Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Wielding Woundedness Woefully, or Well?
77 Plays10 months ago
Come friend. Come a little closer. That's good--right there. Can we tell you a secret or two? Maybe one that might help you feel a little less alone, less crazy, or less hopeless, even if just for a half-hour or so?
In this one, Chris and Wendy debrief a recent argument where they missed one another's hearts significantly. Listeners, you might be surprised to hear the directions their minds went in the aftermath.
But you might also be encouraged to get a glimpse of the different means that God used to bring them back to a better frame of mind, provide them the courage to re-engage with curiosity and kindness, and lead them to a deeper level of insight about one another's stories. You'll hear how (and why) each has had to battle to be "right-sized" in the midst of a conflict, rather than shrinking too small or blowing up too big. (Where my parentified people at who can relate?)
As usual, prepare for an eclectic range of references and sources of inspiration: including but not limited to the lyrical genius of Pink, a random internet meme, reconnecting with kindhearted fellow travelers over Zoom. and a beautifully heartfelt liturgy on marriage from modern day poet and would-be-desert-father Douglas Kaine McKelvey.
TL;DR: God knows how to capture & recapture our hearts, and redeem the stories we have lived to help us co-write better ones with Him now.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Surviving Saturday
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to Surviving Saturday, a podcast about holding on to hope in the midst of life's difficulties, disappointments, and dark seasons. Times like that remind us of the agony and despair the followers of Jesus felt on the Saturday of Easter weekend, in between the Friday on which he was crucified and the Sunday on which he rose from the dead.
Hope and Honesty in Difficult Times
00:00:23
Speaker
That someday forever changed the way that humans can relate to God. But what does it look like to be honest about the very real pain we experience in the in-between? To fervently cling to hope in the God who promised us his peace and his presence at times when he feels distant or even cruel.
Meet the Osbornes: Wendy and Chris
00:00:40
Speaker
I'm Wendy Osborne, a licensed counselor in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'm her husband, Chris, a marriage mediator, conflict resolution coach, and trauma-informed story work coach.
00:00:51
Speaker
Join us each episode for authentic conversations about how life not turning out as we'd expected has created the contextual soil for the growth of a tenacious hope in the resurrection and in a God who is still making all things new. Hi, I'm Wendy. And hey, I'm Chris. Welcome back to Surviving Saturday.
Navigating Conflict in Relationships
00:01:15
Speaker
We are excited to bring another episode of the podcast and today we were talking about really trying to process really a really difficult conflict we had very recently where we both had a lot of emotional, a lot of feelings sort of stirred up and we are trying to figure out how do we
00:01:35
Speaker
how we honor that and bring that to each other. And we felt like it was kind of a roller coaster for a bit, but we maybe had some insights that kind of came out of it. So we wanted to kind of share that, kind of let you sort of see the inner workings of what conflict looks like when you're trying to be story aware and trying to, you know, both hold one another's hearts well, and yet then you're not because you're in your own stuff. So Wendy, why don't you sort of set the stage, kind of what this conflict was about
Reflections on Leadership and Vulnerability
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah. So this started as a conversation on a morning walk. Let's check it out several days a week and walk together. And some days
00:02:17
Speaker
lots of days that starts the day on a beautiful foot. But some days like this day, it started the day on a dreadful. And I think we even to add to the madness, I think at least I may have said before this walk, can we have this be like a supportive? Can we be purposeful about like just not getting into anything difficult? Can we
00:02:40
Speaker
Well, cause I think we never think we're stepping into something difficult. Well, well, sometimes we do, but yeah, I just, I just was like, gosh, can, can our goal be to not have a conflict on this walk? Um, because it sort of can set a sour note for the day if we don't end in a good place and, and, and there are times we end in a really good place. And so, yeah. Yeah. So on this day, I was aware that,
00:03:05
Speaker
The day before I had had a few sessions with clients that had really brought some conviction to me and made me really consider some things about my life that I would like to change.
00:03:22
Speaker
to bring more in line with the gospel, that there are just some behavior patterns I'd love to change. Yeah, that was the energy you started with was it was sort of you had this energy of, I can be changed. I'm hearing a client describe sort of a freedom from something that had really entangled them. And like you had this, I can do that too. This has entangled me, but it doesn't have to. Yeah, yeah.
00:03:48
Speaker
And so as I was thinking about that, I started, I had been grappling with times in my life when I had been more humble and times in my life when I had been more self-righteous. And so I asked you about an experience that we had been through together.
