“I believe there’s a reason for everything that’s happened to me: Everything has led me to improve who I am. I always try to look at my life from the perspective of what I’m supposed to learn from an experience. Once I figure that out, it helps me get through the difficulty.” <\/i>— Zainab Salbi, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE<\/p>\n
As Valentine’s Day approaches, and chocolate hearts and all things red fill the stores, I thought to share a letter I wrote to a young bride a fortnight before her marriage to her true love. I had watched this beautiful girl grow to the ripe old age of 25, and therefore felt I had some sort of territorial imperative to express my 2 cents. <\/p>\n
My husband and i have been together 32 years, married almost 31. The wave of love that brought us together was so dense it was perceptible. It had a thespian quality in that there were dramatic signs and campy events that clearly indicated we were “meant” to be together: Cab drivers commented on the strength of our alliance; people stared at us on the streets; our inner voices advised and ushered in our union. <\/p>\n
We fit together in ways we did not understand in the beginning, focused as we were then on our external attraction and surface commonalties. Looking back, we can see that we were brought together by the Powers That Be because we had both lovely gifts to give and necessary lessons to learn from the other. Though it has not always been easy, our relationship is the ground for much of what we know about friendship, loyalty, perseverance, and the grace of God.<\/p>\n
Two Pisces … there’s an inbred craziness there to start with that only another Pisces could really imagine or appreciate! That’s been both “good” and “bad:” It gives us a common language to navigate the hurdles we jointly create. I guess therein lies Piece of Advice # 1: We try to look at our challenges as “our” problem. One of us may be more culpable than the other at inciting the situation, but both of us have (maybe many!) lessons to learn from the experience. That’s the Economy of God. The question we always ask ourselves is: What is God trying to teach me <\/i>through this experience? When we ask this of ourselves, marriage becomes a spiritual path, a perfecting of Self and Other that leads us to see God in Other and in the experience.<\/p>\n
Piece of Advice # 2: <\/i>The best “good” we have experienced is not in the big things — the cool trips, the professional triumphs and annual celebrations — but in the simple things: seeing the smile on my husband’s face when we spot each other in a crowd, holding hands in the silence, saying silently to our respective selves, “Aw, just let it go” when the other has done the same dumb thing for the millionth time. The worst “bad” is when these quiet joys are absent, when one or both of us is so preoccupied or out of tune, so caught up in our own opinion or sorrow, that we turn from the other. <\/p>\n
Stay tuned for additional tips in the days to come.<\/p>\n
Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“I believe there’s a reason for everything that’s happened to me: Everything has led me to improve who I am. I always try to look at my life from the perspective of what I’m supposed to learn from an experience. Once I figure that out, it helps me get through the difficulty.” — Zainab Salbi,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-transformation","category-womens-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\n