Circumcision of the Heart ~ Robert Friedman

by Robert Friedman

A bris in the heart!” Sounds strange. Maybe even a bit ridiculous to modern ears, doesn’t it? Yet God Himself speaks of circumcision of the heart in the Jewish Scriptures. And strange as it may seem, it holds as deep a meaning for us today as it did when God first gave circumcision in Abraham’s time.

To understand circumcision of the heart, we first must look at the rite of circumcision of the flesh.

The record begins in the 12th and 15th chapters of Genesis. God made unconditional promises to Abraham that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the sky; that through his descendants all the nations would be blessed; that Abraham’s people would be given a great land to occupy and that all who blessed them would in turn be blessed.

Then, in the 17th chapter of Genesis, we read:

“This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised.

And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants.

A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.”
-Genesis 17:10-13

What is Circumcision All About?

The key here is that circumcision was to be a “sign of the covenant” that had already been given, with no strings attached, to Abraham.

The rite of circumcision was made a part of the Law of Moses several hundred years later when God gave instruction concerning the birth of a male: “And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised” (Leviticus 12:3).

This practice was continued generation after generation, but when the nation of Israel was forced to wander 40 years in the wilderness the rite of circumcision temporarily ceased.

Some authorities believe God demanded this generation die out because of their refusal to believe Him when He told them to enter the promised land (Numbers 14:32-35). And so a rejected generation no longer practiced circumcision.

The disobedient nation of Israel, roaming like lost sheep in the wilderness, were momentarily taken out of the covenant. They had refused to believe God’s promise when He told them to take the land, and now they were paying for their rebellion.…

Yet with God’s punishment comes God’s love, for when the 40 year journey was ending, the covenant—and all its blessings—returned.

As soon as the nation of Israel crossed the Jordan into the land of milk and honey the Lord God immediately gave a command to Joshua: “At that time the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Make for yourself flint knives and circumcise again the sons of Israel the second time.’ ” (Joshua 5:2.)

Now that they were in the land, back in the place of faith enjoying obedience and fellowship with God, the practice of circumcision was restored and the people of Israel were blessed by God.

Israel has always had a special place in the sight of God. He chose the nation to point the way to Himself and to spread His love among all the nations. Since circumcision was the sign of the covenant which involved this universal blessing, it had significance beyond its observance as a national rite.

Beyond the Physical

Practically, we can’t show the world we’ve been circumcised, but God’s covenant extends further than just the physical realm. A way has been provided in which our words and actions can show the nations God has touched us. We read His promise in Deuteronomy 30:6:

“Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.”

This type of circumcision, by definition a circumcision of the spirit and not the flesh, goes to the heart of a man, to his soul, his essence, his attitudes and relationship with God. Because this theme of an inner circumcision is so important, God repeats and stresses it, as in Deuteronomy 10:12-16:

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

And to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?

Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.

Yet on your fathers did the Lord set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day.

Circumcise then your heart, and stiffen your neck no more.”

The Inner Man/Woman

Over and over again God probes the inner man, the real person. His discerning eyes won’t allow us to hide behind social facades, adopted mannerisms or walls of materialism. Before God each man is seen just as he is. His innermost thoughts, thoughts he may wish to hide from the world, are exposed by the light of God.

God requires us to keep all His statutes and laws, and yet which one of us can possibly keep all of them all the days of our lives? The prophet writes:

“For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”
-Isaiah 64:6

On one hand God tells us to keep all His statutes. On the other the prophet recognizes the human condition: we all fall short of perfection and therefore cannot possibly keep all the Law all the time.

Yet, as we read in Deuteronomy 30:6, God does not expect us to circumcise our own hearts. He says He will do that. But how? And what does He expect from us? Let’s look at Leviticus 26:40-42:

“If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me—

I also was acting with hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies—or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make amends for their iniquity,

Then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land.”

Just Once a Year?

Ah, is that it? Must we confess our iniquity and rebellion against God? Fine, maybe we do this once a year at Yom Kippur. But, in addition to confession, our uncircumcised heart must become humble.

This appears to be a spiritual operation, but we sense within ourselves that we lack the divine power necessary to perform this—to change our own heart. Then we remember this is an operation God said He would perform.

