A Practical Lesson on Love

"If someone asked me if I loved my wife, I'd say of course I do. I love her so much I'd give my life for her without a second thought. But if we're on a road trip and she wants to eat at Subway and I want to eat at Taco Bell, I will fight her tooth and nail to get what I want."

Though not verbatim, my pastor shared this example about a year ago while teaching on love. Do you know that feeling when a speaker says something and time seems to stop? Everyone else in the room disappears, and it's like he called you out and began speaking specifically to you? That's what happened to me when he gave that example.

Months prior to hearing that message, my husband had asked me to go on a Mediterranean cruise with him. In the 20 years we've owned our business, he has earned several trips through one of his suppliers, and several times, he has asked me if I would be willing to go. Each time, I've said no. Without a thought. The reason is because the trips are always in early May, and we have four children. I don't want to do the work or miss the activity that being gone in May would require.

My sweet husband was not asking me to dig ditches, foster feral kittens, move back into the shop, or watch ten hours of motocross in the hot sun (that one he's asked before). He was asking me to take what other people might call the trip of a lifetime, with him. I had enough sense to reluctantly agree to the cruise because it seemed so important to him, but when he asked about adding on extra days at the end of the cruise, I snapped back that he would need to find someone else to take with him, because there was no way I was going to be gone "extra days" in May.

The only way this makes sense is if you're a mom who has lived through May before. Dumping four children on someone else for 12 days during the most insane time of the year feels like irresponsible parenting. Then sign one of those kids up for competitive soccer and the other for three sports in one season, add in three music lessons a week and four AP tests, Awana, youth group, birthday parties, and a dozen events that require 10 bucks and  a dozen cupcakes, and it feels sickeningly indulgent and utterly undoable. If the trip had been in June, I would have kicked up my heels and bought a copy of Italy for Dummies. But May? All I did was grumble.

And then my pastor shared his little story. It was like a news-alert scroll was turned on inside my head. The message running loudly through my brain was this: "Want to know how to love your husband well? Do what he wants to do. And do it cheerfully."

It is humbling to realize that all it takes to bring out your ugly is for your husband to invite you on a cruise at the wrong time of year. But humbling is not a bad thing. In this case, a good dose of Holy Spirit humbling gave me a kick in the seat to start changing my attitude. It was slow going for a good, long while. I lived in absolute dread of having to plan schedules and line up rides for children whose lives we can barely manage ourselves. Sure enough, it has been a ton of work. My brain feels like it's been tossed into a blender. I have had to do battle with that guilty sense of indulgence that taunts me at every turn. I have had to remind myself often why I am doing this. I will have to make a conscious choice on Saturday morning at 10:58 a.m. to turn off the all-powerful carpool mom part of my brain and rediscover the fun wife part. But that's what I'm going to do.

Because what greater thing can a wife give her husband than the gift of her full attention? For 12 days? In May? How can she demonstrate more clearly that she loves him than doing what he wants to do? Cheerfully?

(And probably the Mediterranean won't be so bad either.)