00:04:11
Speaker
This was many years ago in a church leadership context and I asked you if the effect of being in a position of leadership had made it hard to see your own sin and maybe in fact made you major on other people's sin more than your own because I was seeing ways that that
00:04:40
Speaker
grotesque attitude had penetrated my heart. Not now, but in some seasons in the past in certain positions. Yeah. And I think I responded to that saying, I mean, I hear that dynamic
00:04:58
Speaker
I'm very much aware of it and it felt like something in this context that I and the people I was engaging with in leadership, we were trying to be vigilant about that. And we were trying to set a tone of we are the weakest and we need grace. And so I'm not going to say we never felt vulnerable to that, but it felt different to me. But I said, I respect how it felt for you.
Power Struggles and Defensive Reactions
00:05:21
Speaker
And I didn't bite on whatever it was you were sort of wanting me to jump in with is what I guess it felt like.
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think in that moment, I was feeling vulnerable and humbled. Yeah. And I was without directly asking you to do so. I was asking you to join me in that. And so when you didn't, I made the comment, I can't tell if you're giving me an honest answer or not.
00:05:51
Speaker
And I met, are you really giving me a thoughtful answer that is really born out of surveying your own heart and your experience in this? But you heard that differently. I heard it very differently. I heard it as a questioning of my honesty. And I remember for whatever reason different words. All I can say is this is how it landed with me was, I don't think you're being honest.
00:06:16
Speaker
And that started to trigger a reaction in me. I'm like, not being honest. Hold on. Why are we talking about honesty all of a sudden? And I started to sort of, you know, get a little activated and get exasperated with, wait, how did it turn into that? And then we had stepped right into the middle of a war for power and we did not really
00:06:39
Speaker
recognize exactly that was what was happening, but our psyches and our bodies were both ready to
Seeking Resolution Together
00:06:48
Speaker
power up. Yes, because where it went from there is you then tried to marshal evidence. I think that what you had experienced was true and right and
00:06:59
Speaker
to defend that you are seeing something and i was made i made a a really good case you did uh... and it's landed more on me okay i felt like you are talking about a long period of time and apart you know that that that element was present and yet it wasn't always prevalent president and i wanted more nuance i wanted more and then that landed on a a place where we've we've sort of been in some difficult waters of that sort of a crime my heart is
00:07:26
Speaker
When I failed, and I do fail ordinarily, frequently, no question I do fail, but when I do, I want to be seen as this whole person who isn't just the failure that I just had. So it landed on that, and then I basically decided to try to say, I'd like you to really understand
00:07:47
Speaker
that this is a thing that keeps recurring, that I feel like there are times when you are upset enough with me that I'm not being seen anymore. As the whole person I am, I'm just that failure. So I tried to communicate that, but I made a big mistake. Do you remember that? I do. What I did was I tried to make a comparison or analogy to something really deep and important in your story.
00:08:15
Speaker
and tried to say, look, you know how you feel about that? That's sort of how I feel about this. Cause this happened to me and the reaction immediately was not good. How did that come across to you? What did you experience in that? Um, I felt overpowered and I felt, um, strangely I felt not seen for what I had endured. Yeah.
00:08:36
Speaker
and you reacted really strongly to that and then I realized, oh crap. I actually kind of pushed it further actually. I think we started saying things and we, I don't know if it's that same discussion, but we had let that go even worse another time of like, well, your story, you didn't have this and you didn't have that and we didn't need to get the details of it. But the point is we started, it wasn't storytelling, but it was, we were not holding each other's story well.
00:09:01
Speaker
And the deeper root of it was we were feeling small, desperate to be heard. And that sort of got us thinking about, well, we didn't think about it much. We'd sort of just lost the tether on this conversation, had to just sort of stop it. It didn't end well. I mean, for a couple of days on and off, it kept taking us out.
00:09:21
Speaker
We'd kind of try to come back and then it would take us out again. So eventually we talked it over with some friends in a marriage story group that we're part of. Yes. Yes. We were actually, we were able to identify. We are not able to navigate this and there's some overlay sort of discussions that were kind of wrapped up in this.
00:09:43
Speaker
we're not able to get through this our own. Do we have a place we can go where we both feel safe and somebody can help us hear this? And sometimes that's what this group exists for. Yeah, exactly. Sometimes that's the counseling room. Sometimes that's the work I do with couples is, Hey, you get to both bring it here. And you obviously, I sat with a couple recently and they keep having the sort of same thing they run into. And they, they now know we can't get ourselves out of this. We, I land on your store, you should land on mine. And they, you know, come and sit with me and just as an outside person doing some story work with them.
