REGULAR MAINTENANCE

[Rhonda]

REGULAR MAINTENANCE
Steve Goodier
A Kansas cyclone hit a farmhouse just before dawn one morning. It
lifted the roof off, picked up the beds on which a farmer and his wife
slept, and set them down gently in the next county.

The wife began to cry.

"Don't be scared, Mary," her husband comforted. "We're not hurt."

Mary continued to cry. "I'm not scared," she responded between sobs.
"I'm happy . 'cause this is the first time in 14 years we've been out
together."

I find that little things, such as too little time and attention, will
hurt an intimate relationship (marriage, parent-child, or close
friendships) more than anything else. We can usually get through the
times of crisis; it's neglect that often destroys closeness and
intimacy.

In his book The Romance Factor, Alan Loy McGinnis says the longer we
postpone maintenance, the faster the rate of deterioration. He writes
this: "I see that principle operating in families every day. Many
couples who have come to my office with their marriages in shreds did
not start fighting about unsolvable problems. Their marriages were not
suffering from major malfunctions, but merely from a series of small
deteriorations that a little adjusting and tightening could have
corrected. But people had lost interest and had turned their attention
to other things: children; careers; tennis; decorating their homes."

I don't know of anything of value that does not require time,
attention and lots of maintenance! In one week's time I once worked on
two plumbing problems at home, caulked bathroom tile, replaced a
heating element on the dryer and another on the stove. At the same
time my car needed two new tires, windshield wipers, a battery, new
brakes and a starter motor.

But everything of value requires maintenance. And I am in trouble when
my home or automobile receives more attention than my closest
relationships. Even if a marriage is made in heaven, the maintenance
must be done on earth.

Mother Teresa said, "The hunger for love is much more difficult to
remove than the hunger for bread." Lack of regular maintenance will
turn your valuable relationship from an ideal into an ordeal. But
daily maintenance - spending enough time, listening and touching,
laughing and caring - will keep you close. And isn't that what you're
hungering for?

__________
"The hunger for love is much more difficult to
remove than the hunger for bread."
Mother Theresa
~~~~~~~~
We're given two ears but only one mouth ... that should teach us about
listening twice as much as we speak. And the mouth closes, but the
ears don't ... that should reinforce what we just learned.
~unknown