marriage

Two newlyweds and a stupid holiday ornament.

by Melissa Holderby on Dec 13, 2020 category Christmas, marriage

How can two newlyweds and a stupid holiday ornament tell a story? Well, several of you have asked to be introduced, so please meet the infamous “stupid, ugly holiday pizza guy ornament” mentioned in last weekend’s post: Ornament Placement Disorder Ruined A Holiday Tradition. Here he is – Pontius Pizza, the Christmas Guy. And here is his backstory.

When Allan and I were first married and living in Bakersfield, California (MANY Christmases ago), this ugly thing came with our pizza one night as a marketing promotion. Allan insisted on hanging it on our scrubby little Christmas tree in our apartment. I equally insisted on the opposite, arguing that corporate pizza chain mascots have nothing to do with the meaning of the holiday.

Allan retorted that “Pontius Pizza” was a main character in the Christmas Story. (No, uninformed new husband…. King Herod is part of Christmas. Pontius Pilate is part of EASTER!) That’s when it got ridiculous between two stubborn, immature newly wed kids. It was more important for each of us to be right than to be kind to each other. Ever have a moment like that?

Pontius Pizza, the Christmas Guy

Over the years, “Pontius Pizza, the Christmas Guy” has grown on me. Since that first Christmas together, he has been promoted from the bottom of the ornament box, to the back of the tree, to front and center. Similarly, Allan and I have worked to grow our marriage to front and center as well. Some days that feels easy. Other days that feels… well… like hard work. Because we are two broken humans who often still fall into the trap of being stubborn and immature. Don’t get me wrong – I still like to be “right” (and usually am), but I generally won’t fight to the death anymore in the process.

Someday when I am another widow in a nursing home (MANY Christmases from now), I hope my kids hang Pontius Pizza in my room every December. He makes me smile at how far two newlyweds and a stupid holiday ornament have come. The extra effort is worth it. Even on the hard days.

Adapted from original 12/10/17 Facebook post.

Header image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay.

Coronavirus nearly unraveled our marriage.

by Melissa Holderby on May 16, 2020 category marriage

We walk a fine line, you and I. Reader and author. You see, on one hand I want to be authentic and genuine in my writing to allow you access to my messes. That’s where you and I find connection, and perhaps a little of MY mess rings familiar and proves encouraging to YOU as a result. On the other hand, I want to protect the privacy of the people I love best. I really hesitated about writing this week’s blog post about how coronavirus nearly unraveled our marriage.

Despite my concerns, however, God put it strongly on my heart to share this particularly difficult corner of our life with you. I also secured my husband’s input and blessing to turn our private business into public business, so no foul. We sincerely pray this week’s blog post provides hope and encouragement for wives and husbands out there. I feel as though God is nudging me to share it for someone in particular. Maybe you? Let’s see.

Marriage is work.

So, no big secret. Marriage is work. Yes, it is all of the wonderful blessings as well, but a healthy marriage takes effort. Lots of it. Allan and I will celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary next week, and we have certainly had our fair share of “for better or for worse” over those years. That is no secret and nothing unusual. So where is the problem? Excellent question.

The problem was that we didn’t sense what was silently decaying between us until we were forced together under one roof 24/7 with three kids, two remote jobs, and one global pandemic. Holy cow, the fireworks! Oh, I don’t mean goo-goo eyes, heart palpitations, sparks of chemistry fireworks. I mean heart ruptures. Everything about my spouse annoyed me. Everything. The way he chewed food. Or the way he breathed air. THE #$@% SNORING!

In our own stress and mental fatigue of dealing with COVID-19 lock down, we made a grave mistake. We leaned into our annoyance until it became anger. Then we marinated our anger in self-righteousness until it became bitterness and resentment. You see, in the absence of our usual hurried routines, we were alone with our thoughts and our raw emotions, and we gave into our enemy. Yes, our enemy.

Coronavirus nearly unraveled our marriage, but the virus itself is not our primary enemy. No, our real enemy is crafty and slick. He stealthily whispers doubt in our ears and then fertilizes it with pridefulness in our flawed human hearts into a tangle of invasive, choking briars. It goes something like this…

Our enemy starts off easily at first.

Our enemy starts off just under the radar. “Your husband sure avoids emotional intimacy. He’d rather look at a screen than look at you. (Insert deep chuckle here.) When was the last time he prioritized spending time with you?”

Huh, I never thought of it like that, but now that you mention it…

“And he is being awfully overbearing about all these COVID-19 precautions. How many times is he going to hound you about washing your hands or disinfecting the mail? You’re an adult woman, right? And didn’t he one-sidedly deem every restaurant drive-thru opportunity hazardous to your family? Did he even ask you or the kids how you felt about that? (Insert pitying ‘tsk-tsk’ sound here) He sure rules the roost with a tyrannical fist, doesn’t he?”

Um, well… yes, I do feel disrespected… And as a result, this is the point in the process where I tended to passive-aggresively undermine Allan’s authority with the kids.

Our enemy ramps up the attack.

