The Lesson of Thanks, In Marriage

For a while now, I’ve been referencing the things I’ve learned in Ann Voskamp’s book (and blog) “One Thousand Gifts.” I wrote an initial post HERE about why it is so important to take the time to notice the blessings in our life.

Earlier this year, I purchased a journal for my wife and I for Valentine’s Day, with the idea being that we could use it to write each other love letters back and forth. Great idea… but it continued to sit there for many weeks, neither one of us brave enough to write the first letter. Until this week. Last evening, I reached for my Bible from its regular resting place and found the journal sitting on top of it. At first I thought maybe it was an accident, until I realized my wife must have placed it there for me to intentionally find. I opened it up and indeed found an amazing love letter my wife had written to me that day in the first pages.

I immediately sat down to write her back, but then began to worry a bit. What if I went over the top and wrote all my best “material” in the first letter? I wouldn’t have anything to say in the next one. It’d be terrible to not have anything to say in the next one, not to mention all the rest we were supposed to write. I certainly didn’t want to hold back though either. Then it hit me. The lesson of giving thanks.

In the same way that practicing regular giving of thanks helps us to “smell the roses” of our life - forcing us to pay attention beyond what we normally do and REALLY see all that we have, this too would do the same. Of COURSE this isn’t all I could say about my wife - but my main problem is that I haven’t spent enough time observing, noticing, appreciating all there is to love about her. And now I must make this a regular habit - writing to my wife to profess my love for her and the many ways I find her amazing. But to fuel those writings, I must practice the often-missing-from-marriages habit of loving observation. I have to look beyond the obvious, beyond the easy. What ELSE is there? And the answer is - there is SO MUCH else, if I will only take the time and energy to keep looking, keep delving deeper and deeper into the wonderful woman she is.

I think this practice of writing letters back and forth will do amazing things in my relationship with her, and I can’t wait to look back years from now at the volumes we have filled and be absolutely amazed at all that we’ve found to appreciate and love in each other. It’s there, it’s all there, if you will but take the time to look.

Proverbs 5:18 “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.”