Approaching Mother's Day, I felt the pressure of coming up with something big. "Gotta please my wife," was the thought going through my head. I knew this was messed up thinking. The angel on my right shoulder kept saying, "Don't listen to that crap, just try to do good to her without thinking about the "why" of everything." The other thought going through my mind was "I haven't been doing as much for Sara lately, so I feel like I'd just be trying to do something for Mother's Day because I'm supposed to". Again, the good angel said, "It's never too late to do good for your wife. Don't worry about whether or not you are 'just doing it for Mother's Day'."
Throughout our marriage I am a combination of intentionality and bumbling through things. Although it might look like I get it right every time, that isn't the case because I've had my fair share of missing out on opportunities to do good. Although I must give myself grace, I often find myself lacking desire to move towards my wife, especially since having our daughter. We are living life, doing work, both in graduate school, cleaning up the house, tending the garden, and most of all - putting a tremendous amount of energy into our daughter. At the end of the day, or even the in-between times, I can find myself lacking desire to put energy into my wife.
This is when I have to step back and think as clearly as possible. "What do I really believe? Do I want to move towards Sara? Of course I do." That's when I throw up the simple prayer that comes to mind in moments like these, "God, help me to move towards my wife."
In the end, I created a "You-Tube-video-Mother's-Day-card" for Sara several days ago, and of course, she loved it. I know you might think that I sure went overboard after struggling with moving towards her for Mother's Day, but this isn't the truth. I love to do little videos, and I loved doing this video with my daughter. It wasn't hard for me to muster up the motivation to make a creative video for her. Nevertheless, it took me finding the desire to move towards her, and a little prayer to muster up the desire to get the energy to do it. Then, once I did it, I found myself having loved moving towards Sara after all of my mental agony and gymnastics.
In the end, it wasn't too late to move towards Sara, and it is never too late to move towards her, no matter how long it has been. Never forget that it is never too late to move towards your spouse. Our hearts are designed for and long for such movement.
Photo by Jonathan Daniels on Unsplash