Hello! Its me Remember

Hello!  It’s Me Remember?

Many times in my life, after some years I come across someone who happened to be a friend in primary school or somewhere down the line in my life and we probably meet at the airport, or mall or market or shop and the person comes excitedly to greet sometimes calls me by my name and am running through my mental database to remember who it is.  Don’t know about you but I often smile through the whole scene of course with some pain at the back of my ears but leave feeling totally ashamed of myself for not remembering.  Sometimes the person has details and is here reminding me of how we used to do this and that in those days.  It’s more like hearing the person’s heart saying ‘Hello!  It’s me remember? Hmph!

This scenario just puts succinctly my thoughts today about marriage and married people.  I once read the story of a young couple who were in love, got married, had lots of kids, got busy raising the kids until the nest was empty.  Then one morning the man and woman wake up and take a look at each other and couldn’t recognize themselves and headed straight for the divorce courts.  Tell you what, they lost contact with each other years ago.  The couple found out that all those years all they were doing was working to create a home for the kids and raise them, project a good face in the community but never had enough time to invest in each other.  I guess one of them would have been saying to the other ‘Hello, It’s me Remember?’  The other was probably squinting and trying to!

How important is it to invest in each other?  How important is it that we add value to our relationship and also to each other?  I think it’s absolutely important.  Except in a case of emotional and psychological dysfunction, the heart of every homo sapien usually gravitates towards the direction of positive influence and investment.  You find that we all cherish someone who makes a positive addition to our lives.  I find that the words of those who are closest to me, make more impact than that of those who are not.    The word of a spouse is more hurting or strengthening than that of any other person in the world.  You may call a man anything outside and he may not be perturbed but when it comes from his wife, it cuts through the heart like a sword and vice versa.

Gets me thinking that if only people can remember that the person we are married to is not perfect just like we are not and rather than tear down begin to add value to them with our words and attitudes then many years down the line we will be remembered.  You know why?  The person that blossoms becomes a product of your own making.  In counselling many times I tell the couples that if a man becomes great after he marries a woman, she’s done her job well and vice versa.  Your assignment in marriage is not to be a taker or the receiver but to add value to the life of the person you have joined your life with.  The hand that gives is far more blessed than the one that takes.  Your assignment is to help bring out the best in the person.   It is usually small minded, myopic thinkers that focus more on what they can gain from the person they are married to.

A complete failure of a man can become the President of a group of companies if only he has a wife that adds value to him.  She doesn’t allow him wallow in his present circumstances, she doesn’t compare him with other men, doesn’t make undue demands that put him under unnecessary pressure or push him further to think he is a failure and can never become anything in life.  She helps him with her attitudes and words.  In like manner a man can turn a sloppy wife into a princess and the quintessence of his delight when he rather than pecks at her, teaches her, guides her, covers her and gently shows her. 

Hey, no sane person forgets the person that invests in them.  Recently I went to the salon to wash my hair and the young man asked if I wasn’t going to fix my weave on and I said yes but I was going to have some other person fix it for me just to ‘encourage’ him in his trade.  I was touched when this young man said to me ‘Ma’am you are right, we really need encouragement’.  Everybody needs someone to encourage them.  Every man and woman needs someone to speak positively into their lives.  We all want someone who believes in us.  We all want someone who will stand when we are all broken, torn up and crumbling inside.  We all need someone who will say you can when everything in you says you cannot.

Hello!  It’s me Remember?  Don’t let your spouse feed from outside.  Don’t let them look for encouragements from the lips of another person.  Don’t let them sleep on the same bed with you and wake up in the morning thinking of whom they will talk with over their heart issues.  Don’t be there and yet really not there for them.  Don’t let them feel obligated but not appreciated.  Yes marriage is an obligation but it can move beyond being an obligation to being a delight.  It comes by all of us choosing to add value to the lives of the ones we love. HELLO! IT’S ME REMEMBER?

Guess this is it, till next time, never forget that PRAYER CHANGES EVERYTHING!