The Sorry Chair
Theme of the Week: Kiss and Make Up
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
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Key Bible Verse: Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry (Ephesians 4:26). Bonus Reading:Colossians 3:12-13
In the cheese country of southern Wisconsin lies a tourist attraction called "Little Norway." It's a farm settled by Norwegian immigrants over 100 years ago. A tour guide took us around the buildings.
She walked us up one flight to the master bedroom of the main log farmhouse. Near the marriage bed stood an unusual piece of furniture, which our guide referred to as "the sorry chair." It was a small, low seat of hardwood set in the corner. We noticed that it was just barely big enough for two people to squeeze a portion of their posteriors onto.
Our guide explained the custom. If the husband and wife ever went to their bedroom angry at each other, they had to sit together on that uncomfortable chair until they both said, "I'm sorry." Until that healing gesture, they couldn't go to bed.
These Norwegians took seriously that biblical principle of not letting the sun go down on their "wrath" (to put it in King James English). They literally built into the furniture of their home a principle that would keep them communicating with each other. It would be physically uncomfortable to stay emotionally alienated for long.
—Dennis & Ruth Gibson in The Sandwich Years
My Response: A time when I needed to sit in the sorry chair was …
Thought to Apply: The Puritans called marriage "the little church within the church." … every day … It is an ongoing sacrament
—love and forgiveness. —Bill Moyers
Adapted from Growing a Spiritually Strong Family (Multnomah, 2002) by permission.
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Lord, when we are wrong make us willing to change, and when we are right, make us easy to live with. —Peter Marshall
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