My little boy enjoying his drink at Starbucks on a date with me. I love spending one-on-one time with my kids. There is just something about getting a glimpse into their hearts that melts mine.
Words.
I’ve never liked the old ‘sticks and stones’ saying. If you are like me, you have been hurt deeply by words at some point in your life. Recently, I’ve noticed fb posts and blog posts that are really sarcastic-sometimes to the extreme. This got me thinking about the words I use and more importantly how I use them. Anyone who knows me well can tell you this has been a struggle over the years-but as I get older I want to be someone people see as an encourager, not as someone to be feared for my words.
We have a saying in our home : words have the power to hurt or heal. I for one am going to do my best to speak healing words, and to tone back the sarcasm so I minimize the amount of people they hurt.
A challenge today
I am understanding more each day who I need to be. Today was one of those days that I was given an opportunity to put at least some of that into practice. It was a long day of church activities and my hubby was gone til after our normal dinner time-a day I’m sure every ministry wife has lived more than once. I found myself today wanting to be frustrated with the amount of responsibility that Russ had and then I found myself taking a step back. I can’t even count how many times friends have complained to me or on facebook about their ministry husbands’ schedules. I have even had those nights where you just want for one day things to be ‘normal’. But today, I found myself being challenged. These commitments of his are equally commitments of mine. As we tell our kids, we are a team. And that means that on days like today, it’s my job as his teammate, his partner, to do what I can to help and encourage him-not complain about his schedule. God has called US to a life of ministry-and although it’s alot less glamourous on my end sometimes-me holding to my commitments allows him the ability to hold to his. So, I would like to challenge you ministry wives out there…next time you are tempted to complain and criticize your hubby’s schedule, ask yourself if he needs you to be his partner in that way?
An interesting parallel
The last few days I’ve been reading through the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy attempting to catch up on the Bible challenge our youth group is doing and I’ve noticed an interesting parallel between the Israelite nation and my 2 year old. We’ve been going through this phase with him where he is asserting his independence, and practically speaking it’s frustrating to Russ and me. For instance-as I’m typing this I am having to take breaks to tell him for the 5th time that I am using my phone so he cannot play his shapes game. These types of thing happen constantly where we have to tell him numerous times what he needs to be doing (or not doing) and many times it’s as if he just forgot from when we said it 5 minutes ago. This reminds me of the Israelites. Over and over again the Lord told them what to do. Over and over they would obey for a short time, then go back to doing the same thing as if they’d forgotten. What an amazing amount of patience the Lord had with them! There were always consequences, but he always provided a way for the relationship to be restored. I’m so thankful for our son and how God teaches me through him. What an interesting parallel.
Vacation
Every year our family makes a priority for 2 vacations; one as a family that is usually a long weekend, and one just Russ and I which is usually one or 2 nights. Vacations are important-extreemly important-for everyone, but especially for those in any full time vocation such as ministry. For us, it is the chance to not answer the cell phone if we don’t want to, to even turn it off :). To be able to focus on one another and to talk about non church things. Inevitably there are rough points as the kids get tired without naps or we get frustrated without any ‘grown up time’, but we always look back on those vacations and seem to forget about the frustration and remember the good. I wrote a bit about our trip to Monterey with our kids last week-it was the first time our family has stayed more than one night in the same hotel room together and let me tell you, that was interesting. Russ and I were watching Netflix on our phones or computer in the pitch black while the kids slept-I much prefer light :).
For our couple trip this year, though, Russ surprised me with a 3 night trip to NYC! I was surprised and excited-and we had a great time. I have always wanted to go to New York and see Broadway, and my 30th was a good reason to surprise me with a trip so needless to say-I have the best Hubby ever! We were in a whirlwind and hit up all the tourist spots like Serendipity and FAO Schwartz. We went o a broadway show and walked Central Park for hours in the fresh snow, and I even got to go to the Guggenheim-another dream of mine. More than any of that, I am thankful for the memories I have with Russ of such an amazing city and great times there. I was looking at pictures today with my son of a vacation Russ and I took a few years ago to Sea World where we got to swim with Beluga Whales-again..wonderful memories.
In these times where money is hard to find and people are working harder and longer than ever, I guess I just wanted to remind everyone that vacations are important-they are what remind us of who we are as a family, as a couple, aside from the ‘everyday’ lives we can get caught up in. Take a few moments this week to try and build memories..even if you can’t get away.
