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For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, “It might have been”.
– John Greenleaf Whittier

It is so easy to get caught up in all of the un-life that surrounds us, un-life being those ultimately unimportant things that seem to fill our heads and hearts with worry and anxiety. To be more precise, un-life things are things that don’t produce a memory but suck up our time and attention anyway. Truth be told, we sure spend a majority of the most precious resource that we have, which is time, majoring on minors and minoring on majors.

You can’t control what you can’t control, folks. You would think that after a very short time here on earth, we would figure that one out but we never really do. Instead, we spend much of our time exerting energy worrying about a future that is uncertain at best or regretting decisions that we have made in the past, which we can’t correct.

Shana: Okay, really honey?  You are totally talking about me!  Lol.  I do that.  All the time.  Whole days can go by where all I do is think about what I didn’t do right, what I should have said, etc.  And, yes, I end up living in the past with regret or living in the future with worry for tomorrow.  As if somehow regret or worry could change anything! 

And all the while, we miss the good stuff. And we also fail to see the goodness in what we actually, physically have in our hands right now because we are so focused on something that we don’t have at that moment.

And as we fix our eye on those things that we don’t have and as we stretch ourselves out desperately trying to get them, well, the things that we did have fall out of our hands and are never recovered again. Little things like this moment, this place, this time and right here and right now, those are the things that you can never get back.

Someone may well say that they don’t like what they have available right now. And to them I would simply say that it is because you have never learned the secret of just ‘being’.

Shana: Joy really can be found in the simplest of things.  (Somebody should really quote me on that, that’s good.)

I was talking to someone recently and they made the comment about how fast time goes by. You know the one where they decree how fast children grow and before you know it, they are gone? When they said that to me, I looked at them square and said, “Do you know when time passes the quickest? It’s when you are asleep. You lie down at night, lay your head on your pillow and before you know it, eight hours have flown by. And when you say that your life has flown by, I would bet you dollars to doughnuts it’s because you have spent the majority of it asleep”.

And so we do.

Between bills, mortgages, family problems, work and the ever present focus on our own lack, it becomes way too easy to forget to just breathe. Soon, the very best things in life stop being a priority as we focus on everything else. And one day you wake up and realize that time has slipped away from you and you are unfulfilled with what you have left in your hands.

Shana: This world has created so many things to fill our time and thoughts.  But they aren’t the important things.  Sometimes you can get so focused on what you want or what you don’t have that you neglect what is right in front of you.  I have to remind myself at times about everything I have to be so grateful for.  What do I have RIGHT NOW?  Because right now is what matters. 

That is something that we are trying to practice as a husband and a wife right now but it is hard, believe me. We have come to the conclusion that any time you focus on what is not in your hand at that moment and instead focus on something outside of your reach, you lose what you held. In fact, whatever we do not focus on in our lives will suffer declension. It is inevitable and it is tragic.

For example, the moment that you start to take your spouse for granted and you stop taking the time to cultivate or nurture that relationship, declension sets in. We are lazy by nature as human beings, we really are. And we all want to get things in our lives to a place where they can maintain their own altitude on autopilot. But there are no autopilots in life, there is only lift and thrust and attention. When we fail to pay attention, we begin to lose either lift or thrust or both. The decline that then sets in is just common sense.

In the Bible, this is called slothfulness, which is to be inattentive or inactive or indolent. And Proverbs 19 reads; “Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep”. In other words, when we are inattentive and inactive regarding the things that God has given to us as a gift, it casts us into a deep sleep and time just flies by.

What so many of us fail to see is that your spouse was designed by God to be your sanctuary. When we are living an Epic Marriage, we yearn for the intimacy that we have with them because it serves as a bulwark against the constant onslaught of life’s challenges. We begin to find true north when we are with our spouse, each of you providing what the other needs and together finding a sense of completeness that you simply cannot find anywhere else.

Shana: You can forget how much you need each other.  We were created by God to be what the other person needs.  And at times you can get sidetracked by either pride in subconsciously thinking you don’t need your spouse or selfishness in not considering their needs and only being consumed with what you need.  Or maybe you’re just sidetracked by “life”.  (I use parentheses because it’s not real life you are sidetracked with…only the demands of the current culture.)  But sidetracked, nonetheless.  Finding your way back will only be in and with your spouse.

But in order to find completeness, you first have to know what is incomplete in your spouse. What is it that they need from you that day in order to be whole? Is there anything that you can do to serve them in this today? If you begin to ask these sorts of questions, from a surrendered servant’s heart for one another, you will discover that you have a better spouse to live with.

But it must be both of you, together. The Archie Bunker man whose wife serves him hand over fist while he dominates her is not God’s design. And the selfish woman who domineers and manipulates her man while withholding what he needs from her is not either.

You are living this life together as one, both serving and both completing the other. And until you focus on this and take it seriously, prepare to be distracted, disgusted and disheartened.

When was the last time that you went on a Christian site like Christian Nymphos or The Marriage Bed and learned something new that was just for your spouse’s benefit?  When was the last time you tried something for them that you have never tried, or that you were just inventive and playful?  (Shana: Yeah, get in the closet and bring out that cowboy hat and those chaps-you know why you bought them!)

Shana:  When is the last time you brought me…ahem…I mean your spouse….chocolate covered strawberries and a glass of chardonnay? 

When was the last time you seriously thought about how to make them happy that day? Or took your mind off of yourself and your own needs and met theirs? Have you ever viewed your sexual life together as an opportunity to explore and experience and grow together as a couple to places that you never dreamed were possible?

Shana:  When was the last time you brought me….oops…I mean your spouse…a Chianti and some Brie with a toasted baguette?  (Gosh, I’m loving these “when was the last time?” ;)!)

This is one of the secrets to an Epic Marriage. And this is what God intended for us, complementarianism. We complement one another when we serve one another in life, in parenting, in finances and in the bedroom.

Shana: When was the last time….oh, are we done with those?

So, talk to your spouse today and really see where they are. Then make it your life’s mission this week to be what they need and help them to feel what they are missing.

You will be glad you did.