Opposites of Grace Unrealistic Expectations keep us from expressing grace. We can get those unrealistic expectations from a variety of sources: From our own family. The wife may unwittingly expect her husband to be like her father and the husband may unwittingly expect his wife to act like his mother. Guys you won’t believe what I said to Bev when we were engaged. She was taking apple pie filling from a can and putting it into a frozen pie crust. I said, “My mom doesn’t make apple pie this way.” Even today Bev remembers where she was when I said that. But Bev got the last laugh a couple of years later when we were at my parents’ house and my mom pulls out a can of apple filling and puts it in a frozen pie crust. Bev just looked at me and smiled. Marriage is like a cross-cultural experience. Unconsciously or consciously, we bring our financial, relational, emotional, educational, racial, and geographical backgrounds with us into marriage. With these backgrounds come expectations as well. Sharon and Floyd. Floyd’s father went bankrupt when he was in college. When they got married, they got an entire room of silver from her parents’ friends. Her parents gave them a car for a wedding present. Don’t you know they had some different expectations going into marriage based on their backgrounds? Personality types. Another area we have false expectations sometimes is that the other person is going to think or act like we do. And guess what? They don’t. Someone once said, “If two people are just alike in a marriage, one of them is unnecessary.” Society places some expectations on us as well. One of the major ones these days is the media and expectations of having perfect bodies, perfect house, right car, etc. Phantoms – A phantom is an imaginary person we create – an ideal person. Not a real person. SELF – Sometimes we try to live up to a phantom we have created for ourselves – usually a conglomeration of many or all the positive qualities of major influencers in our lives. Or we may pattern ourselves after a famous person. There is one living phantom today - Martha Stewart. I came across a letter Martha wrote to Erma Bombeck I thought you would want to hear. Hi Erma, This perfectly delightful note is being sent on paper I made myself to tell you what I have been up to. Since it snowed last night, I got up early and made a sled with old barn wood and a glue gun. I hand-painted it in gold leaf, got out my loom and made a blanket in peaches and mauves. Then to make the sled complete, I made a white horse to pull it from DNA that I just had sitting around in my craft room. By then, it was time to start making the place mats and napkins for my 20 breakfast guests. I’m serving the old standard Stewart twelve-course breakfast, but I’ll let you in one a little secret: I didn’t have time to make the tables and chairs this morning, so I used the ones I had on hand. Before I moved the table into the dining room, I decided to add just a touch of the holidays. So I repainted the room in pinks and stenciled gold stars on the ceiling. Then, when the homemade bread was rising, I took antique candle molds and made the dishes (exactly the same shade of pink) to use for breakfast. These were made from Hungarian clay, which you can get in almost any Hungarian craft store. Well, I must run. I need to finish the buttonholes on the dress I’m wearing for breakfast. I’ll get out the sled and drive this note to the post office as soon as the glue dries on the envelope I’ll be making. Hope my breakfast guests don’t stay too long – have 40,000 cranberries to string with bay leaves before my speaking engagement at noon. It’s a good thing. Love, Martha Stewart P.S. When I made the ribbon for this typewriter, I used 1/8 inch gold gauze. I soaked the gauze in a mixture of white grapes and blackberries, which I grew, picked and crushed last week just for fun.
Here’s Erma’s response: Dear Martha, I’m writing this on the back of an old shopping list, pay no attention to the coffee and jelly stains. I’m 20 minutes late getting my daughter up for school, packing lunch with one hand, on the phone with the dog pound, seems old Russ needs bailing out again. Burnt my arm on the curling iron when I was trying to make those cute curly fries. How DO they do that? Still can’t find the scissors to cut out some snowflakes, tried using an old disposable razor … trashed the tablecloth. Oh, don’t use Fruity Pebbles as a substitute in that Rice Krispie snowball recipe, unless you happen to like a disgusting shade that resembles puke! The smoke alarm is going off, talk to ya later. Another phantom we might create is one for our spouse – our idea of the perfect husband or the perfect wife …. We may even have a phantom marriage relationship. I received some very good advice from my boss when I was engaged. He said read plenty of books on marriage, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking your marriage has to be like those in the books. Allow God to build your marriage the way He wants to build it.
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