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So Close, But Oh So Far

4 Apr

A friend loves to text me jokes. Here are some of my favorites:

  • What did the silly woman say when she looked into a box of Cheerios? “Oh look … Donut seeds!”
  • How do you identify a bald eagle? All his feathers are combed over to one side.
  • Why do seagulls live near the sea? If they lived near they bay, they’d be bagels.

Cindy Martin, a certified personality trainer, writer and speaker, made me laugh with a short post she wrote for The Christian Pulse called “The Trouble with Texting.” Cindy gave me permission to share it here on LOL with God.  I hope you LOL too.

My husband had just transferred to a new company and his new position required several hours of online training and certifications. It also required him being out of town more than he had before. Desiring to be intentional about our relationship, I knew we’d have to find ways to stay connected so physical distance did not also become emotional distance.

True to my multi-tasking nature, I asked my daughter to type the words I dictated to her into my phone as I drove her TeenTextingto school. “Hey Baby, I’m so proud of you…. thank you for how hard you work for our family…. love you……”

Later that day, I spoke with my husband on the phone and asked him if he’d gotten my text. When he said “no,” I sent it again, but it still didn’t go through. I’d been having some trouble with my phone so I took it in and sure enough, there was a problem. They replaced the SIM card, said it would take about an hour to recalibrate and then everything should be fine.

Right on cue my phone started, “buzz, buzz, ding, ding, beeping” as a flood of texts, messages and notifications announced their arrival – albeit delayed. I was scrolling through to see if anything still required my attention and just what I had missed during this temporary cyber hi-jacking. Nothing urgent surfaced and I was ready to soothe any anxious thoughts when my eyes glanced at a text that I assumed was from my husband. It read, “Hi, I’ve received two messages that are obviously meant for someone else, but it isn’t me. Best check your number baby!”

Gasp, gasp, ugh! “Are you serious? How did this happen?!?” Upon investigation I found out that my daughter had manually typed in my husband’s number rather than using my contact list or our existing text trail. In doing so, she was one digit out in the prefix she dialed.

So close, but oh so far.

It reminds me of the verse in scripture, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Mark 7:6b NIV). This incident will serve as a reminder to me to be diligent in properly communicating and directing my love … especially to the Lover of my soul.

Often times, I don’t even know how to properly communicate or direct my love. I feel it inside but fail to express it on the outside. Or I get caught up in the daily demands that claw for our attention and don’t notice the slippage in my own heart towards those who need to feel my love the most. It’s at those times that I ask God to turn my heart more fully, first to Him, and then to those I desire to love deeply.

Going back to the Source of love fills my emotional tanks so I can give out the abundance He pours into my heart.

PRAYER: Lord, help me to love those I say I love with my actions and not just my words. May they feel my love for them in my tone of voice, my response to their needs and the priority I put on our time spent together. Lord, may that also be true of my relationship with You.

CindyMartinCindy Martin and her husband of 23 years live with their two special needs children near Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

She is passionate about people experiencing the difference Jesus desires to make in their everyday lives. This passion finds expression in her speaking, writing and teaching. Visit her site, Life Meets Reality, for more information.

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Make the Message Clear

15 Sep

I recently read an entire page of cake inscriptions gone wrong.  Here are some samples:

  • When my mother-in-law ordered a cake for my wedding anniversary, she made a point of instructing the bakery, “That’s Thompson with a ‘p’.” Later, when she went to pick up her order, she noticed that on the box they had written, “Mrs. Phompson.”
  • For my 40th birthday, my husband decided to surprise me with a birthday cake from our local bakery. “In the middle, please print ‘Happy Birthday Nita,’” he instructed them over the phone. “Then, ‘You’re not getting older’ at the top and ‘you’re getting better’ at the bottom.” When he went to pick it up, he discovered that they had decorated the cake with the words exactly as he had said them: “Happy Birthday Nita. You’re not getting older at the top, you’re getting better a the bottom.”
  • We had a “going away” party for a lady… One of the supervisors called a Wal-Mart and ordered a cake. He told them to write: “Best Wishes Suzanne” and underneath that write, “We will miss you.”  As the picture shows, it didn’t quite turn out right.

Apparently, even floral tributes are not safe.

  • My husband is a mortician. He found an odd card on some flowers sent in honor of the deceased. When the sender of the flowers called to place her order, the florist asked what she wanted written on the card. She said, “Write ‘Rest in Peace’ on both sides. And, if you can fit it in, ‘We’ll see you in eternity..” My husband read the card: “Rest in Peace on both sides. And if you can fit it in, we’ll see you in eternity.”

These cakes  and the flowers point out the risk of trusting others to deliver our heart-felt messages. They might get it wrong!

Remember as a child playing the game “Telephone,” a game where children sit in a circle and one child begins to relay a message that must go around the entire circle. The last child reveals the message ~ and sometimes, what the child is so off from the original message that everyone erupts in laughter.

