Suddenly it’s March! This is how people grow old, isn’t it?

Since my last post, we have paid off the last of our consumer debt! We are officially back at $0 and very happy to be there. The rocks in our debt jar have been gone since the end of January and yet I still have the jar sitting in its usual place at the top of our stairs. Eventually I’ll put it away, but it still makes me happy when I walk by and see that it’s empty, so for now it remains. People who visit our home and don’t know the story may think it’s a little odd – ah well. Or perhaps they don’t even notice it…

The other big news is that our son is engaged!

I can’t tell you how happy I am for both him and Rebecca. I’ve known Clayton longer, so I know that he has wanted this more than anything else for a long, long time. For him, this is a dream come true. I have no doubt that he will love Rebecca well, and I have no doubt that marriage will be much more complex than either of them can imagine.

Ah, marriage – simultaneously the best and most difficult relationship of life. My eldest daughter is about a year and a half into her marriage and has already provided me with two of my favorite lines. In her wedding vows she said, “Today we are making promises to each other that are too big for either of us to keep…” Isn’t that the truth! More recently in her blog she wrote, “My short thought was that wifehood was getting in the way of selfishness, and I think that's the way God made it.”

Marriage certainly does have an intrinsic way of either pruning the selfishness out of us or making us miserable! And I too think that’s the way God made it. Most of us probably spend most of our time somewhere between the two (selfishness being pruned which leads to happiness, and self-centered living leading to misery), but after these last two years in my marriage, I can clearly see the immeasurable benefit of choosing unselfishness. It’s when I deliberately set aside “the kingdom of me” and do what I can to make Tim’s life easier or better that I notice my life too becomes easier and better. If only it wasn’t such a psychological or emotional battle to turn my back on the kingdom of me! I still just want life to revolve around me – it’s too bad no one else got the memo that says I’m the center of the universe. Hmmm…

So today again, I’ll have to yoke myself to Jesus and learn from him. His life was the epitome of unselfish living – definitely crucial in marriage.

Simply Susan