Second, I’m learning that there is safety in numbers. Specifically, the more I can hang around secure, measured, kind people, the more those tendencies rub off on me. Secure people live free from anxiety and fear. They are immovable, unshakeable, firm. And they teach me to live this way too.
I’m married to the most secure person I know. Pam and I have gone through some of the biggest traumas and crises a couple can face, and yet she remains fixed and steady and sound. When I arrive home each afternoon, I know I’ll be walking into an environment marked by peace. There is little drama in the Boyd home, because my bride has done her due diligence on the insecurity front. She has fought the battles she needed to fight in order to prevail secure and strong. As you’d imagine, it’s a huge gift to be married to someone like that.
A third thing I’m learning is that it’s really difficult to stay disappointed at someone or some circumstance that you are praying for regularly. I should clarify here that by “pray for” I don’t mean “ask God to strike them with a bad case of oozing boils.”
There is a country song out right now that starts out as a repentant ballad. A heartbroken guy finds himself sitting in church one Sunday, devastated over his girlfriend walking out on him. For the first time in his life, he’s actually open to advice from a preacher on what to do. “You can’t go on hating others who have done wrong to you,” the preacher says that day at church. “Sometimes we get angry, but we must not condemn. Let the good Lord do his job, and you just pray for them.”
So the guy decides to take the high road and pray for the gal who broke his heart — that her brakes would go out, that a flowerpot would fall from a windowsill and knock her in the head, that her birthday would come and nobody would call, and that her dreams would never come true.
Not exactly the kind of prayers I mean.
And then, a fourth lesson, even if more trivial than the first three: A good night’s sleep works wonders when you’re wrestling with disappointment. Before you reply on Facebook or Twitter or email, or are tempted to pick up the phone and attack, go to sleep.
I mean it.
Get a good night’s rest and re-evaluate things in the light of a brand new day. Have some quiet time. Join hands with your spouse or your kid or your dog and sing “Kumbaya” if you must. Do anything to recenter yourself so that God has the chance to speak to you. Notice how your anger has diminished. Notice how your perspective has shifted. Notice how your passion for writing a nasty note has been replaced by the urge to repair the relationship instead.