00:10:13
Speaker
Thanks for watching
00:10:13
Speaker
can help them see and connect dots. It's beautiful to watch. So what happened with this is, yeah, we have a story group that we go to. It's people we met in Seattle doing a marriage conference thing. And we stayed connected with the leaders of that. And it was a safe place to process. And what was that like for you? Because we came in a little bit more hot than we usually do. We came in with more of a raw scenario than we had in this group in a while. How was that? Well, it's interesting because it's on Zoom. Yeah.
00:10:44
Speaker
your body posture, my body posture, how we come in, and you can watch it evolve throughout the conversation. And so I could see us change facial
Dealing with Fear and Routine Disruptions
00:10:58
Speaker
expression, change body posture and shape.
00:11:03
Speaker
Um, I can see us each at different times. Just exhale. Yes. Um, I think especially as friends were saying, Oh my gosh, I totally relate to that particular dynamic. Or this is a discussion we've had just recently.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, it felt like there was something powerful in it being a group of married couples in all in different places in marriage, not too distant in age, but different places in their stories and just how they rose up.
00:11:40
Speaker
to show kindness and solidarity with each of us. There was no side picking. There was no, oh, well, she's definitely right. And you need to get your eye together, bro, or anything like that. It was, I can see you. I can see, you could see them, their face is light. And part of it's because they've brought really hard stuff too. Other times they were the ones who came in hot or came in like this just happened. Yeah, because marriage is hard. Yes. And these are good people. It's lovely and I wouldn't be without it and it's hard.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's worth mentioning too, these are people who, in one of the other couples, the woman is a counselor, and another couple, a man, the man is in counseling school. And another, the man is a counseling professor, and the woman coaches people. Yes, and the realness that we felt there, where we had not been in the most hard place
00:12:31
Speaker
of the couples who spoke in a while. I don't know if we ever had. And so it was valuable to be seen, to be heard. And yeah, we kind of relaxed, and we felt supported, and they spoke to us. And then we kind of flubbed, you know, exiting that. Like we got off the clock. Like after we hung up. Yes. Do you remember what you asked me a question? Or we were saying, how was that? You asked me. You said, how do you feel after that? Yes.
00:13:02
Speaker
And I said, I think I said pretty good. Okay. How do you feel? And I said, I feel sad, but a little hopeful. Like, so I'm sad that we got here. Right up. Yes. Yes. And do you know what that was in response to? Tell me a little bit of hope. Yeah. What did that make you feel? Oh, I was like, I'm not going to have more hope than you have. So fine. And I think I made a sassy comment about,
00:13:32
Speaker
then I'll only have a little hope to right before I stormed off to bed. Yeah, sassy is one word I suppose we could use. It was not a playfully sassy word and we know how to be playful sassy sometimes. No, it was not playful sassy. No, and so it left me kind of like, well dang, you know, but where I went with it, this is interesting because so I had a fair amount of school work to do.
00:13:54
Speaker
and i sort of sat with it for a second and kind of just put out my mind like well i got a deadline i gotta do my score i'm gonna go do score can actually had a fairly productive you know hour two getting stuff that i need to but i woke up the next morning we hadn't really we didn't speak you know you went on to bed and then the morning i woke up and left for soccer and i woke up and
00:14:15
Speaker
just was in abject fear. I haven't been on a fear loop like this in a while. I won't go into the details of it, but I was just stuck like, oh my gosh, I can never be vulnerable again. I'm just gonna lose. I'm just gonna get killed. I just, and I knew on some level I am in a fearful place. I went to go play soccer in the morning, which is what I do, and I was able to kind of let go of some of it to play the game, but it was fascinating to me in retrospect. It was not fascinating at the time. It was terrible at the time, but at least I could recognize this is a fear loop.
00:14:43
Speaker
but I was there and I couldn't get out of it. And so I lost, I wasn't able to connect with you. And you just mentioned a minute ago kind of what you did with it, you know, instead of kind of reaching out to me and pulling me in or trying to jab further, what'd you do with yourself? I mean, I went to work and I was like,
00:15:07
Speaker
God, I think I have nothing to give like exactly zero to give these clients that are coming. And yet I felt like somehow he was going to come through and I was going to have what I needed. Yeah. And so I just did what the day required.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah. And so what's fascinating is this was a particular day that I had conflict coaching session or a couple of coaching sessions booked where I'm doing story work with people. And I had to look, I went in, I think I went and played soccer. I came home and I, I didn't, I don't even find an app, but I just kind of laid there and sat, I had things I wanted to do before my first session and I didn't.
