Dipping Into Marital Grace

I tried to find a picture of a couple painting a room together - because that is on our agenda for the day. I had a number of problems. All the pictures I found were of young couples - not couples who had been married more than a decade. And most of the couples appeared to be in that wonderful honeymoon period.

Nobody looked grumpy about the task at hand.

Nobody wanted to put down the brush and just walk off to calm down and cool off.

We are not young - and we are definitely not in the honeymoon phase. And, we have never painted together. Oh, we each have painted rooms - on our own. But we realized that our age has made teamwork necessary. I can do the trim all around the baseboard, and only have to get up and down once.

John can do the trim at the ceiling (he's great at cutting in), because he can move up and down the ladder better than doing floor work.

Oh, we'll both be sore tomorrow. No doubt about that. But the most important thing is that we don't let the frustration of the task get to us. Sometimes, that means you have to ask in order to receive. So, I'm asking for that sacramental grace we are promised, the grace that is ours as a husband and wife because we are married sacramentally. Grace that is more powerful than any silly emotion. Grace that can take a couple from the honeymoon period into the vastness of all the rest of life. The days when the car breaks down and you can't afford a new one. The days when a child is sick or an older daughter is pregnant and unmarried. The days when a couple must join forces to paint a bedroom.

Every sacrament is sacred and holy. Every sacrament is a source of grace.

And today, we need marital grace.