But how?

King David knew the secret, for after he had sinned against God by taking Bathsheba, he pleaded, in Psalm 51:10-12:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Thy presence, and do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit.”

David said, “Do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me.” The Holy Spirit, the Ruach Ha’kodesh of the ages is the renewing force. It was the Holy Spirit of God which brought peace, comfort and joy to David. He knew what it was like to live both with and without God’s Spirit dwelling within him.

It’s this very Spirit which David called upon to create a clean heart within him—to renew him. In other words, it is the Holy Spirit of God which performs the circumcision of the heart.

From Abraham to David to you, the inner circumcision continues.

Today we have a promise from God, a promise He always keeps. He has promised for every person who places his trust in the Messiah, in the Anointed One of Israel, this Holy Spirit will indwell him and circumcise his heart, making it right with God.

At some point we all face God as uncircumcised, unrenewed searchers after truth. We stand as animated beings of flesh without God’s Spirit inside us. We seek our own truth and walk our own paths.

Perhaps you’ve searched and walked and questioned without finding the heart-changing, spiritual answers you’ve known are there but have never discovered.

You Can Do This Right Now . . .

Maybe now God is telling you that by placing your faith in Messiah Jesus His Spirit will circumcise your heart and refresh you today and forever.

As you confess Messiah Jesus as Lord and Savior, the One promised by the ancient prophets of Israel, the sacrificed Lamb of God, you too will be able to stand with other believers in Him and fully appreciate the words of Saul of Tarsus. Saul, an ancient scholar of Israel who became the apostle Paul, writes of an eternal circumcision of the heart:

“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Messiah.

For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form.

And in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Messiah.

Having been buried with Him in baptism (of the Spirit), in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.

Having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
-Colossians 2:8-9, 11-14 New Testament

We pray you, too, will seek, find and be refreshed by His Spirit.

Great Is Thy Faithfulness ~ Wes Hampton

Wes Hampton

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee,
Thou changest not, Thy compassion's, they fail not,
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be. 

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided,
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me! 

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love. 

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided,
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me! 

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside! 

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided,
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me! 

Written by . Dp, Chris Rice • Copyright © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

Men's Pain 😎

He Always Wanted to Be a King ~ Spring 2017~ A Season of Renewal

It was refreshing to sit out in my front porch rocker this morning, taking in the steady, cool rain.  Spring is just around the corner, as they say.   The dead-looking flowerbed will soon literally explode in greenery and bright colors.  The rain will be drawn into the plants, photosynthesis will soon work its created annual magic.  Buds on the lilacs and maples are pregnant with their expectations of waking from deep winter sleep to burst out new life.  I look forward to the first scent of those lilacs. This time of year, makes us excited, doesn't it?

Simultaneously, the christian calendar excitingly approaches the most significant time of the year. Not that Christmas looses it's significance in comparison, but Christ was literally born to die that I might have new life in His Resurrection!  He was sent to us, to die willingly for us.  Raised on victorious hymns, seemingly a thousand poignant verses and their sweet melodies come out to refresh my mind of the significance, value and thankfulness the Church has for what Christ did at Calvary. Now thousands of years ago, the story just doesn’t get old.

I recently listened to Ira Stanphill's "Crown of Thorns" over and over again.  Writing in 1952, Stanphill’s beautiful words highlight the ironies in the “upside-down kingdom” that Christ presided over, as paradoxically he surveys that kingdom from a cross.  

“A rugged cross became His throne; his kingdom was in hearts alone; He wrote his love in crimson red, and bore the thorns upon his head”.

I'm reminded that He's always wanted to be my king:

4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead[b] us, such as all the other nations have.”

6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him (Samuel): “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”

19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. 22 The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king. 

~ from 1 Samuel 8

What a heartbreaking Old Testament chapter.  God always wanted to be their king, but he was rejected by the very people he loved so much.  God allowed Israel to have their earthly king after they rejected him.  Perhaps this was the first time he faced so major of a rejection of his theocratic kingdom; - he cared for them and fought their battles, he deserved honorable-mention, but they just couldn't "see" him as their king.  So many of their neighbours had visible, brave, strong and handsome kings.  I guess that if you're trying to keep up and compete with the neighbours, and if he personally is not your King, it must have been very hard to desire him corporately as their nation's King.

