IF MARRIAGE WERE'NT ALREADY HARD ENOUGH

Melody and I went to a restaurant for lunch the other day, not just for the food, but to get away from packing and enjoy a little quiet time together. While we sat there talking with one another I noticed several couples (who looked like husbands and wives), sitting at their tables, not talking, in fact not paying any attention to one another at all. They instead had their cell phones out, texting and checking their email and possibly their Facebook account.

Sadly, this is not an unusual occurrence today at all. Everywhere you look you see those little electronic devices in the hands of people around you.

What about you and the other special people in your life? Do you need to send a text to the person across the table to communicate with them? If you do, maybe you need to consider life without electronics.

My friend Ron sent me the following little story that makes a good point. "We had a power outage at our house this morning and my PC, laptop, TV, DVD, iPad & my new surround sound music system were all shut down. Then I discovered that my Cell phone battery was flat and to top it off it was raining outside.

I went into the kitchen to make coffee and then I remembered that this also needs power, so I sat and talked with my wife for a few hours… She seems like a nice person."

I know you have heard the verse a thousand times, but notice it again for me, in Genesis 2:24 we read: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

You know this is not just a suggestion from God, it is actually him telling us the way it is suppose to be! In the original language the word "Cleve" has the idea of "to stick to". Now there are a lot of implications to that idea, but how close do you stick to your husband/wife? How can you stick with someone who you don't spend time with?

Maybe you should try one day without electronics. I know it would be difficult; you have the demands of your job and your connections to others in life, but what about the ones you are suppose to be sharing your life with? Try it sometime, you might find out that the person across the table from you is really a nice person.

My wife and I took an extended vacation recently with a total of about 10 days driving alone in the car. We took a selection of CD's to listen to if we wanted, but do you know what we did, we talked instead (that's a regular thing for us). We are interested in one another, in our cares, or concerns, our likes and dislikes, the things that worry us and the things that delight us. After almost 49 years together we still enjoy sharing sunrises and sunsets and one another's company. We still "cleave" together because that's what God intended for us to do.

Marriage is hard enough without all of the confusion electronics bring to it. Try doing without them sometime, you just might discover the person you fell in love with to begin with.

Russ Lawson