Last week I picked a fight with Mr. Fantastic. I know, I seem so sweet, kind, and Jesus-y all the time. But it’s true. I felt alone and I let the poor man have it.
It wasn’t pretty.
At first he was aghast; I caught him off-guard. Then he was offended; he felt unjustly accused. Then he got all humble and nice, and took it all on the chin. He was so nice about my meanness. This only made me more angry.
That’s when I began to realize that I was probably not seeing things clearly.
For several weeks I had stuffed every negative emotion I felt into a box. Easter was coming up and we were a little over-stretched. The boys’ baseball schedule had us running in different directions all the time. Who had time to talk about how I was doing?
I had opened that ugly Pandora’s box of emotions and now we were in the middle of a mess.
When I saw how badly it was going, I just wanted it all to be over. I wanted to rewind and take it all back. I wanted to eat my words, swallow my head wags, and erase my pointing finger from our memories.
But you can’t do that. When you screw up like that, all you can do is hang your head and ask for forgiveness.
The next day he bought me flowers. Big sunflowers, shining and happy, sat on my kitchen table, reminding me that I am a jerk, and that he loves me anyways.
Grace is a unique experience. Undeserved kindness and forgiveness taste bitter until you accept them as gifts, given with love, made precious when received with gratitude.
Many days, we live our assigned roles well. He is the smart, stable, responsible husband. I am the sweet, creative, impulsive wife. We love each other, are kind to one another, and fulfill the vows we made twelve years ago.
And that is good.
But when we fight, when we are selfish, when we open boxes of anger, frustration, or bitterness, those are the times that we find ourselves in more than a marriage.
In those moments we must live the gospel. We must bear the burdens of our spouse and mend the wounded heart by loving when it is least deserved.
There is no perfect marriage because there are no perfect people. But the best marriages are the ones that face the ugliness of sin with brave love and humble hearts.
That kind of love is possible because God first loved us that way, bravely and humbly; taking on life as a man, living for us, dying for us, rising to bring us to the Father.
What kind of crazy love is this gospel of Jesus? You can’t buy it, you can’t earn it, you can’t irrationally yell at it and make it go away. It just is, because God is.
Forever, for all my days, I will be grateful for the knowledge that I’m a jerk, and I am loved anyways. That’s the best news anyone could ever be given.
