Then Sings My Soul Saturdays - Love Is Not A Fight

UPDATE (Sun., 8/17/08) - My husand read this post and asked me to note that the lamp lying shattered on the ground was an accident. He said the way I wrote it made it sound like he went a bit nuts and threw the lamp or something. That wasn't the case. The lamp was just an unfortunate casualty 'cause it was in the way and while he's wonderful, he's a bit klutzy. :)

This week I had the pleasure of hearing Warren Barfield in concert at my church. Before singing my song for this week, he talked a bit about his relationship with his wife of seven years (they're expecting their first child in December - watching him talk about THAT was fun!) and a fight the two of them had over, of all things, spilled pretzels. Of course, it wasn't actually over spilled pretzels but they were that final straw.

Warren told us that he and his wife get along so incredibly well that they only have about one fight a year. As my husband and I listened to him tell about their last fight (he was very open, by the way), words flying back and forth at each other, until he said those words that a spouse just falls apart when they hear - I don't want to be married anymore - and she didn't respond with "ok, then go." Thank God. He never did say what she said but he told us it "broke her." I'm sure it did. It probably broke her heart and rendered her brain practically scrambled.

When he got through all of that, Aaron and I just looked at each other. Aaron and I don't fight often, either. I'm not talking about getting a bit snippy with each other, I'm talking fights. Fights that seem rooted in differences in principles and beliefs. Fights that when you are in the middle of it you have to fight against the rage and anger and not say things you can't take back. We've had a few of those although most of them happened at the beginning of our marriage. The last one was late last summer, early fall (even when we had our last big fight caused a bit of debate in our home last night... that gave us a good laugh when we realized it) and it involved, of all things, a bowl of pretzels. Whatever we were fighting about (and neither of us can remember), escalated to the point where I was so sick and tired of yelling at each other that I was ending it. Bowing out. Shutting down is more like it. When I did that, I grabbed the pretzels I'd been snacking on and sat down on the couch. As Aaron continued to talk, I ignored him. That didn't last long because that infuriated him so much you could see the steam coming out of his ears. Next thing I know, that bowl of pretzels has been knocked out of my hands, pretzels are EVERYWHERE in the living room, our lamp is laying shattered on the ground and he's walking out the door. At that point, by the way, I was quite happy to see him go. Fortunately, I was even happier to see him come back.

As in all of our differences so far, we eventually calmed down, talked it out and got on with life. The truth is, we live our marriage like the words in this song. It is what God intended. It would be wonderful if there were no problems in life, no arguments, pitfalls, things that get in the way, no busyness... but there is. All of that can stack up in front of you like a great big brick wall and make you lose sight of what is really important. This song reminds you, if nothing else, that God remembers what is important and He doesn't let anything get in the way.

Embedding has been removed from this video so I had to paste a link, not the actual video, in my post. Hope you enjoy Warren as much as I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED2ZnQ5rFIY