Intimate Allies

I'm reading this book - slowly but surely - Intimate Allies by Dan Allander and Tremper Longman. I started this book literally years ago and have picked it up and then put it aside many times. But I did make it through another chapter that was at God's perfect timing as usual.

Here is on of my favorite paragraphs from this chapter.

"God does not exclusively fill the human heart. He made humankind to need more than himself. The staggering humility of God to make something that was not to be fully satisfied with the Creator and the creation is incomprehensible."

I had never thought about the fact that man is not fulfilled by God alone, but that we need that relationship, it is part of us.

The Story of Us

I couldn't sleep last night...ongoing problem. But last night as I lay there tossing and turning I thought I'd share the Allen and Suzanne story and the reasons why I love this man.

11 1/2 years ago I worked in Kansas City as a professional Claims Adjuster secretary by day and a cocktail waitress by night at Dick Clarks American Bandstand. When I look back, that year at the Bandstand was one of the funnest year of my life. There was a story every night.

I was waitressing one night and Allen was at the bar. I told one of the other waitresses that I thought he kept looking at me. Sure enough, as I walked by he stopped me and asked me out and gave me his business card. Now mind you, I used to be a thinner little thing, not a heavy girl, and being friendly and cute got me asked out quite often. However, I had just ended a terrible ongoing relationship 3 days prior and was not looking for anyone again...ever. I didn't want to embarrass this handsome smiling young man in front of his friends and as with a lot of the guys that came in, the liquid courage was usually was talking. I rarely saw the same out-of-towners return, only the regulars in the club. So I took the card and he wrote down his hotel room and number and I told him I would call him the next evening and we would go out. When asked for my number I would give out the number to the movie theater listings.


I didn't call him. I also didn't work on Tuesday night. So Wednesday night when I did work, you can imagine my surpriese to see him back in the restaurant. I avoided him all night but we just kept catching eye contact. Well those of you who know Allen, know that he can be rather loud and maybe a little obnoxious. So the other servers and I coined him, "The Drunk Guy". Come to find out, he wasn't really drunk, he just acts that way all the time.


Now a young high school girl was their server than night and she kept telling me how nice he seemed, so I finally went to talk with him and apologize for standing him up and he asked me out again. I told him that I didn't work Friday that he could meet me at the restaurant at 5:00pm and we could go to supper.


So Thursday I did my research, after all, he was from out of town, what if he was married like the Car Rental guy? What if he was crazy, like the Mothership guy? What if he was mean like the X Guy? I called the number on his business card and quizzed his secretary about him. Then looked up on the Internet for any red flags for arrests and such. Then when he came to pick me up I had a friend right down his license plate.


We went to an Irish pub, O'Dowd's down on the plaza. We got along great and when he held my hand, my heart literally ached with pain for the chemistry I felt between us. I knew by the end of the night that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. However, as he dropped me off at the club and started his 4 hour trip back to Arkansas I realized that I would probably never see him again and wondered why I had even bothered opening myself up.


I was wrong, on Monday he called and he called everyday there after early in the morning before work and late night night after my shifts. While we lived apart, he still drove to KC to see me at least once a month. We spent hours and hundreds of dollars on phone bills, talked about every aspect of life. 8 months later I moved to North West Arkansa with him. Now this is not the ideal love story to share with kids as to where to meet your mate or the lifestyle to live, but it is our story.


4 months later he proposed at Mary Maestri's in Tonitown on the anniversary of our 1st date. He had a dozen red roses waiting on our table and everyone in the restaurant get to witness him get down on his knee.

We got married at a beautiful bed and breakfast in my hometown 3 months later. We had been planning on a wedding, however we also wanted to buy a house and choose to give everyone a days notice and get married and forego and expensive celebration. It was perfect.

This is my neice Maggie, she was my flower girl of sorts. These were the only 2 pictures I have scanned into the computer, it was pre digital camera days.





And here we are 10 years and 4 kids later. Our lives have changed greatly and I know that Allen was my night in shining armour to save me from a lifestyle that was not to be desired.



I was reading in Intimate Allies and found this quote and it really bothered me about me. "Love changes the human heart. If the person you love has not changed-that is, if the person has not grown more tender -than it is a clear indication you have not loved that person. Love changes a person-always. The status quo-life today as it was, relationship as it always has been-indicates a failure of love." Ouch. There has been change. Some of you know that a year ago, I didn't think we were going to make it at all, and life is completely different this year. He has softened immensely. But if I want him to grow and change in other areas than I have to up my game and love him deeper in a way that his love language is being met. For the reason of self gain? No. Because I know how it hurts when my love language isn't spoken and I don't want him to feel that way.


