Learning to treasure others

Hmmm. I am hesitant to share what I think God wants me to share this week because of the danger that you will think more highly of me than you ought! I believe that God wants me to share a note I sent to my wife a while ago about our probable move out of our current house. I am sharing this partly because someone recently asked Jettie and me if I am as kind and encouraging to her as I usually am with others. Jettie answered "Yes," (whew!), but it was not always so and still isn't that way all the time. But God has changed me deeply over the years and especially the last five years have changed me more than I could have imagined (with more still happening!). And...in my March 4 blog I wrote, "Those closest to us should be the primary recipients of all the good that God is doing in us, not the recipients of 'leftovers.'” So...there should be evidence in my life that I am living this out, right?

I am also sharing this because I sense that there are some husbands out there who need to read what I wrote and catch the heart of it. If we are indeed called to treasure others as God treasures them, then it seems to me that our spouses should be the most treasured of all. I offer this little note as one way Father recently invited me to treasure my bride of almost 40 years.

This morning I spent part of my Secret Place time in our master bedroom. As I sat there quietly in Papa’s presence, I began to look around the room and see the precious little special touches that you have added to the room to make it our “nest.” There were the stuffed animals neatly arranged in a herd of fluffiness on top of the blanket chest. There was another small herd of them over the door to the bathroom and there was your Willow Tree angels on your dresser. Everything in our home speaks of neatness, order, stability, care and peace! Then I started weeping. And I wept and wept as I realized how disruptive it is for you to have this very peaceful and personal nest called our home changed yet one more time. I realized more than I ever have before how God has wired you in such a wonderful way. You were created to be a “nester” and to arrange and order your nest with incredible care and skill and then open that nest to others. You were created to settle in, with a remarkable, innate ability to make a home special to you and to those you love. Yet, in the past, I along with others haven’t appreciated or treasured you or this special ability in you. Instead, I have tended to view it more as an obstacle or an annoyance rather than the precious expression of the stability of God that is so much a part of who you are. Forgive me/us for that, please. It will not be that way from me in the future!

I also realize now, more than ever, how much we broken human beings try to make others into our image instead of allowing God to express His infinite uniqueness in a one-of-a-kind way through each person. We do that, I suppose, because we are ourselves unaware of our own special and highly valuable uniqueness and because we are afraid that God can’t be trusted to handle other people! That last remark looks silly as I write it, but it’s true, I think.
But now, having wept many tears on your behalf, although I hear Father reminding me never to live in regret, I also hear Him inviting me to share your pain. I hear Him gently telling me that I have in the past been calloused towards the deep invasion of who you were created to be that a disrupted nest brings to you. And I am appalled at how many times your nest has been disrupted without my having even a clue as to how this violates who you are. By God’s grace, I will not allow this to be so in the future, and I am asking Him even now to help me enter into your pain.

Yes, we both know that we can rebuild the nest again as needed, and we both know that we will grow in our trust in Him through any and every disruption, but I hope never to view the shaking of your nest in the same way that I have in the past. I see now how true it is that "good nesting" and stability are very special gifts and a remarkable expression of how Father has made you, and I therefore also see what a deep and painful shaking it really has been for you to have your nest dismantled so very many times. I will weep, then, as I look at the little herds of fur and at the treasured memories arranged so carefully around the room…

SHMIRLY

Dear ones, please, please ask God for grace to treasure others... (also, SHMIRLY is short for "See How Much I Really Love You--I figured someone would ask!).

Learning to love as I live loved.

Tom, one of Abba's little boys