We are in the midst of some big life changes. No, we are not pregnant or adopting a baby or planning for that anytime soon, but we are preparing to move homes, jobs, states, etc. P is currently applying for jobs all over the country, and I'm not exaggerating when I say all over. North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Colorado, I heard mention of New York and California the other week. We have no idea when he his new job will start and what that means for moving our lives out of the state of Georgia.
What we do know is that every job he has applied for will consist of a schedule that will keep him out of the house during most weeknights and most of the jobs include weekends as well. That means our nights of binge-watching TV shows on Netflix (our latest have been How I Met Your Mother and now Parenthood, I'll let you guess who picked which show) are coming to a close for the most part. Our chance to cook dinner together in the kitchen or go for twighlight walks around the neighborhood are going to be rare.
Whether conscious or sub-conscious, we've made some changes. We didn't stop and say, "hey we have this big life adjustment coming up, let's take some moments to spend more time to together before this happens." It became a gradual reduction of our busyness as we desired to spend more time together. A gentle throwing off of things or not taking on of more things that prevented us from spending time just the two of us.
1. We have reduced the amount of extra in our week. Sometimes this requires a bit of the word "no" and that can be really hard for me to do. I don't like risking offending people or leaving them in need. Some of the things we have said "no" to are last minute hang-outs with co-workers or friends. I worry that turning them down will cause them to never invite us to anything again, but often times they get it when we can't do something last minute. Some of what we have said "no" to are regularly scheduled events that we used to regularly attend. Some of what we have said "no" to are extra requests of our service at church, beyond leading twice a month in a preschool classroom. The extra requests that had me missing our life group or us missing the service we attended on our off weeks, I feared no one else would be able to fill those needs if I/we didn't. I feared resentment from our preschool ministry leader (who by the way could not be any sweeter or more kindhearted). But whenever we said no, it was always met with understanding followed by the need being filled by someone else. By us saying no, it gave someone else the opportunity to use their gifts and steward the blessings of talent God had given them to glorify Him. And whether those were the weeks that we needed to be in service to hear that message, or those children needed to hear their lesson through that leader, or both, God had worked it all out.
2. We spent more time laughing and goofing off. One of my biggest flaws is that I hate my flaws. I have a very hard time laughing at myself or not fretting unceasingly over my screw-ups. And it's even worse when someone else points them out or when my husband makes a joke in light of one of my flaws or screw-ups. He doesn't do it to be hurtful, but I can get so mad and upset when he does even knowing he did it with innocent intentions. I can even work myself into an anxious mess at times over my potential mess-ups sometimes if I'm not careful to catch myself spiraling out of control. I worry, I stress, I over-analyze. Even typing all this out is hard to do. But knowing all of this, and knowing that we are going through an overwhelming and stressful time, I've had to learn to laugh. If not, I cry.
And I've cried a lot already in our marriage. My emotional barometer needs to be between a 4 and 7 (on a scale of 1-10, 1 being horribly sad and 10 being incredibly happy), if not, I'm sobbing. Something is too sad or something is too happy/joyful/wonderful, I'm a mess. Parents meeting adopted babies for the first time, armed forces members coming home, the entire "To Joey with Love" documentary, reading CaringBridge posts about families losing their little ones to cancer and horrible diseases, BAWLING at them all. And the same goes in stress. If the situation is above a 2.5/5 on the stress meter, I'm upset.
So with as much pressure as I knew was on P during this time of preparing materials for applying for jobs (in broadcasting it is not nearly as simple as updating your resume and writing a cover letter), applying for the scarily few jobs there were out there that fit his search criteria, and then spending an exhausting amount of time waiting to hear, all while continuing on in one of the top 3 worst jobs (don't believe me, read this), I didn't want to add my stress to him. If anything, I prayed I could take some of his stress away in any way I could.
So we laugh. We goof off. We've done silly stuff and spontaneous stuff. Last night we spent a half hour playing famous movie music scores on youtube and seeing if the other person could guess the movie. You should have seen our victory dances! I've learned to be better at laughing at myself, especially when it is my husband who makes the joke, whereas before, I would cringe and most of the time be angry. We laugh with each other, at each other, for each other, and just make a point to have more silly moments. Sometimes it feels like we are juvenile and dumb, but seeing my husband smile during this season of life is one of the most important things to me. I've thrown out my never-ending to-do lists and lounged around on Saturday mornings instead of barking orders on everything we needed to do in order to have the perfect productive weekend. Sure our house is kind of a mess, but we are happier, and I'll take that any day.
