My Husband and I Are Opposites; And it Works for Us...Normally

My mother told me that in a few days I was going to a fancy venue to play the piano during my piano teacher’s concert.  I was 11 years old and terrified!  I was not prepared!  I did not know the music!  I was not a good pianist!  It was a terrible, horrible, awful few days leading up to the concert.  When I say I did not know the music, trust me, I DID NOT KNOW THE MUSIC!  I was way out of my league!!  I wasn't even a good pianist!  I could play the Starlight Waltz but that was about it....and that wasn't even the song I was to play!!!

My husband and I led a marriage retreat in Pigeon Forge this weekend and in the weeks leading up to the weekend I felt like that same 11 year old little girl.  I was terrified!  I didn’t feel we were as  prepared as I wanted to be.  It was a terrible, awful, horrible feeling.

My husband and I are total opposites in many areas.  I am the planner and organizer and detail person.  He is the laid back, big picture person who does not get riled much at all and doesn’t worry.  It works for us and we do life together well (most of the time anyway!). 

This was different.  This wasn’t us doing life together, this was us doing a retreat together.  This required planning and preparation and he was quite chilled about it all!  'We'll work on it tomorrow' he tried to reassure me.  Tomorrow would come and something else would come up!  This was difficult for me!  I wanted to make sure we had it all lined up and figured out and handouts and PowerPoint done!  My flesh wanted to control the planning and doing of this and the Spirit in me wanted to trust God and respect my husband.  Grrrrrr!

My husband speaks all of the time and has for over 41 years!  I speak some as well.  But this?  This was different!  This we were doing together!  How were we to use our opposite gifted-ness to make this work??

As the 11-year-old on the way to the concert venue where I was to play a piano piece that I did not know I was sick and scared and a mess!  However, instead of pulling up to where I thought I was to play….we pulled up to this beautiful, fancy movie theatre where a new movie which had just been released was playing!!!  The Sound of Music!  (Perhaps you have heard of it?  Ha!)  My mother wanted to surprise me and I was soooo relieved!  I didn’t have to play the piano for all of those people after all!

My mother tricked me!  She told me I had to do this fearful thing when all along she knew I wasn’t going to have to do it!  All along I was going to go to The Sound of Music.  (By the way, can I just say that looking back it was quite cruel of her to torture me that way??!!)

The days leading up to this retreat I kept thinking about that incident when I was 11 and that maybe, just like when I was 11, I won’t really have to do this thing!  The night before we were to do the retreat I had a major meltdown!!  Major!  Tears.  Panic.  Fear.  My sweet husband pulled me close and prayed over me, the retreat, us, all of it.  His calm, patient demeanor stepped in to my crazy panicked control freak self.

My God is nothing like my mother.  No tricks.  But lots of surprises.  He does ask me to do things I cannot do!  That I am unprepared for!  He loves the fact that I am who I am and that my husband is who he is and He knew what He was doing when He asked us to do this.  He forced me to depend totally on Him and respect my husband's ways and He was going to provide what we needed when we needed it....and He did!!  Not only did we do the retreat….the Lord worked using our different personalities!!  We were even asked to come back next year.  Shocking.  Amazed.  Humbled.

Any of you have husbands who are totally different than you?  Any of you sometimes struggle to make life work as a result of your differences?  Any of you, like me, see that God uses those differences to cause you to look to Him? 

Proverbs 19:21  You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.