Retro Wednesday

 

Retro Wednesday 2013: Shoulder to Shoulder
by Amy Gentry

 

 

Scenes from an Italian restaurant:

 

Boy meets girl with a bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates at the door. Sitting across from each other holding hands and eating with your meal one handed so you won't be the first to let go. Candlelit table with French brand and pasta with the least messy sauce that have on the menu ... Alfredo. Gazing at each other thinking, "Wow, they really get me."

 

SCREECH, CLANG, SMACK!!!!!

 

Reality. 10 years later you find yourself in another Italian restaurant with sauce on your chin, (and not too bothered by it) thinking about texting your BFF about how many calories must be in your Alfredo sauce. Oh ya... And he is still here but we can't talk because we're eating.

 

Is this what a friendship in marriage is supposed to look like?

 

Song of Songs 1:8

"Friends

If you do not know, most beautiful of women,

follow the tracks of the sheep and graze your young goats by the tents of the shepherds."

 

The friends of Solomon's wife are telling her, "Hey, lady... Why don't you go hang out by your husband’s side?!?!"

 

Women want romance and nurturing and we want to discuss our feelings and find out how our husbands are feeling too. They were not made like us. Not wrong but different. They were made to work, labor and toil with co-laborers. Side-by-side. Shoulder-to-shoulder.

 

Men thrive in relationships that are built through shoulder-to-shoulder time. As the seconds on the clock tick by men usually open up and begging to connect with those who are beside them engaging in the same activity. A prudent wife would cultivate a true friendship with her husband by sacrificing her busyness to focus on meeting his friendship needs.

 

Instead of:

 

-Sitting at the baseball game with earbuds in listening to Christian music while reading a Christian book because baseball is boring. (Done that one). Instead of watching the game, being silly and having fun together.

 

-Cashing in on a road trip nap instead of talking to my husband about different kinds of music. (Done this one too)

 

-enjoying the A/C in the house instead of making us both a glass of iced tea, grabbing a lawn chair and being with him in the yard on chore day. (Grrrr... Done that one recently).

 

CHALLENGE: work on a project or watch a sporting event shoulder-to-shoulder every weekend this summer.

P.S. "But we have nothing in common" is the phrase I hear most often when discussing being friends with your husband. Maybe you both don't like to digital scrapbook or watch English Rugby, but you both have The Lord and your family in common. See... You do have something in common. Start there.