Eight Years of Learning – Communication

King and I celebrate our 8th anniversary today! It’s been eight years of highs and lows, successes and failures, joys and sorrows, breakthroughs and struggles. Eight years of LEARNING. We have been to 2 marriage retreats in the past month. We learned a great deal from listening to our leaders’ stories and testimonies.

Pastor Steve Murrell and his wife Deborah gave the last session at our marriage retreat in Bellevue. They talked about COMMUNICATION.

They began by showing us a picture of their family because they wanted to remind us that our marriage impacts way beyond the two of us. They gave us many scriptures, all from Proverbs, and helpful practical tips on how to communicate with each other.

Two things jump at me as I look at my notes — exaggeration and nitpicking! When my children exaggerate, using words like ALWAYS, EVERY TIME or NEVER, it really annoys me and sometimes hurts my feelings. At the retreat, I got reminded that I actually do that to King too. It is a barrier to good communication. It actually STOPS communication. Must stop it (the exaggeration), cut it out.

Another barrier to communication is nitpicking. Women tend to stick to accuracy. That is so me! Little details are important to me, and not so much to King (and most men, I hear). I have a thing for stories lining up and being truthful, maybe because my number 1 strength (Strength Finders) is Belief haha. BUT, I must be reminded about picking my battles and my timing.

I am happy to say I think I’m learning to do that! Two weeks ago, King and I spoke at Victory Muntinlupa’s Youth (ONLINE) leadership convergence. While King was sharing about this restaurant and the issues they were dealing with, he got one detail wrong. Because it was a small gathering of about 65 and I was just a few feet away, I sooooo wanted to raise my hand and correct him. Hahaha. Thank God wisdom prevailed! I kept thinking, what would be worse — that I correct him in front of all the young people or that he make one tiny mistake? I held my urge to correct and forgot about it. I told him a day or two later. Breakthrough!

Happy 8th anniversary Babe! We’re steadily improving in this communicating thing. From glory to glory! I love you! 🙂

This is post #6 out of 8, for 8 wonderful years! Click here for post#5 and here for post #7! 🙂