Marriage is Good Work to Do
Jeanene and I went away together this week because we were feeling disconnected from each other. We are living in the busiest season of our lives, and our marriage is the only thing we can neglect without experiencing immediate consequences. If we neglect our children, they will let their suffering be known. If we neglect our jobs, there will be instant ramifications and acute stress. That leaves our relationship, which is the only thing we can let slide when our busy lives force us to focus only on our immediate needs.
Jeanene is a chaplain. She was promoted to head of pastoral care for her hospital about a year ago. That promotion has been very hard. We had no idea how inflexible her schedule would become. She has weathered the difficult transition and now seems to be enjoying this calling, but it takes a lot out of her.
You know the basics of my story. I was merrily working away as a pastor and a web designer when I decided to start a blog so I could write a little bit in the evenings. You know, for my own health and sanity.
I don’t need to recap the last couple of years, but Real Live Preacher definitely has had a life of its own. I think I was in control of it for about a month. I’m not complaining, mind you. I wouldn’t trade the last two years for anything. There’s nothing a writer craves more than some excuse to take his or her writing seriously enough to work at it. Real Live Preacher has been my excuse, and I have worked at writing. I’ve worked hard and long into the night. I’ve hoarded time like a miser collecting scraps of soap and pressing them into mottled cakes.
If all writing required was a certain amount of time, then writing well would be a matter of scheduling. But good writing takes more than just time; it wants your best moments and the best of you. Writing demands your most focused and creative time, the hours when your heart, soul, and mind exist nowhere but in the line of words spilling out of the absolute focus you have somehow managed to find one more time.
That kind of writing takes something out of you that’s hard to get back in time for dinner with the kids.
So if your wife is busy, and you are busy, and your children need that same highly focused time and energy, how will you pull off this miracle? How will you write? Something has to give, and if you are not careful, that something will be your marriage.
Jeanene and I are committed to one another, and that commitment is inseparable from our devotion to God. We both know that neither of us will cut and run because of one busy season. That security is a good thing, but also a dangerous thing.
This kind of commitment sometimes creates marriages that have length but no depth. They are measured by years but not by happiness. Some people plod through the decades together, caring for their children and dutifully paying the mortgage while their hearts starve for want of affection and love.
I have a lot of respect for people who remain faithful to their marriages because of spiritual or other commitments, but I want more than a white-knuckled fidelity. I want Jeanene to love me, and I want to love her. I want this marriage to be emotionally satisfying for her, and I want that same emotional fulfillment for myself.
If we want our relationship to grow and remain meaningful, then we must work at it. If we put our marriage on auto-pilot, we will give the very best of ourselves to the children and to our vocations, leaving nothing but tattered scraps for ourselves.
That’s why we went away together this week. We went away because we looked at each other one night and said, “We’re coasting. We’re not taking the time we need to nurture each other.”
The busier you are, the more intentional you must be about your marriage. In the end, the children will leave, jobs will come and go, and even something as precious to me as writing may only be here for a season. Jeanene and I hope to be together until the end. And when the end comes, I do not want to regret our journey together, knowing that I shortchanged it because I was too busy doing “important” things.
Jeanene and I reconnected this week. We did a lot of talking and pledged to be more intentional about our relationship. We’re going to work a little harder at this marriage. That’s as it should be, because marriage is good work to do.
rlp
3:12:45 PM 
|
