If I Had Known Peace Was This Good, I Would Have Been Quiet Years Ago

You know  the saying,"If I would have known having grandkids was this much fun I would have had them first"?

Well I think we need a saying sort of like that to apply to marriage, I don't know maybe something like, "If I had known peace was this good I would have been quiet years ago."

You all might be a lot nicer, humbler, kinder people than Mark and I because we've  had to learn how to be quiet, and I'm just now really getting it.

Tuesday night at Bible study we were talking about marriage and I shared how that very day, Mark and I had been working together.

I had sweat running down my face and burning my eyes, it wasn't fun.

Then Mark said, "Make sure you get all the feed out of the trays because it will draw mice if you don't."

He has been telling me that same thing for twenty years, you would think he would stop saying it, but he doesn't.

Years ago it flew all over me when he said that, not so much that he said it was that he kept on saying it.

Every time he would tell me just like he had never told me before, and it made me crazy.

So what did I do?

I said, " You already told me that, why do you always say that, you are making me crazy!"

I have a feeling you can guess where things went from there, he said something back and I said something back and pretty soon the fight was on.

Finally after several years, I stopped saying anything when he said that.

I mean I didn't say anything out loud but I said it in my spirit.

I kept the peace but I had no peace.

When he said, "Don't leave any feed in those trays or it will draw mice", I didn't say it out loud but in my heart I was saying, "Don't leave any feed in those trays or it will draw mice,"  I said it in a mean mimicking way.

Well I'm glad to say that after all these years the victory is mine.

When he said that the other day, it didn't bother me one single bit.

I didn't just keep the peace I had peace.

I even said, "okay."

You see, before I had always been insulted when he kept saying it, it wasn't like I was leaving feed in the trays so why did he keep saying that.

I thought,  he is just trying to boss me, he is so controlling, he thinks he is big because his names on the mailbox.

Yeah, I pretty much have had all those thoughts at one time or another, ugly as they are, I have thought them.

But not the other day,  the other day I knew he wasn't trying to control or criticize, I knew really it wasn't even about me.

For whatever reason he just has to say that.

He just has to tell me one more time.

When I thought about it, I knew I did the same thing to him,  only about different things.

So after all of these years I have learned to be quiet and not just keep the peace but to have peace and if I had known it was this good I would have done it years ago.