I had the opportunity to counsel a young couple today and I walked away with something worth sharing in my opinion. If you've ever been in a relationship, or you're currently in a relationship, then I highly recommend you read my exert below.
Tina and Tim have been married for about 2 years now and are both 23 years of age. They dated each other back in high school and were very good friends prior to dating each other exclusively. The both of them, at the time, assumed that they were a bit young to be getting married at 21 years of age, but they had confidence in that their love for each other could allow them to mature individually and collectively. They approached me a few weekends ago at church because they're finding a lot of quarreling going on in their marriage. Tim states that they're usually on a different page with each other, if not in a different book entirely. So they wanted me to provide to them an unbiased opinion (and play referee if need be!).
The first thing that Tim tells me is that, "He's convinced that he'll never meet the expectations that Tina has for him. No matter how hard that he tries, or the sacrifices that he makes, it's just not good enough for her." Tina, of course, was quick to interject. Tina responded by saying, "If you (Tim) love me as much as you say that you do, then why do you make me hurt inside so much?". Tim, while taking a moment to build his response says, "I hurt you? Then why don't you tell me so?".
Does this sound familiar with any of you guys and gals out there? You see, with love comes expectations. Love is beyond the surface. We all too often get caught in what we see on the surface of love, rather than what we feel and need from love. Love is like an iceberg in that we get entirely too caught up in what we see above the water level. But what we fail to realize is that the foundation of the iceberg is so much greather than that of the tip of the iceberg. If we allow the foundation of our iceberg to dwindle away, then there's not much hope for the tips of our icebergs.
I shared this with Tina and Tim today and they were both in awe in how their love for one another has begun to dwindle away. It's not because they wanted it to, though. It's because the foundation of their love became the tip of their iceberg. It was susceptible to injury because they were not nourishing their foundation as loves requires it to be nourished. I was happy to see Tina and Tim talking about their foundations upon leaving my house today. I am quite confident that the tip of their iceberg will look as good as it once did once they repair the foundation of their iceberg. Or in their case, their love.
You can't always see what's best for you and your relationship by only addressing the surface. You sometimes, if not more often than not, may have to dig into your foundation to enable your eyes and ears to hear and see what's really going on. May all of you continue, or begin, nourishing your foundation so that your current or future love flourish whenever it's called upon.
Grace and Peace,
Mavsluva
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Originally Posted by Foskamink
Back up. You mean heavily enforced by Brian and the admins. If you do not like the rule you should speak with Brain or the admins directly. If a rule is broken, yeah I'm going to enforce it.
but to each their own
That just struck me funny
