Know My Desires

My husband and I have been talking a lot lately about goals.  Our immediate future is geared toward completing his A.A. degree by May of this coming year, but beyond that is a bit hazy.  As we talked, we had various frustrations about seeing eye-to-eye.  My husband felt stressed at what goals and plans I placed before him, and I felt likewise about his.

We kept at it, working to give one another grace, and tried to come to some sort of middle ground.  Then we realized - after much talk - that we weren’t actually communicating what we thought we were to one another.  He wasn’t telling me the whole of his thoughts (assuming my knowledge of some things), and I was trying to tell him what my desires were by giving him my goals (hint-hint, wink-wink, nudge-nudge).  As it happens... this is not an effective way to communicate.

It’s taking a bit of doing for me, but I’m learning how to tell him what my desires are behind the goals.  This has been a pretty huge breakthrough for us, as he is able to now take those concrete desires into consideration in his thoughts and plans, instead of what he guesses are my desires.  He is also working to clue me in on what those thoughts are.  This communication of my desires helps me even when he doesn’t clue me in to all of his plans, because I know that they are at least taken into consideration.

That’s the best part - he really does want to know my desires.  He wants to serve me... he just can’t read my mind.  The more we learn to communicate with one another, the more unified we can be in purpose, which - hopefully - is God’s purpose.  I am thankful that he wants to know my desires, and for the unity of spirit we have when we work to communicate our desires to each other.  May that unity portray God.