4th of July: Mortification take 2

Last updated on: July 6, 2011 at 1:53 pm by Kathy Tuan-MacLean

4th of July: Mortification take 2 2011-07-06T13:53:00-04:00 Kathy Tuan-MacLean

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“I don’t understand why you sent the girls down with water-skis if you weren’t planning on being here to drive the boat,” I said in my most snarky voice to my iphone (I think that’s where the kids get it—see snarkiness blog).

“Um. I’m not your husband.”

“Oh. . . Really? You sound like him.”

“I guess that’s not surprising,” said my brother-in-law Andy. “Should I get him?”

“Well, you could get him, or you could just blast him for me the way I just blasted you.”

Sheesh. That’s the problem with forgetting that I called my in-laws number because Scott didn’t pick up on his cell phone. And the problem with being congenitally unable to waterski despite about 13 annual attempts (I got up one summer before I got pregnant with Ling–never again–so waterskiing makes me grumpy).

Before marriage, both Scott and I thought we would be better a husband and wife than we’ve actually turned out to be. Scott even said to a guy, “I will never treat my wife the way you treat yours.”

And then we got married. And then one of our single friends said, “I will never have conflict in my marriage the way you have conflict in yours.”

He’s probably right—knowing his sweet wife, I’m sure they’ve never battled tooth and nail the way Scott and I have fought, sadly, too often in public. I wouldn’t even be surprised if she never uses a snarky tone with him.

But despite a very bumpy first 10 years, we’re a week and two days away from venturing to lead the Cana Marriage Session for the second time. When we went through Cana 8 years ago, as a celebration of our 10th anniversary and with the hope that it would help us want to renew our vows 2 weeks later, God met us and transformed our marriage in surprising ways. We went from having a 30% reconciled marriage to about an 83% reconciled marriage. Let me tell you, those 53 percentage points make a big difference in the quality of our lives, and even more, the quality of our kids’ lives.

I think my TMJ’s acting up because of stress over Cana—not the stress that the 10 couples who go through the Session won’t be changed—that’s God’s business and God’s work. We just create the structure through which the Holy Spirit can move if the couples are willing to work and receive.

My stress is over whether my fellow servants will have a good experience. For the first time in 8 years, most servants were my friends before coming to Cana—I don’t want their experience of serving to either ruin our friendships or strain their marriages!

So out of stress, I bark at my brother-in-law thinking he’s my husband.

Luckily for Scott, I was so embarrassed about chewing out Andy that by the time he came on the phone almost all the snarkiness had evaporated out of my voice. Humiliation just took the energy out of me.

Thank God for embarrassing mishaps/small miracles that keep our marriages going.

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Sheer Mortification

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