Show of hands…how many of you have set out to do one particular job. You get going gangbusters and you’re making some headway. Then you stop to make a cup of tea and something catches your eye up on that tippy top shelf. You know the one. It’s where old mugs and water bottles and stuff your husband refuses to part with go to die. You think, “I’d better get the step ladder and look at this a little closer. It looks like wood shavings in a spider web or something.”

You go get the step ladder, set it up steady as can be, and get up there all close and personal-like and there….before your very eyes…is the dreadful evidence of MICE! UGH!!!! Any thoughts of going back to the project you were so enthusiastically pursuing vanishes and off you go chasing rabbits… errrr, mice… through your kitchen cabinets. Everything has to come out. Your beloved husband goes to get the vacuum cleaner for you and you start sucking the crap out of every nook and cranny you can reach.

Next, you crank up the hot water to surface-of-the-sun hot and find whatever potion you have that will kill every living thing within a mile and start scrubbing. Now, here I must interject two things. First, I’ve lived here for seven years and had no idea there was a hole in the top of that cabinet that goes up into the attic and we live in the country so of COURSE there are critters up there. And second, I made the HUGE mistake of announcing to Mr. FixIt that I was going to have to take everything out and there’s too much stuff up there anyway and I’m just going to go through it and get rid of the stuff we haven’t touched since I moved in here, what is it? Oh, yeah… seven years ago this month, totally forgetting WHY we have all that stuff up there in the first place. I no sooner had uttered the words when I realized I’d played my hand WAY too soon, because… 

“Well, you’d better let me see what you’re thinking of throwing away first.”

Crap. The death knell to my plans.

SO many words started bubbling up from that place that stores all the frustration sentences but I bit my tongue. I didn’t actually SAY, “Yes, dear.” But it was implied as I got to work. I decided to do this in phases because you don’t change horses in the middle of the stream here. I got an old towel and laid it out on the island. After I washed a load, it went out on the towel to dry. I made a good dent and asked my hubs if he’d like to go out to dinner. I didn’t have the stomach to actually COOK in there until everything has been sterilized within an inch of its life.

“Sure,” he said, brightly. “I have to pick up something at Walmart anyway. We might as well make an evening of it!”

As we got back from town, I said, “You know, sweetheart. If you pick out what you absolutely cannot part with, I can put the rest in the donation box. THEN, you can pick out FOUR mugs that you actually use. The ones you don’t use but want to keep can be put in a box and stored.” The part my mature brain didn’t say was, “so the kids can throw it out after we’re gone.” However, that is not the hill I wanted to die on so I just let it go. I DID open a cabinet and reminded him we have TWO complete sets of stoneware that we use when we feed the family and there are sixteen mugs that go with them. I think he got my point.

One of the things I’ve been studying in Noom is how to replace a negative experience with a positive one. It doesn’t just apply to our relationship with food. The Bible tells us that Death and Life are in the power of the tongue. I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of venting our frustrations with our spouse to our closest friends from time to time. There’s a time and place for that, in moderation. You need to watch it, though. Because it can get out of hand quickly and it can destroy a marriage. When I make the choice to see my husband as a fallible human just as I am, I am much more likely to treat him with kindness, compassion, and respect rather than with harsh words and criticism. 

I’ve seen the change that comes with replacing a negative experience with a positive one in my marriage. I smile and shake my head at myself sometimes. I’m seventy years old. Why couldn’t I have been this wise when I was just starting my adult life? Ahhhh, the woulda, coulda, shoulda’s don’t do any good. As Maya Angelou said we do what we know and when we know better, we do better. Or, at least we SHOULD.

Now, how many hands are up in the room? Yeah, I thought so. We aren’t alone in this, are we? And, isn’t it nice to know that?

🩵

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Ephesians 4:32 ESV

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