I was watching the Olympics bobsledding competition the other night and got to wondering, "What exactly are the qualifications for the person/people that sit in the back?"

It looked like the "back seaters" had some awesome calves for the two to four second start, but after that ... what? It appeared (to me, at least) that they just sit in the back, heads tucked, for the entire ride. That the entire race was dependent upon the skill of the driver.

Since I know absolutely nothing about bobsledding, I'm sure I'm wrong. There may, and probably is, much more to the "back of the bobsled" person's job than what I see. But I also got to thinking (because I'm weird that way) about submission.

I think when nonbelievers, and even some believers, hear about biblical passages such as Ephesians 5 or Colossians 3 or 1 Peter 3 where wives are called upon to submit to their husbands they think of my version of bobsledding. The wife is just along for the ride. The husband drives with his head facing forward, not worrying about those in the back as long as they have their heads tucked.

But I've learned after more than a decade of marriage, that submission doesn't really look like that at all. With apologies to those who aren't figure skating fans, I've found submission to be much closer to pairs skating. We're face to face, engaging each other. We're communicating, practicing, perfecting (or, in our case, leaning upon the Lord to perfect us). But there are still definite roles. His is to lead our family. Mine is to support that leadership.

That support may look different in different situations. Sometimes helping. Sometimes advising. Sometimes listening. Sometimes gently challenging. But always affirming that the only way for this dance to work is for us to be intentionally engaging each other and to embrace, rather than fight, our God-given roles. It's not about being in the back seat with no control over where this crazy, out-of-control thing goes. Instead, it's face to face, with (metaphorically) hands clasped and his arm around my waist, mine upon his shoulder.

Six different celebrations. Three states. Over a thousand miles on the car.

That was hubbie and my's first Christmas as a married couple.

I'm not sure what we were thinking. Probably that, since we had married and moved to a different state, we owed it to our families and ourselves to bring as little "disruption" to the holidays as possible. So we became uber-planners. Rather than making choices where to spend the holidays, possibly leaving someone, somewhere in the family shortchanged, we decided to cram it all in. Yep, every holiday event we had attended as singles, we would now attend as a married couple. We would be paragons of Christmas spirit. The more, the better. Or so we thought.

For a couple of years, we kept it up. After all, we didn't see our families nearly as much as we used to. The holidays were the times everyone got together. What else could we do? So, our Christmas consisted of my old college, 3-foot, articifical Christmas tree with a few lights that we'd turn off on our way out the door to our marathon trips.

I don't think it ever occurred to us to slow down, or discuss or focus on building our own holiday traditions. It was almost as if we could "leave and cleave" during every other month but December. We still, in a way, were tied to the traditions of our youth -- forgetting to consider that our own parents probably had to make some choices along the way.

I can remember the moment that it stopped. We were about halfway along the highway between two of the celebrations. We had our two-month-old daughter in the back seat, inches of ice on the road, and were creeping along an interstate at about 25 mph. The stress was rising in the pit of my stomach as I realized we would never make it on time.

This is crazy, I thought. We simply cannot keep this up anymore. And the next year, it did stop.

We didn't stop seeing our families. We didn't get arrogant or adamant. We just started being intentional.

In his article, "Holidays and the In-Laws," Willard Wooten gives some good advice to young couples about how to tread carefully on the emotional ice of Christmas. His suggestions include:

• Sit down with your spouse and share how you feel about the holidays. (Driving, white-knuckled, through an ice storm with a newborn in the backseat was probably not the best time for me to come to my holiday epiphany. Looking back, my husband and I should have had some discussions way before the holidays came around. We should have talked about what was best for our families and for us.)
• Explain how you spent the holidays as a child.
• Consider how your parents and others may wish to have you involved. (It was important, I think, that even after realizing we were stretched too thin, we didn't simply stamp our feet and demand our own way on everything about the holidays. After we began discussing expectations with our extended family, emphasizing how we wanted them to be an important part of our holidays, we found them open and flexible.)
• Agree on how you as a couple would like to establish your own holiday traditions. (This is where we really dropped the ball. By making the entire emphasis on our "old" Christmas traditions, my hubby and I were losing something special: the chance to create new ones, for our own family, that were special to us. Now, we have declared Christmas morning to be our own. We celebrate it, every year, at our home. I cook brunch. We run around in our pajamas for a good half day. It's our time. And it makes the time we spend with others much more enjoyable and relaxing.)
• Be open to changing your plan as needed. (I really need this. As a "tradition fixator," I tend to think everything has to be the same, every year, for the rest of our lives. But it doesn't. We should keep some traditions year to year. But that doesn't mean that one year we might not spend Christmas snuggled up in a cabin in the Rockies. The holidays are for celebrating, not for incarcerating. Flexibility -- note to self.)

And, although Wooten doesn't mention it, I found it's been important over the years to be aware that I am the wife. And, as the wife, I am the designated social director. That means, when it comes to holidays, I need to be especially intentional about my husband's family. Too often, I've seen couples (and had the urge myself to) end up giving the wife's family the first and the best of the holiday time, while the husband's family gets the scraps. Or, even if the husband's family is included fairly, the wife is observably less merry at that particular Christmas.

It can be a lot on our plates. But with some patience, planning and compassion, we've made the holidays work. Sometimes we stretch ourselves for others. Sometimes we set some boundaries. But we want to treat the holiday in a way that honors and glorifies Christ. He said to love our neighbors (and that means our families, too) as we love ourselves. When we do that, it is a very merry Christmas.

