Just to recap…
The last post that I made was Marriage Part 1. I want to remind you all that I am in no way a marriage expert. I am an imperfect woman married to an imperfect man. In Part 1, I walked through the 4 types of love that we find in a marriage. I gave just a small section on each love. Now, I will dive into each one with you very slowly and talk about how we can assess this in our marriage.
Part 2: Storge’
After reading (well, listening to) C.S. Lewis discuss the four loves, I have a refreshed take on them. I want to share where I have landed the plane and how we walk this out in our marriages. I start with storge’ because Lewis did. He did it for specific reasons. Storge’ is the Family/ Protective love. You can pinpoint when you became friends with someone or when you began intimacy or when you chose them over you. Pinpointing the very moment that someone became family is a very different matter. At first, I didn’t agree that this was a reality. Then I tried to remember at what point my friend Debbie became my family. I couldn’t tell you. Just suddenly one day, she was family.
Storge’ love finds us doing things to protect those we love. We don’t do these things out of lordship or authority, rather we do them out of responsibility. It is my responsibility to teach my children about the Lord just as much as it is my responsibility to teach them how to dress appropriately. The difference in responsibility and authority is that I don’t Lord my decisions over them and I allow them to walk in the freedom of their choices (with reason). I don’t make every decision for them out of my responsibility to protect them. In a marriage we can assess how we are doing on this type of love. We do this best by first laying out who is doing (or not doing) what. I often refer to this love as the hotdog underwear. I share this with many women I teach this to. In our home, laundry is generally my job. It is this way because My husband works 10-15 hour days usually 5 days a week. I am retired from the military, so I am home more than him. When I am slacking on this duty, my husband will kindly say, “I am on hotdog underwear”. This means that he is on his last pair of clean underwear, which happen to have a hotdog pattern. He hates these underwear because of the fit and length. However, I don’t get rid of them because if he didn’t hate them, he might not tell me. Then I might not immediately throw a load in the wash.
This may sound different. I protect my family with clean clothes. I protect my family with warm meals. I protect my family with smart financial decisions. I protect my family with healthy boundaries. I protect my family’s mental health. I protect my family’s physical health. When I say protect, I mean I love and care for them in this so much that I am willing to do more. More without resentment or bitterness.
My family does not need to have the newest clothes, but I protect them by making sure they have what they need. My family does not need to have the biggest and nicest house, but I protect them by making sure it is a warm home where they feel safe. My family doesn’t need a million-dollar paycheck, but I take care of them by making sure all our bills are paid before any “extras” are purchased. My family may want every extended family member in their life, but I protect them by setting healthy boundaries with flakey, irresponsible or even dangerous family members. When we first lay out our responsibilities and discuss our role in the marriage, we can see if there is an even distribution of duty. After laying out responsibilities we can dig into our financial decisions, discuss unrealistic expectations we may have of each other, mental health and stability, physical health and caregiver roles.
So ask yourself a few questions.
What are your responsibilities?
What are your spouse’s responsibilities?
Are all parties aware of their responsibilities?
Are you putting any unrealistic expectations on each other?
Am I seeking to protect their mental health and physical health?
Has mental health or physical health issues put a strain on us?
Are you in agreement about your financial choices?
Once all of this is done, each spouse can rate how they believe the couple is doing in this love on a scale of 1-10. We don’t rate the husband, we don’t rate the wife. We rate the marriage. Then we discuss how we can progress.
I am very intentional about not giving a specific scripture to cling to on this. BECAUSE… no one is married to Mike Chorley except me. The voice of the Lord may be different for me than it would be for someone else because I am married to someone else. What I do encourage everyone do, find a scripture that models this love well for your marriage. One the Lord revealed to YOU. Then when things come up that start to rock your marriage, add another scripture to this Storge’ section. When you pray for your marriage, read these scriptures. When the Lord gives you these scriptures and you see the kingdom break through in your marriage praise God for that pillar of faith in your marriage.
Make sure to download the PDF from the beginning of this series. When you decided on the scripture for your Storge’, write it under your Storge’ section. I will provide an example of a couple of mine in a PDF below.
REMEMBER!
PROTECT WHAT IS INSIDE YOUR TENT, KNOW WHAT IS OUTSIDE OF YOUR TENT.
Grace & Peace
Chorley