Praising Your Spouse
In Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis makes this observation about praise:
I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.
I know Lewis is explaining something about the praise of God in this text, but the general statement holds true as well. And it spurred a thought in me: How many marriages grow cold because husbands and wives neglect to praise their spouses?
So, without further ado, and to lead by example, let me tell you about my wife, Naomi.
Naomi is possibly the most caring person I know. You know those needy people who most of us cut loose at the first opportunity? Not Naomi. She will visit them, invite them for holiday dinner, drive them to surgeries, take them meals - all with no expectation of a return gesture. Like Jesus, she is profligate in her care.
At church, Naomi is on the lookout for the people on the margins - the newcomer looking awkward, the sad single in the corner, the elderly couple no one is talking to. Naomi sees people. And she has the uncanny ability to get people talking about themselves. She can extract someone’s life story in 5 minutes flat!
And it’s not just at church either. More than once I’ll hear some variation on, “I was having my nails done today and the lady was a immigrant from Ukraine and she’s been here for 2 years and…”
Naomi is tough. In her late forties, she decided to run a marathon. And then she tore her meniscus in her knee. She had surgery to fix that in September, and 3 months later ran her first marathon. (She tore the other meniscus last summer in a snorkeling accident and just had surgery to get that knee fixed too. She’s looking forward to running again!)
Naomi is adventurous. I travel a lot for work, and Naomi has tagged along, joining me on trips to San Francisco and Vienna and Lisbon. While I’m attending conferences, she’ll explore the city on her own. She’s jogged across the Golden Gate Bridge, for crying out loud!
And best of all, Naomi is a great mother. Our kids are mostly grown now, but they all have a great rapport with their mom.
I am blessed to have shared 30.5 years of marriage with her. Putting up with me can be a challenge, but she does it with good grace (and occasional sarcasm).