Direction Comes, Even When You Don't Get Directed . . . God is So Good!

My Spiritual Director is ill this week and had to cancel our regular monthly appointment, so I missed my monthly shot of spiritual direction. I felt really bad for him because being the pastor of two parishes and all it must be difficult for him to admit that he has to cancel everything on his calendar and stay in bed (he really must be sick, especially to cancel Mass).

This morning though I got a very eye opening and deeply needed moment of correction from my devoted and highly put upon husband as he was preparing to leave for work. I was musing out loud about losing someone's email address, and he asked a simple question and I jumped to a totally wrong conclusion about the intent of his question (something he pointed out later in the conversation that I do quite often.)

It occurred to me, as I listened to what he was saying and then used that as prayer meditation as I spent a half hour on the treadmill. I usually react to what he has said before I even try to understand what he means. I really need to work on that because I know that he doesn't intend to say things to hurt me and if I would just stop and think I might understand that he is simply asking a question to gather more information and not trying to in any way impugn my intelligence or capabilities as a person. He just likes to have all of the facts before he makes a statement because he is a Myers Brigs TJ where I am an FP.

As I was doing my meditation walk (sounds so much better than exercise don't you think?) I realized that while I have been trying to make changes in myself in the last year and thought that I had come pretty far, I still have a lot of growing to do. The first thing I need to do is to publicly apologize to mrangelmeg for being so blinded to how ignorant I have been in the past to our different communication styles. Then I need to thank him for the loving correction and not so gentle nudge he gave me this morning that started me on this path of self revelation. I have to learn to stop jumping to conclusions before I jump into or off of something that will do irreparable harm to our relationship.

I am so blessed to have mrangelmeg in my life. In the Vocation of Marriage the role of each spouse is to insure that the other spouse gets into heaven. In our case I think mrangelmeg has the tougher assignment. Be patient with me I may be slow but I do eventually get it.

Pax