Different bible figures viewed him differently.  Kingship was not his only attribute.  Isaiah "saw" him prophetically 750 years before his arrival in very great detail, but not always majestically (Isaiah 53).  He was accurately portrayed as the "suffering servant".  Before that, Moses "saw" him prophetically very much a king: 

"I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel." ~Num. 24:17

David certainly saw him majestically and very much a King. David and his Almighty King had much in common; they were both shepherds, both kings (with compassion I might add) and from the same family, same hometown. It seemed easy for David to identify with this king. 

In Revelation, Jesus says, “I am the Root and the Offspring of David.” That is, He is both the Creator of David and the Descendant of David.  David composed about Him, He sang about Him.  He worshiped and praised his King.  God identified David as "a man after His own heart".  David, wretched man that he was definitely "saw" Him.

It's a sad New Testament scene when God, rejected as Israel's king then sent his only Son to be their very special King. But through Jesus the Son, God's kingdom was again rejected by humanity and murdered on a cruel Roman cross.  Rising again and defeating Death itself,  the promised Messiah ascended from David's royal line to rule as King of a very different kingdom. "The kingdom of God is within you!" he proclaimed, because that was where he really reigned.  While earthly kingdoms all end, His is a coming everlasting kingdom!  To be clear; Not only will he reign in authority as our King, but also as our Judge.

I've been studying Matthew's rendering of the story of a King and His Kingdom. This king is very different from all the rest. He wins by serving, he triumphs by losing, the first is last and the last is first.  This king teaches that to be great, you must be the servant.  Faith propels this kingdom forward, while prayer unlocks its doors. Righteous, obedient living is in focus and brings great blessing.  His own Holy Spirit provides its subjects with great power; - and often in that order. Little wonder authors through the years refer to it as the "upside-down" Kingdom.  It's all backwards to our natural way of thinking.  In His Kingdom, service and humility trumps rivalry and climbing the corporate ladder.

This king welcomed the despised, ate with sinners, preached love for enemies, criticized prevailing religious practices, and was such a threat to both Jewish leaders and Roman rulers that he was tortured on a cross until he bled to death.

Last year I toured Stirling Castle in Scotland where King James V lived in the 1500's.  I learned first-hand of a king's privileged life. I was told of the lavish lifestyles, parties, feasts and high society and exclusivity that accompanies a King and his ultimate authority. Yet gracious King Jesus seeks out sinners, the sick and the lower classes of his society.  He "enslaves" them with righteousness, healing, goodness, kindness and fruits of His Indwelling Spirit!  

Because YOU are the thing that is most important to God, he loves your passion, and He can work with your pain, but your lukewarm heart makes you an acquaintance and not a friend! That's why in God's kingdom, HOT is best, COLD is OK, but lukewarm is repugnant to Him. He warns us in Revelation 3:16 that if we are LUKEWARM toward this King, he will vomit us out of his mouth!  He is indeed a very different and extraordinary King.

Matthew a tax collector and later an evangelist, paints this king well as he vividly gets right to the heart of the matter. He relates this tragic yet amazing story of how my sin was paid for by this loving king.  King Jesus was my Propitiation (Romans 3:25), my sin covering.  Twenty centuries later, my eyes water when I read of how much this king loved me. ...And that's all backwards too!  I have heard many "kingdom" stories, where subjects have died for their king, but how astonishing to learn of a kingdom where the king gives crowns to his subjects and even dies for them! 

Christian, this Easter season, appreciate anew all Christ our King has done for us through his death on the cross. He is our Soon Coming King.  Can you "see" Him?  Is He your King?   

~ St. Mark

Ira Stanphill’s words:

There was no crown for Him of silver or of gold 

There was no diadem for Him to hold. 

But blood adorned His brow, 

And proud its stain He bore, 

And sinners gave to Him the crown He wore. 

          CHORUS 

          A rugged cross became His throne 

          His kingdom was in hearts alone 

          He wrote His love in crimson red 

          And wore the thorns upon His head. 

