THE LOST ART OF OVERLOOKING

Do you let your family get away with stuff? Or not? Do you feel the need to be sure that everyone abides by the rules so completely that you have a family of scared little rabbits? Including your husband?   I'm not suggesting that you tolerate blatant disobedience, willful rebelliousness or a husband who is doing stuff that is truly harmful to your family and your marriage.  I'm not talking door mat. I'm suggesting lightening up.. just a little..

I'm talking about a woman who got so incensed that her husband was glancing at the football game for twenty seconds longer than SHE THOUGHT he should after she asked him a question that she started an argument that created a rift that still has not healed.   True there were deeper issues, but they didn't have to come to light in an angry way. I suggested to her that she could have overlooked it. She didn't like that suggestion.  

 I'm talking about a mother who wouldn't let her eleven year old daughter go to the zoo with the rest of the family on a sunny Saturday because she stayed outside riding her bike for ten minutes too long after her mom called her in.  The little girl, who is now twenty four, remembers that as being the day she knew "the first moment I could get free of this woman's control over me I would. And I did.  I rarely see her."  In her mind, she learned nothing by having to stay home that day but that she resented her mean-spirited mom. Did her mom have a right to punish the girl? Yup. But she lost her daughter's heart that day, over a ten minute ride on a bike. Her mom could have overlooked it. 

 I'm talking about a wife who after two full weeks will not speak to her husband - or let him come near her - because she caught him looking at another woman walking in the mall.  Is her husband wrong for looking at another woman? Absolutely. Could she have told him that it hurt her? Yup. Or...She could have overlooked it.  

I am using the word "could" rather than "should"

You have the choice when it comes to the Lost Art of Overlooking.  You have rights.  But sometimes, laying down our rights gains us so much more than demanding them. You don't have to let things go.  Not at all. 

But as an OLDER woman.. let me suggest.. that a woman who won't let anything go is a woman whose family is gone even while they live under her roof.

How can you know what to overlook?  You have a Heavenly Father who wants you to have the wisdom you need. Ask the Lord for wisdom. Sometimes you just have to enforce the rules - and sometimes - you need to let the peace of God rule and reign in your home.  He will help you to know when and how.

The Bible teaches something that is obvious to our family, but not-so-obvious to we wives at times:

Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife.
Proverbs 21:19

As always, I welcome your comments and emails - awordtothewives@gmail.com

Mrs. Older