00:15:48
Speaker
But in the first session and having a conversation with this married couple that's been married about seven years, I really had the experience that you've talked about before of like God shows up with who he brings to our counseling room. And the beauty of it is God shows up and is working on and bringing care to the people who are coming for story work, for coaching, counseling, whatever, and he's working on us at the same time. And literally I'm working, this couple brings a conflict about
00:16:16
Speaker
The wife had a need, she named it for, she thought she named it for her husband clearly. And it came across this like, you know, I have this need. And he initially was like, I don't know if I can do that, but I'm glad to help. Let's not spend money that way, but let's do it this way. She heard that as, you don't even meet my need, you don't care. And that set off in her, you'll never gonna believe that what I'm going through is as hard as it is.
00:16:41
Speaker
And so she kind of did the withdrawal, power up, pulled away. And then he's left, well, okay, hey, look, oh, you want that? Okay, I'll get the thing. Aren't we good now? And y'all are probably out there laughing at you. Okay, well, nevermind, I'll go back, I'll get it. I'll get you what you wanted. Aren't we good? And she's like, no, because you don't get my heart. And he's like,
00:16:58
Speaker
I can't win. I'm going to lose. I'm a loser again. And he goes, and I, the spirit of God just showed up and gave me, like, I felt like I came back into myself and like was able to say, guys, it's okay. You need to understand that sometimes something gets tripped, something is activating your brain and you lose the ability to give a rep what the other person is thinking or feeling.
00:17:21
Speaker
And I was laughing internally, because I'm like, I've just been there for like an hour or two, where I am scared. I'm afraid of what's going to happen. I'm not thinking about, I wonder what Wendy needs right now. I was like, that is not on the radar. But it slowly came back and like, guys, this is how our brains operate. This is how our stories operate. Sometimes we are in, we're consumed by fear, or we're consumed by desperation, or something we have to have, whatever it is.
00:17:49
Speaker
if we go too far with it, we lose that. Does that make sense? Does that resonate with what you've seen in your room as well? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it felt like this gift. I'm like, oh, yeah. Reminder, dummy. This is what happens. And it made me see, not just for me, like, oh, yeah, I was sort of losing. But this is what happens to Wendy as well, because it happens to all those humans. Tripped past a certain point.
00:18:16
Speaker
everything's on fire, gotta fix it, and we're not looking out for the other person. And it's not even possible to. So to ask them to do that in that time is madness. Like when I kept pushing, you need to see this, and once it really triggered you, I needed to shut up, and sometimes I did, and sometimes I didn't. Right, then it becomes, unfortunately, more often about self-preservation. Yes, yes. Then the love of Jesus for the other.
00:18:45
Speaker
And that is some of what the challenge, you know, it takes us back to this, this, this was a deeper level. I think this is something we, we definitely had gotten introduced to, you know, 20 years ago in our marriage was the first place where anybody was in counseling. We were talking about any of this of facing that, that feeling of desperation, that feeling of, Oh my gosh, I'm, I'm, it feels like I'm going to die. If this doesn't change, if I don't get heard,
00:19:11
Speaker
And so that sort of leads to a conversation. So this is all going on. We don't even know how each other's day is going at all. But that and then another experience I had, I'm working with a young man who's processing his experience of some serious abuse in his family, that he is just being able to name and recognize this is way worse than I thought it was.
00:19:33
Speaker
And in that moment, it had echoes and elements of some of your story. And I felt like God used it to bring me to say, yeah, you don't use somebody else's story. And say, hey, you know how you felt this? I felt like that too. I felt convicted. I misused something I knew about your story. And it took hearing this guy and having overflowing with compassion for him, like, dude, you're minimizing something horrific.
00:19:59
Speaker
And then I'm like, and I just did that. And so I left you a voicemail, a voice tech you couldn't get and said, I don't know about the rest of it, but I know I misused your story and I feel horrible
Influence of Past on Present Conflicts
00:20:11
Speaker
about that.
