For Joy

I did something I have never done before…

Thanks to Facebook I have a friend whom I have only met once when she took our pictures 3 years ago when she was traveling through NM.  Because of Facebook we have become closer as we both posted the pregnancy of our third child due just days apart.  So when I learned she would be traveling through NM again…we haaaaad to meet each others’ baby.

She was going to come here on the way to her sister’s house and would come here on the way back as well. My house was going to serve as a break for her and her two older kids.  They could jump their cooped up energy off on the trampoline and my kids could wear them out a bit! I would serve her some home cooked meals because surely they would be sick of McDonald’s by then!

Well….

This all took place during the time that Caleb was not well.  So the day she arrived on the way to her sister’s…I ordered pizza apologetically promising to have her “home-cooked meal” on the return visit.

During that week I re-read this letter from Gracefull Mama:

About a year ago, I sent my husband a list of things that I thought that he might like to see me do around the house.  I asked him to put the list according to priority, from greatest to least.

Here is the exact list that I sent to him:

 -clean, ironed laundry

-yummy meals including lunches

-fresh, homemade bread for your sandwiches

-keeping up with emails

-thank you notes

- outreach in the community

-hospitality/ having people over

- making sure there are cookies or something yummy for you when you get home (including tea)

-a clean, picked up house

 And, this was his exact response:

“Thanks, but I would rather have you put aside anything/everything you have to do in order to start each day with the assumption that I LOVE YOU, and therefore anything I do or say is given the benefit of the doubt that I LOVE YOU.

 Get enough rest and say no to enough activities so that you have the energy to be NICE TO ME (and the kids) when I’m home.

 Honestly, I appreciate the rest of it, but don’t really care that much if it comes at the expense of the first two things up at the top of the list.  Maybe you think that I think you’re a bad wife or mom if you don’t do this stuff. If so, that is wrong. I would much rather have a messy house, make my own lunches from white, store-bought bread, have no snacks, etc. etc., but have a nice, happy wife who likes me, than the other way around.

 So, to sum it all up, showing me you love me has more to do with WHO you are than what you do!  It’s my best friend I fell in love with and want to hang out with, not my maid!”

 

I love this letter.  It makes me cry every time I read it.  My husband has read it and couldn’t agree more.

But nevertheless…when the day approached that my friend would be returning…I lugged the kids to the store and no doubt Caleb began to scream.  So I took him in one arm, pushed the cart that had the other two kids dangling from either side with the other arm.  I grabbed all the fixin’s to make The Pioneer Woman’s Spaghetti and Meatballs….’cos once you’ve had that…you can never go back to jarred!

By the time a man cut in front of me in line and I said “no” to a gazillion things the kids asked for while waiting in line…I was testy.

I schlepped all the groceries and the kids in the hot, hot sun into the hot, hot house and stood there-knoooooowiing that at that very moment I was choosing to begin the course that would lead me to being the very wife and mother I so don’t want to be…

I knew I was about to put down a baby that was just going to scream his little head off so I could cook and clean….

I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it all done so…

as soon as  Mike walked in the door he would be greeted by a disheveled wife either holding a screaming baby out for him to hold…or a broom telling him to clean the floor ‘cos I have to cook! Trust me…I surely would have forgotten to say anything like “welcome home”, “Thanks for working so hard for this family so I can be home watching my dreams come true”

So I did something I have never done before…

I called my friend and told her the truth…I couldn’t do it.  Not this time.  Not because I was overwhelmed but because for the first time I wanted to stop before I became overwhelmed. It simply isn’t the wife and mom I want to be and not what I want to teach my kids about hospitality.

So my friend enjoyed her night with some other mutual friends and I embraced all of our usual chaos…

“Welllllllcome home, Honey!”

Thank you Gracelaced for another opportunity to share the grace in the everyday!

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