Cold, windy, grey day. “But it’s late Spring. It’s supposed to be warmer in late Spring,” complain my cold ears, hands and knees as I kneel in the damp earth planting squash starts. Things aren’t always what they should be. I’m thinking the weather reflects the heart-wrenching message I got this morning from someone struggling to keep their marriage together. Their marriage feels cold, too. The winds of discontent and the grey of unhappiness have settled over them.
Earlier this morning my husband had read to me part of a chapter of a book on happiness*. My mind went back to the principle explained in the book. We choose happiness by choosing to redirect our thoughts from ourselves to God and others. Basic, but so true. “When you’re unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. . . Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up because that means he has to stop dwellin’ on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form o’ self-indulgence.” 1
It was easy to see that the struggling marriage was enveloped by the grey cloud of unhappiness. And guess what? One of the partners was thinking a whole lot about themselves. I was reminded that dwelling on our own disappointments, anger, and frustrations won’t make us happier.
Ouch! How often I slip into that quagmire. And just to remind me how weak I am in this area, a few hours later I was ‘dumped’ at the last minute by someone who got too busy for our arranged time together. Yep. Angry, hurt, disappointed. I kept replaying the indignity of it. We had planned all week. I had sacrificed to make time. She didn’t let me know until the hour we were to meet. She didn’t feel an apology was necessary. And on and on. So, on a minuscule scale, I was experiencing the struggle of the couple with a troubled marriage.
What to do with negative feelings? First, I brought the offense to the attention of the offender. She was young and related to me so I felt it should be a teaching moment. I didn’t hide my feelings of disappointment. I stated what I would like her to do in the future. (Let me know as soon as she could that she couldn’t make it.) I related it to her other relationships. (If she had done that to a friend, the friend would have been offended.) I explained why I was disappointed.
But then the hard work of thought control. Why did this very small event bother me? It bothered me that it bothered me! I took a little time for inventory. I wanted to feel important. I wanted to be respected. I wanted to be wanted. Nothing wrong with these basic human desires. But the wrong comes when I dwell on the unmet wants and get angry or resentful.
So where do I direct my thoughts? How do I combat these demons of anger and resentment that will destroy my relationships? I hadn’t buried them. I’d expressed them in a reasonable way to the other person. Now I had to do the work of clearing out the negative thoughts in my own head.
Forgiveness is the bulldozer that clears the junk away. In my case, it was a small offense by a teen who was unaware. Not hard to forgive. In the case of the struggling marriage, much more junk and much harder to forgive on both sides. In their case, it would be a daily forgiveness- the simple refusal to get even, to make the other pay, or to do to them what they did to you. In their case, there is no abuse, just human day to day irritation. Abuse is a different animal. Forgiveness is still necessary for the healing of the one hurt. Forgiveness, however, is not the same as trust. An abuser can be forgiven, but not trusted.
I needed to get my thoughts off myself with the looped replay of the hurt and look outward. Earlier I had advised the couple to think about God’s kindnesses to them as an antidote for the poison of self-pity. Now I needed to practice that discipline. How could I even begin to count the blessings of just today, much less the blessings of a lifetime? I see from his daily care that God wants me, assigns importance to me, and respects my choices. Feels good. I rest in knowing God cares about me. I have cultivated the habit of noticing big and small blessings. Little things that give me a lift: a favorite bird song on a grey day, a goat on its hind legs straining for a tree leaf and showing his fat belly, a cat’s long whiskers. And big things: a granddaughter saying, “I love you, Grandma.”, a devoted husband, health – gifts lavished on me by my loving heavenly Father. Even challenges are gifts to nudge me toward growth and greater happiness. Ease rarely pushes me to grow. But hard experiences force me to mature in faith and love.
Filled with gratefulness, I could turn my attention to doing something for others. Let’s see. Fresh strawberry shortcake would make my dear husband happy. Off to the fruit stand. (BTW, strawberry stains can be removed from dish towels by soaking overnight in lukewarm water, white vinegar, and dish detergent.) An email would make a friend feel loved. A quick text to send virtual hugs to a certain teen would reassure her. And the sun begins to shine.
*”Happiness,” by Randy Alcorn