00:20:12
Speaker
Yeah, and you were really kind to play it for me in your presence later because it, I don't know, it disappeared off my phone. Like I saw it was there, I didn't know what it said, and then it disappeared. I don't know if it played when I wasn't aware, and then it deleted, I don't know. Yay, technology. But yeah, as we began to kind of pull back the curtain and recognize what was really being triggered,
00:20:41
Speaker
It was not at all about our experience in this leadership position. That was kind of the presenting scenario to argue over. Yeah. But it really was about our own relationship with power when we were young. Yes. Yes. And so I know that for me,
00:21:10
Speaker
in the family system in which I was raised, I had to be small, small enough to be submissive, small enough to be helpful, small enough to be a really good, compliant kid. But I had to be big enough
00:21:36
Speaker
to keep one particular family member alive. And I'm not going to go into the details here, but there was a family member that feared their own mental health and feared their own ability to stay alive.
00:21:55
Speaker
And I was named as the person who could change all of that. Responsible for that, right. So you are, on the one hand, you're trying to be small so you don't get the harsh, cruel, and healthy attention that came with that. And at the same time, you are this person's only hope of staying sane and surviving. And we were able to talk this morning about what a bind that is.
00:22:24
Speaker
That's a horrible, those don't match up and neither of those is something a child should bear. Right. And it began to show up by the time I was in high school as a war with my body and the size and the shape it was. I was always very petite and that was what my world required.
00:22:48
Speaker
And yet I was also pitted against other parts of my body. And so it took that form for decades, but really it was deeper than that. It's much deeper. And it was something that, I mean, you've been spending, gosh, 20 plus years unpacking. Yes. There have been phases where you would have increased awareness of, oh, it's worse than I thought, here's,
00:23:15
Speaker
here's something new and literally that has continued and I say that and that's been my journey as well like I knew certain aspects of my story that were difficult and problematic but there's been a continued journey of discovery and so for me that we realize we're talking this morning that the same
00:23:33
Speaker
how big, how small are you dynamic, was in play. I had to be, because I was a combatant in my parents' fights between ages seven and 10, and when he was, my dad was, and both my parents were passed away, so I can talk a little bit more freedom.
00:23:50
Speaker
I was a combatant at age seven, eight, nine. So I had to be big enough to basically fight my dad and to protect my mom from my dad is what it felt like. And when he was gone, when the fights were done, I was also part of mom's care. And like I had to bring, I mean, I've talked about it.
00:24:13
Speaker
I remember, I mean, cause I met you when I was 13. Yeah. We were 13. So these years had passed, but as I learned about them, I remember thinking you also had to be small enough to be a kid who cared about their mother's suffering. Yes. So that you would come in and do whatever she told you she needed. Yes. And I had to shrink my world sorta and be small to be the care and comfort that she needed. And
00:24:43
Speaker
That's an important sort of impossible find so I fear Having to be small having and having to sort of be and when she would you know react in certain ways?
00:24:54
Speaker
I would, there's no room for me. Like she was going to be so big with the emotion and the feeling that I had to be small and I couldn't have my feelings about it. And yet I'm the man of the house. And yet I'm supposed to, you know, I was parentalized as a word I would use. And so we recognize we both have this bind, this war with
00:25:18
Speaker
having to be bigger. In fact, we saw a meme this morning when we were talking that we had a good laugh over. It said, congratulations all you kids who are always praised for being more mature, mature beyond your ears. You're now in therapy. It's so true.
00:25:38
Speaker
So true yes, and you know sinking when you made that comment when we hung up the zoom call with our marriage group Yeah, and you said I have a little hope this war
00:25:52
Speaker
like climaxed in my body and I was like, well, I won't be bigger than you with more hope than you. And that led to the energy in my feet that led me stomping off upstairs because it was this war with, can I be small? Can I be the right size? Can you join me in this?
00:26:13
Speaker
But my nervous system took that as a you want me to hold more hope and lead the way to keep your hope alive and i had at the moment.
00:26:26
Speaker
No idea of what this was really tied to, of keeping a family member alive and their hope for life and their desire to move forward. And we both realized we both had to do that and we're putting that in possible position.
Understanding Power Dynamics
00:26:43
Speaker
So of course it makes talking about need between us really delicate.
00:26:49
Speaker
Oh, so dangerous. Yeah, so risky, I should say. So risky. Yes. And then that sort of led us to also a revelation about even
00:27:00
Speaker
with our relationship with power. We discovered there's a word we need to be careful about. When I'm on this journey of embracing that sometimes I am overwhelmed or I'm not as confident, for me to say I have a little hope was, that for me felt honest and real, but I'm not, I can't come save the day.
