A Great Weekend Lesson

We had a great weekend going.  If you don't know me I like to have a good time but after the work is done. You know how that goes. When the "work" is done you are often too tired or it is too late.  Well since my husband's crash 7 years ago and the death of our young son-in-law I have learned "up close and personally" you just do NOT know what tomorrow is going to bring so enjoy today!  With that in mind even after a long week at work we had a "$50.00 date night!" This was a first for us.  Mark had done an "odd job" for a widow in our neighborhood and did not charge her.  She wanted to pay so he said "okay, give us some money towards a date." Wah-lah! $50.00!  We headed to a mall near our home to eat there are watch the people.  I know adventurous and romantic!(grin) Then we went window shopping, very leisurely. Nice.  Then we went to a movie. We don't generally go to movies in the theatre as they cost way too much and so many times they are surprisingly full of stuff we really don't care to see.  We actually laughed and enjoyed the one we saw.  Then came one of my favorite things - "no alarm clock morning".  I just love turning off the alarm clock and waking up when my body tells me to wake up.  I aim to have this happen once a week and enjoy it every time.  A quiet day doing housework and bookwork for our ministry ended with playing cards in front of the fireplace.  I even said to Mark, "it doesn't get much better than this!" Then only a couple of short hours later we were arguing. Can you believe it? It was nothing really important. I moved Mark's billfold to use a credit card number for some on-line Christmas shopping and somewhere a long the line a receipt went missing. Defensive attitudes sprang up like weeds. Stubbornness held them steady. Really? Yep.  He searched. I searched. The small white piece of paper had disappeared. Mark gave up and headed to bed. I stewed. I searched some more. No receipt.  I felt so sour.  Our great day had just been spoiled. All kinds of thoughts went through my head..."if he...it's not....I didn't..." All thoughts of my innocence and his guilt. Hmmm, if we are truly a team as we say we are then the lost receipt was our lost receipt and we needed it to return that item.  We did resolve our conflict and that was exactly the ticket, remembering that we are married, together, a team. The conflict was about a lost receipt, not about me or him or who did what.  One of the men in our small group last night used this object lesson.  He placed a pillow between he and his wife. He stated that when they have a conflict they need to do this -  he moved the pillow to the coffee table in front of them. Then he stated "our conflict is about that" and he pointed to the pillow.  "We just need to remember that. It's not about us. It's about the issue at hand."   Point taken. 

I'm thankful for my "great weekend." In amongst all of the "greatness" I just might have learned a lesson!