FIRST…let me begin by apologizing for not being active on this site for way too long….the blog below on cooperate was started in April…..i got the first 3 paragraphs done and then something else got my attention and i have been spinning in circles ever since….I AM SO SORRY and will do my best to become more regular at posting here. Thank you each for your patience and thank you in advance for jumping in and adding to this discussion…MUCH LOVE…sherry #2 of the Four Marriage Builders…… COOPERATE….Dont you love that word? :O) Chuck and i are both leaders. Chuck and i are both very strong-willed. Chuck and i are both stubborn…..really…:O) Cooperating can be a very hard task for me sometimes. I see details when i look at the “big picture” of something…..lots of details….. Chuck normally just sees the big picture. He sees it well and does really well at moving forward into that picture but a lot of the times he misses most of the details! This can drive me CRAZY!!! i can be very picky….really…:O) (this can drive chuck CRAZY…..REALLY :O) I just returned from the USA 4 days ago. The first week of mine and Chuck’s separation i kind of got into a “funk”. I get really lonely for Chuck and my companionship when we are apart. if i don’t hear from him everyday i start feeling sorry for myself and frustrated with him that he “didn’t care enough to contact me”. In these days of computers and internet talking to one another and even “seeing” one another every day can be a reality instead of just a dream or wish. Well, my funk started with being alone…apart from my best friend and pretty much constant companion. In addition to this, i had gone to PA to relieve my mom of taking care of my dad for a few weeks to give her a much needed break. My dad, at this period of his life, behaves in a way that makes him the most ungrateful, complaining, self absorbed person i have ever been around. Between these two situations in my life i was feeling quite discouraged….”DISCOURAGED PEOPLE BEHAVE POORLY”….how true this is…. Sad to say, when the phone rang….i was not the chipper, positive person i should have been on the other end….I did not practice our ‘rule” of “first encounters” i shared about in the first of the 4 builders…..instead…. i found myself in a competitive spirit with my partner. I knew Chuck had a mountain of work to do. (We have just moved from Manila to Thailand…this has been MAJOR…..) on top of our move, Chuck has been to Manila and back to carry on office with The Edge Radio Staff, to New Zealand for a week long INTENSIVE board meeting…to America and back for a 10 mission conference that has events practically every day plus the jet lag that goes along with travel to opposite sides of the earth….then home to be a “singe parent” for a couple weeks with 3 very active girls, also hosting dear friends for close to a week, and then the need to produce donor relation materials, newsletter, prepare for our annual radio conference, preparation for media camp in chiang rai, financial reports of our own family plus emerge ministry for the last year for tax purposes, etc. etc. On top of that he was trying to please me and finish some work that was undone in the house we just moved into…..buying and laying new grass, registering our car, buying some items that have not yet been purchased etc etc. As Chuck would tell me what he had done, instead of stopping to praise and celebrate his mamoth accomplishments…i went on to remind him of the next details that needed to get done….I WAS NOT COOPERATING… I should have PRAISED Chuck and thanked him for all he had done. (Later i could have found a positive way to ask him to add to his list …..:O) since i wasnt there to help…and i am sure he would have been happy to do it for me) I also could have asked him how i could help him from my end….there was some internet tasks that i could have done from my end to help lighten his very hectic schedule….i wouldnt have even had to ask, i could have done them coz i knew that he could use my help on these but i was being stubborn coz my feelings were hurt….:O) The opposite of COOPERATE is to COMPETE….. I looked up the word compete and some of the descriptions of this word were: to wrestle, struggle, spar, clash, attempt to better, attempt to outdo, pit against, lock horns, fight , oppose, enter the lists, ha! that was me….i was entering the lists…constantly….no wonder Chuck got exasperated with me…no wonder he didn’t want to call me anymore. Can you blame him? When we do marriage counseling Chuck always give a mental picture of two oxens turning toward one another and butting heads as a image of competing….there is no way you can get anything of worth done like this…. how often do we do this in our marriages?? if we would just learn to cooperate with one another how much more pleasant it would be to work side by side celebrating all the accomplishments of each other and what we were able to do as a team. And when distance keeps us from working side by side we are to stand on the “sidelines” and cheer for the great accomplishments that our partner has made and encourage him/her to want to carry on. This is team work! WE ARE A TEAM…..too often we forget that… the other mental picture Chuck gives of cooperation is both oxens yoked together moving forward…have you ever seen how much work one oxen can get done? imagine two yoked together tackling the same mission. How much greater (and quicker) we will get our undertaking done. Today, determine in your heart to be a team!!! We are one! Would love to hear from each of you ways you have learned to cooperate with each other…struggles you have in competing, anything that deals with particular topic! I LOVE YOU! Sherry