when my “yes” sounds like a “no!”

i love my wife, the beautiful Val, i really do, and when i love her well, i think i love her really, really well, but when i love her badly, i can REALLY suck at it…

one way i have becoming increasingly more aware of doing this is by giving her a “yes” to a question that she asks or a request she makes for me to do something, that sounds a lot more like an emphatic “No!”

another way of describing it would be “the kicking and screaming yes” cos okay i will do what you want me to do but know that it is interrupting my selfish moment of whatever i was busy doing and that i don’t really want to do it and am quite likely only doing it cos the consequences of not doing it are so much worse…

the Truth is, not even all those statements above are even true all the time. it is usually a request [or even a reminder of something i was already meant to do] that doesn’t affect my selfish universe all that much. and a lot of the times i would love nothing more than to do a thing which helps my wife or shows her love or makes her life that little bit easier [especially if she might be stressed after a hard day] and yet somehow my ‘well intentioned Love-enducing “YES!”‘ comes out sounding like a horrible, ungrateful whiny “NO WAY! PLEASE GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!”

i think there is some pride in there, for sure. and some power. pride and power. and possibly inertia [the preference to continue doing what i am currently doing, no matter how random it might be, as opposed to interrupting it for something else].

the reasons i am blogging about it are at least two: perhaps there are some of you husbandmans out there who will see the same thing in yourselves [maybe even some wifewomens if that is the opposite of husbandmens?] and need to do something about it. and to remind me to do something about it. i find bloggage a form of accountability as old posts get revisited from time to time and i get rechallenged or reminded by what was striking me at the time…

i plan to Love my wife Valerie better by letting my “yes”es sound more emphatically like “YES!”es!

[If you found this helpful, here are some other ideas to help you love your person well]

as simple as a cup of coffeeine

i made my beautiful wife val a cup of coffee in bed this morning as i do most mornings… she thanked me for it and i said it was a pleasure, and completely meant it… in fact as i was walking down the stairs i was thinking that it is a pleasure every single time… and how that should be normal – i really dig making my wife coffee or tea or a glass of ice cold water – but i would imagine it is not…

i imagine in some marriages the coffee and tea making still happens but with a hint of a sense of obligation and in other cases probably doesn’t happen at all (“get your own damn tea!”) and as simple and random and arbitrary as a cup of tea or coffee is in the big scheme of things, i would imagine that can be a telling sign.

cos i really believe it starts in the ‘small’ things – the simple tasks done in service of each other, the quick looks, glances, the opening of car doors and carrying of stuff, the offering of the bigger piece of dessert…

you want to love your wife better? make her a drink. and enjoy it. and enjoy her. every day every day.

what grew and what needs to

so this morning at church we had John Scott from Scotland (yes, i know) at Stellenbosch Vineyard morning service doing a good solid preach about dreams (having them while awake as opposed to analysing the ones that happen while you sleep) and then doing some ministry time (praying for sick etc) afterwards

now i arrived at church early and got chatting to him which was really cool and i shared some of my struggling-faith-with-healing-related-things thing and told how a week ago i basically watched as my wife, TBV, cried herself to sleep cos of extreme headaches that i had prayed a LOT of LOTS of times for with seemingly no positive results… and how i believe God can heal but not so sure i always believe He will, or maybe ‘ever’ as opposed to ‘always’

and the crazy thing is it’s not an outright lack of faith thing cos i have faith for money – i have seen on a bunch of occasions God’s provision in the area of money and finances and so i think i can trust God for a million bucks (saw Him provide more for uThando leNkosi safe house a few years back) but struggle in the area of healing – and i am super overly tired of hearing other peoples healing stories which are always a friend of a friend’s friend… their cousin… or something…

so he spoke to me a bit and it was very encouraging but as we ended he said cool you’re gonna come up today and pray for someone’s leg to grow… and i was like wo how about i start with a headache and we work towards leg-growing (Val has headaches way more often than she has uneven leg measurements to my knowledge) although that bit was only in my head and he wasn’t prophetic enuff in that moment to discern that (or was he?)

so he preached a good preach and called people up who have been struggling with back or neck pain for more than 10 years (apparently on this trip he has seen a LOT of healing happen in more than 15/20 years conditions so has been specifically asking for those) and a bunch of people (5 or 6) came to the front to be prayed for and he looked up and caught my eye and said ‘come here’ (but in Scottish so more like cam hieare) and i whispered ‘oh crap’ (it’s okay, Charis wasn’t there) as i made my way to the front.

He made the first dude sit down and took both his legs and showed me how the one was slightly longer than the other – was marginal let’s be honest, less than a cm – so he’s like ‘do you see?’ and i’m like ‘um not really, i mean yes yes cool’ and he started praying and speaking to it and suddenly there was a kind of shake in the leg and it did move down a little bit, and then it happened again and the two legs were equal and the dude was saying that healing had occurred.

So pretty cool, but also the kind of thing i know i’m going to be able to explain away cos he had his hand under the guys legs and i’m trying to watch if he is pulling or adjusting or anything (not that this guy is like that at all – totally trustworthy, totally non-manipulative but still i look) and then he makes hold the next one and pray and then i think he walked away – and i prayed, and there was nothing… and then there was something – a jolt and the leg moved and seemed to jump down – and i think it happened again and then they were straight (also not huge difference at the beginning but some) and the person claimed healing…

The next person i prayed for my friend K-A came and prayed/watched and we saw nothing in terms of leg movement but the person claimed some healing and we prayed again a few times and he said his neck was totally healed which he’d been struggling with for years and his hip stuff was a lot better – so some definite healing and we got him to do some stretch stuff he couldn’t do beforehand and so somewhat satisfying.

And then the next guy we prayed a long time for and nothing happened. And John came back and prayed with us for him and nothing. Well nothing observable and he said the same pain was there (although did move his arms higher than he had at the beginning but seemed to suggest nothing had happened) although the one word i got while we were praying was ‘stress’ and when i shared it with him he related to it so we prayed into that but didn’t really see anything.

And then the guy some other people were praying for with as huge gap in leg length nothing much happened for and so people healed with leg growth, people healed with no discernible change and people not healed at all.

One thing John said before he left was that we must focus on what happened and not what didn’t happen cos it’s easy to look at the stuff that didn’t happen and go ‘well what the heck?’ which is what i tend to do… but for some of the people there, there really does seem to be a change from how they arrived to how they left and if the pain they have carried for years and years has gone then maybe, just maybe, it’s worth dealing with the frustration of seeing a lot of people not healed for the ones that will be.

“I do believe Lord, help me overcome my unbelief.” Mark 9.24