00:27:20
Speaker
So I felt like I was being the right size. But for you, you used a word, you regarded that as fragile. Remember? And we had a good conversation about, you know, what does it mean when you think, oh man, the person I'm with is fragile. It feels all that pressure rises back up again. I can't be weak because you're fragile, you're going to break.
00:27:41
Speaker
Right. It makes me feel like the person is going to break. Like it is my job to see to it that nothing happens to this vase, this object, this, this China.
00:27:54
Speaker
It's my responsibility to keep everything in check here. Right and I feel that same way. I don't like fragility either and we talked about sort of reframing that idea even we've been trying to get away from and we do this in sort of our story work as well with others. You're not broken is not a great word. You're wounded.
00:28:16
Speaker
Okay, you're wounded. There is brokenness, and I know there's lots of Christian imagery and songs and stuff, but what if we treat ourselves as wounded vessels? And to say, oh, you are, you're wounded right now. And so one of the things I talked about with, partly the thing with fragile and broken is they're sort of, they're easily
00:28:37
Speaker
Black-white dichotomized, you know, oh you're broken. Well, this is you know, we're not gonna get fixed but And this this guy I was working with was talking about, you know When she's critical and she's hurt that I've lost and I view life as wins and losses I was like, oh dude. Okay, that's gonna be hard. It's like I said so you can't lose he said no, I just don't lose twice and
00:28:59
Speaker
I want to learn from my mistakes, don't want to fix it better. I'm like, oh, I resonate with that so much. And when you're talking about a marriage relationship, that's going to drive you nuts because if you score it in terms of wins and losses, if you look at it as how well am I doing at attuning to my spouse?
00:29:15
Speaker
Am I loving them? Well, you can and it's in it's a flowing thing. You can always make a course correction Yeah in the same way if we don't define the other person. Oh shit, you're fragile. Yeah, I have to be the strong one There's that whole you know, and I think that was something they said in our
00:29:30
Speaker
And I was a fool to believe I'd ever get to be myself. That was one of the things we talked about in our marriage kind of group setting. When we get in that place, damn it, I knew this was gonna happen. I was a fool, whatever. But if we can reframe that even, let's say, oh my gosh, my partner is in their story right now. They are feeling and experiencing what's happened in the past, which was very real, as if it's present now.
00:29:59
Speaker
I know it's not, but I can't convince them it's not.
00:30:02
Speaker
You know, I'm not knowing much about her. Um, I really like pink. So I don't know much about her. So don't worry right against me, but she has some good things to say in some of her songs. Yes. What do you think? Well, I was thinking there's, I don't remember what song it's in, but she says, remember, we're not broken. Just bent. Oh yes. Oh yes. And that's that line is always stuck out to me. And we can learn to love again. Yes. What is the song?
Loving Well: Kindness and Humility
00:30:30
Speaker
It's just give me a reason. Yes. She does with Nate Royce. She used to be fun. Yes. Yeah. I just, I just like her. But anyway, her theology here would line up. Yeah. Right. Like, you know, we're not broken, just bent. Yes. And I think of the scripture like a bruised reed. You could say, Pink might say a bent reed. You know, God will not break. Yes. You know, but, but there's a tending that's needed.
00:30:59
Speaker
Attending yes, and well and for us it was a revelation is getting deeper even now as we talk that What that feeling of? Oh, no fragile
00:31:11
Speaker
brings up in us. You are so broke. You are fragile. You're broken. I can't carry this. We know our bodies know that. Yeah. And we, and we bristle and run. Yeah. But when we're like, Oh, like we had a different, I think experience when we, we, we had, we were trying to talk through some of this this morning and we, we, we saw some of this big and small dynamic and boy, we both have that challenge with what's the right size. Yeah.
00:31:32
Speaker
And then we, another trigger sort of happened. You know, we started going down a path, talking about something different, but we stopped. Yes. And I didn't keep trying to persuade you and say, please hear my story. Please hear my brilliant point. Yeah. No, you actually turned our walk.
00:31:52
Speaker
to a place where you knew there was this tree, I guess you know it was there, and stepped under the tree branches and gave me a huge hug and it changed everything. Yes, because it was like your body is experiencing absence of care right now in fear of, I know this well. And I was like, well, my words are what I go to to try to fix. And I'm like, oh, they're not going to do it. Let me try this. And it was risky because I'm like, you might've said, you ain't hugging me right now.