Since I give Allen a lot of grief I thought I would also bless him with some of the reasons I do love him in no specific order:

-He can fix almost anything.
-He is super human strong.
-He has the smoothly skin and softest lips.
-He is super human tough-he has yanked a 3-prong fish hook out of his thumb, did minor surgery in our kitchen on his arm, and not been to the ER more times when most people would have taken an ambulance there.
-He loves his family.
-He like sports but is not a fanatic.
-His favorite place is home. He doesn't have to go out for a guy night once a week.
-He is a mannly man, while housework isn't his thing, he does all that other stuff I don't like that requires me to get dirty or sweaty.
-He is always helpful to my parents.
-He would give the shirt off his back to anyone who needed help.
-He is very loyal to his friends.
-He is very loyal to me.
-He is very supportive of me and encourages me with all my ventures.
-He has only said intentionally hurtful things when he was angry a handful of times ever in the past 10 years.
-He brags on me to others.
-He makes me feel safe.
-While he loves being an outdoorsman, he doesn't go as often as he would like to keep the balance.
-While he will have the occasional beer, he never has too much.
-He is a lot of fun. We laugh a lot and give each other a lot of grief.
-He wrestles with the kids.
-He surprised me at Christmas with 12 card and 12 gifts for the 12 days of Christmas.
-He surprised me at Valentines with a babysitter and took me overnight to Eureka Springs.
-He takes the girls to the Daddy Daughter Dance.
-He surprised me with an orchid for Valentines Day because "they are rare and so is our love".
-He is teaching Brian how to be a manly man-hunt, fish, and follow in daddy's footsteps and work with glass.
-He cooks a great breakfast and venison.
-He is not needy or picky unless he's grumpy which is rarely. But I guess I should be thankful that he feels comfortable enough to vent on me as that means he doesn't think I'm going anywhere.
-He tells me all the time that I'm beautiful.
-He seems to think I'm capable of anything.
-He thinks I'm a great cook.
-He Makes the kids obey me and respect me when he's around.
-He rarely has opposed me in front of the kids.
-He handles my insanity quite well.
-When we saw the Titanic, the love between Jack and Rose was what we share. Intense and above understanding. It was God's perfect plan for us.
-He still makes my heart skip.
-He blessed me with a gift last night that was for Christmas, Birthday and Christmas-monetary-to use for whatever I wanted. :)
-I'm sure I could list a thousand more, but the kids are straggling in and starving to death.

Am I Truly Thankful for My Husband?

Sunday afternoon, I sat in the front room looking across the street as my husband, with absolute joy on his face, squealed the tires on our suburban. I prayed the chains that were connected between our hitch and the Semi that was stuck in the mud in our neighbors yard didn't break. It was a beautiful afternoon and this was a great day for him. In between naps and Trick My Truck (one of the kids favorites), we even watched a show called, "Extreme mobile Home Makeover" on CMT. If all that doesn't tell you we are from Arkansas...lol.

I couldn't quit watching it because I was so entranced with the couple. They were fairly young, 30's, smart and clean. They had 6 kids, 3 boys and 3 girls. They all lived in a mobile home. A 2 bedroom mobile home. A falling apart, old, 2 bedroom mobile home. The girls shared a bedroom and the boys slept on the couch. The oldest looked all of maybe 12-13 years old. Cabinet doors were falling off, the roof leaked, everything that could have been duct taped together was. I lot of the problems could have been fixed with a little elbow grease, yet this wife seemed so happy and content with not only her house but her husband. Of course they were on TV and they were getting ready to have the nicest double wide in the park, but still, she didn't say a single negative thing about her husband. I craved what she had...true thankfulness and contentment. I had to wonder if our house was in shambles (more so than it is) and the skirting needing to be put back up if I would still be giving high fives to my husband and all smiles at him or if I would be duct taping him to something.

At one point the wife asked her husband all excited, "can you believe we are getting a new house? Do you think I'll get a new dishwasher?" He smiled and shook his head no, "the other one wasn't scratched up." When the family came home, they were all tears and so excited to have their new home. They went from a single wide 2 bedroom to a double wide 3 bedroom. Now with 6 kids, this still isn't a lot of space. They weren't coming home to a new EXTREME home makeover from Ty, but you would have thought they were. She said, "It is more than I ever dreamed of having for myself, and everything my kids deserve."

