Around my birthday each year I get frustrated because I begin reflecting on my life and how I wanted to be at a certain place in life by this point. I’m not referring to physical things really, but mainly within myself. So as I turned 30 I began thinking of how I’d really like to begin handling things differently. Through this (and cleaning out our house) I was reminded of a message by Jack Taylor I have on Receiving and as I’m typing this I realize how much I probably should listen to it again and not just recall what in it. It’s about receiving your partner whole-heartedly. At the time it hit me most about the need to receive myself. I was extremely insecure and didn’t like much about myself. I compensated by (and still do) trying to work hard at things to validate myself to others. He speaks of how God received(s) Adam and Eve and me. He does this by embracing and loving even the imperfections in us (and Jack Taylor communicates this in such a better way than I can, so you should listen to it). It was through this and Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace that I began to extend grace to myself. I’ve got lots of issues as I’m sure many of us do and I’ve tried to embrace them, work through them, and/or dodge around them as much as possible. I’m not saying I do a wonderful job at this but I have a whole lot more inner peace at the end of the day than before.
I’ve been thinking of this because this summer has been a stressful one for us. It seems everything we touch goes bad at least with cars and the house. (Like spend 1,000 on a/c in my car for it to work a week and spend 900 on Chad’s for it the same thing and more to go wrong a week later) Fortunately both of our jobs have needed us extra so we’ve been able to work overtime to have the money for all of these repairs. But this also means working around 50 hours a week for me and Chad’s working six or seven days and mainly 12 hour shifts this summer. So much for only needing childcare three days this summer :-/ . Well after several weeks of never seeming to have quality time together due to not being home together. Oh yeah, forgot to mention we’re carpooling even though he works 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and in the complete opposite direction from where I do. We’ve really only had in the car time which just isn’t grand although we try to make it work. To say the least it’s been stressful. And after over two months of this it’s starting to take it’s toll on me. Last weekend I was cleaning out things yet again and found the Receiving message and although I haven’t listened to it again it’s been on my mind that I should. I’ve noticed I’m becoming that person whose not really positive towards her husband. I don’t like it, but I’ve felt stuck. Today we were around a couple that definitely weren’t harmonious working together and tonight I pulled out a book Peacemaking for Families by Ken Sande and opened it to the chapter on marriages. These were kind of slap in the face convicting to me. So I’m thinking that there needs to be no excuses and I need to get on the ball of receiving Chad and striving to become a more positive person. I don’t feel as though I’m terrible at gossiping in general or bad mouthing my husband behind his back, but I’m negative in my outlook on life at times. Not that the last sentence would make sense of connecting it to you, but for me it completely goes together. So I guess this is a confession of sorts, because I definitely haven’t been a great wife the past few weeks. I’m going to work harder at it because when the stress is gone we’re completely happy and committed to our marriage more than ever before. It’s just this darn craziness in our life. We just keep praying that some things will work out but I think it’s time to not use the stress as an excuse or reason or allow it to get to me. Rather it’s time to acknowledge the stress and still be a positive and loving wife, mother, friend, colleague, office manager, etc. that I should always be because the things of this world truly aren’t worth ruining something great!
Deanna
No comments:
Post a Comment