This article is a repost from
Meredith of Penelope Loves Lists. If you’re interested in guest posting for Sister Wisdom, see the guidelines here.
love is doing something when you don’t feel like it
My marriage to J is my second, and I know now that happy marriage isn’t luck, or sex, or even just promises of forever. It’s daily maintenance. Not “work”, because I don’t think marriage should feel like work, but maintenance. It’s paying attention and clearing a path for your partner through every day life.
It’s you caring more about him than you care about yourself. That’s not always easy when you’re as busy as we are, right?
Being married to a man like my husband, who loves so completely through actions ( every morning I was sick, he cleaned the whole house before leaving for work, so that my mind could be “at ease”. I know.) has taught me the extreme value of doing for each other, rather than just saying “I love you” every day.
I find that my love speaks loudest when I do something for him when I most don’t feel like it. After a long day, when I’ve completed more than I thought I ever could. That’s the time I try to do one extra thing for J. Because that’s when it means the most.
Are you loving through actions today? Are you showing your family that, though your To Do list is miles long, they have a place right at the top of it?
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[Annie here]
Let’s just recap those last 2 questions, in Modern Homemaking REdefined terms:
1. Are you loving through actions by what you choose to focus on, what you choose to let go, what you choose to make important, what you choose to overlook?
2. Are you making your husband and children a priority, even when the home needs making? After all, whom is the home for? What is the value of a home without the people in it.
CHALLENGE: What can you drop from your standard “homemaking” to-do stuff in order to free up a little more time to rest, to read, to be with the ones you love, to listen to your children, to take a walk with your husband, to call a friend? Drop it today. I dare you! Then let us know about it.
Today’s 2 Cents Courtesy of:
Penelope is a type of person. My name, however, is
Meredith. I’m a working, married, 30-something mom of three, trying desperately (and, I admit, a bit compulsively) to hold together all the crazy aspects of my life. For me, the only way to do that is with lists and with all manner of organizational tools.