Maybe we're Oil and Vinegar but we make great Italian Dressing

I spoke with a woman named Ann for over thirty minutes last week. A business call unrelated to my writing or speaking career but God opened the door to share about both. Before the receivers rested on their base I shared about my upcoming speaking engagement (this past Thursday, 12/1 – see 12/2 post to read more about this or listen to the audio). I told her to Google my name and she would find my website and blog.

Just before we disconnected something in our conversation made me say “My husband and I are like oil and vinegar but thankfully the Lord blessed us with a great Italian dressing of a daughter.” I could hear Ann’s smile as if it were the same one stretching across my face. This blog is dedicated to Ann for her inspiration and to all the married couples out there that wonder “Why?” when they might be so different.

I’m not sure who is the oil or who is the vinegar in our relationship but my husband and I are very much different while also quite similar in the heart. I spied my husband for the first time when I was just fifteen years old, if that, while he played backyard football with the other boys in the neighborhood. I “loved” him which of course we all know is merely infatuation at this young age but still, he was all that and a bag of chips. He was eighteen or nineteen, newly graduated from high school and waiting to leave for Marine Corp. boot camp. Hurrah!

We “dated”. Of course in the mid-eighties this meant we went to the movies or beach together along with at least one other couple, if not two car loads. He was in love with basketball and hanging out with his friends before he left and I was a selfish teenager with the big googly eyes with the cartoon hearts lifting to the heavens like a cartoon. Needless to say this did not last due to our age difference, my immaturity, and the fact he was four years older leaving for boot camp was parental motivation to move on.

Fast forward to when I am nineteen, going to college full-time and spending as much time partying as I did studying. My friend Yvonne calls me and says, “Eddie is going to Dessert Storm!” I cried my eyes out over this arrogant, basketball playing, jock for the rest of the afternoon. My only response to her was, “But I’m going to marry him?” Whoa, where did that come from? Long story short – by the time I worked up the nerve to call him, he had been deployed. I sat down and wrote him. He needed to know I loved him and planned to marry him.

Can you imagine being overseas, serving our country when you open a letter from the googly-eyed girl of four years prior? As you can predict, the connection began. We started writing back and forth so by the time he arrived safely back to the states, I fell in love with him all over again. We are still very different in mannerisms and drive yet this balances itself out. My Ed has the potential to make me laugh so hard my cheeks hurt. He knows how I am without asking and puts up with me and my OCD tendencies well because he is so relaxed, it just doesn’t bother him. Quite the mix – we make a great Italian dressing of a team with the proof in our daughter. The best and most challenging portions of us rolled into one spunky, driven, fun-loving, and driven bottle of Italian dressing we call, daughter.

I don’t know if you and your husband are “oil and vinegar”, “salt and pepper”, or “night and day” but know this God brought you together for a purpose. We complement each other and when we work together we can produce a beautiful harvest of blessing and positive things. It may not always be Italian dressing in our relationship but thankfully we are made new and refilled with God’s Word daily to replenish our supply to try again tomorrow. I pray you’ll keep mixing and measuring until you get it right or write down the recipe that leaves other’s mouths watering for what you have.

Proverbs 16:11
Honest scales and balances belong to the LORD;
all the weights in the bag are of his making.