Perspective. It can make you feel like you hold the whole world in the palm of your hand or it can make you feel like the world is caving in around you. Your perspective can shape the way that you view life and the relationships you have with others. Normally I would say I have a pretty solid perspective. Most of the time, I have a positive view on life, ready to tackle the world one problem at a time. But sometimes I suck at perspective taking. While I know it's completely irrational, I can't stop myself from becoming so extreme and feeling so ridiculous.
I had a New Year's Resolution EPIC FAIL yesterday. I was not an encouraging, loving wife like I vowed to be in 2014. To say that it was a minor set-back is an understatement. But, like other New Years Resolutions sometimes it's a daily mindset, a perspective if you will. Sometimes you eat the chocolate cake you aren't supposed to have. Sometimes you spend beyond your planned budget. Sometimes you sleep-in instead of going to the gym like you promised yourself you would. Minor set-backs to your goals are inevitable. The question is do you let that one mistake define who you are and what you have set out to do? Do you choose to let that set-back ruin your ultimate goals? I will not.
Here's the background information you need to know:
On a negative 30 degree day a pipe in our basement burst flooding our finished basement. In this situation I had a great perspective. It's just water. We can tear out the sheetrock, replace the carpet and repaint. No big deal! Especially since I was wanting to give the basement a facelift anyways. It was actually a blessing in disguise! I get to remodel the basement and it didn't even have to come out of our budget!
If you know anything about me, you would know I love to decorate. I blame my mother (an amazingly talented interior designer). Nonetheless, my heart pitter patters as I pick paint colors, home décor, and furniture. Hobby Lobby is my safe haven. When I walk in the doors, I hear angels sing. It's a rush to say the least.
But just as much as I love decorating the house, my husband loves KU basketball even more. He bleeds red...and blue. Some of our worst fights have centered around KU basketball (because I happen to be a Missouri girl). Really stupid right?! Yes, we know!
So of course, the day that I want to go and pick out things for the basement just so happens to be the day KU plays at 3:00. Not wanting to start a fight, I tell my husband that he can stay and watch the game and that I am just going to go "look" at carpet and a vanity at Nebraska Furniture Mart. Well, I did look. But... there was a sale...and I really liked the carpet...the color was perfect...and they only had enough square yards left to fit our exact basement...so...I reserved the carpet with a $100 down payment. No, I technically didn't purchase it. It can always be canceled. But I did make the decision to go ahead and "hold" it.
I called my husband elated and proud of my decision, turns out he wasn't as excited as I was. Not only was I interrupting the last two minutes of the stupid basketball game, but I said I was just going up to "look." To him it sounds like I just bought thousands of dollars worth of carpet without consulting him first.
The root of it all was a communication misunderstanding. It could have stopped there, but it turned into a train wreck, word vomit to be exact, mostly my own. The domino pieces just kept tumbling into one another. Did it stop there? Why of course not! Fights like that often leak into the next day...Sunday of course. Where you have to put on your smile, go to church, and pretend like everything is ok.
That's just not me. I can't pretend like nothing is wrong. I don't plaster a smile on my face when I am sad or mad. I have never been that person and I probably never will be. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I'm not very good at keeping my emotions or my words in. I am sure people knew we were fighting and I honestly didn't care. Ironic how we were supposed to be selling tickets to a marriage seminar that morning. Ironic how they show a marriage video at church for the seminar on two becoming one. I feel bad that we are fighting on this particular Sunday morning, but the anger that has welled up inside of me keeps me justified.
Yes, we had a fight. Yes, he was being a jerk. Yes, I will admit it now (not in the moment) that I was being a jerk too. And yes, we both blew it way out of proportion. But my perspective in the moment became embarrassingly skewed. We lead a marriage bible study at our house on Tuesday nights for married couples. We set goals for our marriage. We do a marriage devotional on Saturdays and had even done one that very same morning. We had literally just prayed a few hours before that fight for each other individually and for our marriage. So how in the world after investing all of that time and being so proactive in having a healthy marriage do we still fight? And not just fight, but have a WWIII fight? My mind was infected. The anger continued to overcome my heart and my mind. I told myself he wasn't going to get to say he was sorry this time. He has been sorry in the past, said he was going to fix things, and then he doesn't. He isn't a great husband. All he wants to do is control me.
Ashamed now, not only was I thinking all of those things, but I said all of those thoughts aloud to him. Near the end of our fight when he knew he wasn't going to win, he said something profound to me, something that I will never ever forget.
"Yes, You are right! I am immature. I am selfish. I screw up...a lot. I am not perfect. Telling me that I can't say that I am sorry anymore because I still screw up is like telling me to stop sinning. I can't. I want to be perfect for you, but I can't. I try really hard every single day to be a good husband. You can't take one mistake and use it to discount every good thing that I do for you."
OUCH! Knife to the heart! I stood there fighting to be tough and hold the tears back. I tried telling myself that he was still a jerk. Still a bad husband. So, I grabbed my purse and decided to leave. As I left, I looked down and saw the laundry that he had just done for us the day before. As I walked out the door, I saw the room he had painted for me as a surprise one weekend. As I started my car, I remembered him checking my oil every week to make sure my car was safe and I wouldn't be stranded. As I pulled out of the garage, I saw the remnants of the basement he just tore out to make room for the new. As I left the driveway, I remembered him shoveling the snow the very first weekend we had bought our new house and were getting ready to move in. As I lifted my visor down to block the sun, I saw the note he had left me in my car one day, "To my wonderful wife, I love you with all of my heart." And then as a culminating last turn of the knife, was the song on the KLOVE radio station. A song about grace. Grace that I didn't have for the one person I loved the most. I cried.
He was so right. My perspective was so slanted. How could I let one mistake dictate who he was? I am not perfect. I would never want him to hold something I had done over my head. I expect God to forgive me every single day. I expect people to forgive me every single day. Yet, I wasn't willing to forgive. I wasn't willing to let it go. I wasn't willing to give him grace.
I came back home with my "tail" between my legs and apologized. Was he wrong in some regards? Heck ya. (And he did apologize for the record). But I was more wrong to make a small fight turn into World War III and make him feel like a worthless husband.
We are going to fight in our marriages. We are two imperfect people who sin multiple times a day. It's inevitable. No matter how much you do to be proactive and prevent bad things from happening in your marriage, the truth is evil still seeps through. It's not that we will never fight. It's that we must learn how to fight. Learn how to forgive. And learn how to give grace.
Aside from salvation, marriage is the most beautiful gift God has given us. The chance to become one flesh with someone else isn't something we can take for granted. My husband is amazing. He has so many great character traits and his heart is so big. Selfishly, I chose to ignore all of those great characteristics on Sunday simply so that I could win the fight.
Well, I lost...for the most part. And I'm thankful that I did. It was a lesson that I needed to learn. A perspective "slap in the face" if you will. Just as I don't want my mistakes to define who I am, neither does my husband. If I expect God to give me grace every single hour of the day, then I need to give it to others in return.
What perspective do you need to change in your life? Who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to show grace to? I tend to be all or nothing. I need to remember that there is a level in between. A level where mistakes are made. I don't let mistakes define who I am so I can't let others mistakes shape how I view them.
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