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Day 9: Grace

This post is a part of The 15-Day Relationship Challenge. If you’re just now tuning in, click here for the whole series.

MORNING
Grace. Sweat the small stuff.

Good morning. Welcome to Day 9. Today is all about grace.

Several years ago, my wife and I were sitting around the room full of other couples. At the center of the room was the future bride and groom to be. Each couple would take turn answering this question: “What’s one piece of advice you wished someone would have told you about marriage?”

As the couples gave their answers, it covered the usually suspects: Letting things go; have lots of sex; don’t fight about money; and be quick to forgive. All in all, it was well meaning advice. The two couples that shared right before us essentially said the same thing, “don’t sweat the small stuff!”

When it was our turn to answer, my wife and I both said in unison, “show grace by sweating the small stuff!” We didn’t answer this as a rebuttal to the couples before us, but because of the importance of offering grace in relationship. We shared this advice because sweating the small stuff will help you heal the hurt, connect intimately, and get familiar with exchanging grace. Practice grace.

Showing grace implies forgiveness, acceptance, and a belief that your spouse is a better man/woman than what the offending action shows. It’s easy to get offended or hurt and turn away from them as protection. It’s hard to stay engaged and put hurt feelings aside and believe the best. Next time this happens in your relationship, offer grace by placing your hand on their shoulder or chest near their heart and say, “I don’t believe that you intended to hurt me, and that you do love and care for me.” 

When we pay attention to the little things that go awry in our relationship, we are exercising our grace muscles. When the big issues hit us, we’ve got a bunch of practice together that we readily give grace. If we don’t sweat the small stuff, two things will happen.  

First, we will become resentment machines. We’ll get hurt, brush it aside, and move on. But we’re really not brushing it aside, we’re either stuffing it or we are numbing out to the hurt. Neither of those are good options for relationships. Over time the stuffing makes us fat on resentment, and the numbing out makes us malnourished with indifference. 

As if resentments weren’t a big enough issue, the second problem with letting things slide is that we won’t learn about each other. Talking about 100 little things is going to give you both so much insight into how you relate to the world. With this insight comes a ton of future opportunities to love and care for your spouse.

Grace allows us to be in conflict, quickly find resolution for the conflict, and move into intimacy instead of isolation. 

Reflection Questions

  • What did I think about my spouse in reading today’s material? Was it kind? Was it thoughtful? Was it loving?
  • Did I have feelings, thoughts, questions, or stories that came to mind?
  • What is something I can do for them today?
  • How can I welcome and receive what they have done for me today?


Assignment
What “small things” have come up recently that you would like to practice giving grace to your spouse for? 
What is one way that you can make yourself available to regularly offer grace to your spouse? 

EVENING

Hello! Welcome back. Great to see you again. How was your day?

Grace is a beautiful act of kindness, but sometimes we take advantage of it. Be careful to not confuse grace and enabling behaviors. We can also think we’re giving grace when we’re actually enabling someone else’s disruptive behavior. A good rule of thumb for this grace and enabling has to do with the difference of hurt and harm. Hurt is something that happens in the regular coming and going of relationships. Harm is something that happens with intentionality as pay back, punishment, or power and control. 

Take 10-15 minutes tonight with your spouse to talk through your day. 

  • What were the highs and lows?
  • Where were you surprised? 
  • Was there anything different about your day because of the assignment(s)?
  • From this mornings reading, what stood out to you? 
  • If you’re willing, share your answers to the assignment. 

Bonus: Assignment Connection
Practice sweating the small stuff by bringing something up that was a “small event,” and be quick to forgive, and quick to resolve.

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Use It Or Lose It

Relationships are like muscles, if we exercise them, they will grow (even if we don’t see that growth).

Marriage takes work, and will not naturally grow on it’s own. In fact, left alone, a marriage will shrivel up and die. It takes consistent time and energy much like your muscles.

If you were to sit all day every day for a year, you would notice a significant amount of atrophy in your body. Your inability to function after that year of sitting would likely take you a more painful and greater amount of recovery to return to your previous abilities (if ever at all). Once you have lost muscle mass, it is very difficult to get it back.

Your months and years of dating and courtship are very much like a daily trip to the gym. You exercised the muscles of the relationship that allowed it to grow. Though for a lot of us, when we married, we stopped going to the gym (literally and metaphorically!).

Continue your visits to the gym. Read books together, attend marriage workshops, go on dates, spend quality time together, give each other gifts, surprise each other with good things, and take trips. Do all of these things regularly and your marriage will thrive.

