Checking Out

LESSON 19--What to do when you are not riding or participating with the life of your horse.

I  have now spent the entire month of June saying hello to Nitro, grooming him, talking to him but NOT riding him.  

Something has crept into our relationship.  

So what do you do when you find yourself 'absent'?

I think being absent or numbing or creating a 'fictional' life is very dangerous.  Checking out, excusing away, justifying, isolating and defending are behaviors that signal me to take captive my thoughts and get busy becoming present.

I have always said that the Barbie and Ken dolls really set us up for trouble.  Ladies, we are looking for our Prince Charming, and guess what ~ our husband is just a regular guy no matter what might be showing up on Facebook.  Only one perfect man ever walked this earth, and every wife is married to an imperfect man. So as Gary Thomas points out in Sacred Influence "Are you going to define your husband by disappointments ... or are you going to learn to let go of certain expectations?"

If you read Numbers 21 in the Bible, you will see how much success there is in complaining and choosing to complain.  James MacDonald says that "The circumstances of life bring us continually to a fork in the road."  

He continues to explain how when we are in a situation in life where we don't have much control, we always can control our attitude.  I can choose the way I want to respond to this.  There are many people who have exactly the same life situation and they are doing much better then me.

Dr. MacDonald talks about "wilderness attitudes"--complaining, rebelling, criticizing to name a few.  Put on love, faith, thankfulness, contentment and choose a life that isn't dry and cheerless and dead.  It can bring joy and peace and happiness.

"Murmuring is the choice we make that leads us to the wilderness."

When I find myself in those times where I feel absent in my marriage, where something has crept in, I am learning that I have forgotten what marriage really is, and I'm back in my childhood pretending with my Barbie and Ken dolls.  

God created the estate of marriage and he has called us into marriage.  Martin Luther reminds us to acknowledge the One who designed marriage; God; "Do not criticize this work, or call that evil which he himself has called good."

I about jumped out of my chair when I was reading and came to these statements from Gary Thomas and Sacred Influence:

1. What if your husband's faults are God's tools to shape you? 
2. What if the very thing that most bugs you about your man constitutes God's plan to teach you something new?  
3. What if the purpose of marriage isn't to make me happy, but to make me holy?

That's so NOT what I learned with Barbie and Ken (oh and the convertible and house).

Now I have to ask myself some questions when I find myself isolated and sad or mad.

Do I have wilderness attitudes like; doubting God's goodness, am I not content so I covet what I do not have, do I complain?

~ ~ ~

Back to Nitro, the reality is that he represents pain now since my fall and I have to be real about that.  I have to increase my physical strength and confidence again before I ride him.

I think maybe he has ushered me into this phase of my life I was not wanting to enter ~ middle age ~ and I have to be real about that too.

So what part of your life are you playing Barbie and Ken ...  is it time to get real?