Slay the Dragons
Women tend to prefer “chick flicks” or love stories and men tend to like the “knight in shining armor”, beat’em up, blow’em up, where the guy-gets-the-girl-in-the-end kind of stories. (This doesn’t mean men don’t or won’t watch a love story or women won’t enjoy a beat’em up movie either). This tends to be the case because it tweaks something down deep inside of each of us that God wrote into our hearts as men and women. Men long to be loved, to protect those they love and to receive respect for this role and the dangers that come with it. Women long to be loved, defended in that love and seen as their spouse’s “number one” or top priority.
Yet, long gone are the days of swords, armor, and battles against beasts, and we have been lulled into thinking that the only battles we have today are: driving to work, getting respect from our boss, dealing with insurance companies, etc. We need to realize that Satan is attacking our homes EVERY DAY! He seeks to destroy our marriage, our children, our faith and our friendships.
If we lose sight of how Satan keeps picking at our relationships, we will miss how he ‘wears us down’ through our fatigue, our disagreements, our fears and our pride. He encourages us to see big problems as small and insignificant so that we don’t react to or deal with them too quickly, so they can get out of hand. He also encourages us to make a big deal out of small issues, so that we can build up resentment over the little things. And when the little things start to add up, they become bigger issues that again result in more resentment and frustration.
In order to not allow this in our lives, we need to stay close to God in prayer and in His sacraments first. Meanwhile, we need to continue to humble ourselves and work together through the difficult issues in our lives. We need to look at them from another perspective and be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of our marriage and children. We need to seek a mediator in times when all the techniques we’ve tried on our own, to find common ground, have failed. This also means that we will need to spend more time recognizing more fully the destructive behaviors and patterns we bring to or have created in our relationship, what it is that our spouse needs in this relationship, and to be open to helping them achieve those things.
ACTION STEP: This week, ‘slay the dragons’ that attack your marriage and family each day, by first recognizing them, next pray for God’s grace and clarity to help you as a couple in overcoming them, then together take action!