Tags
bad women, communication, encouragement, Eugene O'Neill, good women, marriage, reading, relationships
While dusting my husbands library, I happened upon three beautiful hardbound volumes of plays by Eugene O’Neill. I picked one and began reading. It was as if I’d stumbled upon a plate of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting; I was completely taken in by O’Neill’s descriptive playwriting style. And although his plays portray sad, stark realism, I felt so hopeful and encouraged after reading (and hungry for more). So, while I was working away on one of our rental units I read Beyond the Horizon: on my lunch break and before I went to bed. It’s about the gradual decay of a successful family of farmers, and how one impulsive decision ruined the entire clan. I almost stopped reading it, because the girl Ruth (who is nothing like the Ruth in Scripture), drove me CRAZY. At first she seemed like a good sort of girl – energetic and handsome, but she also had an “underlying, stubborn fixity of purpose,” and ended up destroying the Mayo family in one fell swoop. As I read I realized, yet again, how important a woman’s words and actions are to her partner. A good woman can help her husband out of difficulty by bringing hope and encouragement to their lives. While a self-centered woman has the ability to suck all hope out of her mate until he succumbs to depression and utter ruin. After I finished reading Beyond the Horizon I wept bitterly. While I vacuumed I wept, while I painted walls I wept…a cord was struck in me. It was all so tragic. I found I couldn’t stop weeping really, until I told the entire story to my husband. As we discussed why it made me so sad, we walked down dark and foggy avenues in my mind and then suddenly, I felt better. In the end, O’Neill’s story filled me with a renewed desire to work harder and to be more encouraging to people – especially my husband, because I find my words have as much power as my actions on him.
I am so grateful to have a partner who loves to communicate. He not only listens, he helps me to remember what’s important and to let go of what’s past. I never want to take that for granted.