When a message is important, we need to share it ourselves. We need to be sure people “get it.” Nowhere is this more important than when we share the biblical message of the Gospel.

A child explain the gospel to another young friend, in earshot of his mom. He talked with great passion about Jesus’ death and burial, but left out Jesus’ resurrection. “What about when Jesus rose from the grave?” his mom said. The boy turned around and whispered to his mom, “He’ll never believe that, Mom. I’m just going to tell him about heaven.”

That’s the problem with a lot of messages about the scripture. People (sometimes even pastors) leave parts out, believing the plain truth of the Word of God will be too difficult ~ too strange ~ for people to believe. We can’t help it if people misunderstand, but we need to be sure that the messages we share (especially about the Gospel) are not mis-stated! We can’t make people believe, but we must make the message clear.

The Apostle Paul explained the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. But he also asked the Colossian church to pray for him so his messages would be clear (Colossians 4:3-4). He had the facts straight, but he wanted the wisdom to communicate through the Holy Spirit to the hearts of men and women so they would understand.

That should be our prayer as well:  “Lord, help me make the message of the Gospel clear.”

Note: All of the cake and floral inscriptions appeared on “Cake Talk,” Snopes.com:  (1) http://www.readersdigest.ca, 1997; (2) http://www.readersdigest, ca, 1992; (3) Email to Snopes.com, Oct. 2007; (4) email to Snopes.com, 2007

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Those Pesky Idiosyncracies

27 May

It’s been said that married men should forget their mistakes. There’s no sense in two people remembering the same thing.

It’s also been said that marriage is a relationship where one person is always right … and the other is the husband.

Those jokes are funny, but not too kind to the menfolk!

Unfortunately, marriage is a sea of challenges that requires graceful navigation!

I was recently encouraged by a book about this complicated relationship. Elaine W. Miller wrote We All Married Idiots, a book that examines three things we will never change about our marriages, and then she offers ten things we can all work on to improve the husband-wife relationship. (1)

In one chapter, Elaine talks about learning to live with each other’s idiosyncrasies.

“Since living with idiosyncrasies is a part of marriage,” she wrote, “You might as well treasure those peculiar habits. One day you might miss them. I know I did.”

Elaine’s husband Dan was a tapper. He tapped on things. “I think in his mind the whole world is his trumpet as his fingers play a perpetual tune,” she said. “He taps the table when he eats, the steering wheel when he drives, the newspaper when he reads, the pulpit when he preaches, and my shoulders when he puts his arms around me.”

The tapping got hard to take. “If I let it,” Elaine said, “his tapping gets on my nerves. Many times I have said in an irritated voice, ‘Would you please stop tapping!’

“However,” she added, “when he was hospitalized and I was uncertain if he would live through the night, those words weren’t on my lips. I stared at his silent fingers, held his motionless hands, and pleaded, ‘Please, God, let me feel his fingers tapping.’

“Funny how our perspective on idiosyncrasies changes under different circumstances,” she said. “Many will admit the very thing that bugs them is what first enticed them to their beloved, and what they will miss the most when their loved one is gone.”

I remember reading about a woman who hated her husband’s snoring. She complained and poked him through the night. But after the man died, she told a friend she’d “give anything to hear that man snore again!”

Those pesky idiosyncrasies are simply more proof that we are all unique, and the truth is, every marriage has them. It is our attitude that makes the difference. Elaine explains that love is kind (according to 1 Corinthians 13:4). And what does that look like? “Being kind to your mate means overlooking those oddities that sometimes drive you crazy. The next time your love does the idiotic, remember this ~ you married an idiot and so did your spouse.” (2)

Elaine points out that the words “idiosyncrasy” and “idiot” both come from the same Greek root word (idio) meaning “common man.” In other words, we all do things that are a bit eccentric or peculiar from time to time.

As I thought about this, I realized how many times simple kindness and grace ~ and especially loving words ~ have acted like soothing oil in my own marriage. (Sometimes I can’t believe that my husband has put up with me this long!)

Rather than focusing on each other’s quirks, we’ve chosen to concentrate on what is good, pure, lovely, etc. (see Philippians 4:8). Some of those pesky idiosyncrasies remain, but they aren’t “issues” anymore. We’ve learned to love and accept each other and try to see each other through the eyes of the Redeemer we both love.

When I stop to think that God created me with unique idiosyncrasies ~ and He loves me ~ it encourages me to share the same kind of love with others, especially my spouse.

How about you? When you think about your spouse (or if you’re not married, a boss or a parent or someone else you have a relationship with on a regular basis), is there something that the person does that really bugs you? Could love, acceptance, patience and mega doses of grace ease your frustration?

(1) Elaine W. Miller, We All Married Idiots (Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, 2012), p. 7.

(2) ibid, p. 7.

Elaine Miller is a member of the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA) and has authored two other books, Splashes of Serenity: Bathtime Reflections for Drained Moms and Splashes of Serenity: Bathtime Reflections for Drained Wives. http://www.splashesofserenity.com.

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