conXion

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Gen 2:24

We’re currently in the middle of moving house.

It’s a stressful time. There are never enough hours in the day to get everything done. Then there’s a full time job and other responsibilities to compete for the limited time.

Now it’s not the first time we’ve had to move and I seriously doubt it will be the last. We’ve always moved ourselves with friends to help lighten the load a little. I don’t think I’ve ever used a paid removalist. Over the years my husband and I have worked out a system. I’ll sort, he’ll pack. I’ll clean, we carry, he’ll load. He’ll drive. I’ll clean at the other end, he’ll unload, we’ll carry, we’ll unpack at the other end…eventually.

That’s how it works. We know what our part is and we both play it well.

When things get in the way, it’s actually very hard.

My husband needed to work late five of the seven days we had planned for the cleaning and packing days. I stood in front of a table of kitchenware, staring at the light glinting off the glass – almost frozen. This wasn’t my part of how we did this.

Physically, I am able to wrap things in paper and pack them in a box. Mentally, I can figure out that it will fit better in a particular way than in another. Emotionally; I was a mess. It was an emotional struggle to pack a box.

I stood there giving myself a little pep talk.

Come on, you can do this. If he wasn’t around at all, you would have to do this yourself. Just pick up a glass and wrap it.

It didn’t work. The very idea that I would have to

pack on my own was so daunting it was devastating. I burst into tears at the thought that my husband wasn’t here to do his part of the task. I did pack the box, but it so hard.

Now, my husband’s not dead. He was at work. He came home eventually. Things worked out and our kitchen is mostly in boxes.

My thought as I went to bed that night was an ‘oh wow God’ moment. God gave me my husband. He’s not perfect (the husband), but then neither am I.

Perfect or not, we fit together. Where I am weak he is strong  -  and vice versa. We are a team.

From that experience I am now so much more aware of the things that he does; that have just become a pattern in our lives. I would be so lost without him there to do it. The thing is, I take it for granted. He’ll be there to pack; he’ll be there to load the ute; he’ll be there to drive the heavy load through the streets of town. That’s just what he does.

I thank God for the things my husband ‘just does’. I even thanked my husband.

It’s so easy to take the little everyday things for granted. Make sure you take the time to notice them, appreciate them…and actually thank him for doing them.

He’s your husband. He deserves it.

T P Hogan