I grew up in a family that was big on dreaming and while having hopes and dreams are not wrong, we were also taught to be so discontent with our situation so that we'd always have a reason to work harder to achieve more to have more. It was on the wall to have big dreams, we'd go shopping for brand new cars and houses and fur coats and know exactly how much they would cost. Try them on, drive them, tour them. Write out everything we wanted and how much it would take for us to make that kind of money to earn it and just become sick with what we had wanting more. I now want the opposite. I want less so that we can give more. I want to have a grateful heart for just having groceries on the table vs a grain of sand in my heart wanting steak instead of hamburger. This has been an issue of struggle in our marriage too.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and find plenty to be thankful for with your family, home, life and spouses. Write a letter to your spouse this week and share just 5 things with him that you are thankful for him about.

It's a Brand New Day

So Allen and I had a little throw down Sunday morning. Typical Griffin style for us, usually means confrontation is not good. He gets defensive and wants to walk out to avoid fighting and I follow after him in the little yipping dog fashion until he is literally driving out of the drive way leaving me yelling at no one, causing strangers walking by to pick up their pace and the neighbors across the street to shut their blinds after having evidence to put me away for my complete insanity.

However this Sunday was different. I said in peace and calm frustration some concerns that were bothering me and then when he left the house I retreated to cry in the shower. I still felt like I had blown it. I was very tired from working on the taxes, which I finally did complete. Plus we had the added emotion of showing the house after the kids had fended for themselves all week, leaving a trail of destuction.

Normally our disputes cause us to go three grades down on the successful marriage scale, then spend 2 weeks in quiet and then act as if nothing was ever said to begin with and go back to our happy is we lifestyle. Probably that's why no one has ever called for us to speak at a marriage conference or be the poster couple for good communication.

I realized that I am called to be submissive, the home is my responsibility, I'm not promised happiness here and I am called to do all this work unto God.

I had some heart to heart time with God yesterday too and was crying on my knees and wondering if God didn't value us as women, at least not as much as men if we are to submit to them and then this is how we are treated. Does HE really care about me, a woman? About my feelings? Why would HE create such a desire to be loved and yet put me with someone who has RCD and is not very good at expressing it? Should we are women even view ourselves as disciples of HIM or are we just to go through life quiet and serving our husbands and families? I had a difficult time at first with all those questions, confusion, lies from satan...until I finally quieted and listened, took my eyes off me and put my heart back on HIM. I told HIM of my trust in HIM, of my love for HIM, regardless of my life, regardless of my happiness. That this is all training for my character and for HIS will to be the outcome. I felt peaceful, and then I felt it pressed on my heart, "that if Allen completely fills the void in my heart, then I will lose my deepest need that HE fills in me."

I went to the homeschool moms night out last night (Tina taught how she cooks for 4 months at a time in 2 days...pretty impressive! And I'll post more on this one later) anyhow, when I got home, Allen had the kids bathed and in bed (very unusual from his typical job around the house which is to mow and keep the tv buttons warm), the house was picked up, supper put away and candles lit through the house and THE cd from our wedding was playing. I didn't know he even knew we had a cd. And he offered a heart felt apology for being, "a jerk" in his own words.

I was so surprised and thankful. I think this is the 1st time he has been the one to apology for his actions. He opened up and told me how much he appreciated everything I do and everything I am. It meant so much.

I can think of no other difference this time other than prayer surrounding him to soften, and me to have the strength to not lip off. I feel like this is the first argument that we've had in which the outcome actually made our marriage stronger rather than putting up 3 steps back and then working the next 6 months to get to where we were before the fight.

A friend pointed this out and it seems irresponsible of me to just now realize this after almost 10 years, however, his defensiveness probably stems from his childhood and never being able to do enough to please his dad, rather than him just being inconsiderate.

I just wanted to share with you, not necessarily anything earth shattering, but it is wonderful all the same. God showed me HIS love today through my husband. Even if this is the only time in our marriage, it was more than just Allen reaching out and loving me, it was God loving me through him. I agree with my friend Amy, that there are many times that I am so thankful that I do not have to be the leader and have all that pressure on my shoulders.

There are several of us ladies getting ready to start a book/bible study on Created to Be His Helpmeet. I have done the study before and this is NOT a feel good marriage book, this woman can be brutal and lacks a bit of compassion, but this is the marriage book that makes all overs seem like fluff. I'm anxious to go through it a 2nd time. Practice makes...well...better anyway.