Careful How You Compromise
- Mary N. Squire
- Feb 15, 2017
- 3 min read
My daddy was a carpenter, sorta kinda. He’s in heaven now, and I’m pretty sure he’s singing an old Jamerican hymn, as he builds something out of reclaimed wood, and hammer-straightened, rusty, used nails, just like back in the day. He’s probably putting a window in a cloud, where my mom asked him to, and I hope she likes it. ‘Cause I remember one time when he built a window for her in their trailer, on the Virginia Church of God campground, and it didn’t go so good.
You see, Daddy built things for function, so he wasn’t too particular about the fact that his windows and other projects were often crooked, he just made sure they worked! But Mommy was an artist – she wanted things to work and look right. Okay. That would be nice. But when they didn’t, “Oh well”. At least, that’s what I thought, but Mommy didn’t agree. So that day she complained for hours, until finally the newlywed wife/daddy’s girl in me said (lovingly, of course), “Mommy, he’s trying his best. Come on, just cock your head to the side when you look at it, and it’ll be okay!”
Back then, I thought a good Christian wife could adjust, compromise, adapt, fix, look over, work around, handle, take in stride, ignore, understand, bear with, be patient while… whatever it took to keep the peace, to flow with, and to honor, her husband. I thought I could, and I thought that I should, do so, by any means necessary. And so, more often than not, I did. And so, little by little, I lost perspective. I lost my boundaries. And most of all, I lost my self.
I’m not blaming anyone. I take responsibility for my path and my choices. I am grateful for the ability to learn from my past. I wish it hadn’t taken so long, or so much, to jolt me out of my half-truths and fantasies into a deeper faith-walk and a better understanding of the Spirit of Love – the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth. I now look back and see that asking Mommy to cock her head to the side so Daddy’s window would be sufficient was really asking her to ignore the basic blueprint, framework, foundation and structure of their home. (To adjust – like he did). I was asking her to lower her standards, and ignore the need for mutuality and reciprocity in their relationship, in order to validate Daddy’s effort. Even though he disregarded her preferences, and clearly didn’t even feel obliged to line his work up with the trailer’s original blueprint.
Given the tools, skills, resources etc. he had to work with, Daddy’s work was probably outstanding at some point. There certainly was no blueprint to follow for my grandmother’s hut on the side of the mountain that he grew up in. There were barely floors. There was a tin roof. Provisions were scarce. Fortunately, the Word of God, innovation, and love were in abundance. He was a hard worker, with a good heart. Just maybe a bit too stuck in his ways by the time he built Mommy’s windows to realize something was jacked up.
Me either. For maybe all 34 years of my marriage, I didn’t realize that something was really jacked up. I tot I taw a putty cat. Oops. I mean, I thought I saw a man with a good heart, who loved God and was innovative, and was working the best he could with the skills, tools, and resources he had. Maybe he was. But something was jacked up, and the solution was not for me to cock my head to the side the way I did. My husband was not, and is not, to blame for the way I compromised myself. Lesson learned… careful how you cock your head; careful how, and why, and with whom, you compromise. You, and the God in you, are all you’ve got. Invest wisely.