise through tragedies, illness, breast cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, whatever. And so we have never lost that habit and we’ve been married 62 years, 2 months, 19 days, 15 hours and 47 minutes. (Stories like that and others in This Path We Share: Reflecting on 60 Years of Marriage on our website, amazon.com, etc.)
Thanks for the comment Lois! It’s awesome that you have kept that promise. I would love to hear your other tips from 62 yrs, 2 months, 19 days, and some odd hours and minutes!!
Great post.
I am learning how true it is that ‘My personal belief is that the closer I am to God, the better my relationship with my wife will be. Things seem to line up better that way’
Okay so I have a couple tips for getting back into the Word. The first is to memorize scripture. You’ll be amazed at how repeating passages of scripture over and over and over and over again will create a thirst for the Word of God. Also, since God wants you to store up His Word in your hearts when things get difficult you pray about it, ask God to help you remember. Very effective. I recommend memorizing a whole book, you’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn by simply memorizing a whole book.
The next idea is to join a Bible Study with a group of people that are reading through a book in the Bible. You’ll have accountability to read and get back into a routine of being in the Word. I personally go to BSF (Bible Study Fellowship). It is an interdenominational Bible study that focuses only on the Word of God (no commentaries for the questions) and you have to have answered the questions to participate in the discussion.
Good Luck!
Buffy – Great Ideas – thanks so much for sharing!
If you are into podcasts, that is how I finally got back into the Word this year after struggling with it for several years. I now listen to the Daily Audio Bible (website or iTunes) every morning, which may not be as good as reading it but at least it gets me in the Word every day.
Hey Kathryn – That is a good idea too – about how long are the podcasts? I appreciate the comment!
Sweet. Almost too much to handle!
#1 Too serious. Geez…if I could just push a button! Change the channel. By the way, WHERE IS THE FUN CHANNEL? Somehow that got dialed out of my life as I have chronically met everyone else’s needs. Compulsive serving has made most of my “fun” vicarious and I am not sure how to change this. It seems that very few respond positively to my spontaneous, zany ideas so…I’ve sorta’ quit having them. Got any suggestions on how to get out of this box?
Lois’s comment was precious…will try to implement.
#5 Two great books may inspire. The Untold Story of the New Testament Church by Frank Viola (couldn’t put my Bible down cuz of it) and Becoming Who God Intended by David Eckman (absolutely transformationa…still in shock over the principles in this!!). You’ll just fall back in love with the Word.
Stu,
You have hit a home run with this one. Plain simple truths that we can all benefit from. You have gained some wonderful insights from walking. Most people talk about the shower being their place of inspiration. It was encouraging to hear of a walk being the inspiration. The walking metaphor brings to mind the passage in Isaiah (Isaiah 40:31) which talks about walking and not feinting. We need the biggest part of His strength for the daily walk through life and with our spouse, which is why it is the last in the series of flying, running and walking.
Keep up the good work and “Keep on trucking (walking)!”