A generous wife

For the last several months, I've been receiving daily tips from The Generous Wife website. It's been a timely reminder as I check email to continue to develop my relationship with Doug in the midst of a very needy season as a mom. The latest email tip was worth sharing ... probably because it's right where I am. Here's a portion, "A total lack of compassion will kill a marriage very quickly, but even a minor lack of compassion will cause significant damage over time. In fact, having compassion but not enough, or only having it some of the time, is destructive. Some folks are just lacking in compassion, but much of the time a lack of compassion is a side effect of some other issue. When we are stressed, tired, worried, hurried or otherwise not at our best it is far more difficult to care, to show compassion. If you want to be compassionate and caring toward your husband (and others), you have to shape your life so that you have the personal/emotional energy and the time to do so. It's likely to mean some very tough choices."

I liked that they used the word compassion instead of love ... I don't know, but it gives a more distinct flavor of something that needs to be worked on constantly. For me, anyway. For instance, I doubt that the love I have for my husband will fade. The love I have for my husband is similar to my faith in God ... it gets stronger as the storms blow through and is one of those immovable rocks in my life. Compassion, on the other hand, takes more effort, in my mind. To show true compassion takes a guarded mind, heart and mouth as I seek to be selfless in how I demonstrate my love for my husband. It's all semantics, I'm sure, but nevertheless I'm challenged to be more compassionate towards Doug.

This quote from Mother Teresa challenges me even more, Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.

That helps keep it all in perspective. It's so easy to be tired and use it as an excuse to do nothing or only what is necessary to get by. Showing compassion without getting tired. Yep, that's exactly what I want to do. God, help me to shape my life in order to have time and energy to show compassion to others, including my husband.