Boomerang

I must confess, I've been boomeranged. 

 It's not an easy thing to admit either. In fact, writing about it in a public place is quite humbling.

This morning as I journaled my heart out to Immanuel, I discovered something about myself that I wasn't proud of.

I've been married 20 years (this upcoming Wednesday). 20 years is a long time, but it's only a fraction of how long I hope to be married. However, lately I've noticed that I've become less than loving in the way I respond to my husband when he's grumpy. And he's been kinda stressed for quite a while now.....

excerpt from my journal:

"Lord, help me change the picture and feelings I get when I think of my husband. I want to find my appreciation for him, I want to rediscover my love for him. Sadly, when I think of him I feel disrespected, unappreciated, blamed and shamed.....as I sit and talk with you Lord, I am suddenly aware that the way I "feel" is also a description for how I've responded to him lately. Forgive me Lord! I don't want to be a reflection of him, I want to be a reflection of YOU"

 I almost cringe at putting this out here, but it's the best way for me to express what the Lord taught me this morning.

My husband has weaknesses and failures. So do I. So does everyone. Many times I have cried out to the Lord about my hurt feelings based on my husbands weaknesses, and he has comforted me. He doesn't want my husband to hurt me with his words and the way he treats me. But this morning, he also showed me that he doesn't want me to hurt my husband. The "hardness" I complain about in my husband, has boomeranged and I've become hard towards him as well.

This awareness made my heart ache. I don't want to continue responding this way to my husband. I want to learn to have a tender response to his weaknesses... instead of "jumping on his failures and criticizing his faults" I want to love him and help him .

I asked Jesus to show me a picture of what a tender response to weakness would look like, because in my pain I have been unable to find it on my own. He showed me an image of how I responded to my students when I was a teacher. My students had plenty of weaknesses; they were in residential treatment for behavioral and psychological issues; but my reaction to them was to come along side them and help them quiet their anger, frustration, or fear. I would become quieter myself, I would look them in the eye and give them support while setting clear limits and boundaries for what they could and could not do when they were in this state of mind. I would give them "escape routes" for getting back within those boundaries when they messed up.... not lock them out forever for making a mistake.

After seeing this and remembering this, I now have a model for how to respond to my husband's weaknesses.

And I'm so grateful for the grace of God to teach me this instead of "jumping on me for my failures and criticizing me for my faults". That's the kind of boomerang I want to experience. That's also the kind of grace I want to extend to my husband.

I am sharing this for 2 reasons. 1- that perhaps it will speak to one of you and be just what you needed to hear, and 2- for those that know me personally, to ask for accountability! That I would respond with grace instead of hardness, tenderness instead of disrespect, gentleness instead of blaming and shaming.