REGULAR MAINTENANCE

This is another piece from Steve Goodier that I would like to share with u guys.It is called Regular Maintenance


A Kansas cyclone hit a farmhouse just before dawn one morning. It
lifted the roof off, picked up the beds on which a farmer and his
wife slept, and set them down gently in the next county.

The wife began to cry.

"Don't be scared, Mary," her husband comforted. "We're not hurt."

Mary continued to cry. "I'm not scared," she responded between
sobs. "I'm happy...'cause this is the first time in 14 years
we've been out together."

I find that little things, such as too little time and attention,
will hurt an intimate relationship (marriage, parent-child, or
close friendships) more than anything else. We can usually get
through the times of crisis; it's neglect that often destroys
closeness and intimacy.

In his book THE ROMANCE FACTOR, Alan Loy McGinnis says the longer
we postpone maintenance, the faster the rate of deterioration. He

writes this: "I see that principle operating in families every
day. Many couples who have come to my office with their marriages
in shreds did not start fighting about unsolvable problems. Their
marriages were not suffering from major malfunctions, but merely
from a series of small deteriorations that a little adjusting and
tightening could have corrected. But people had lost interest and
had turned their attention to other things: children; careers;
tennis; decorating their homes."

I don't know of anything of value that does not require time,
attention and lots of maintenance! In one week's time I once
worked on two plumbing problems at home, caulked bathroom tile,
replaced a heating element on the dryer and another on the stove.
At he same time my car needed two new tires, windshield wipers, a
battery, new brakes and a starter motor.

But everything of value requires maintenance. And I am in trouble
when my home or automobile receives more attention than my
closest relationships. Even if a marriage is made in heaven, the
maintenance must be done on earth.

Mother Teresa said, "The hunger for love is much more
difficult to remove than the hunger for bread." Lack of regular
maintenance will turn your valuable relationship from an ideal
into an ordeal. But daily maintenance -- spending enough time,
listening and touching, laughing and caring -- will keep you
close. And isn't that what you're hungering for?

© 2001 Steve Goodier