Week 69: Grilled Salami Sandwich with Cream Cheese
Where is your focus?
Each Sunday, my wife and I cook and eat a meal together — intentionally. Every Friday, I’ll be sharing our experience here in this space. I want to see the growth that will come in our marriage because of this. I hope you enjoy our story. You can find last week’s post here.
Married couples fight. It happens. Part of the beauty of two people joining together in matrimony is the messiness of merging two lives. But we reaffirm that choice anew everyday. Being married has taught me so much about myself, about love, about life.
On this particular Sunday, Sarah and I had a fight. I’ve written about this before in Cooking With Sarah, and I think I’m beginning to notice an interesting phenomenon.
When I go to write about our cooking adventure, quite honestly, I have a hard time remembering what it is we were fighting about. But in the moment it just seems so important. That I make my point. That I defend myself. Walls going up and being torn down. I get laser-focused on one issue and blow it out of proportion.
Then, after some time distance, I realize it wasn’t all that important to begin with.
I honestly can’t tell you what we fought about. I do remember thinking afterwards, “Oh boy, now I’m going to have to write about this.” But other than that, I have no recollection of it whatsoever.
What I do remember, however, are the aspects of cooking together that have become staples of our Sundays. Searching for a recipe, deciding together, working in the kitchen together and, finally, eating together. It’s the togetherness. And that’s something that a fight can’t touch.
Sarah spread our cream cheese mixture on the bread as I pulled the salami out of the fridge. I never ate salami much growing up, so I was looking forward to trying it again.
As we placed the sandwiches on the griddle, they sizzled to life. The melting cream cheese stood tantalizingly on the edge of the bread. While Sarah finished cooking them, I sliced up some carrots for our side dish. Carrots and dip was one of my favorite snacks as a kid, so that evened out my previous aversion to salami.
Whatever aversion had still lingered was long gone when I bit into my sandwich! It tasted so good, especially knowing I was trying something new alongside my wife. I could choose to focus on the earlier fight, or I could choose to focus on the tasty sandwich creation we made together.
And that’s the encouragement I want to leave with you today: you can choose what you focus on. When I am fighting with my wife, I am laser-focused on one thing I don’t like. Afterwards I usually find that thing ended up being a poor focal point. But it seems so important during the fight.
As I write this, there are negative thoughts trying to steal my focus. Instead I am going able to focus on the weekend ahead of me and the time I will spend with my wife.
We choose what we focus on. I challenge you to make your choices wisely.
