“An endless dripping on a rainy day and a nagging wife are alike.” —Proverbs 27:15, HCSB
At the beginning of our marriage, I pulled another scheme and somehow ended up with a broken marriage bed. Let me explain. When we got married, we were given a decent amount of money so we decided to use it to purchase a new mattress. After looking at several different types, we decided on the Sleep Number mattress. We had a problem though. They cost $2,500 and we were a bit short. We agreed to save and six months later I announced to Ron that we now had the funds and I would go ahead and get us our new Sleep Number Bed.
Here is where things got messy. I went online and stumbled upon a similar type of bed that had everything the Sleep Number Bed advertised. It was called the Sleep Mumber and it really looked the exact same! And the best part was that this bed only cost $1,200, not the $2,500. I thought, “What a steal!” So, I called up Luanne in their customer service department and ordered our new bed. It was scheduled to be delivered the next day.
Sure enough, the next day I answered the door to two huge guys standing at the top of my second floor apartment. Just the guys. The mattress was still in their truck! When they saw my stairs, they came up with some excuse that it wouldn’t fit through my door. One of the guys said, “Sign here!” and then he told me to come out to their truck. Here I was, standing in the back of this unlabeled truck which looked like it had just come from some back alley, thinking how in the world was I going to get this up my stairs, by myself! I told him that I would help but neither of them was leaving until I got my bed. So after two phone calls to their manager, they got the boxes up my stairs. Then I said to them, “Okay, get started!” They both looked at me as if I was insane. “Uh ma’am, we’re just the delivery company. We don’t install them.” Then they bolted out my door.
Here I was, stuck with huge boxes in my bedroom and no bed. I thought to myself, “I can do this myself.” So I got out a kitchen knife and started cutting away through all the boxes. It contained a bunch of tubes, plastic bubbles, and things that scared me. How was this mess going to provide me with those hours of heavenly sleep like Luanne promised? I spent the next two hours trying to make heads or tails of the whole thing. I don’t read directions, so I just tried to make it up as I went along.
That evening, Ron comes home and sees me whimpering, surrounded by hundreds of bed parts. He had no idea what I had done. I knew I had to sweet talk my way out of this situation so I yelled “Surprise, Honey! Our Sleep Number Bed is here!” He wasn’t buying it because he knew good and well that they would have assembled it. He then exclaimed, “Kerrrrrrrrrriiiii… What have you done?” Then the waterworks came and I went into my sob story of trying to do something nice for my husband by surprising him with a cost-efficient alternative. I told him all about the Sleep Mumber and its high customer rating. (Okay, I made that part up!) I was hoping we’d both giggle together and order pizza, but he knew I had gotten some knock off blow-up, ghetto version of the real thing. He also knew there was no return policy!
We did finally get the bed put together, but Ron’s side of the bed started to sag. It was slow at first with it kind of leaking air in the middle of the night. So night after night he would pump up his side of the bed to extra firm and awaken the next morning with the splinters from the wooden posts in his back. He’d get crankier each day. I, of course, told him he had two options: 1) Fix the thing. 2) Sleep on the couch. I think I was secretly voting for option two because I’d get more snore-free nights.
Leave it to some ingenuity, but Ron did save the day. Well, actually it was the duct tape. Ron would climb under the bed and tape up the hole in the air hose with duct tape and it worked like a charm. We had no more leaks! Whoever says duct tape can’t save a marriage, obviously hasn’t tried hard enough. That was almost nine years ago and the thing is still hanging in there. And so is my marriage. I know it can be hard sometimes, and I am so thankful that I have an understanding and loving husband. I’m sure that he wanted to kill me that night but instead of working against me, he worked with me. Marriage can be like that. Often times we make decisions that can be hard on a marriage, but by having Christ in the center of your marriage, you learn to forgive and forget. In my case we might end up taking stock with a chiropractor’s office, but love still abides.
Take a MOMENT to think about…
1. Have you ever bought something that caused a riff in your marriage? How did you work it out?
2. How has Christ’s love and forgiveness for you taught you how to forgive others?
Lord,
Thank You for an understanding and loving spouse. Please help me to be more Christ-like and understanding to him and to others. Thank You for loving me with all of my faults and helping me to be a better wife and mothers.
Amen