Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine;
    he browses among the lilies.

• Song of Songs 6:3

“I sat across from my husband in the booth at the Mexican restaurant we’d chosen for lunch. We were engulfed in our own worlds-he was answering emails, and I was mindlessly scrolling through social media. We barely glanced at each other while we waited for our meals. It was ironic, since the reason for our lunch date was to spend more time together.
“With our work schedules, personal obligations, and the children, we’d become more like roommates sharing a house than spouses sharing a life. After nearly fifteen years of marriage, the familiarity of it all had caused our relationship to grow stagnant. Our time together needed to be renewed and refreshed if we wanted to enjoy the intimacy we once shared.
” ‘Phones in the middle of the table,’ I suggested. He silently agreed, reaching across the table for my hand.
“As my husband and I made eye contact, I felt my heart fill with hope. From that moment, the Lord pressed onto my heart the truth that if I made our marriage a priority, within time the love and intimacy wouldn’t just return to the way it had been, but would flourish beyond my expectations.
“And that’s exactly what’s happened. Even while balancing the hectic lifestyle that comes from raising three children, we have been intentional about spending time together in weekly brunch or lunch dates. Our mornings begin with whispered prayers. We no longer feel like roommates trudging through life on two separate paths. Rekindling our love and friendship has put us back on the journey of a meaningful life together.”

• Tia McCollars, Daily Guideposts 2022 (devotion for 28 January)

My wife has been gone now for over two and a half years.  I have no idea how much time we wasted over our 48 years of married life being disconnected.

When most of our first ten wedding anniversaries meant that I was on a “business” trip, it became a joke.  I put business trip in quotes in that two of the early anniversaries was when I was on field duty in the military.  When you are in the Corps of Engineers (Combat-Heavy) in Europe, or so it was when I was there, you became a construction worker nine months out of the year.  But for the other three months, you were reminded that you were a combat branch.  You went into a training area, many to choose from in West Germany at the time, and you did military construction or deconstruction.  You were evaluated on your skills at planning how to blow up a bridge in the middle of a quaint village in Germany – never ever doing it, but somewhere in some underground repository there are target folders on that bridge.  So, it was not what I would call a “business” trip.

We laughed the first year that I was out of the military and I had a one-day meeting with people in Wilmington, Delaware, on our anniversary.  It was the only business trip that I had that entire year, one of only two such trips in a three-year span.

But my wife and I grew apart over many things.  She loved Hallmark movies.  I liked sports.  And we had two television sets.  When the children left the house, until her physical condition worsened, we always watched three or four television shows together.  The sitcoms seemed to be funnier when we watched them together.  And when a “scientific” joke was funny to me, and she was lost, we talked about that after the show was over.  When we watched a medical drama and I had no idea what they were talking about, we talked about that after the show was over.  When she got very ill, she stayed in her room and watched old reruns.  She was more comfortable there.  And I cherish the times that she found a documentary on a streaming service that I would be interested in.  I cherished it because we watched it together.

I chose this devotional because they found that they needed to put the phone down and look into each other’s eyes.  My wife and I did that a lot, but I have visited grandchildren without ever having a conversation with them.  We need to turn off the video games and put the phones down.  A human touch cannot be texted to anyone, no matter how many idiotic emojis that you use.

Sometimes, you do not know what you have until you no longer have it.

When you are active parents with children who are active, it may be very hard to find time to have an intentional lunch or brunch with your spouse.  But find the time no matter how hard it is.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.