My hubbie and I were married three years when he got transferred to Colorado. Within a few months I found myself with a mountain view, a new job and one seriously long commute from Denver to Colorado Springs. A 52-minute commute, not that I was counting.

It wasn't that I minded the drive. As I said, I had some nice views along the way and a job I was excited about. Still, I was relieved to find, within a few weeks of starting my job, that there was another fellow Denverite making the drive to work as well. Suddenly, visions of carpooling and reduced gas bills were dancing in my head.

But when I approached him about sharing the long drive, he was less than enthusiastic. Though he admitted the logic of it, and appreciated my thinking of him ... No, he didn't think he'd take me up on my carpooling offer. I was slightly miffed.

Why not? I asked.

He explained very graciously. He and his wife had made an agreement -- they would not spend time with members of the opposite sex one-on-one. They felt it was a wise way to protect their marriage.

I was still slightly miffed. It's not like I'm on the prowl for you, I thought. This is about practicality.

That night, my hubbie and I discussed the situation. We admitted that the gas savings would have been nice, but wanted to respect this couple's wishes. Oh, well.

But, for both of us, the simmer process started. Maybe this couple really was wise. Maybe, with some things in marriage, a good defense is a good offense. Maybe maturity is not about pushing right up to the boundaries, but taking a few giant, mother-may-I steps back away from them.

About a year later, after some prayer and some more discussions, my husband and I decided. This couple was smart. We wanted to be proactive about protecting our marriage as well. We would do the same.

Most of the time, it works really well. Sometimes, it doesn't. Like the time I was supposed to go on a work trip to California with two male colleagues and one backed out ... 30 minutes before the plane was to take off. (I still went on that trip, but called hubbie and discussed it first.) Or the time that hubbie was supposed to go to lunch with a female and a male co-worker and the male, you guessed it, backed out in the parking lot. (Hubbie explained the situation to the female co-worker and rescheduled the lunch.)

But, even with the occasional messiness, it's a commitment I'm glad we've made. Not because it's a requirement, but because we think it's wise.

Over at the Stuff Christians Like blog, Jonathan Acuff writes:

I don't know. I don't have the answer on this one. Just the idea that things get a little awkward when you get married and have to figure out friendships with the opposite sex. But of the two camps, "Jeez you're such a Puritan, loosen up" and "Better safe than sorry, can a dude drive me to the airport," I know which one I want to fall into. Because no one ever wakes up and says, "Today I'm having an affair." Affairs are slow burn decisions, with a wick a mile long made of little steps and little compromises.

I agree. I don't think hubbie and I have got "the" answer. But we're trying to stop that wick before there's ever a chance to spark. What about you? Is there anything you do to set up boundaries around your marriage?

During the first years of my marriage, I did a lot of mental finger pointing.

It's him. If he would only do this, our marriage would be better. When he learns how to clean the kitchen (to my specifications), we'll be fine. If he would just know what I want (as he should, of course), we wouldn't have any problems.

But here's what I've learned. Sometimes, it is him. But most of the time, it's me. It's wanting things my way. It's wanting him to have my priorities. It's focusing on my needs.

And it's this human selfishness, self-focus and self-worship that makes marriage so hard, says Paul David Tripp.

Over at The Gender Blog, Garrett E. Wishall writes a summary of two presentations that Paul David Tripp gave at a recent conference. Wishall writes:

Selfishness is a problem for 10 out of 10 people, Tripp said, which obviously has an adverse affect on marriage. In contrast, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 teaches that Christ died for people so that they might no longer live for themselves but for Him, Tripp noted. To work through a self-focused perspective toward a Christ-honoring approach to life and marriage, Tripp said, spouses must uncover and be honest about their selfishness.

So, first, we need to recognize our own selfishness. Then, we need to realize the effect it is having on our marriages.

"The war between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of self is the deeper war that is the reason for all those horizontal battles that take place between us," [Tripp] said. "It is only when you gain ground at the deeper level that you can gain ground at the horizontal level."

How do we gain ground at the deeper level?

To grow in relational unity, Tripp said, spouses must heed Jesus' words in Matthew 6:33 to seek first His kingdom. Progress can be made in marriages when both spouses seek to live for the same King instead of for two different sets of self-centered pursuits.

"Jesus died to break the bondage that I have to my passions and my desires," he said. "Do you know what it means to seek His kingdom? You (husband) wake up in the morning and say, ‘today, I am going to look for specific, concrete opportunities to love my wife.' (Wife) you say ‘I want to know my husband, I want to know where he struggles, and I want to know ways that I can serve in him in love.'"

After more than a decade of marriage, I still struggle with this. I've seen how amazing a marriage can be when self is put on the back burner. But I've also seen how the smallest things can make my selfishness rear its head.

Case in point: the dishes this weekend. As my husband and I scurried around Saturday morning to get kids and house ready for a visit from my parents, I stuck my head into the kitchen during a break in combing and ponytailing duty.

"Hey, babe. Can you please empty the dishwasher and put those dirty dishes in it?"

"Well, hon," he said, "I just spent 5 minutes rinsing the dirty dishes and stacking them in the sink neatly so you wouldn't need to worry about them."

My husband knows me well. Dishes are my thing. Deep breath. How do I react? Am I thankful for a husband who, without asking, knows my priorities and attempts to serve me? Or do I rail because he did not read my mind exactly?

Pathetic ... but my initial attitude was much more the latter than the former. I do need Christ, every single day, to transform my attitude and my heart. I do need to fight the war at the deeper level.

Yep, it's me.