Sometimes life is just simple. According to psychologist Ed Tronick’s 1970s research on videos of mothers interacting with their infants, the mother-infant relationship all comes down to three things: harmony, disharmony, and repair.
 
“The infant starts off molded in the mother’s arms, totally relaxed, a little noodle, and they’re in perfect harmony with each other,” explains Terry Real, a Jewish-American author who we heard unpack Tronick’s research on a recent podcast. “Then some gas arises or a hunger pang or there’s a noise in the street.”
 
“The baby goes nuts,” Real continues. “The baby goes through a flurry of disruption. The mother tries to soothe the baby. To the degree to which the mother fails, the mother goes through a flurry of disruption. The two of them are absolutely at odds with each other trying to find harmony and peace. And then the pacifier is accepted or the nipple is taken or the gas passes or the noise dies away and the baby goes back to molded, a noodle, and all is well.”
 
We offer this lengthy quote here because it’s just so powerful—and because it’s taken us so long to grasp that this pattern is the norm in marriage and family life. This “dance” of harmony, disharmony, and repair—or “closeness, disruption, and a return to closeness”—rests at the heart not just of the mother-infant relationship, but of all relationships.
 
We’re both idealists, and it’s easy for us to immediately view “disharmony” in our relationship as some moral failure (and yes, sometimes it is). Sometimes we misinterpret the routine external attacks—fatigue, stress, a big work obligation—as somehow “personal.” It’s easy for us to think that our love for one another should be evidenced in all-harmony-all-the-time, to view “disharmony” as something to push through, to white-knuckle.   
 
But that’s not how anything in Scripture, or life, or reality works! Instead:

• Families are like construction sites (check out one of our more popular posts) – a place marked by plenty of disharmony and repair, alongside the stand-out harmonious moments.  

• The strongest relationships are the ones that are honest about disharmony and diligent about repair.

• One look at nature reveals a constant interplay of harmony (health), disharmony (adversity, infections, sickness), and repair.

• Much “disharmony” is inescapable; it’s part and parcel of living in a fallen world.   

• Repair—or forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace-filled healing—is the heart of the Gospel.

This is the simple thought we’d like to share with you. Take it to heart. In the days ahead, try to glimpse this dynamic at play in your life, and prayerfully reflect on your own reactions to disharmony. Can you accept it more graciously? What are the specific ways you and your spouse and family can make the transition from “disharmony” to “repair”?

As we prepare for Holy Week and the celebration of Easter, let’s lift each of these three types of moments to God with gratitude. Thank him for the harmony. Pray for patience, prudence, wisdom, and love when you find yourself in the midst of disharmony. And thank him for the growth opportunity it represents. Ask the Lord to lead you to repair, and then thank him again!