A couple days ago, my husband Jay tore up a picture.  And he did it out of love for me… let me explain.

We were in town at an internet cafe, and Jay had loads of work to do online.  I had just come down with bronchitis, and after a short time in the internet cafe I started feeling quite sick.  He was my ride home, and I asked him if we could leave early despite knowing he had important things to take care of for a few hours.  He had a moment of hesitation and looked frustrated for a couple minutes, but agreed to leave his work behind so I could rest.  And that was that, he did not complain about it for the rest of the day.

My very wise mother-in-law once said something to me that has stuck with me ever since: tear up the picture or tear up the person. We often get an image in our head of how we want something done, how we want something to look, or how we want something to go.  We have an ideal situation painted in our minds in most situations, and are disappointed when our plans do not fall in to place as expected.  In those times we must learn to tear up our ideal picture and paint a new one instead of hurting those we love out of frustration.  Jay chose that day to tear up his picture of an ideal afternoon getting work accomplished online in order to keep the picture of our relationship intact.

Do you ever tear down people when your ideal situation is compromised?  Are you good at painting new pictures when plans fail?  How do you do this?  Hopefully we can all get into a habit of practicing this more!

Michelle