Treat Your Achievements Like Bubble Gum : romantic short stories for married couples

 Lionel and Veronica where a wonderful Christian couple who had been married for 15 years. They had 3 wonderful kids and they where both highly motivated business people.

Lionel owned over 50% of 12 companies but his wife owned over 50% of 5 companies. However, two of those companies were billion dollar companies and Veronica had the fascinating habit of starting new companies at the drop of a hat and channeling all the profits that were meant to go to her into building orphanages and funding, building & renovating schools in third world countries.

Lionel and Veronica knew that they had their love for Jesus to thank for all their successes. Their relationship with God was the foundation and basis on which they formed the way they thought, which in turn forms what they did and said, which in turn made them who they are, which in turn gave them all they have.

Today was the 1st of January. It was the beginning of a new year and Veronica had achieved so much the previous year that she was talked about and celebrated all the time so much so that anytime you flipped through the channels you where bound to find someone talking about her to celebrate her, or someone making a reference to her good works in a sitcom, soap opera or something.

The previous year was indeed a great year for Veronica. She had won just about every humanitarian award that existed. She had graced the cover of just about every magazine more than thrice that year. She had been the number one searched item in 3 of the top search engines in the world. She had been blogged about by every blogger in the world at least once. As a matter of fact, the previous year might as well be called THE YEAR OF VERONICA.

Lionel was not jealous of his wife’s achievements. In fact nobody was more proud of her than he was. As a matter of fact, I dare say that he was prouder of her achievements than she was of her own achievements.

He was a special man. He didn’t feel anything was wrong with the fact that his wife achieved more than he achieved the previous year. She technically made much more money than he did by many miles, but she also gave a larger percentage of the money that she made to charity than he did.

Lionel saw no sense in being envious of his wife. How could he? They were one not two separate people. They were one. That is what marriage is all about. Two becoming one flesh.

Anyway, this year as Lionel always did; he got out his GOALS FOR THE YEAR NOTEBOOK and started listing all the goals that he wanted to achieve this year. He spoke in tongues for ideas and for inspiration as he wrote. And ideas came, plans came, and strategies came.

After about 30 minutes of his wonderful goal setting session. Lionel’s eyes went to his wife’s GOALS FOR THE YEAR NOTEBOOK which was sitting on a desk. Lionel felt like going to check it out to see what his wife is planning to accomplish this year. She probably has filled up 5 times more pages than she did the previous year.

Lionel went to his wife’s Goals for the Year notebook, opened it, and was shocked to see only 3 goals listed there. His wife was only planning to start one 20 million dollar business and the other two goals where to attend charity functions personally and make donations of 500 million dollars each in Haiti and in The Congo.

Lionel got mad. He took his wife’s Goals for the Year notebook and started marching all around their mansion looking for her.

The maid later told him that his wife was in the library by the left wing. The one that had an artificial fire place.

Lionel matched in there and threw the book on the table in front of her, “What do you think you are doing?” He asked, “I mean why do you have only 3 goals to achieve this year?”

Veronica tilted her head and looked deeply into her husbands eyes. He understood what he didn’t say with her lips and so he apologized for looking into her note book without permission.

Veronica told him to calm down and sit down which he did. She put a bookmark in the Christian novel she was reading then closed it. She took a sip of tea and told him that he can drink from her cup if he wants. She pushed the jug full of the great tasting tea closer to him and then she began to explain.

She told him that she feels that she has already achieved all that she could possibly achieve. She had already achieved more than 20 lifetimes of many millionaires put together. She said that she had done so much and so felt like there was little left for her to do. She said she could no longer go hard after saving the world like she used to. She said that she had to take it slow.

 Lionel just sat in front of her with his arms folded and his eye brows furrowed downwards at the center. You could tell that he wasn’t finding it funny. You could tell that he strongly felt that his wife was making the wrong decision.

Lionel just remained there staring at his wife angrily.

Then Veronica took a sip of tea to wet her tongue with it and then she leaned forward and pressed her lips against her husbands lips forcing his mouth to path open. Forcing him to taste the mix of the sweet tea with the beautiful taste of her lips. The kiss soon got deeper and more passionate. By the time they broke away Lionel was laughing now and his angry face was no where to be found. I bet after that kiss his frown didn’t know how to find its way back to his face.

“Ok! Ok!” Lionel said trying to get control of his composure and stop himself from laughing. Veronica had apparently just watered the flowers in the garden of romance in the center of his heart that pumped joy from his chest to every part of his body.

Veronica chucked and Lionel could only admire how beautiful inside and outside his wife is Ok! he had to concentrate.

“Honey this is serious”, he said. Veronica made a funny cartoon face and Lionel could not help but start laughing over again, “Please I’m serious I want to talk to you”, he begged; Clearly at the mercy of the woman who he loved so dearly who could make him laugh and even forget what he wanted to say at the drop of a hat.

Much later, when Veronica finally felt like letting him talk; she stopped making funny cartoon faces and Lionel was able to pull himself together for some serious talk.

Lionel stood up from his chair and beckoned his wife to get up and follow him as he held her hand like gentleman asking the most beautiful lady at the ball for a dance. Then he walked over to a sofa by the fire and he sat down; sitting his wife closely beside him as she rested her head against his chest, then he said, “Let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time there lived a nice lady with a heart of gold. She spent a lot of her life working her way to the top and helping everyone she could along the way. She made something beautiful out of her life with God’s help and even though we was born into a poor family she was now so rich that she had made many men and women rich.

Unlike everybody else who worked, she did not work for personal gain but she worked for the poor and the needy. They were the reason why she labored. She wasn’t rich for herself she was rich for them.

One day, when she got past 40 she realized that she had achieved so much; so she retired. She felt like Apostle Paul felt when he said that he had fought a good fight and he had kept the faith. The only difference was that Apostle Paul was about to be beheaded when he said that but in her case she was just retiring even though she was still full of life, energy and fire.

When she retired everyone celebrated her because even though they did not want her to retire she had done well with her life.

Her retirement was a joyful one but after 10 years she was back in the poor neighborhood she started in as a child and all the poor people she had been sweating for where now even 50 times poorer than before because when she retired she had not noticed it but there was no one left to fight against the evil men who stole from both the poor and the rich. She didn’t know that when she worked she was the only thing stopping the evil men from creating the world that she now lived in. So because she had retired 10 years ago, she and the rest of the world was now suffering for it.”

Lionel stopped the story and said, “Honey, that story would be your story if you slow down.

You see, you have to treat all your achievements as bubble gum. After chewing it and taking out the juice, throw it away and forget about it. Leave it behind you. Then reach out in front of you for a whole new bubble gum. It is like Apostle Paul said; forgetting those things which are behind and looking forward to those things that are ahead.

So no matter how great your achievements were last year. Last year’s achievements is last year’s achievements, and this is a new year. You have to be successful this year. Last year’s achievements would not compensate the achievements that you fail to achieve this year.

So now Honey, do you want to go fill up your Goals for the Year notebook?”

Veronica looked into her husbands eyes. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips deeply. She said, Thank You. Then she got up, took her Goals for the Year notebook, moved to her reading table, and then she started writing.

The End.