My husband's blessing

Several months back I wrote a post called Love is kind. It came about from something a friend of mine said…it was her motto for the year. It was what she was trying to teach her children. And it was something I tried to adopt for myself.

Today…I want to take that a little bit further. Right now I’m writing…again…on marriage. My husband tells me I should write as the Spirit leads me and it seems I’m often led back to the same things.

What if we woke up every morning with the determination to…be a blessing to our husband?

How would our day go if in everything we did we simply tried to be a blessing to him? More importantly…how would his day go?

If somehow…someway…all of your marriage was removed but the ability to write to your husband…and your husband may or may not be able to write back.

What kind of wife would you be? What kind of wife could you be?

If the only part of your marriage that you had was what you could put on paper and send to him…with no expectations of receiving anything in return…what kind of wife could you be?

In a situation like that a wife would be left with only what she could imagine. If marriage for some reason... and there are marriages that this happens too…went from the day to day life of being married to being something totally different, where only small amounts of communication are left…what kind of wife could you be?

What would you want to say to your husband?

What would you want to do for him?

How would you paint a picture of all that you wanted to say and share…with only the words you could put on paper.

I read something a while back about a woman that as a child loved to look at old love letters her grandpa had written to her grandmother. She remembered that stack of letters and how special they were. I don’t know the details behind why ‘grandma’ got those letters from ‘grandpa’ but it could well have been that he was at war or some other major event that took him far from home.

How very important might those letters have been to ‘grandma’ at the time that she received them? They obviously meant enough to her that she kept them for years and years.

I’m going to fill in the story for ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa’ here based off my own imagination…because I need the example. I don’t know that what I’m about to write is true…it’s just and example of what might have happened.

Suppose ‘grandpa’ was sent off to war…a young man, married only a short time. He’s young and afraid, far from home, missing his wife. He writes her as often as he can and receives letters when mail can get through. Each letter brings him news from home but more importantly it brings him the words…the voice, if you will…of his wife.

Maybe he sees her in his mind as he reads each letter. Maybe he hears her voice as he reads and rereads the words she wrote. Maybe he traces her handwriting because it brings back memories of the grocery list she keeps on the counter.

Whatever ‘grandpa’ does and feels as he reads ‘grandma’s’ letters…whether ‘grandma’ knew it or not when she wrote that letter….this was her chance. It was her chance to be a wife when all the other roles she had as wife were gone. This…this letter…is her only chance to be a wife.

It is her only chance to be a blessing to her husband.

Tomorrow may never come. She may never get the chance to be the kind of wife she once was to the husband she loves…and she did love him because she kept his letters for who knows how many years. That letter that she took the time to write and mail may have been her only chance to be a blessing to her husband.

What stories did she tell him of their children? What news did she write him from home? How much love did she put into each letter?

I don’t know that ‘Grandma’ wrote any letters to ‘Grandpa’ or that he was even away from home when he wrote to her. For all I know the letters that ‘grandma’ saved all those years may have been letters that he left on her pillow every Monday morning or slipped into the freezer for her to find as she fixed dinner.

But…what if a letter was the only way you could be a wife?

How much would it mean?

If everything else was taken away…that letter would become your source of contact…your only way to be a blessing to your husband.

Most of us don’t have that experience. Most of us have day after day with our husbands. We have the chance to be the kind of wife they want and need every single day. But what if we woke up each morning with the single goal of being a blessing to our husband? What if every contact we had with him was done with the memory of that goal?

Would we deliver his cup of coffee with a smile instead of frowning over the mess the children made in the kitchen? Would we stand and talk to him instead of sitting the cup down and hurrying back to clean up the mess?

Would we rub his shoulders when he comes in from work? Would we set aside dinner preparations for the time it takes to sit on the porch with him and just talk? What would it matter if dinner was late…or even if everyone ate cereal for dinner?

How different would our day be if we set out to make this day the day we were a blessing to our husbands? How different would we treat him if we thought of today as all we have? How different would we act if we imagined what we were doing right now was our only source of contact with our husband and we needed to show him…right now…in this moment…with this act…how very much he means to us?

Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. Proverbs 31:28

Is your smile not more of a blessing than your frown? A few months ago my husband and I were walking in our yard and out of the blue he asked me if I was upset. I wasn’t upset about anything so I asked him why he thought I was. He replied by telling me that I was frowning. I wasn’t upset but I was thinking about something that was going on with one of our children and apparently it was affecting the expression on my face.

In that moment I was physically present with my husband but mentally absent. That’s normal, it happens often in day to day life. Sometimes there are things that take our mental attention even when our physical presence is elsewhere.

But that day it was a reminder to me that what I was thinking about wasn’t as important as the time I was spending with my husband and after sharing the reason for my frown with my husband I deliberately set the problem aside. It wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait until later…and in fact wasn’t anything I could do about beyond think.

Instead of spending that time thinking on that problem, I focused my attention on my husband and the time we had together.

I have no idea if my husband was aware of what I did that day. I don’t know if he realized that I chose to be 100% with him instead of worrying over other things. It wasn’t my intention for him to know what I was doing…it was my intention to focus my time and thoughts on him. I didn’t need him to be aware of what I did or why I did it. I just needed to do it. There was no motive beyond the realization that I had that moment with my husband and I wanted to ‘have’ that moment with him.

How many times do we give up those moments with our husbands for the thoughts and worries that take our attention?

When (if) ‘grandma’ wrote to ‘grandpa’ while he was away at war…where do you suppose her attention was as she sat with pen in hand showing her husband what life was like while he was away? Have you ever tried to write a letter about one thing while thinking about another? It’s a pretty difficult…if not impossible…task. Chances are ‘grandma’ gave her entire focus to writing the letter she penned to ‘grandpa.’

Depending on what she said, and the words she used, chances are she blessed ‘grandpa’ with the letters she wrote. Simply because she gave that letter her full attention and she most likely tried hard to share whatever she felt he needed or wanted to hear.

Not all that long ago my husband sent me an email letting me know how a meeting had gone. I could tell from what he said that he was disappointed with the outcome of that meeting. I was too. But I didn’t dwell on my own thoughts. I quickly replied to him, encouraging him with my words. In that moment…that was what he needed from me as his wife. That was how I could bless him…in that moment.

I didn’t need to worry about anything else that was going on in life around me…I needed to be what my husband needed.

How many times as we go through our days…days that turn into weeks, weeks that become months, months that slip into years…do we take the time to be what our husbands need…right then? Do we remember that something as small as a smile or an encouraging word can be a blessing? Sometimes your very presence is a blessing.

If we set out each day to be a blessing to our husband in each moment that we have…oh, how the days would be different.

I have many roles in life…mother, daughter, grandmother, sister…but I am also wife. And as a wife…I want to be my husbands blessing.