Overcoming Busy

What Matters Most – guest post

March 10, 2010 by Marci

photo by ToUsMiC Place

This is a guest post from Annie @ SisterWisdom.com as part of our week long celebration and blog party here at Overcoming Busy.  Keep checking back for great insight on keeping the busy out of our lives and great giveaways!!

Last night I snuggled down in our cozy bed next to my husband, thinking about how great marriage is, how amazing it is to share your life with someone who inspires and challenges you, how wonderful to be with your best friend… then he put his icy cold feet on my legs and I thought, “Well you have to take the bad with the good.” Actually what I thought was more along the lines of “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah freakin’ cold!” A moment later, after I’d managed to dislodge his frozen feet from contact with me, I was able to think about things other than spousal-induced hypothermia. I snuggled down, comfortable and warm again, drifting into a happy haze of romantic thoughts, and suddenly he whipped the covers back, letting in the frigid air, hopped out of bed and walked into the bathroom. There’s nothing like a blast of icy air when you’re almost comfortably asleep to make you think sweet thoughts of your beloved. I snuggled down again, gripping the covers firmly to prevent any more wintry blasts, but it was no good this time. There was a big empty space next to me.

Marriage ruins you. You’re no good for empty beds and single survival skills anymore after just a few months of marriage. Marriage gets to you. It changes you in ways you can’t foresee, and that’s probably a good thing. Too much foreknowledge just scares us. If I’d known ahead of time some of the roads we would walk, decisions we would make together, I would have balked. But each came in time and together we handled them.

Marriage reveals things about you that you’re not always sure you want to see. I was so self-assured as a single gal. Even during our engagement, I was sure that I would get this marriage thing right. No problem. I’d been watching and taking notes for a while. I knew what not to do. You know the rest of the story without me even saying it: then I got married and promptly did all those things I’d sworn not to do. Nagging? Yep. Whining? Yep. Crying for no reason? So many times. Getting mad over nothing? Often. Being hormonal, snappy, rude, insensitive, rushed, impatient, and irritated with my lover and best friend? Yes, yep, uh-huh, and no question. I broke all my own rules, failed at my own sure thing, and that’s when I started really learning about marriage. That’s when I started understanding how marriage shows us what grace is.

Marriage brings you face to face with your own unworthiness. You find out you’re not all that you thought you were. The testing, the stretching, the day-after-day of marriage bring out those weaknesses you tried to bury. You just can’t hide your flaws on a twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week basis. But when you see the love in your spouse’s eyes even after one of those moments, you start to get it. It’s not about your worthiness; it’s about his love.

Marriage shows you your own capability for graciousness, too. Your knight in shining armor hurts you, disappoints you, ignores you. You find yourself frustrated, angry, wounded but strangely enough, as you take a few breaths and calm down, you find out your love is still there. He’s still your knight, you’re just learning that he’s not a perfect one. And as your knowledge of him grows, your love doesn’t catch its breath in horror and beat it out the back door. Your love expands. You find yourself accepting, showing grace, and thinking it’s normal. And it is.

Marriage is not just an area in our lives, it is the very structure of our lives. If God is the foundation, then marriage is the support posts holding up the walls, the beams holding up the roof. That’s why taking time for our marriage isn’t a luxury but a necessity. You can do without a new coat of paint, but you can’t do without a sturdy, strong support system. If those beams are rotten, the whole house is going to fall down; it doesn’t matter how pretty it looks.

Taking time for marriage means making time with our husbands. It means sorting out our lives so the first things come first. It might mean saying no to friends over, because we need time to talk with him. It might mean saying not now to a child, because Mommy is doing some work for Daddy. But more than that, it means saying Yes to our husbands. Yes to sharing our lives, our dreams, our priorities, our vision. Yes to knowing each other and loving each other anyway. If we focus on saying yes to what matters most, we will find that our lives are full of what we love most.

Annie Mueller has been happily married to her childhood sweetheart for almost 6 years now. Together they have 3 children and live in a parsonage in St. Louis, Missouri. Annie’s background is in writing and literature, and she writes, reads, and teaches workshops as time permits. Her website is www.SisterWisdom.com.