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Avoiding Hurt Limits Intimacy

Couples that avoid hurt from happening (or the hurt that has already happened) are preventing intimacy from developing.

No one really enjoys being hurt, and being hurt is a part of all close intimate relationships. It’s going to happen. The difficulty is in viewing pain as though it is a gift, not the plague.

Pain is not fun, but neither is numbness. I don’t know about you, but when I leave the dentist after getting a shot of Novocain, I cannot wait for it to wear off. The feeling of not controlling half of my face is miserable (not to mention drooling and talking like there’s a boulder in half my mouth). People were not made to be numb, we were made to feel.

Mary Oliver penned this beautiful line, and it speaks well to the realities couples face: “I was once given a box full of darkness, it took me many years to realize that this too was a gift.”

Pain shapes our lives either in our acceptance of it or our refusal to experience it. Creating a space for hurts to be a welcomed guest in your marriage will serve you well. A noble calling for every marriage would be to create and live out a relationship that engages the hurt, and heals the pain.

Develop guidelines for how you’ll address hurts in your relationship. Setup a regular time to “clear the air” together, and keep short accounts. Find intentional ways to ask for and offer forgiveness.

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Grace & Gratitude

Before I release a pre-marital couple to the wild world of marriage, I challenge them to adopt two words (concepts) as cornerstones for their marriage: Grace and Gratitude. Here’s why.

Showing grace implies forgiveness, acceptance, and a belief that your spouse is a better man/woman than what the offending action shows. It’s easy to get offended or hurt and turn away from them as protection. It’s hard to stay engaged and put hurt feelings aside and believe the best. Next time this happens in your relationship, offer grace by placing your hand on their shoulder or chest near their heart and say, “I don’t believe that you intended to harm me, and that you do love and care for me.” Watch what happens next. 

The second is gratitude. As a whole, we are not that grateful of a people. Instead, we are an entitled people. Sadly, I rarely encounter a couple that genuinely like each other. Most couples remember liking each other, but they’ve long since forgotten that part of their lives. Entitlements will destroy your relationship — Gratitude will repair and heal your relationship. 

Practice giving thanks to your spouse, for even the smallest of items.

  • “Thank you for smiling at me this morning.” 
  • “Thank you for sitting next to me on the couch.” 
  • “Thank you for turning off the TV and listening to my tough day.” 
  • “Thank you for marrying me.” 
  • “Thank you for smiling at me when I came home.”
  • “Thank you … <fill in the blank>”

 
It doesn’t take a lot to change the tune of your day, or your spouse’s day. Show them grace, and gratitude, and see how quickly you begin to like them again. 

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A Near Miss

On my walk to the restroom the other day I was preoccupied with an email I’d just received. During my walk I was mulling over my response, or if I needed to respond at all. I was completely unaware of my surroundings, walking towards the restroom on auto-pilot.

I turned the corner in the hallway and I didn’t notice the woman coming towards me. She was now directly in my path. She’d just come out of the women’s restroom and had a book in one hand and a coffee in her other hand. We were going to collide if I didn’t move out of the way. In my head, I saw the coffee exploding onto the walls, our clothing, and the floor. This was not going to be good. 

I had two choices. One, to run into her (as gracefully as possible) and attempt to grab a hold of her so that neither of us fall. My other choice is to use the wall next to her to avoid the coffee collision. And that’s what I do. I quickly reach my arm past her face over her head and push myself off the wall to avoid running into her. It was an awkward move on my part, but the only one that I could do in order to keep the coffee in her cup. She passed under my outstretched arm, and I rebound off the wall.

Disaster avoided.

She scoffed at my clumsiness, making some sharp remark about my maneuver, and then disappeared around the corner to continue her day. I’m grateful for the near miss. I’m also reminded about the limitations we humans have, and how little grace I give others in their limitations. People have way more going on in their life than I can ever know.

This woman didn’t know me. She didn’t know that I have a lower leg disability that makes it entirely impossible for me to shift my walking direction as quickly as one who is able bodied. Her snap judgement of my ability was without curiosity or kindness. And that’s ok. Perhaps she herself was having an unusually difficult day. 

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a fierce battle.” ~Plato

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In Process

Practice makes progress, not perfection. 

Voltaire said it so well, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” 

We are all in process. Not fully baked. Not quite done. Some of us are almost, but not yet there. We are all learners in different stages of our own growth process. Only those who expect themselves to have already arrived will have little room for those that have yet to arrive. Themselves included. 

