Love and Marriage: See the GOOD

Last night we celebrated my parent’s 48th wedding anniversary.  Since Dad’s business is 48Days.com, clearly this was a big deal anniversary for them!

My mother wrote a beautiful blog post on how to fall out of love with your spouse.  As you’ll read there, Dad gave her a pretty fabulous anniversary gift.  He gave her a journal where he had written one thing he loved about her every single day for a year.  Now think about that – have you ever heard of a “reticular activator?”  It’s that thing where, when something becomes personal to you, you end up seeing signs about it everywhere.  Like for us, as we creep toward our new adventures in an RV, we have started to see RVs everywhere we go.  It’s on our radar- they naturally jump out at us now.

When Dad decided to write this journal, he told no one.  There was no accountability or spoken goal to anyone.  Yet each day he spent it looking for what he would write down about her.  Each and every day, he focused on finding something new that he loved about her. What if you did the same – you intentionally look for what you love about your children, your spouse, work…whatever you need to work on most.

What if you focused your mind on finding something you love about it every single day?

What we think becomes our reality.  When we focus on the negative, that’s what manifests most.

When we are hyper-critical, I promise you, you will always find more things to critique.  When you are overwhelmed, overworked, and frustrated, Murphy’s Law will give you yet one more thing that goes wrong.

In my parent’s marriage, it’s not always been an easy road.  They experienced toxic extended family relationships, addiction, mental and physical health issues within our home, and losing everything they had with three small children and a shadow of almost a half a million in debt.

Their marriage hasn’t survived because they constantly work on everything “wrong” in the marriage or in the family.  Yes, they challenge each other, they work to be the best they can for themselves and each other.  They communicate and are intentional to always be growing in their relationships.  What keeps them together, though, is not just them working on their marriage.   It wasn’t in nit-picking all that was wrong.

They intentionally seek out the good every. single. day. 

My father loves to say that it doesn’t matter what the weather is doing: “I carry my sunshine within me,” he says.  My parents are seekers of the good – in everything.  They have created a legacy of love, not by being delusional to the bad things in the world, or struggle points in their relationship, but by choosing to look for the good in life.

I give them full credit for my Pollyanna attitude on life.  I learned about the power of positive thinking and focusing on the good when I was a little child getting “attitude adjustments” .  They taught me about love, respect, and validation.  My parents have created a haven of peace in their home by being the light and letting love shine through more radiant then any criticism or negative trait.

Thank you, Mama and Dad for being the first light in my life, and for helping me discover my own light within.  I love you both!