I just got home from a busy week, putting in my regular hours at the office, and then travelled to northwest with my wife to paint the inside of a home.

Of course, as we were cleaning, repairing, and painting this dwelling, we found we were both a bit sensitive to each other’s moods and tempers.

Don’t get me wrong, for when I mention “temper”, many may think I am referring to uncontrolled emotional outbursts of negative passion (how is that for wordsmithing that term “anger”).

At this point in our journey together, anger has become a rare commodity between us. As a matter of fact, with my favorite, she has this anger thing seemingly controlled most times, except when a puppy dog had been ignored, a little baby has been mistreated, or a person of weakness has been taken advantage of. She tends to find her anger in these circumstances, and rightly so! (Ephesians 4:26)

But anger isn’t the topic of my post today.

Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

My wifey and I have been together now close to 45 years, and she is the love of my life, but I will tell you that as we travel this life together, I have found that we are becoming more one than two. We tend to be thinking the same thoughts, sometimes at the very same time. We seem top need less words to explain ideas and generally aim at the same targets in both our efforts and plans.

Yet we are two different souls, one of us a bit of a self serving, “I’m important” type of person, while the other exhibits the traits of a listening ear, an understanding heart and a gentle soul. We will leave the identification of each to our readers judgement, but I may drop a hint later to help you identify that self server!

As I mentioned early on in this post, we put in a full week at work and then took on this additional task. The painting of the interior of a home. Ceilings, walls, doors, trim, repair of sheetrock, fan repair, shower cleaning, tub scrubbing etc. etc. Let me just state that when we got to bed, it was with a larger dose of gratefulness than usual!

So all of this is told to provide a background to a telling moment with my favorite. Remember my sweetie does not shy away from seeking justice when someone is wronged, and after completing our self inflicted tasks for the week, we still needed to sort out a (minor) wrong we had experienced. As I sought to iron out this problem with a certain service provider, I tried to tell them my concerns, and I suppose my favorite thought I missed an important fact. She couldn’t resist inserting a fact, and in so doing, I shut down. I stopped my story so she could complete it.

All is well until we are away from anyone who could hear, and I explained why I shut down. All typical fare for my wife and I as we try to speak of things of concern between us. But in this particular instance, after the long hours of the week had wore us down, I expressed my complaint without considering her as the weaker vessel. I expressed it as from my need and not hers! Did I mention a self server above? A bit of a hint there who I was referring to!

Yes, married folk have the privilege of becoming one flesh, and this privilege is a gift of the Lord that we may enter into if we understand our mate as a different soul, a different person, a person who has different needs and perspectives.

We are becoming one flesh, and this joining together has it’s mystery in the church, for we believers are His bride, and as I need to take my wife’s needs into consideration to minister to her, to express my love and commitment to her, I am reminded that my fractured effort to relate to her is but a weak reflection of the Lord and His commitment to the church, and to each believer as they seek to follow Him is a weak.

As we were painting last night, both of us covered in white paint, I let her know that there was no one on earth I would rather be painting with.

I wonder what the Lord’s thoughts are?

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