Rubbing the Wrong Way

I have an awesome wife. Not many men get to marry their childhood sweethearts, but I did. In a couple of months we’ll celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, pretty cool. Together, over the years, we have learned some wonderful lessons.

As newlyweds we discovered that reddi-wip will remove paint from freshly painted walls.

We discovered that poison ivy can cut your honeymoon short.

We discovered that American Express really does expect you to pay the full amount at the end of every month.

As new parents we discovered that we actually were allowed to unwrap our newborn from that tightly wrapped baby blanket no matter how scary the maternity ward nurse was.

We discovered that potty training your first born while eight months pregnant with the second child is NOT a good combination.

And neither is looking after your 3 year old son while watching the Giant’s play football on Sunday afternoon.

We’ve discovered that no matter how much I like to cook (and I’m pretty good at it), she is STILL the Queen of her Kitchen!

We discovered that only mommy knows how to comb out an 8 year old daughter’s hair, daddy just won’t do.

We discovered a double standard when our children would date. I was fine when my son took out a lovely young lady on a date. But Mamma, grumbled in the back ground.

We also discovered that when our daughter would date - Momma was all smiles and giggle while I would growl, stare him down, offer a "grip of death" handshake, while holding a finely tuned, 5 horse powered, extra sharp chainsaw in my left hand

We’ve learned that everyone else goes away, and that we better like each other. As God has moved us around the country we have left some awesome friends behind. Heck, even our children will grow up and move on… that being the case, we had better like each other, and we do.

We’ve learned that in the best of times and the of worst times, I want her there with me, There is no one else I would rather celebrate with. She is the one I look to for encouragement and her presence comforts me.

We have also learned that when I ask her to rub my back, she’ll do it but she tends to rub my back in the places hers is hurting, I do the same thing. Occasionally I’ll be asked to rub her feet, not a problem. However, I’ve noticed that I do tend to rub her feet where my feet hurt

So here’s today’s $64,000.00 question… Do you touch, rub, reach out, care for, cook, listen to or even pray for others where you personally desire to be touched?

We give love in the form we desire it. Gary Smally’s best selling book “The Five Love Languages address this well. Smally defines the love languages as:

Physical Touch - Words of Affirmation - Receiving Gifts - Quality Time & Acts of Service.

My love language is “Words of Affirmation, my wife’s is a combination between Physical Touch & Acts of Service. What’s yours?

Lord, help us to love freely, no strings attached… Help us to rub others the "right" way , Amen.