If we stop expecting perfection we might be so much happier with the results we get in life. Most importantly, we’ll be excited about ourselves, and others. Perhaps it’s time to set down the idol of the perfect, and accept what is good. 

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The Viewpoint 1.3

The Viewpoint

Vol 1 Issue 3

  1. Book Review: Digital Minimalism

    We are increasingly being bombarded with more and more technological inventions. Sure, some of these technologies do make life easier, but there is a lot of digital clutter in our lives. My main concern is that we’re becoming less human the more we interact with computers (programed by humans).

    If you’re concerned about technology habits in your life, this is a good book to get you started on better boundaries. (Andy Crouch’s book, “The Tech Wise Family” is more geared towards families. That is also a good book on this topic.)

  2. The Relationship in your Brain

    Some interesting thoughts here from Fast Company about how to help our brains work in solving problems during emotionally difficult situations. The two parts of the brain that are at fighting for resources/energy: The limbic (fight or flight — our “autopilot” survival system) and the prefrontal cortex (strategy, reasoning, thoughtfulness). When we’re stressed, in conflict, or feel like we’re in danger, the limbic system takes over in order for us to survive. Especially in relationships that matter, this is not a viable long term solution.

    The author talks about two key warning signs that we have moved into autopilot: Blame shifting, and negative assumptions. Both of these behaviors are about survival. The main problem with a survival first reaction: Everything and everyone is a possible threat. We may not cognitively think this, but our brain is reacting this way. I see this reality all the time in my work with couples. It is so easy to hear the threat and so difficult to actually listen to what’s being said.

    When we go to the gym to lift weights, we are building muscle and endurance. The same concept is true for relationships. When we exercise setting aside our need for survival, we can grow in our ability to operate in both the limbic and prefrontal cortex in our life and relationships.

  3. Leaving Social Media

    Do you have FOMO (fear of missing out)? Can you imagine never again logging into facebook, instagram, snapchat, or twitter? This is a great op-ed about why this author decided to leave social media.

    I’ve spoken and written about this before, but the great lie that social media promises is a more connected life. What it delivers is a more informed life at the cost of true connection with others. Humans don’t have the capacity to handle being omniscient (all knowing). That is a God attribute. Some studies are showing that anxiety/depression are linked to an increased use of social media.

    The bottom line is that we all need better boundaries (on sex, food, work, social media, etc), which makes for better relationships in our lives.

  4. Beauty From the Ashes

    I’m sure you heard about this, but it is a story that is worth retelling. A Dallas police officer enters the wrong apartment, shoots and kills a man, and has just recently been convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The public got a surprise at the hearing when the victims brother took to the stand to say some final worlds to offender. This is an amazing picture of grace and mercy. Watch the video here.

The Viewpoint is a weekly roundup of content I have come across throughout the week that is worth reposting. This content will often be an article or a book I’ve recently read, or something else that is of cultural significance. One of my good friends talks about the word “viewpoint” as nothing more than a view from a point. When we change our point of view (or sometimes the point of our view — which is a different issue altogether), we can see differently. Relationships grow when we are open to changing our view.

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The Two Most Important Concepts in Marriage

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I recently finished some pre-marital couples counseling with a delightful young couple. Before I released them to the wild world of marriage, I challenged them to adopt two words (concepts) as cornerstones for their upcoming union: Grace and gratitude. Here’s why:

Showing grace implies forgiveness, acceptance, and a belief that your spouse is a better man/woman than what the offending action shows. It’s easy to get offended or hurt and turn away from them as protection. Next time this happens show them grace by placing your hand on their chest over their heart and say, “I don’t believe that you intended to harm me, and that you do love and care for me.” Watch what happens next.

The second is gratitude. As a whole, we are not that grateful of a people. Instead, we are an entitled people. It feels like a personal insult when I ask my wife to do something and she either forgets, or doesn’t do it the way I wanted her to do it. Rarely do I encounter couples that genuinely like each other. Most couples remember liking each other, but I’m not in the line of work that usually gets to hang out with folks who are in that stage of life. But even outside of my profession I don’t see a lot of couples who seem grateful for one another. Entitlement will destroy your relationship — Gratitude will repair and heal your relationship.

Practice giving thanks to your spouse, for even the smallest of items.
“Thank you for smiling at me this morning.”
“Thank you for sitting next to me on the couch.”
“Thank you for turning off the TV and listening to my tough day.”
“Thank you for marrying me.”
“Thank you … <fill in the blank>”

It doesn’t take a lot to change the tune of your day, or your spouse’s day. Show them grace, and gratitude, and see how quickly you begin to like them again.