“You know, Melissa, you statistically are in the second half of your life. Do you really want to stay married to a man who dismisses your feelings and bullies your household? Don’t you want to experience whatever is left of your life to the fullest with joy and freedom? Don’t you deserve some happiness and some peace to just breathe?!?”

Oh, my goodness. I really need to think about this. And stand up for myself! Add in some hateful words spilling out of my mouth and into my husband’s heart.

And that’s typically when our sneering enemy went in for the kill. “Your marriage is toxic for you and everyone involved. You have denied it in your heart for years. You need to separate.”

My husband is the problem. He has no desire to change. I am a strong and independent woman who deserves to feel valued. As sad as a separation may be, I am going to tell him we should seriously consider it.

Whoa. Do you see what our enemy did there? Coronavirus nearly unraveled our marriage in that our enemy took advantage of the insanely stressful situation to twist the truth and pit my husband and me against each other. But that’s not the end of the story.

Points of irony.

Please let us preface this next part by saying that we do NOT believe that God gives people illnesses or trauma or tragedies. We fully believe that we live in a broken world of our own human undoing, and God generally allows our collective free will in that broken world to play out. That being said, we think a few things at this point in our story are ironic.

The one person in our household who was losing his mind over disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer is ironically the same family member who contracted coronavirus. You can read that part of the story HERE.
That coronavirus diagnosis earned said family member strict quarantine to one room of our house – literally separated from me and the kids for over three weeks (and counting) at the time of this publication. Also ironic considering that the notion of a marital separation had been introduced by our enemy.

The wall around my heart.

Suddenly and without any warning, I found myself essentially a single mother. Separated. Untethered. Free to run the household and parent the kids however I wanted to without interference. And at first I felt relieved. No more arguing or ongoing conflict. I could engage when I wanted to, and ignore my phone when I didn’t. I could totally handle this separation thing. And the superficial wall around my heart stood tall and proud with my smug enemy standing guard right outside.

Over the course of that first week, something began to shift. In our strained conversations, Allan often said that he was praying for my heart to be softened. MY heart? Are you kidding me? YOU are the one who needs to make some major changes, bucko. Softness in my heart feels an awful lot to me like surrendering my identity and giving up my rights. You just sit tight in that quarantine room and think about all the ways you’ve screwed up our family, mister.

Then I sensed something coming from a calm, strong and powerful source that I hadn’t been attuned to in my resentment. Join your husband in that prayer. You want me to pray for his heart to be softened? No, I want you to pray for your own heart to be softened.

If you’ve been reading the thankful bee for any length of time, you know I pay attention when God tells me to do something. So I prayed for my own softness. Multiple times. Begrudgingly at first, and then sincerely. And our enemy fled his sentry guard post, and the brick wall around my heart was exposed for healing.

There is work to be done.

It would do you a huge disservice to say that the wall around my heart crumbled like sand and everything is coming up unicorns and rainbow sprinkles. All issues solved. Easy peasy, Neat and tidy. Nope. There is work to be done. I need to continue (always) to work on my listening and communication skills. And I need to continue to work on full forgiveness for past hurts (good-bye brick wall). There are more line items on both of our “fix it” lists, and it may take some outside guidance to get us there. That’s okay by us. We are all in. In other words, we are fully committed to each other and our family.

So, coronavirus nearly unraveled our marriage. The relentless pressure cracked the door open for our enemy to get a foothold and start poisoning our territory. Yes, there is work to be done. We are excited for it. God is pruning our marriage to bear better fruit. My husband and I are far stronger together than apart. And we are strongest when God is at the center of our relationship.

Our prayer for you.

Maybe coronavirus has nearly unraveled your marriage, too? We see you, friends. We truly do. Allan and I have been blessed with the opportunity to minister to other couples through prayer on multiple occasions over the years, and we would love to do that for YOU, too. Drop us a comment below or confidentially email us with your personal prayer request for yourself, your spouse or your marriage. It would be an honor for us to serve you in this way. Be encouraged!

Header image by CJ from Pixabay.

Tips for hugging a prickly cactus.

by Melissa Holderby on Apr 25, 2020 category marriage, parenting

It is a gross understatement to say I feel a bit prickly these days. I am about finished with our collective self-isolation experiment. How about you? Oh, I am playing by the rules. As a team player I am committed to doing whatever I can to keep front line workers, our most vulnerable populations and my own family safe. I am rocking this face covering and these disinfectant wipes like a beast. But let’s be real with each other, okay? We are together in close quarters, and frankly I can be a jerk sometimes. So can my husband and kids. We may need some tips for hugging a prickly cactus.

Tips for hugging a prickly cactus? What in the world? Yeah, you read that right. C – A – C – T – U – S. Cactus (plural “cacti” or “cactuses”). A member of the plant family Cactaceae of the order Caryophyllales. CACTUS.

My family of cacti.

There is actually a family of prickly cacti living in our house right now. A family of five bristly, brambly cacti with bothersome thorns. They stay disguised as my husband and children (and myself) most of the time. Until they don’t. And that’s when it gets tricky.

