Sunday, April 12, 2009

What To Say?

I need you all praying.

I have a woman here at my house to ask me what I think about her marrying a man from another culture. I am not too excited about the idea, and the more I listen to details, the less I think it is a good idea. But how to say that?

Pray for me. I'm going to take her out for breakfast tomorrow and be as honest as I know how to be gently. It will be her choice and her responsibility, but I need to be able to honestly share with her what I see.

Pray. I don't like to hurt people. I'd like to say only good things, positive things that make people happy. I like making people happy. Tomorrow's talk likely won't make her happy. But I need to be able to do it.

Thanks.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

My 2cents - usually when people come to you with this kind of question, they already know what they are going to do, honestly they are just looking for confirmation. What we say or don't say is almost irrelevant. So, I would look at it more from a perspective of - is he a Christian, is he an honorable man, will he be a good husband? It just doesn't matter what culture he comes from - the others are what are important.

Unknown said...

Truth spoken in Love...

praying my friend...

Alan & Beth McManus said...

How did it go? I've been praying you through it this morning. I've been praying that you will be able to be brutally honest yet loving at the same time. Cross-cultural marriage is HARD. Even if she goes ahead with it, she needs to have been told what to expect from the beginning (whether she listens or not).

Rebecca Conduff Aguirre said...

Rats. I didn't see this yesterday...am praying for you today anyway...I agree, marriage is hard and to throw in the culture issues definitely ups the ante. She does need to know that there are issues to consider, whether or not she believes at this point that they would be affected by their cultural differences.

And yes, this is a hard one...I'm with you on that! I don't like to tell people anything negative either. :( That's really hard to do...

Ellie said...

I think is went ok. I hope so. I told her my life as it is, honestly and brutally about some things we face. I also told her that if she choses to marry, I want to be there for her. But I was honest about what it is like with concrete examples. So, we'll see.

Thanks for praying. I think it went as well as it could. I didn't discuss her choice or her life much, but shared our story... the reality behind the outside which people see. It is very tough at times, and very painful. I wish I had been more prepared. People prepared us on things that were not the big issues, and I wish I had known what the big things would have been.

Thanks for praying. It went as well as it could, I think.

Karis said...

I'm here after the fact so I'm glad to hear that you have positive things to say about how it went. I am so like you in that I don't want to say something that would make someone feel badly or unhappy but you are so right in that it often has to be done -- in love of course and because of love.