00:32:21
Speaker
and I would have needed to honor that, but I felt solid enough that I could offer it and I was gonna try it, because I felt like I could show strength, but not in a power way, like the difference between strength and power. Yes, and that'll be for another day, but like you knew that there was that risk because of some of the harm my body has made. Yes. But you also knew that
00:32:45
Speaker
I've been overpowered in many ways and so being able to come with the power of kindness was what was needed. So leaving pink aside, I think you have something by a more
00:33:03
Speaker
maybe reputable theologians? Let's not say not reputable, let's just say more overtly spiritually inclined. Overtly Christianly inclined. Yes, so I was actually... Douglas McElwee. Douglas McElwee. I was actually with my spiritual director this week. I have a guy that I've been meeting with who is just a spiritual director and is really, you know, we're learning on how do you hear God's voice, how do you connect with God in here now, how do you make decisions, all that. It's been really powerful, but he
00:33:31
Speaker
I was really excited we got together to share with me a liturgy from the Every Moment Holy book series. This is volume three, which hasn't been out very long, came out maybe earlier this fall. And this, I'm not gonna read the whole thing. I commend it to your reading. The whole book of liturgies is great, but I'm gonna read a portion of it. It's called Begging the Grace to Love One Man or Woman Well.
00:33:59
Speaker
And he was telling me how he had rewritten it with basically his wife's name in it. And this is a pilgrim who has walked a long way, grandparents, lots of kids, just somebody I really have enjoyed delight in spending time with. But I'm gonna read part of it because it sort of, it really reflects what we're talking about here and it's kind of a good thing to end on. So it says, so in this shared and sacramental life,
00:34:27
Speaker
let me never burden my spouse with the expectation that they must somehow fulfill those deepest God-shaped longings of my soul, which are meant only in you, O God. And we would add to that sort of, that they can bind up all the wounds that we bear. Because we can bring a lot of care, we can bring a lot of goodness.
00:34:44
Speaker
and the void, the pain, the wound is too deep like no one person ever can, truly. Rather, I'm continuing with the liturgy, rather teach me to consider what I might give instead of lamenting what I do not receive. Let me rightly carry my frustrations and disappointments to you rather than lashing out at the one so dear to my heart.
00:35:06
Speaker
shape me as a vessel of kindness and mercy, poised always to forgive any short-coming in my beloved, even as I covet their proffered graces in unmerited response to my own failings.
Conclusion and Nurture Counseling Services
00:35:17
Speaker
Make of us in these flickering days good companions, O Lord, of much benefit to one another.
00:35:24
Speaker
Let us practice the practical and joy-filled consolation that comes not from demanding perfection of the other, but from looking into one another's eyes and recognizing, oh, you too have known this holy wounding?
00:35:38
Speaker
Oh, you too have felt this holy hope? Then, let us again clasp hands as allies and fellow pilgrims, journeying in faithful company toward those blessed ends to which our eternal hungers compel us.
00:35:54
Speaker
Indeed, Lord, let my beloved and I always lean into this hard task of learning to love one another in all seasons, convinced that to love one another person well is at the very heart of the high and holy calling to love Christ and His people and His creation. So, let the daily, intentioned building of our love for one another across these brief years make us better lovers of all things you so fiercely love, O Lord.
00:36:18
Speaker
So let our married love ever flow from you and ever return to you. I love that. Amen. I love that. Yeah. I just love the practicality of it and the honor that's in there. And it's not, you have to read the rest of the liturgy. It's not vacuous or simplistic. It's like, hey, this is hard work, but it's really good work. Yeah.
00:36:42
Speaker
So thank you Wendy for sharing kind of our journey into good work and we'll be looking forward to re-engaging with all you good folks and how to be right sized and bring strengths that doesn't have to become power.
00:36:59
Speaker
The Surviving Saturday podcast is brought to you by Nurture Counseling PLLC, a counseling teaching and training center based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. We help families flourish one story at a time. Nurture Counseling provides counseling, counseling intensive for couples, conflict resolution coaching, story work groups, seminars, workshops, and retreats to provide a safe and welcoming context for exploring the agonizing experiences of pain, brokenness, and evil that disrupt our lives.
00:37:26
Speaker
and that God often uses to nurture deeper trust and intimacy with Him and with each other. You can find us online at www.nurturecounseling.net