In the first year of my marriage, a friend encouraged me to interview my wife about the effect I had on her each day. Truth be told, I thought it would be an easy interview. After all, we were generally happy — but then shortly into the interview, her tears started flowing.
One day, I was standing in the kitchen at my mom’s house, and for the first time, it occurred to me that my favorite music was the sound of tinkering high notes on a piano. So I rhetorically asked my mom, “Do you know what my absolute favorite music is?”
In my first year of marriage, my wife and I got into a disagreement while visiting someone else’s home. We went to the guest room to hash it out privately—but we had no idea how badly we were about to embarrass ourselves.
The other day, I was backing up in a parking lot and saw a woman walking in the direction of my car. I kept going, figuring she would stop, but she didn’t. In fact, she gave me the stinky face in my rearview mirror as I put on my brakes and waited for her to pass.
Last Friday, I looked over at the TV and saw the trailer for Jurassic World, and it brought back an unexpected, bittersweet memory. It was 1993; the original Jurassic Park was showing in theaters; I was in ninth grade; and my parents had just split up.
The other day, my wife and I got into an argument over whether we needed to buy a bike. And although we recognize that this is not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, somehow it escalated to the point that we were both starting to raise our voices. But then my wife suddenly looked out the window behind me and said, “Oh my gosh.” I couldn’t help but look.
I’ve been leading worship at my church since 2007, and let me tell you something: I’m still not quite used to it.
Right now, the city of Baltimore is littered with damage from rioters who, for whatever reason, thought violence was an appropriate way to protest the death of a man in police custody. At the same time, people are littering their Facebook and Twitter news feed with commentary about it. Some of the statements are more thoughtful, some are less thoughtful, but all of them potentially come with a price.
Recently, I was headed down Connecticut Avenue in the morning while it was still dark. There are several pedestrian crosswalks on that street that nobody uses at 5:20 a.m., so I was understandably surprised when I saw an old man standing in the middle of the street waving at me and yelling.
A few months ago, I had to rent a car for a month. Unfortunately for me, it smelled like cigarette smoke, but it was the only one they had available, so I was stuck with it for 30 long, stinky days. As one who hates the smell of cigarette smoke, it was exceptionally unpleasant.
There’s nothing like trying to get on a loaded city bus when there’s a mob of people waiting at the bus stop. When that happens, everybody just crams into the bus and surrenders their personal space – well, most people do.
A few years ago when I got on Facebook, there was no such thing as a “like” button (can you imagine it?). You just posted status updates, photos, or links to articles, and the only way you knew whether people approved was if they commented on it. Then the like button came along at some point and changed everything. Now there was an instant measure of success for every insecure human being on Facebook.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve got this funky habit that has created more awkward moments than I care to admit.
Before I got married, I drove however fast I wanted and took whatever route I wanted. Granted, on my way to wherever I was going, I also had a knack for running late because of my propensity to get lost. And although I hate to admit it, even now my inner compass doesn’t function like the other people out there who have an unexplainable good sense of direction. One of those other people is my wife, and it wasn’t long into our relationship before she figured out that when it came to finding our way around unfamiliar areas, she and…
In 2007, my fiancé and I almost left the church I had been a part of for two years. I was happy there, but we had just gotten engaged, and we figured we might be better off if we just started over at a new church. In retrospect, we weren’t very thoughtful about the whole thing at all – actually, we were pretty much just feeling our way through the decision, which is what I think a lot of people do when they leave churches, and naturally so. Emotions are oftentimes the clearest things in our minds when we’re making these decisions.
Joshua Rogers 