Life-Giving

Had a really short, but great conversation with a (much younger) friend of mine yesterday. She mentioned that she wanted to point something out to her husband, but that it would not be "life-giving," so she didn't. Quickly forgot the term but remembered the gist and couldn't shake it from my mind, so this morning I texted her to ask her what the term was, so I could burn it in my memory.

She said that in Engagement Encounter they learned many things, but two that have been most helpful is that everything you do/say in a marriage should be life-giving, and you should hold hands when having a disagreement. She said it's very hard to stay angry when you're holding hands. I feel that I'd be  up to the challenge, personally, but I do like the life-giving part.

Today STM and I hung the art that I picked up from being framed two-and-a-half weeks ago. I no longer have the brain capacity to calculate where to nail a hole if I want two paintings to hang side-by-side, and still remain exactly centered over the couch. WAY over my head. Side note: in our basement I once upon a time managed to hang SIX pieces of art, perfectly level and with equal distances between them, AND centered on a wall. I marvel at my former self every time I walk by them. Alas, that was many ice-cream-truck-talking-about summers ago.

Turns out STM had a bit of a struggle with it, too. You don't even want to know how many tries it took us to get it right, and how many holes are behind the paintings. We at one point really over shot our capacities by trying to find studs and nailing two holes per painting, and have it all match up. Not possible by these humans.

I will say this about that - throughout the challenge we were able to stay "life-giving" with one another. Who cares that we have one extra hook next to the paintings? Who needs perfection? Marriage is not perfect. Our house certainly isn't perfect, but we can have the goal of perfect love.