ha, thought I missed today? I’m just under the wire. well, I hope by the time I get this posted it is still today, but with 20 minutes of today left, we’ll see what I can do.

The subject… loving your wife.  The situation… your wife went on vacation without you to let you finish a project at work.  She took your 4 children. 10 years, 5 years, 3 years and 6 months.  Without you.  To your mom’s house. 9-10 hours away by car.  She drove.  By herself, well, sort of, because the 4 children just mentioned were in the car behind her.

By now you have heard that many of your prayers have been answered.  The children still live, they have been moderately to well behaved and everyone has been having fun.  Praise God.  You cleaned a couple rooms in the house.  You have prayed.  things are going well.  You are working 10+ hours a day, focused on work.  The temptation is to slack here, but you need to stay strong.  stay with the plan.  You need to keep praying and keep cleaning.  I now have the kitchen, dining room, breakfast area and living room clean.  I will vacuum later.  what else can be done that would be loving your wife while she is away.  You are 2 days into this.  You still aren’t used to being alone and you feel weird in such a quiet house.

This is on the romance side today.  Tomorrow I will be back to more practical things.  You need to text her and call her just so she knows you are thinking about her.  It is really no effort to text her a quick “I miss you” or an “I love you” or “You make me smile” or “you totally rock me”.  No effort on your side and huge returns as far as letting her know that you are enamoured by her, that you love her and can’t wait to see her again.

Now don’t be psycho with this and don’t be annoying and blowing up her phone every few minutes.  Just randomly throughout the day, take just a minute or two and text her.  Or call her.  or if you are real smooth and you are on the same network, send her a voice mail to her phone rather than dial it directly.  Leave her a simple and sweet message, encouraging her and just letting her know that she is on your mind.

It would be easy for her to think that things are just easier for you alone, but are they?  No they aren’t.  You are alone.  Your children are gone.  Your quiver is momentarily empty.  This is a picture of your life without them.  Do you find that you have taken them for granted? That you have taken her for granted?  Do you usually clean the house? do the dishes? bathe the children? mow the lawn? do the laundry? cook? feed the kids? clothe the children? buy their clothes? shop for groceries?  If you do, good.  If not, then this week is a good picture of all the things that maybe she takes care of and you don’t have to.  If you take her for granted, then think about how your life would be if it was just you by yourself.  Or you and your children without her.  God created you a mate.  A help mate.  Not a slave or a servant, but someone that completes and compliments you and rounds you out in all your faults.  Appreciate your wife.  and as you appreciate her, put some of those thoughts into words in a text, in a note, in a voice mail, in an email…

And if you were wanting to really, really go all out… (I have not done this mind you… yet) send her a handwritten letter, by mail.  with a stamp.  in secret.  while she is on travel or even while she is at home. and send it in the actual mail.  don’t hand it to her.  let her get it from the mailbox, preferably while you are not there peering over her shoulder trying to see how many points you are about to get.  Just do it and don’t mention it.

You probably did this before you got married.  now you need to do it again.

Love your wife.  text her, voicemail her, write her, woo her, send her a letter. let her know in your own words what she means and is to you and how much God has blessed your life through her.

It will change you.  It will change her.  You will be blessed. Just made it.  11:58pm tuesday.

til tomorrows tip, Lord Willing. good night.

when she is on travel with your children…

Brandi is in Michigan with the kids for 9 days.  The first thing that I said you should do for your wife to love her while she is traveling with those wonderful little bundles of love you have together is to Pray for her.  She needs that, she needs to know that you are doing that, that you are supporting her.

The next thing you need to do…

what do you think?

remember, we are thinking points here…

Ok, I’ll help you.

#2 is…

Clean!

Look, you are home alone, you are not surrounded by little eyes looking at you, asking you questions.  You are not doing all the things that they require.  but she is.  And so, while she is gone, instead of camping in front of the TV the whole time, pick a room, and start cleaning.  Today I did the kitchen.  Got the dishes done, cleaned the counters, crumb catchers, all that.  cleaned the sink and the stove.  took care of the junk on the counters.  trashed stuff that could be trashed, stacked that which needed to be sorted.  these are things that, first of all, will not get messed up by anyone but you while she is gone with the children.  So, that means, if you clean it up, it should stay clean until you mess it up again, then clean it again.

think of how happy your wife will be when she walks in the door, fearing the looming mess that might be waiting for her after her long drive and to come into a house where things have been taken care of and cleaned up since last she saw it.  That makes a world of difference to her and it will make a world of difference to you in the points arena.  Not that it’s about points, but since guys like to keep scores, it gives you something to do.  But remember, you can never, ever, even think about, keeping a tally on your points and then using that for your own gain with her.  She will redeem your points at her own pace.  be patient young grasshopper.

So, divide the number of house rooms by the number of days she will be gone and give that many rooms a good neatening, straightening, cleaning, sweeping, dusting each day until they are all done.  You are a guy for heaven’s sake, you are not going to use every room of the house every day.  And with that little work effort, you will present a nice, clean, peaceful and inviting house to your wife who is coming in off the 10 hour road trip and would likely just want a clean house that doesn’t have to be worried about and probably, after all that driving and talking and correcting, a nice bath and a massage.

