We just returned from Forest Home's Family Camp where we ate food we didn't cook, left our children with babysitters every night, and heard excellent teaching morning and night. In one of our sessions on marriage, Dr. Greg Smalley—vice-president of marriage at Focus on the Family—mentioned how we can connect with our spouse when they invite us into something that interests them.
For example: a wife may come home from bargain shopping excited to tell her husband about the great deal she made. The husband can either turn towards his wife with interest and love, turn against his wife by belittling or scoffing her interests, or turn away from his wife by saying he's busy or isn't interested.
Greg gave several examples of how these invitations are scattered throughout the day between a husband and wife.
I appreciated these examples and also see how this can occur with our children as well. When my daughter shows me her drawing, I can look at it and praise it (turn towards), or I can point out all the flaws (turn against), or I can tell her I'm busy (turn away). Of course, I cannot receive every invitation to connect with my children because sometimes dinner or napping or getting in the car takes precedence.
Sometimes these invitations to intimacy take an unusual form, one that's not quite so inviting: getting a finger slammed in the car door, spilling milk on my newly-mopped floor, finding stolen chocolate from the off-limits drawer, listening to hostile reports about a classmate, or answering the shouts, "You're the meanest mother in the world and I hope you fall off a cliff!"
Even these are bids for intimacy. Behind the destruction or carelessness or anger is a child hoping to be loved and protected and empowered no matter what. And I, as the parent, can choose to turn towards them with truth-telling grace and consistent love, or I can turn against them with my own anger or hurt or fear, or I can turn away from them and towards my own distractions or self-soothing techniques or mind-numbing activities.
And why stop there? Surely, these bids of intimacy occur between us and God as well. He calls to us for intimacy all day everyday. And we have a choice to respond to him by either turning towards, turning against, or turning away.
He calls to us through beauty: look at what I've made; look at these details; look at the magnitude; listen to these rhythms; feel these feelings; smell these scents; taste this food!
He calls to us through truth: see how real life is different than you thought; hear this other's experiences; listen to my spirit and the scripture; understand how my physical and moral laws work.
And he call us through Christ's goodness: I love you no matter what you do; I accept you into my family even though you are just learning how to act like part of my family; I discipline you because I want what is best for you; I have surrounded you by people who reflect this love and goodness too.
Will we turn towards, against, or away?
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