Familiar Advice from a New Quarter

This morning I ended up randomly surfing the web, one of those moments where I ended up a long way from where I started, just by clicking on interesting links. Anyway, I ended up on the Mormon Mommy Wars blog, somewhere I've never been, reading a post about some thoughts on strengthening your marriage from a sister who has been divorced now for over a year. I thought at first she was going to write about mistakes she had made personally and how to avoid them. But that wasn't it at all.

The post was very insightful and applied directly to someone in my situation. Tracy gives four pieces of advice, but I'll only mention two here, the ones that struck me the most. First, she talks about not completely losing yourself as a mother. That no matter how special and all-consuming motherhood is, it's not all that we are. I've had this reminder from different sources, but I really needed another one I guess. I know I've blogged before about feeling overwhelmed and how hard it is to figure out how to cut back my schedule. The trouble has been, so many of the things I felt I should cross off the list, I didn't want to. It seems like such a selfish thing to do, for example, to spend so much time reading and writing like I do. How does this benefit my family? Not at all. At least not on the surface. But it is a part of who I am, as an individual, though it may not be important in the realm of being a wife and mother. When I look a little deeper I realize that it terrifies me, losing this part of myself-- even if it would be in the interest of decluttering my schedule a bit. And I think in the end, the Lord wants me to develop my talents and abilities in this direction, among other things. So feeling guilty about keeping something like this a major part of my life is not helpful.

The second piece of Tracy's advice that struck me was that since I am blessed with a good man that fulfills all his basic commitments as a husband and father, I should LOVE him for it. Don't get me wrong, I do love my husband. But how often do I find myself venting about his little idiosyncrasies or weaknesses to my friends or my sisters or my mother? Just because he's not perfect I can find myself in the mode where I'm tearing down instead of building up. We do that a lot as women, and in my own case, I don't think it's very helpful. Would I want Terence to be sharing his frustrations with my shortcomings with the guys on his squad at work? In a nutshell, I need to be focusing on the positive. Any husband who works hard for his family, is kind, tries to be a good father, and is faithful should be honored for that, no matter his other shortcomings. Terence goes above and beyond the basics-- he is an amazing man and I should make sure he feels that from me on a daily basis.

Anyway, I encourage you to hop on over to read Tracy's post if you've got a few moments. You may find it just as helpful as I did.