My blog was having trouble with my site today, so I just want to remind everybody about FREEBIE FRIDAY! Enter now!
Lisa and I have been very busy lately. I’m still settling into a new job, as well as keeping nakedpastor going, my art, my cartoon book, my personal life. Then Lisa is a full-time nursing student in the thick of an unbelievable amount of work, as well as keeping her personal home health-care business going. So before we went to bed we were just catching up with each others’ day.
At one point I said, “Honey, you’re a really good wife!” To which she sarcastically replied, “Ya, right!”
I realized how silly my proclamation was. Because that’s not what I meant at all.
What I meant was, “I love you with all my heart. I admire and respect you for what you are doing. I am so happy to be your lover. Even though we are going through a stressful time right now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because we are in love and we are together. You are an amazing woman that fills me with wonder, excitement and happiness.” Something like that.
I didn’t mean she is a good wife. “Wife” conjures up ideas of a role with a job-description. It refers to an institution called “wife” and another one called “marriage“. What if I had a fantasy of what a good wife was: someone who cooks me three meals a day, provides sex 3.5 times a week, keeps the house spotless and respects everything I say without question? Only if she measured up to that would I be able to say, “You’re a really good wife!” If I had that fantasy. I don’t.
It is the same with the church. Why would I say of a church, “You’re a really good church!“? What I am saying is that it is measuring up to my fantasies of what it should be. If I just loved the church with all its blemishes and wrinkles, then saying, “You are a really good church!” would seem silly, superficial and selfish.
Love covers a multitude of sins. That doesn’t mean love hides, overlooks or ignores the sins. It means that love discards our fantasies of the objects of our affection and embraces it all.
Enter my FREEBIE FRIDAY contest now!
My name is David Hayward, and I am the nakedpastor. I am a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.
I suppose there’s something to be said for being a realist and managing one’s expectations and for learning to appreciate the little things in life. Love is truly a positive enabler to do just that. And remember, the grass may indeed be greener on the other side, but someone has to mow it. My ex learned that the hard way, unfortunately. She is now a “good little wife” in the negative sense…
I have been with my husband for 31 years now. We loved each other through job loss, sickness, the death of one of our children, we know each other so well and we even learned to love each other’s weaknesses. To me he is such a wonderful person and I want to live because I want to continue to discover that person. I am really sick now but he makes me want to keep on going.
I know so many people are hurting because of broken relationships…There is no full proof way with love. You might be a loving caring person and still go through divorce. And the pain of that is terrible but I just wanted to say that a marriage can last and be happy.
And it’s wonderful to know that God loves us even more than that…
Some difficulty managing to find the link to comment on your freebie friday. Iexpect itsmy aging eyes missing something. Great post by the way- it can open our minds to what we mean when we say “i love your art”, or any similar broad statement. Sharpen our sense of wonder, speak to the details.