Mote and Beam

                I can 100% relate to the mote and beam parable. I am REALLY good at finding the mote in someone else’s eye while there is a HUGE beam in my own. I don’t consciously look for others’ faults, I can just find them. It’s an amazing talent. But what about my own faults?

                Over the course of my marriage, I have been able to point out my husband’s faults with accuracy. It never fails. He is always wrong and I am always right. He is the bad guy and I am the good.  (If you believe that then I have some great land in the middle of the Okeefeenokee I can sell you.)

                Let me display a bit of humility (with all sincerity). Elder Joe J. Christensen related a story which he called the Grapefruit Syndrome.

                “As a newlywed, Sister Lola Walters read in a magazine that in order to strengthen a marriage a couple should have regular, candid sharing sessions in which they would list any mannerisms they found annoying. She wrote: ‘We were to name five things we found annoying, and I started off…I told him I didn’t like the way he ate grapefruit. 

Photo by Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash

He peeled it and ate it like an orange! Nobody else I knew age grapefruit like that. Could a girl be expected to spend a lifetime, even eternity, watching her husband eat grapefruit like an orange! After I finished, it was his turn to tell the things he disliked about me…He said, ‘Well, to tell the truth, I can’t think of anything I don’t like about you, Honey.’ Gasp. I quickly turned my back because I didn’t know how to explain the tears that had filled my eyes and were running down my face…’” (Joe J. Christensen quoted in Goddard H.W.,  Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, 2009, p.76-77).

                I had heard this story prior to our marriage. It has helped me some from cataloging my husband’s faults, but not always. As I have progressed through this class, I hopefully have gained a bit of humility and realized that all those catalogued faults need to be uncatalogued. One of the exercises that Dr. Gottman recommends is to write down 5 days a week for 7 weeks a guided positive memory about your spouse. I will admit some of these have been difficult for me to do. It has caused me though to reflect on the good my husband has done (and tried to do) which I may have ignored or belittled. I’m ashamed to say that I have not always given my husband his due. Somehow, throughout the years, my husband has managed to remain more positive and not strike back at me.

                This may sound like I’m taking the blame for all the bad in our marriage. I’m not. I’m taking responsibility for what I can change to make our marriage better. In the few short weeks, I have been taking this class, I have been able to see improvements in our marriage – just by what I have been able to change in myself.

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

When we look through the glass of change (repentance), the world seems brighter.