He did not reign upon a throne of ivory 

But died upon the cross of Calvary. 

For sinners there He counted all He owned but loss 

And He surveyed His kingdom from a cross. 

No purple robe He wore, 

His bleeding wounds to hide 

But stripes upon His back He wore with pride. 

And from the wounds there flowed a crimson, 

cleansing stream 

That was a cover for the soul unclean 

~ Ira Stanphill

Why I Would Never Force my Kids to go to Church ~ RUTH MEYER

My parents forced me to eat three times a day growing up.  No joke.  Three times.  Every.  Single.  Day.  And it wasn’t always stuff I liked, either.  Matter of fact, I complained a lot about what my mom made.  “Ewww, gross!  Sauteed zucchini?  Seriously?  Mom, you know we hate this stuff!”  So as I approached adulthood I made an important decision.  Since my parents forced me to eat while I was growing up, I decided I was done with meals.  Oh, here and there I’ll eat out of obligation.  I mean, family traditions like Thanksgiving and Christmas, yeah, I’m there.  But daily eating?  No way.  I’m done.

Set in any other context, excuses people make for not going to church sound completely ridiculous.  But set in the context of Christianity, people say these things in all seriousness while others nod sagely in somber agreement.

My son told me a few weeks into school that he didn’t like the teacher.  He wasn’t getting excited enough about learning, and he didn’t really feel connected to the other kids in his class, so I told him he never had to go back to school again.  Who wants to waste their time going somewhere where they aren’t being fulfilled?

We’ve never forced our daughter to stay off the road when playing.  We don’t want to restrict her imagination.  We allow her the freedom to make her own choices in life.

Okay, Ruth.  Come on.  That one was just ridiculous.  No loving parent would ever say that.  That’s a safety issue- a matter of life and death.  Exactly.  And that’s just my point.

Church isn’t a place you go to get pumped up about life.  It isn’t entertainment like a movie or concert.  It is literally a life and death matter.  Eternal life.  Just as a loving parent wouldn’t allow their child to wander in the road or to quit school, a loving Christian parent also does not give the option to their children about going to church, learning Bible stories at home, and praying together.  Do your kids always jump for joy when they hear you say, “Time to get up!  Let’s get ready for church!”  No.  They won’t.  Do they get excited for school every morning?  Hardly.  But you still make them go.  Why?  Because you are the parent and you know what’s best.  Even when they complain, you serve them healthful meals and limit their junk food intake.  You set boundaries for their own safety when playing outside.  You insist they go to school because you’re looking at the long term picture.  And you are right to do those things.  How much more so are you responsible for doing all you can to secure their eternal well being?

Yes, kids can be brought up in a loving Christian home and still turn away later.  That’s on them.  But you, parents, have a task of the utmost importance.  God has placed these precious children into your homes for such a brief while.  You have them with you for perhaps 1/5 of their lives.  Set a strong foundation while they are under your roof.  Take them to church.  Make sure they understand that they are sinners and that Jesus is their Savior.  They are never too young to learn this.  My one-and-a-half year old sees a cross and excitedly shouts, “Jesus!”  Don’t use the excuse that “they wouldn’t understand this.”  Try them.  I don’t understand it all myself, but I still believe.  And you’d better believe that the Holy Spirit works in their hearts effectively.  My children sometime amaze me with the insights they pick up during devotions or Bible readings.  The strength of their faith often humbles me.  Once when I was having a terrible day, my oldest asked, “Can I pray with you?”  He was nine at the time.  He knows there is power in prayer.  He perceives that sometimes there’s nothing he can say that will make it better, so he’ll just go straight to the One who does have that power.  Do my own kids complain about church?  Yes.  Do they tell me it’s boring?  Sometimes, yes.  They say the same things about school.  But church and school are different environments for a reason.  School is centered around learning and thus has its own schedule and structure.  Church is a hospital for sinners.  That would be all of us, mind you.  You, me, the drug dealer a few streets away- all of us are sinners in need of a Savior.  So what do we do at church?  We confess our sins.  Why do we do this at the start?  To “wipe our feet” before entering God’s house, so to speak.  Then we are assured of forgiveness.  We hear God’s Word.  We sing hymns proclaiming what Christ has done for us.  We hear sermons where our pastors preach Christ.  We don’t go to church to hear what we have to do to gain heaven.  No, Christ did it all.  100%.  We can’t do one thing to merit salvation for ourselves.  That’s why we hear sermons about Jesus and not about us. We take the body and blood of Jesus in Holy Communion for the strength of our souls.  And we depart refreshed to serve God by serving our families, friends, and neighbors in Christian love.

