When Not Making Something Worse Is the Best We Have to Give: A Tale of Sameness Between Little Old Ladies and Big Strong Men

“And calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:43-44)

I’m married. So, incidentally, is my wife. That means that we’re both never that far from a recent or future hurt. Our community reports that we aren’t terrible people. I’ve met several folks in my time, and I’m inclined to agree with our community. We have a good marriage. And thankfully, even more often, we’re never that far from a recent or future kindness. Along that way, we’re endeavoring to grow our friendship within our covenant. And this, after a recent reminder that friendship doesn’t happen on its own. The reminder was a gift. Two spouses can be quite devoted to their covenant in terms of the mechanics of their agreement—they can be devoted, merely, against betrayal—and still fail terribly in the friendly dynamics of their life together. In fact, if friendship isn’t something that they’ve committed to build between them, they are guaranteed a very terrible kind of burden. That’s the nature of marriage. Its proper growth is of a chosen kind. Wrapped in grace, to be sure, but chosen.

But that isn’t my focus here. Doubtless, friendship within a marriage is an indispensable and very precious matter all on its own accord. Perhaps I should set it to deeper thought and write about it too. But here, my focus is on a less sustained, but equally consequential aspect of marriage. I’m speaking specifically to those harrowing seasons where we carry very particular hurts. Often of a perennial nature. The ones that come back to shock us after we’ve settled in ourselves that we don’t have one more of ‘them’ in us to face. 

Let’s see if we can get a better look at this thing together, friend.

This is such a dynamic yet certain issue, that all those who hold devoted relationships in the territory of which I speak will know the matter at once. This, yet nearly all will have their own particular and peculiar experience of the thing. I’m speaking about the baffling and the overwhelming; the moment of complete lostness. You in the hallway, head in hand in the dizzying interlude of your argument; they on the other side of a door doing the very same. Both of you, rattled within by the dust devil of pains mercilessly whipping and thrashing on your insides. Those moments you’ve known, where, though feet away, you cannot find one another, cannot even find yourself.

If you’re blessed, these will be rare. Well… blessed, yes; and likely disciplined, working at it. Well done. All the same, if you’re married, I bet you know. Here’s how I know it as a man in a marriage. And here’s where I encountered a gift that brought me into unexpected kinship with a little old lady. 

My wife and I ran recently into one of ‘them’—the earthshakers that I mentioned above. They aren’t the norm. We work at it. But they do happen. I won’t mention here what our specific ‘ouch’ was—only, that it does not involve anything like sexuality or infidelity or betrayal in such territories. Let’s just leave it at saying that the issue involved one of us failing to properly hold something that mattered deeply to the other after those many claims that the prior instance would be the last. Perhaps you’ve got a version of the same that you carry with you as you read. God bless you as you seek resolution to it, friend. Pray for us as we seek resolution with ours. 

 Well, that’s the sort of matter it was. And, for my part, I found myself in a place of helplessness. This time, I really didn’t know what to do. Neither did she. That had been well enough established for both of us. We’re 24-years in. Just saying for context. We didn’t start last week. It’s hard sometimes, isn’t it, friend? Hard to face how hard it can be. Hard to remember when things are well, just how frightening it can be at times. How rattled we can find ourselves on occasion. How unpredictable those can feel. I see that with you. And it’s not reason not to marry. My wife and I live that alongside you. I wish it were said more, so I’m saying it more. What a thing it is, marriage. What a wonderful and overwhelming thing. 

So, there I was. On my drive. The one I routinely take when I can’t figure what to do. Takes me around two-hours. My wife knows the route, too. She doesn’t drive it, but she always knows when I do. That’s our deal together and it works. So, there I was. Really turned inside out. Really on the other side of any felt connection to ‘way’ or resource. I didn’t even know what to pray. But then I heard it within and listened to it come out, “Lord, please… please, help me not to make this worse.” Clarity. That was about the size of me. The shape, too. Whatever that looks like. I fit right in the container of that prayer. Perfectly. 

And then, resolution. That was the gift. It was something I could strive toward. And it was something inside of which I could feel God’s determination with me. Consolation. Could it be that this was His appraisal of my capacities, too? That He knew that that was the best I could give to the situation? Of course. What solutions could I possibly summon, as it were, from within me at this point? If I hadn’t found any glorified wisdom in me by then—after all that—what did I expect? I was bereft of anything on either side of any of the words in that petition,

“Lord, help me not to make this worse.”

That’s when it occurred to me that I was connected to the little lady that Jesus drew attention to at the temple treasury. 

The little mitey one…

Sorry. I’m a dad, too. 

Of course, I’ve remained her admirer from the moment I first heard and then read about her. I’ve never likened myself to her in her remarkable charity, neither, to her humblest of lots in life. This time, however, there was one space that she and I shared without mistake. Jesus said she gave out of her poverty. All I knew to give in this moment was that prayer. I know that my incredible wife was settled in the same chosen hope while I wound my loop among mountains and rivers and townships. 

I’m a big man, but I’m about the size of a little old lady in such moments. That’s the truth. Not in her heroism. She’s got that one in the bag. But in that she knows how little she has and gives it in faith. When I’m blessed to think and act rightly, I see that we’re both held by the grace supplied to give it. To give what we have in faith. 

No surplus. 
Just poverty. 
And then it comes, the gift of humbling. 
The gift of being brought back down to size. 
Down, down, and still down.
True size. Your size. My size. Just as we are. The only holding of ourselves that He can work with. 
And then, still it comes... 
Resource.
His. 

This time in a strong and clear message. “What you both need is the release of forgiveness. Look at why she does this. Look with Me at where this comes from in her. Invite her to look at where it comes from in you. Look at how young you both are in that part of you. Look at how helpless she is. She’s still helpless. Remember with Me what she’s protecting. That little girl is still in her. That’s how I see her right now. That little boy is still in you. Look with Me at that in her and see what happens.” 

And, then comes another gift. His compassion for each of you, expressed for you both, by you both. Everyone wins and no one is completely healed. Just a little more—perhaps on that day, a lot. I don’t have 7-easy steps for you here with any neat peer review. No psychotherapeutic tactics. You’ll find components of that elsewhere, and God bless you as you do. This one is to honour something too seldom honoured: His place in it all. At the center of our need. At the center of mine. Marriage exceeds me. Sometimes the best I can do is not to make it worse. Sometimes that’s the help that He’s happiest to provide under His easy yoke, the finest way to work the field. 

Sometimes, those times are the best. 
So be it. 
And may it be so.