3. We have pulled back from some "friendships". In college, we were both blessed with an incredible Christian community. For me, it was both inside the college bubble (ask any Elon grad what the bubble is), and outside the bubble in a local church community at the Summit Church. For P, it was mainly within the bubble of college students, but in several different circles of friends on campus. We still remain very close to our college life communities and are thankful for their continued presence in our lives. But since moving in together in Georgia after our wedding, we have struggled to find community that feels as invested in us as we are in them. Part of that is more than likely the fact that we were only here for a year, and people are more likely to pour into friendships that have a greater chance to be longstanding than ones that will be here today and long-distant tomorrow. I get that.
But that means that in this season of life, we started to pull back from those "friendships" and started spending more time with each other and a select few friends that were actively investing in us. It wasn't that we were looking to cut people out of our lives or being picky and particular about who we were and were not going to hang out with. Here's a mental picture for you. Each morning you start your day with a full cup of water. Each person you spend time with requires you to pour water out of your cup. Some people might give some water back, but most people don't. At the end of the day, when you spend alone time with your husband, do you want an empty cup with no water to pour out onto him? The more we pulled back from "friendships" that were draining us instead of filling us, the more capacity we had and fullness for each other. Marriage comes before friends.
4. We are "skipping" church this Sunday to make a day trip happen. I am NOT in any way shape or form condoning or giving validity to skipping out on corporate worship. God first always. Prioritize church and center your heart on church early on in your marriage, keep it up in your parenting, and that witness will shine brighter than any words you say to your children. P and I both believe that and neither of us would allow for a habit of regularly missing church.
I recently won a facebook contest for a free zipline excursion at North Georgia Canopy Tours. After going over the fine print of the deal and matching up our schedules, literally the only day we had available to go was a Sunday. I was hoping there would be a late afternoon excursion available, making it possible for us to attend church in the morning and then make the two and a half hour drive, but there were only mid-day and morning slots available. And rather than letting the free ticket go to waste (non-transferrable over $70 value) and missing out on an advenutre we have been talking for a year, we booked it. We may have even chose, regardless of the time of the excursion we booked, to still miss church for the sake of having a slow day instead of a busy one.
I feel guilt over the fact we will miss deepening our faith through learning the Word and miss praising God in worship thisSundayy. But I do believe that we can glorify God during our time away this weekend as well. We can experience the wonder of His creation, reflect on His provision, celebrate our marriage and His plan in bringing us together, glorify Him with our words and actions and the intentions of our hearts and minds and the treatment of others. I do believe that we are honoring God by honoring our marraige.
5. We try our best to "be still" about tomorrow. Our tomorrow freaks me out some days. I'm someone who likes to have a MINIMUM of Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C for every big event in life. And I can't plan anything concrete for our lives right now. We have an end date of P's current contract of June 8 (keep in mind I'm typing this on May 11, and yes that's less than a month away), and we know absolutely nothing right now. It's terrifying. I can be optimistic, cynical, weepy, completely trusting in the Lord, or downright hopeless, just the luck of the draw on that day (and probably some hormones if I'm being honest). And P is just plain stressed. He has days of feeling sick, days of headaches, and days of feeling exhausted. We have been through this once before when he was graduating college and looking for his first job, but how quickly we forget the way God works everything out for us. I told P last night that it is just plain time to surrender. We are wasting away our potential enjoyment of our last month of weeknights spent together and what a tragedy that is. We have the option to laugh, to love, to enjoy, or we have the option to be stressed. At this point, neither of us have any control over what God chooses to reveal to us each day. What choice we do have is how we deal with His timing and His plan. I believe this is what makes all the difference. This will not be the most stressful or the hardest thing we ever encounter in our lives, I have confidence in saying that. So I choose the refinement of learning to be still today, so that I can face my tomorrow, whatever it may hold.
Life is not fulfilled by busy nor will you find happiness in being overproductive. Your marriage will not go from surviving to thriving by jam packing your schedules. Taking time to just be still and enjoy each other's company, with no agenda, just togetherness, has really helped us. I used to think it was doing lots of things together, serving together, seeing friends together, game night together, etc. But it isn't about the thing, it's about the together. This season of dropping the busy and focusing on the together has reminded us of that.
Psalm 55:22 NIV "Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never let the righteous be shaken."
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