Let Me Tell You Something

Let me tell you some things about my husband...

When I tell him someone's name, I have to repeat it at least three times before he hears what I'm saying. "I met someone named Isla today!" "Mira?" "No. Isla." "Ella?" "No. Isla." "Twila?" "Sure." Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not a very big one. For some reason, sometimes things get lost in translation in the time it takes the sound waves to leave my mouth and enter his ears.

He folds the towels wrong.

He never - and I mean NEVER - answers texts from me. I have the kids text him or call him if I need to get an answer. It works 87% of the time.

In his New York Times Bestseller, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John Gottman says that 70% of the things we don't like will never change. H. Wallace Goddard said:

 "We can be mad about that. We can feel cheated. But Heaven seems to have constructed that percentage...what a wise design! Rather than re-working our partners to our liking, we are invited to cover their weaknesses with our charity! God is serious about cultivating our charity..there are no right words when our hearts are wrong."

Let me tell you something else about my husband. He is the single most charitable person in my life. He will drop everything to help a neighbor or a stranger in need. In this picture, he had just stopped and picked up a stranded family. He was on a road trip, hundreds of miles from home, and he noticed this family with a disabled vehicle on the side of the freeway. They had been there for nearly 8 hours, waiting for someone to stop. They didn't speak English. Their kids were tired and hungry. He drove them two hours in the opposite direction, arranged for someone to fix their car, contacted someone from the local ward, and made sure that they were fed and warm. That's who he is.

So, the other day, when he decided to "help" with the laundry, instead of shaming him for putting things on hangers inside out and folding the towels the way that he was taught when he was growing up (instead of the way that I do it), my mind went to the charity that he was showing me. He was unburdening me. He was looking past my annoying need for things to be done the way that I want them to be done, because he knew that I needed help. He probably expected me to say something, yet he served me anyway. That is charity.

I'm grateful for the chance that we both get, each and every day, to learn charity and truly grow in our love for each other.

"We will continue to be annoyed by our spouses unless we are humbled enough by our own limitations to call on Heavenly grace." (Goddard)