Friday, March 19, 2010

Lightening Up

"Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife." Proverbs 25:24

Okay, I have to admit, I'm a quarrelsome wife. In my heart of hearts, I really don't want to be, but I am and I am also thankful that my husband still loves me dearly and still resides inside our home and not on our roof. He accepts me for who I am and he knows that I continually try to grow in this area. As I've been reading through Proverbs, which I have done many times before, this has been laid on my heart, to end the nit-picky bickering.

The problem lies with the fact that I take words very seriously. A little too seriously. I'm extremely literal. My mom likes to tell me a story of when I was little and I asked her, "do people really climb the walls?" Someone had used the expression around me and I just didn't get it. Mind you I was probably seven at the time, but my sense of literalness hasn't really lessened much over the years. I DO NOT understand sarcasm. I can't pick up on whether they are serious or not. The words are serious, but was that a tone of sarcasm? Maybe it's because I'm mostly deaf in one ear. Not sure, but whenever someone cracks a joke with heavy words I always have to look to Josh for translation. He usually gives me a head nod of yes honey, they are joking. Then I laugh. If Josh isn't there to clue me in, then I get pretty uncomfortable and it has actually led to self-esteem issues. Okay, so I've gone a little off path. The point is I have really been trying to "listen." Not to the words, but the meaning and intent behind the words. There's a Proverbs for that too. That means I have to slow down and take the time for the words to sink in and then make my response. I need to make a new rule for myself, wait at least 5 seconds before making a response. I might just try that and see what happens! Five seconds might not seem long enough, but I don't want my hubby to think I'm ignoring him. That wouldn't be nice either.

No comments:

Post a Comment