SO you have made mistakes in your marriage, don’t worry!  You are not the only one.
Many of us have done so in the past.  But many do not realise that there are intelligent ways as well as stupid ways of confronting mistakes in life.
The smart approach is to recognise that it is not so much the mistakes you have made that matter.
It is what you do with those mistakes which really counts in marriage, at work, in a career, or when dealing with others in life.
You can duck and dodge, mope and give up trying to eliminate the mistakes, or you can use your head and profit from your own errors and those of others.
You profit by facing mistakes squarely
Do not take mistakes lightly, or rationalise and say I am not the only one who makes mistakes.  That way you loose.
You profit, however, if you intelligently face your mistakes, and accept responsibility.
You can rationalise yourself into a rut of mediocrity or even into an asylum.  You can move yourself out of a job or out of promotion.  There is a study of why thousands are fired from employment.
Many are discharged for sheer carelessness, many for simple failure to cooperate, more for plain unadulterated laziness, than lack of specific skill on the job.
And yet it is safe to say that every one of these thousands of failures had an opportunity to face up to his or her mistakes but decided not to.
You profit if you don’t let mistakes get you down
The strong men and women bounce back after making mistakes.  They had the courage to try to avoid repetition of errors and a desire to improve.
The weaklings make mistakes and don’t bounce back.  They develop fear of trying again and having to make good.
They wallow in regrets of past errors.  Self-pity is a spoiler.  Remorse is a saboteur that can hold you back on any job and in any walk of life including marriage.
Thomas Edison made countless mistakes in his laboratories.  Abraham Lincoln failed in many ventures.
The notable inventor Charles F. Kettering would be the last to claim he never made a mistake.
But all of these and countless others in more obscure places had one thing in common – they didn’t let their mistakes get them down.  They recognised that courage has magic in it, and they bounced back after failure and tried again – and they won.
You profit if you learn how to take criticism.
The first and almost instinctive reaction to criticism is resentment.  Your feelings are hurt!
Your ego seems to be under attack, and an insult on your ego is like a small attack on your life.
Many of us resent even our own self-critical thoughts and dismiss them quickly.
The multitude resent criticism coming from others and sets up face-serving defenses.
But the smart, fully mature men or women determine to profit from criticism and learn how to take it intelligently.
Many times criticisms are given with a sincere desire to help.  Anyone interested in self-advancement should listen to criticism; either means or honestly offered, with this in mind: the true criticism may be, the more it may hurt.
Unjust criticism can be rather easily brushed to one side, but if it really stings, the intelligent approach is to seek out the elements of truth that may be involved and take steps to avoid any possible repetition of the same mistake.
There is nothing fundamentally new here.
It has all been said before and in fewer words by an ancient and wise king named Solomon: “Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you” (Proverbs 9:8).
You profit most by learning from your own mistakes and those of others.
Learning from the mistakes is a neat trick that you can acquire if you want to.
It is a neat trick because actually we don’t necessarily learn much by the so-called experience.
That may seem a challenging statement and it is.  But it is a statement that can be proved easily.
A nurse with twenty-five years of experience is not necessarily a better nurse than the one with ten years of experience.
It all depends on how alert the individual is, how selective she is in piling up her experiences.
Unless we learn how to ferret out our mistakes and learn from them, all too many of us may practice our mistakes as diligently as we practice our successes.
It is said that John D Rockefeller was a master at analysing his mistakes as well as his successes.
Each night Rockefeller set aside ten minutes during which he reviewed and analysed what he had done during the day.
He was critical of all of his actions and judgments and studied them carefully to sort out the mistakes when they occurred, to analyse them and to learn from them.
In this way, Rockefeller was using a “scientific” approach to benefit from his mistakes.  Are you critical of your own mistakes on the daily basis?
You learn by taking courage from the fact that others, even the famous, make mistakes too
There is a certain measure of comfort for all of us in knowing that there is no man or woman who hasn’t made mistakes.
I believe it was this which prompted the humorist Mark Twain to point out that ‘man is the only animal who blushes – or need to’.
There is rarely a biography or autobiography of great men and women that doesn’t reveal painful and sometimes costly mistakes.  Many mistakes are hidden, but many are broadcast to the world.
Think of the News crew at a Radio Station, who read the news, one mistake is broadcast to the whole world.  It is no crime to make mistakes as long as one is trying to learn from those mistakes.
The gravest mistake of all is to continue practicing mistakes without learning to minimise or eliminate those errors.
It is not the mistakes that matter, but what you do about those mistakes that really count.  How is it in your life?
The Church Should Give a Helping Hand
Most of the marriage breakups that have taken place could have been prevented had the Church taken an active role in help couples.
The Church’s inability to discuss openly and to resolve differences gradually has weakened the marital commitment of couples, thus tempting many to consider divorce as a solution to their many problems.
The church can play a very important role in preventing marriage breakups in common situations.
First, through counseling.  The pastors are trained not only in theology but also in counseling skills which can help couples with marital problems to understand how to resolve their differences constructively, not by seeking divorce but by improving their communication skills.
Secondly, the Church should help couples should recognize that disagreements are a part of marriage.
Two strong, independent personalities will not flow together without causing some turbulence.
This is true for both Christian and non-Christian couples, whether educated or uneducated.
Marital conflicts assume different forms.  Occasionally, they deteriorate into an all-out war.
Most often, they are fought in a subtle ways: verbal abuse, stoic silence, public criticism, sarcastic remarks, intimidation, demeaning remarks, and indifference.  Such common tactics are wrong and they tend to weaken the marriage.
These conflicts are not necessarily bad or sinful.  The determinative factor is how the conflict is handled.
If the conflict is used constructively to enhance communication and deepen understanding, then it can strengthen and solidify a marriage covenant.
It is during this stage that the Church should come in to help couples by conducting counseling seminars.
The Church is in a position to sensitise couples to be totally committed to preserving the marriage covenant.
The only way we can bring a conflict which has gotten out of control to a satisfaction end is for one partner to break the retaliation cycle by forgiving the other partner for the hurt received.
It through the church that this can successfully be done in an atmosphere of love.
Forgiveness must be patterned after the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ.  On the cross, Christ forgave those who crucified Him, saying: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
It is only the Church which can help the couples to understand that forgiveness involves forgetting the wrongs a mate has committed and choosing not to recount them later.
If we continue to remember and bring up past grievances every time a conflict breaks out, then we have not truly forgiven our mates because genuine forgiveness means blotting out past wrongs from memory (Acts 3:19).
Yes, such forgiveness is possible only when we personally have experienced the blessings of God’s forgiveness in our lives.
When the love of Christ has flooded our hearts, we will have the motivation power to forgive.  Is your church ready to step in and help your marriage?