So parents, don’t give in to outside pressures telling you not to force your kids to go to church.  Don’t give in to them, either, when they complain about it.  Because at some point an amazing thing happens- that kid who complains about church grows up and takes his or her own kids to church every Sunday.  Going back to my opening analogy, believe it or not, there came a point in my own life where I realized I actually liked sauteed zucchini (although I never would have admitted that to my mother).  Keep at it, parents.  Just as we need three meals a day for physical strength and nourishment, so do we need regular worship to refresh and strengthen our souls.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make breakfast.

To God Be The Glory ~ Royal Albert Hall Choir, London, England

...Oh come to the Father through Jesus the Son!

To God Be The Glory ~ Fanny J. Crosby

1. To God be the glory, great things he hath done! So loved he the world that he gave us his Son, who yielded his life an atonement for sin, and opened the lifegate that all may go in. Refrain: Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice! O come to the Father thru Jesus the Son, and give him the glory, great things he hath done! 2. O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood, to every believer the promise of God; the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives. (Refrain) 3. Great things he hath taught us, great things he hath done, and great our rejoicing thru Jesus the Son; but purer, and higher, and greater will be our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see. (Refrain)

Political Islam Explained ~ Bill Warner

Political Islam Part 1 ~ Bill Warner

Political Islam Part 2 ~ Bill Warner

Love and Action ~ 1 John 3:18

Switching to a Better Partner

By Terrell Harris Dougan

First I was married to a man who was totally wrong for me. He hid behind the newspaper for hours and ignored me when I tried to talk to him. He was an absent father to his two adorable daughters. He hated anything to do with household chores or gardening, so it all fell to me. I became bitter and resentful and felt very sorry for myself. On Valentine’s Day, as other wives got flowers, I got zippo.

Now I am married to a man who loves me to my toes, who brings me his special homemade latte in bed every morning along with the paper, who takes his turn doing the dishes or cooking when we’re home, and when he sees a certain look on my face that says the kitchen is closed, suggests we go out to dinner and a movie. He could not be more wonderful. Oh yes, p.s. I get fresh flowers every couple of weeks.

Oddly enough, it’s the same man.

We married each other before our brains were fully formed. He was twenty-one, I barely twenty. On our dates, he was attentive and fun. We liked the same things: movies and great food in fun restaurants. After he graduated, we wanted the security of each other, so without giving ourselves a minute and thinking it through, and without my even being pregnant (without even having sex yet - imagine that), we committed to each other for life. We had no idea how different we really were and what we wanted from each other.

I wanted passion, and play, and romance, and I wanted him to bring me flowers, like in the movies. He wanted to get the bills paid and to make sure our life insurance policies were the best ones. I made picnics for us to share by babbling brooks; he wanted to stay home and discuss tax-free municipal bonds with his broker. It felt as if I was fifteen and he was sixty. But that was just the beginning of the surprises to come.

I assumed our marriage would look like my parents’ marriage, in which, on weekends, my hard-working father mowed the lawn and planted flowers while my mother made him a fluffy coconut cake. We get these pictures in our minds, especially when we’re young and dumb. On the first warm weekend in spring, I started assembling the ingredients for coconut cake.

It was then he appeared with his golf clubs just long enough to say goodbye and good luck, and that was the program all summer. When it was wintertime, the time my father spent in the basement in his workroom repairing things, my husband grabbed his skis and left. It was a total surprise to him that I expected him to shovel the walks, as he informed me then that his mother had always done that job.

Over the next few years I had two baby girls, and we were abandoned almost every weekend. This made me very cranky, lonely, and desperate for another partner who realized I was alive and who cared about us and who could actually be there for his little girls.

I went to a psychiatrist and told her I wanted to run away. I told her all the reasons why I could not stay married to this man.

