CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING-
• FEATURE ARTICLE: "SAYING 'I LOVE YOU'"
• WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

JUST VISITING

I'm amazed at the marvels of our technological age. I'll be glad when some enterprising inventor decides it's time to develop state-of-the-art moving technology. During the early years of our marriage, we moved all our belongings in a cattle trailer. It was probably the safest and most trouble free move we've ever made. Things haven't changed all that much since then. Furniture, appliances and boxes weigh about as much as they did back then. If anything, the whole process is more complex because we have so much more stuff. If you haven't figured it out by now, we're moving this week.

I've decided that moving is an enormous test of marriage adjustment. Most people think their marriages are stressed by things like money, sex and in-laws. Mine is stressed by things like trying to decide which way we're going out the door with a king size mattress and disagreements about what we're going to keep and what we're going to throw away. The issues that come up in trying to move one's place of residence are small and of little consequence in the big picture of things. What we don't often understand is the fact that differences over matters of little consequence actually test our ability to resolve conflict. I'm convinced that moving is actually a workshop in conflict resolution.

In this week's feature article, I'm addressing an issue that probably affects American males more than anyone else in the world. We're not particularly good at communicating our feelings. I want to share how my Dad and I worked out that problem.

Norman

by Norman Bales

I heard a professed expert on the Scriptures say, "There is no record that Jesus ever said, 'I love you' to any human being." If saying "I love you" means verbalizing those three words, the expert is right, but there are many different ways to say, "I love you." When my Dad was 81 years old, his twin brother died. Daddy felt an enormous sense of loss, so I went to spend some time with him. Before leaving, I made a decision to verbalize my love to my father. I knew his time on earth was short. I was past fifty, yet the words, "I love you" had never passed between us. Because I had a long drive ahead of me, I left before daylight, but I woke him up and I said, "Daddy, I love you." He said, "I love you too." I don't know why those three words were so hard to say. I had no trouble saying them to my wife or my children, but Daddy grew up in an era and culture in which men did not show their feelings. That didn't mean they didn't have feelings, but he never said, "I love you" and neither did I.

But as I think about it, we did say, "I love you." We said it many times. We just used different words. Daddy was a carpenter and quite proud of his profession. I recall a time when I was serving as his less than adequate carpenter's helper. I was supposed to mark the correct measurement. He, being the real carpenter, would saw the board. I was never very good at measuring and I wanted to be careful about measuring just right. I didn't want to hear his displeasure if my measurement happened to be off by 1/8th of an inch. He grew impatient. He said, "Come on, Norman. A dollar's waitin' on a dime."

During the last years of his life, the situation was exactly reversed one day. I held the saw and he tried to read the rule, but failing eyesight made it difficult to distinguish between the tiny calibrations. He hesitated. I probably shouldn't have done it, but I said, "Come on, Daddy. A dollar's waitin' on a dime." He thought it was outrageously funny. In that kind of good natured banter, we were saying, "I love you" to each other.

Did Jesus say, "I love you?" Of course he did. He verbalized his love to a paralytic when he said, ". . .get up take up your mat and go home" (Mark 2:11). He said it to his mother when he saw John standing nearby and said, "Dear woman, here is your son" (John 19:26) and he said it to Peter when he asked Peter to express his love and responded by saying, "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17).

Those whom we truly love need to hear us say, "I love you." We need to overcome the fear that keeps us from doing that, but maybe it's more important to make sure we say "I love you" in the less obvious ways.

ABOUT OPENNESS: "People with deep and lasting friendships may be introverts, extroverts, young, old, dull, intelligent, homely, good looking; but one characteristic they always have in common is openness. They have a certain transparency allowing people to look in their hearts." (Alan Loy McGinnis. The Friendship Factor. p. 27.

ABOUT SICK MARRIAGES: After describing a number of marriage breakdowns, he said, "These are but a few illustrations of marriages and homes that are sick because they are caught in an epidemic of husbands-father spectatoritis." H. Page Williams. Do Yourself a Favor: Love Your Wife. p. 9.

ABOUT "DESTRUCTIVE" LOVE: "The motives behind injudicious giving and destructive nurturing are many, but such cases invariably have a basic feature in common: the 'giver' under the guise of love, is responding to and meeting his own needs without regard to the spiritual needs of the receiver." - M. Scott Peck. The Road Less Traveled. p. 138.

CONCERNING SEXUAL PERMISSIVENESS: ". . . . the knowledge and experience gained during the sexual exploration of the sixties and seventies should have proved to us the sanity of many rules we at that time discarded. Unfortunately, not only are we ignoring many lessons, we are denying them." - Diane Medved. The Case Against Divorce. p. 27

NEXT WEEK'S FEATURE ARTICLE: "DEALING WITH TEMPTATION"

Norman's e-mail address: nlbales@allaboutfamilies.org