Cycles......

I have found myself thinking about cycles this week and how often we are in the midst of them sometimes without even realizing it.


Case in point, for the longest time, I've been setting the coffee maker to come on at 6:00 am. The reason for this is that Rusty wakes up between 6-6:15 each morning and knowing that there is fresh, hot coffee waiting at the bottom of just one measly flight of stairs has been very beneficial to my mental health.


mmmm...coffee

Until this past Tuesday.


My husband, who I have deemed "Genius of the World" (no sarcasm intended!), got up a little bit earlier than usual for work. He noticed that the schnitz slept soundly while he was shaving and brushing his teeth, but he woke up almost immediately after the coffee maker gave off its 3 shrill "beeeeeps" announcing that it had finished its coffee-brewing duties. Who knew those beeps actually made that much noise?? So we decided to experiment on Wednesday and only turn the coffee on once we made it downstairs. Result...my child is now sleeping until 8 or 8:30 in the morning!!!!!! (Does anyone else hear strains of the "Hallelujah Chorus" playing????)


No wonder he'd had trouble transitioning to just one afternoon nap....I had inadvertently been waking him up 2-2 1/2 hours early!


Lesson: no coffee beeps at 6:00....child sleeps until 8:00...cycle broken!


And so on to another cycle I've been reading about that I thought ya'll would find interesting. I know I've never really thought about it in this way.


I've been attending a women's bible study at my church since last fall. This semester we studied the book of Ephesians which, as you know, includes instructions for husbands/wives in the sixth chapter.

In a nutshell: husbands love unconditionally, wives respect unconditionally.

As we talked about this particular portion of the chapter, what we focused on a great deal is that while everyone KNOWS that love should be unconditional in marriage (and even implying otherwise would cause some serious issues) our culture is skewed dramatically to the idea that respect must be earned. Hmmmm....

At the same time that I was working on the study lesson for Eph. 6, I also finished a novel I'd been reading and picked up a book that my in-laws gave us last Christmas called "Cracking the Communication Code: The Secret to Speaking Your Mate's Language" by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. Oddly enough, his take on the marital relationship is basically taken directly from that same passage in Ephesians. He explains that men and women have inherently different needs for love and respect and this creates a cyclical relationship. Basically, when each need is met it creates a motivation to meet the other.

As he puts it, "His love motivates her respect->Her respect motivates his love".

Now that just makes sense to me. Then he went on to the part I'd found a bit more convicting in bible study. We are commanded by God to do these things whether our mate is doing his/her part at the time or not. We are to do so out of our love and obedience to Him and He blesses us for this obedience.

"His love blesses regardless of her respect->Her respect blesses regardless of his love".

Finally, here's the part that I think it is so easy to forget especially when I'm tired or just cranky in general. He states that we need to remember to see each other as goodwilled persons. We need to trust that even if things are said/done that are annoying or even hurtful, our spouse generally speaking, intends to do us good. I loved how he summed up this idea,

"When the tension rises...we need to remember when we first met and fell in love. We did not say, 'I hate you and you hate me, so let's get married.' The same person each of us met and married is still there, even though, at that moment, it doesn't seem that way."

I am so very fortunate to be married to my best friend in the entire world. He is a fantastic husband and father and truly a great guy. I am thankful for the reminders that God provides to always treat both my husband and our relationship as the amazing gifts that they are!