For example, my husband looks like my husband on the outside. But just underneath the surface is a saguro full of pointy spines. And my daughter? She’s a flowering Christmas cactus – usually only home to bloom over winter break from college. Except now she is underneath our roof for the foreseeable future and she is quite nettlesome about that fact. My eldest son? He is a prickly pear cactus – taking over our pantry and our refrigerator like an invasive species.

Hold on. Sweet little Luke (our toddler) can’t possibly be part of this analogy, right? Oh, yes. He is quickly approaching his 2nd birthday at the end of May and he qualifies for this metaphor as well. I am renaming his “terrible twos” as the “thorny twos”.

To continue our story, Luke is an indoor cactus, needing less light and less space than all the others. He is smaller in size, making him the perfect little quarantine houseplant. And I am a member of the Sempervivum group of succulent plants (also commonly known as “hen and chicks”), because I lay awake at night and fret over my brood. Am I doing enough to nurture my children (chicks)? Are my “babies” okay? Physically? And emotionally? What about spiritually? Am I going to still like them and their father when this is all over? No wonder I rarely sleep a solid night through.

Three tips for hugging YOUR prickly cactus.

The problem is that we are all called to love our enemies (and even our own beloved family members can feel like “enemies” sometimes these days). But how in the world are we supposed to do that? Well, God gave us some specific instructions. In other words, He left us some tips for hugging a prickly cactus or two.

Let’s look at the sixth chapter of the book of Luke. “To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person.” (Luke 6:27-28, MSG) I see three specific tips in there for hugging a prickly cactus.

#1. Love your cactus.

I know, I know. That one seems too obvious. I mean we LOVE our families even in the moments we don’t exactly LIKE them, right? But let’s use “love” as a verb – an action word. Not just a feeling. Now, how do we LOVE our family members? Well, it is extremely helpful to understand how each one best receives love. (Hint: it is also how each one primarily shows love to other people.)

To help give that some context, I really like Gary Chapman’s “Five Love Languages”. You (and your cacti) can take an online quiz HERE to help you narrow it down. For instance, I know that my eldest son’s primary love language is Quality Time. My daughter’s is Gifts. My husband’s and our toddler’s is both Physical Touch, and mine is Verbal Affirmation.

So here is how I might play this on any given day. I may invite Colin to go get ice cream with me (socially distanced through a drive thru, of course). I may include some small thing from the grocery store that Hannah can have all to herself (e.g., a bag of her favorite candy). Luke may get extra cuddles, and I may even give my husband a long hug or kiss as we pass each other in the kitchen on separate household missions. And if any of them really want to show ME love in my best language, then they may compliment dinner, or tell me specifically what they appreciate about me, or leave me an encouraging note. Voilà. Love for every cactus in the house!

#2. Let your cactus bring out the best in you.

Every interaction we have with any other human being at any given moment in time involves a choice on our parts. We all have to make split-second decisions how we are going to react to other people. As I see it, we all have two main choices that could be summed up as kindness or malice. Grace or condemnation. Peace or chaos.

Oh, I hear you, friends. THAT is easier said than done when the other person is being a turd and doesn’t deserve our kindness/grace/peace. How many times have we held our sharp tongues at work when clients or co-workers are unreasonable bordering on ridiculous? Or we refrain from leaving too caustic a comment on an acquaintance’s social media post who clearly is supporting the “wrong” (aka not OUR) side of an issue? It’s exhausting some days, isn’t it?

I don’t know about YOU, but I frequently don’t choose to show the same level of restraint when reacting to my own family members – the people I love more than anyone else on the planet. I am often tired and overwhelmed these days. So I automatically default to some of my own family’s jerkiness with malice, condemnation or chaos. That certainly is NOT my best.

But, we can choose to do better. Every interaction is a fresh opportunity to get it right. Deep breath. Count to ten. Respond with kindness, grace and peace. (Yes, even if they don’t “deserve” it.) And when we get it wrong? Ask for forgiveness and try again.

#3 Pray for your cactus.

When your cactus gives you a hard time, pray for your cactus. Lord, please protect my annoying husband by keeping me from smothering his smug, snoring face with a pillow in the middle of the night. Amen. No, no. Try something like this (or whatever fits your situation) instead, “Lord, please help me view my husband’s efforts to protect our family as a gift. Grant him restful sleep for renewed strength to do his job from home to help provide for our family. Give him comfort when his own anxiousness causes him to stumble. Amen.”

Easy to do when our feelings have been trampled on? Nope. Priceless in preserving the fabric of our families? Yep.

a BONUS for you

Want to know a little bonus trick I use sometimes? When I am so hurt or angry that I would rather run a marathon (the WORST!) than do anything kind for the person who hurt me, I picture Jesus standing behind the offensive party. Just over their left or right shoulder. I literally focus my eyes on Him when I choose grace over condemnation. I look past my offender and look at Him instead when I choose to show love to my (at that moment) unlovable family member. In other words, hugging my prickly cactus of a husband/son/daughter is often easier when I visualize hugging Jesus at the same time.

Hang in there, friends. Take heart, be encouraged, and hug your prickly cacti. They just might bloom in this harsh landscape.

Featured image by Ulrike Leone from Pixabay