Coasting

Yesterday, I was watching a show on The Learning Channel called, "LA Ink."  Some of you may know this show.  Kat Von D is the host of the show and the owner of a tattoo shop in Los Angeles, CA.  If you've never seen this show, the premise is a reality show of people receiving tattoos, but telling the story behind the tattoo.  Now I have not one tattoo on my body, nor do I want one, but the stories behind the tattoos are really intriguing.  On top of that, those of you that know me know I like to draw and paint, so the artistry behind them is amazing.

In any case, there was this woman who came in to get a tattoo by Kat Von D.  The tattoo was an angel with three roses draped around the angel.  Kat asked this lady what this tattoo meant.  The lady proceeded to say the angel was a guardian angel, and the three roses represented her mom, dad, and sibling.  Kat said it was cool that she wanted to honor her family, and the lady basically said, yeah but my mom and dad or divorced now after 26 years of marriage.  Kat's eyes lit up, because not only was Kat divorced, but her mom and dad divorced after 23 years!

Marriage is tough, and I am sure some of you may think that you don't need to read this because your marriage is good.  But let me tell you that complacency is what messes up marriages.  We need to work at our marriage, don't we?  Even God is constantly working at His marriage with us.  I was reading the book of Jeremiah today.  It showed how much God was working on His marriage with us.  Jeremiah 3:14 says, "'Return, O backsliding children,' says the Lord, 'for I am married to you.'"  Countless times does God say, "Return to Me. 

See complacency is the root evil in any relationship.  Whether it is work, friends, acquaintances, or family, when we are not working at the relationship, something always goes wrong.  Donald Rumsfeld once said, "When you're coasting, you're going downhill."  You will never be able to succeed in any relationship going downhill. 

I learned this the hard way.  Early in my marriage, my wife suggested we spend a little time apart.  It was because I wasn't working on our relationship at all.  I was traveling a lot, between work and skating (X Games type skating in case you were wondering), and when I was home, I didn't stay around.  I went out with my friends.  I was coasting.  When she told me that she thinks we need to separate, I was playing baseball with my brother. 

We worked it out and never separated, but it took us working at it.  We worked so hard that now we have a good relationship.  But it's not perfect and we need to work at it more, and more.  Now, as of April 10th, we will be married for 9 years, and we have three beautiful children.  We don't find ourselves talking about separation anymore.  We do find ourselves talking about what we can do to get closer though.  What we can do to make this relationship better.  I know this happens to be a story of my marriage, but take this story, insert a name, a friend, a co-worker, a spouse, it's all the same.  We need to work on our relationships to grow.  If not, we'll be going downhill.

Dear Jesus, thank you for not coasting in my life.  Thank you for working on me.  I pray I work on my relationship with you.

Nick Manzie