She asked if maybe she could meet this dreadful person and see if we could change him or if I should just run away. She said she had helped several women get out of marriages to truly psychotic, abusive husbands, and she’d be delighted to help me too. “But just to get a reality check on the situation, would you ask him to come to me for one hour?” she asked.

To my surprise, he agreed to go.

“Well,” she said, when it was my turn again, “I have to tell you that a lot of very inadequate men have come through this door and sat in this chair over the years. Your husband is not one of them. Frankly, he is a very mentally healthy man, and a peach of a guy. I think perhaps,” she said, looking hard at me over her glasses, “we should work with you.” He had obviously fooled her.

On the off chance that I could learn something, I decided to give her one more chance to see things my way.

She had work in store for me. “I want you to catch him doing something right, will you, please? Any little thing. And thank him like you mean it.”

Since he was in town all week, I noticed that he helped me clear the dishes, which he’d done every night he was home, but I had just taken it for granted. “Thank you for doing this,” I said to him. “It’s a big help.” He looked startled.

The next night he took us all out to dinner.

I thanked him for bringing in the mail. I thanked him for taking the girls for a walk. Catching him doing something right had a peculiar effect on him. Now and then he actually did the dishes. The things we discussed had changed, too. Instead of whining to him about all the repairs he was neglecting, I told him the good news of the day and he stopped ignoring me. After several months of visits to the shrink, she told me I was doing a good job of changing my husband. Finally, it dawned on my razor-sharp mind that I was changing me. It’s a rule we all know but forget so often: catch someone doing something right, thank the hell out of them, and you will have them in the palm of your hand.

“You’ve done a lot of work and I congratulate you,” said the shrink. “Now it’s his turn. You’ve earned it.”

He agreed to go again. “Do you want to stay married to this woman?” she asked him.

“Well, of course,” he said, glancing at his watch.

“Then we need to discuss your family trips. Your vacations center around skiing or golf, things you love.”

“That’s right,” he smiled.

“Your wife hates skiing. Your wife hates golf. She is a swimmer. She wants to go to the beach. She and the children want to swim with the fish, and run on the beach. You have never, in the fourteen years of your marriage, ever gone to the beach. Every time they suggest it, you refuse.”

“Well, that’s easy. I don’t like beaches. All that sand. And I hate to swim. I’m not a good swimmer.” He glanced at his watch again.

“Okay. Then let’s go back to the first question.”

He stared at her. “Well of course I want to stay married to this woman.”

“Look at me, not your watch, you stubborn bastard!” she shouted at him. “Try to grasp this concept! Your marriage is at stake! Beach. Warm water. Fish. Scuba. Snorkel. Make some reservations. Now. Or shall I just go ahead and call the lawyers?”

He staggered out of her office a newly terrified man.

That afternoon, he made reservations for a Hawaiian vacation for four. We had the time of our lives. He learned to scuba dive with me, and he is the one who has to pull my fin when it’s time to go up, as I could live down there and finally run out of oxygen. Perhaps our shrink, listening to my childish romantic fantasies, realized that what I need is a responsible guy to keep me from floating away completely, and what he needed was a romantic butterfly to get his head out of his income taxes and have some new adventures.

I don’t know if our marriage will make it yet, but we’re coming right onto fifty-two years, and we agree that around forty of them have been wonderful. He still loves his golf, and when he’s skiing, our two daughters and four granddaughters race right past him.

“Remember, the hard work of staying together is an investment,” the shrink had said. “It doesn’t take much to catch your partner doing something right and thanking him. If you can do it, you’ll discover the joy of sharing the same grandchildren.” Was she ever right.

Oh, yes. About the flowers. Of course he still doesn’t buy them. I decided to grow up and buy them for myself when I go to the grocery store. I always pull out a few and put them in a bud vase on my husband’s desk.

I have come to realize what is a really sexy sight: an earnest, responsible man paying his bills and paying his taxes. I have taught him the joy of underwater life. He has taught me the sexiness of tax free municipal bonds. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. I’ll take it in a heartbeat.

Below, a photo of Terrell and her husband on the French Riviera.

Terrell Harris Dougan