Focus on the good...

By dinnertime today I was feeling overwhelmed by life(mostly mess and the chores that had been left undone).  I was scrambling to clean up the mess I'd made painting the stairwell, the mess the kids had made throughout the day, and the mess leftover from last night's dinner.  At the same time I was trying to cook a meal(or at least decide what to make) and keep an eye on the little people in my life.  It seemed that everywhere I looked I saw something else that needed my attention and even my rambling thots drifted to things I had yet to do.   I was quite a mess.   Totally frazzled and overwhelmed.  At that point I decided that I should call my loving husband, because surely he would care...and listen and make me feel better.  Of course my timing couldn't have been worse for him as he was dodging through Vancouver traffic and anxiously trying to get home.  Instead of sympathetically listening and being supportive, he said he needed to get back to driving and that he thot I had called about something important and as I hung up the phone I think I muttered "thanks for nothing.".  Can you picture it.  I know we've all been there.  I was offended and began to grumble and shed a couple self pitying tears and then got on with making dinner and cleaning up and the world did not fall apart.  Surprise. Surprise.  By the time the love of my life walked in door, the house was clean, the kids were fed and I was more myself...he had called to apologize and let me vent a little while before and that helped too.  I have an idea that marriage can be kind of like my dinnertime melt down.  When we focus on the negative and all the things we want to fix we can get overwhelmed.  We can get bitter or have a little pity party and get ourselves kind of stuck.   But lately I have been reminded about all the great things about marriage and that is where I am choosing to focus my attention.  I have an amazing husband who is a total gift to me.  He works his ass of daily to provide the awesome life that we have.  He challenges me to be different.  He tells me the truth instead of telling me what I want to hear.  He makes me happy.  He likes my laugh.  He is trusting God to guide his decisions.  He tries really hard to be available to me and listen to me when I need to talk.  He encourages me to have a life and do things that I love.  I know that he even likes me, which is a good feeling.   We are still enjoying each other after 10 years together.  Yes, we both still need work and we fail daily, but I don't want to my focus to be on that.  Those thing will work themselves out just like my day did.  Now the kids are in bed and I have had my prayer time for marriage  and I have shared these thots with anyone who is listening.  Erica posted a cool comment on here and I'm gonna add it...cuz it's good." Marriage is work but I find it helps to remember why we got married in the first place and that beneath all the daily fuss there is a strong, unbreaking foundation.  Like a house near a row of pine trees where all the needles have fallen on the roof.  If you leave the layers there too long, it will rot your roof.  So every once in a while you've got to get up there and sweep the crap off.  God is the one to throw you the broom, sometimes in a gentle jaunty way as if to say "Hey, heads up...here comes a broom"  Other times he chucks it like a javelin and it hits you in the face."   

May God bless you as you pray with me.