Embrace Grace in Your Marriage

It’s an exciting day – not to mention, month – here at Ungrind.

Not only are we launching our new look along with a new schedule that’ll bring you more regular content (this month that means a new post every weekday), but we’re celebrating our 7th birthday … or anniversary … or whatever the proper term is here on the blogosphere. Feel free to eat a piece of cake in our honor. Preferably something that includes chocolate.

What makes the day and month even more exciting though, is that I have the personal privilege of teaming up with five of my marriage-blogging friends to bring you a month-long series called “Embrace Your Marriage: A Virtual Marriage Retreat.” It’s aimed at encouraging you to make the most of your relationship with your husband.

But before I share the topics with you along with an excerpt from my first post in the series, let me take a moment to introduce these friends to you:

• Darlene Schacht of Time-Warp Wife
• Courtney Joseph of Women Living Well
• Lisa Jacobson of Club 31 Women
• Jennifer Smith of Unveiled Wife
• Sheila Gregoire of To Love, Honor, and Vacuum

Each Monday, starting today and running through September 29th, you can read a post from each of us on our personal blogs on a different topic related to marriage.

• Monday, September 1st: Embracing Grace
• Monday, September 8: Embracing Change
• Monday, September 15: Embracing Your Differences
• Monday, September 22: Embracing Oneness
• Monday, September 29: Embracing Your Friendship

I’ll be blogging over at AshleighSlater.com, but also linking to that post here each Monday. So be sure to check back here each week.

Today, we tackle what it looks like to embrace grace in marriage. What do I have to say on this topic? Here’s my intro:

Have you ever hung up on your spouse? As in, with frustration, mid-call?

I have.

Turns out, it’s not quite as dramatic or satisfying as the old black-and-white flicks portray it to be. Perhaps because hitting one’s finger against the red iPhone “end call” icon lacks the flair of slamming the old-school receiver down with a wham!

It happened after our car died on a freeway off-ramp in the middle of nowhere. There we were, just me and our 8-year-old daughter and a car that had overheated itself to death, stranded in a small Georgia town. What made it worse was that I needed to be in South Carolina by morning to film a book-related television interview. So there was no calling Ted to drive two hours to come pick us up and take us back home.

By the time a band of strangers pushed the car to the nearest gas station, refilled the oil, and advised me to “take it to the shop,” it was 5 p.m. on a Wednesday. After making multiple phone calls, I discovered I had 60 minutes to make it to the car rental office our insurance company had recommended before they closed for the day. It was 30 minutes away. If I didn’t arrive by then, we were destined to stay in the town’s run-down motel and quite possibly miss my interview.

Here’s where it turns into an elementary math story problem. And if you think they’re maddening on paper, they’re even more so in real life.

Read the rest of this post “Phone Wars: The Day I Hung Up on My Husband” and find links to the other posts for this week over at AshleighSlater.com.