Marriage: A Tool for the Depraved? VOL. 2

While Christ is the ultimate grace giver, we have so much grace to give each other as we stumble over ourselves. Herb and I have been overwhelmed by the power we have in each other's lives to give or with hold grace - and how deeply this impacts the other person. I do think that a sibling and a spouse tie for first place when it comes to bringing all of our "stuff" that needs to be . . . um, polished . . . up to the surface. Just the other day, in the middle of one of our infamous Saturday night "discussions", Herb looked at me with defeat in his eyes and said, "Before we got married, I thought I was a really easy guy to get along with." It is true - 999 out of 1,000 people polled in the Denver Metro area state, "Herb is number one on my list of easy people to get along with." Guess who number 1,000 is . . . yeah, that would be Herb's wife.

But for as often as Herb and I are the catalysts of self-examination for each other, we are each other's biggest grace givers. For instance, the other day I was attempting to hoist my married body out of the deep end of the swimming pool. The reason I call it my married body is because I have love handles; and I am convinced that you get love handles with you fall for someone hard and begin to eat dessert with them . . .. all of the time. So, I was attempting to hoist my married body out of the deep end, but to no avail. I immediately reverted to age 13 in my mind. "Oh man, everybody is looking at me. They are pointing and laughing and saying things like, "wow, she can't get her married body out of the pool." and "i am glad i am not her" and "not only does she have a married body, she has a huge hole in the butt of her swimsuit!" At this point I realized that there is only one person in the world who would be watching me hoist my married body out of the pool at that moment and be thinking, "Man, am I a lucky guy. She sure does look groovy in her swimsuit." That person would be Herb. Somehow, God has given him the grace to give me the grace to be less than graceful as I pull my married body out of the pool.

And for that, I am grateful.