Do You Extend Grace to Your Spouse?

Grace: Disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency; the quality or state of being considerate or thoughtful.

In other words, grace is what we frequently extend to the people we encounter every day. Think about the situations we face on our jobs alone. There we are exposed to various types of personalities, attitudes, bad moods and more. But because our jobs provide benefits we need, we grin, bear it and yes extend grace to coworkers.

Picture that manager from hell who constantly places unrealistic demands on us.  Instead of communicating and requesting reasonable deadlines, we take on the tasks no matter how challenging it may be because we do not want to disappoint the manager. What about the needy family member we allow to use us over and over again and we don’t say a word, because we would rather not hurt their feelings. And then, there are the strangers we come in contact with who we greet with a warm smile or by wishing them a pleasant day.

All of this is grace. We extend it to people who deserve it, but for the most part we give it to those who haven’t earned it. Yet, we might have a spouse at home we frequently snap on, forget to smile at and never tell him/her to have a great day.

Why does extending grace to strangers or those we don’t know as well come so easy?  Yet, we forget (or choose not) to do the same for our spouse, the person we say we love the most. Usually when the world beats us up, some of us take it out on our spouse. In fact, I just did it this week. I took my frustration (which was caused by someone else) out on my husband. But he quickly reminded me that he  wasn’t  the cause of my anger. Those words put me right back in my place. He  didn’t  deserve it and I had no right to mistreat him.

In addition to loving them, our spouses have earned our thoughtfulness, kindness and consideration. We should be able to speak with love in our words, have patience and consider our spouse’s feelings before we react negatively. We owe our partners the exact same grace we give to all the other people we come across during our lives.

BMWK, how often do you extend grace to your spouse?

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