Day 4: The Benefit of Our Uniqueness

by Carlos Santiago

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.—Ephesians 2:10

I was jealous of my wife’s ability to calm our infant daughter down. Our little girl could be in the middle of the worst crying fit imaginable, but as soon as my wife picked her up, the crying stopped.

I, on the other hand, seemed to have to the opposite effect. I would be handed a quiet, happy baby only to be forced to hand her back a few moments later as she started crying. Every time it happened, I felt like a failure.

I know I’m not as soft as my wife. I know that within a few hours of shaving, my face takes on the smoothness of 40-grit sandpaper. But still … I’m her dad. Why was her mother the only one who could soothe her?

I would make sure she was dry, fed, burped, and warm, but it wouldn’t matter. Her mom seemed to have a magic touch that I couldn’t find. It made me wonder if I should let her handle the parenting, while I focused on the things I knew I could do right, like work.

One day, after trying everything I could think of to stop the crying, I put our beautiful, screaming daughter down in her crib. Frustrated, I decided to drown out her screams with the vacuum cleaner. That’s when an amazing thing happened. As soon as I turned on the vacuum cleaner, she stopped crying.

It didn’t make any sense. If I turned the vacuum off, she cried. When I turned it on, she stopped.

I experimented to see if I could reproduce the effects with other sounds. I brought the hand-held vacuum, hair dryer, and even the blender into her room. I tried them all one by one. Eventually, I discovered I could stop her crying with a low-sustained hum of just the right frequency. It was like magic.

In the weeks that followed, I relished my newfound parenting ability. I could finally bond with my daughter!

Then it happened. My wife was having problems calming our daughter down. I walked over to the two of them and whispered a steady low “G” note into our daughter’s ear. Voila! Silence.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

She looked at me like I was crazy as I explained my experiment, but she couldn’t deny the results.

Over the years, my wife and I realized we look at the world very differently. Often, these differences can be a source of frustration. Especially when one of us tries to make the other do things the “right way.”  But most of the time, there is no one right way. If we insist on uniformity, we miss the benefits of our uniqueness.

God made us different for a reason. My wife’s family is huge; mine is small. She’s comfortable in large crowds; I’d rather be alone. She makes meal plans for the week; I make plans for retirement. She’s a blunt communicator; I read between the lines. We have different personalities, upbringings, strengths, and weaknesses.

Her way is not wrong, and neither is mine. We’re just different. Sometimes the problem requires a strategic thinker, but sometimes someone just needs to remember to put gas in the car.

A successful marriage needs both perspectives. By giving each other the freedom to be who we are, we not only honor each other, we honor the God who made us this way.

Our daughter is in college now. The problems she faces can no longer be solved with a diaper change or a bottle. Oh, how I wish they could. Life is much more complicated now—the consequences much more severe.

But thankfully, she has a team of parents on her side, with different ways of looking at problems.

Sometimes she needs her mother’s touch. But sometimes, she just needs to hear my voice whispering in her ear to know everything is going to be alright.

What’s Your Story?

1. What is one area or characteristic in which you and your spouse are different?
2. How can you begin to view these differences as strengths that add to your marriage relationship?
3. Will you accept your marital challenges as gifts, used by God, to help change you into the likeness of Jesus?

Pray Together:

Thank God for the unique way He created your spouse: their different perspective, strengths and weaknesses, and personality. Ask for His help in seeing your differences as gifts to your marriage. Pray He would continue to unite you and your spouse as a team.