Yes, bathrooms count too.  You should start on those first.

til tomorrow, Lord willing…

While she is on travel with your children… without you.

For those that don’t know, Brandi and the kids left for Michigan yesterday.  I have a large amount of work to do for a project and will be working a lot of overtime this week.  We go to Michigan every July 4th for a week and this year I just can’t swing it due to workload and schedule.  But the kids will get to see grandparents and uncle Willa and Aunt Monaca and do all those things that kids like to do with folks that aren’t quite as anti-fun as Brandi and I, like getting candy bars at 10 in the morning and learning how to wipe their noses on their sleeves, etc.

Back to the point.  Loving your wife.  I don’t have this down, figured out, dialed in or anything, but I might have some advice that might be helpful to you. How to maintain and even gain points while she is away.  Not that it is really about points, but points are something that us guys can understand.  More points, good, less points bad.  except in golf, but don’t get distracted.  Think Basketball, football, soccer, hockey.  Full contact sports.  ah, that’s better.  ok now, Put yourself in this situation:  Your wife, the love of your life, has just loaded up a car with 4 children and headed out on a 10 hour drive to your parents house.  Without you.  BY CHOICE.  to let you have time to work and focus on a project that is way behind with a looming deadline.  To go to YOUR mom’s house. (Brandi loves my mom, so this is really no big deal).  But you get the picture.

You get a quarter point for loading the car, a quarter point for setting up the kids with a DVD player.  You are now at half a point.  What does your wife need at this moment, heading out on the road more than anything else?  No it is not a drink or a pill.  Nope not ear plugs, but that was a good try Dave.

what do you think?  think hard…  going away for 9 days.  10 hours in car.  solo with YOUR kids.  oh, and they are YOUR kids at this moment.

any more guesses?

I’m listening….

anything?

She…

Needs…

You…

To…

PRAY.

So, you lean towards the window that’s open, you put your hand gently behind her head and draw her forehead to yours and you pray over her and YOUR children and the ride and the car and the traffic and for safety and obedience and patience and God’s hand and grace over them as they travel and that God would return them to you, safely, unharmed, as His will directs.

You love your wife at this moment by praying for her, with her.  and you pray throughout the day and days ahead that all goes well, that none of your children die by her hand (or anything else) and that this vacation is exactly that, a refreshing, relaxing time, even though you are not there to enjoy them and her.

That is tip #1… stay tuned, tip #2 will come later today as I got started with this a day late.

I have only been married 12.5 years, it will be 13 in August.  It seems like yesterday that we were standing face to face before God and the congregation of family and friends making our vows to one another.  It seems like yesterday that at our 5 year we renewed our vows in front of our California friends on the beach in Seal Beach, California.  How time goes by.

There is a movie that we have watched a couple times now, Madea’s Family Reunion by Tyler Perry.  It is a mix of humor and seriousness with many Christian themes underlying it.  It is sometimes hard to watch because of the reality and devastation of sin and then moments later, when you can’t take any more, the humor lets you forget the pain.  It is a lot like life and the way you go from the heights of joy to the depths of despair.  In the midst of all that, there is a quote that I love that a character, Aunt Myrtle, says at the kitchen table among all the ladies gathered there at the reunion.  Her character is played by Cicely Tyson. This quote so well sums up the love and closeness that I have with my wife and that I would hope any married couple could enjoy together.  I don’t think that I have put it up here before, so here it is.  It can bring tears to me even after multiple times reading it and hearing it.

Aunt Myrtle: “We had a love so strong.. that is just seemed like we were one. I would get ready to tell him something and he would open his mouth and say the very thing, that I was fixing to tell him. And then. there were those moments when I would lay my head on his chest just to listen to his heart beat. And then one night. I realized that his heart beat, matched mine. I have had an opportunity that few people ever get on this earth. God has blessed me to share time and space with a man that he designed himself just for me. I’ve not only been blessed… I have been divinely favored.

That is me.  I have been divinely favored.   I have no other explanation.  Even with the highs and lows of life that can often make me forget, this is so true of what God has done between Brandi and I.  No explanation, no goodness in me, nothing can explain or describe the love that I have been given and have been shown through the woman that God has given me.  I’ve not only been blessed… I have been divinely favored.  I pray that this is my praise and prayer for the rest of my life.

Brandi, I love you.

I have to admit.  I don’t like problems.  Recently, we have been noticing some water outside our foundation.  Seemingly leaking from the kitchen sink.  I’ve been doing some sleuthing and I have found that it is in fact a leak.  Today I pulled away the siding and then found where the water was coming from, then went inside and took out the dishwasher, cut through the drywall and identified the leak.  It’s been leaking for a while.  bummer.

I have a friend that is going to help out.  He’s a plumber.  Still, I’m a person that doesn’t handle such problems well.  they consume me.  In essence, I get stuck in a loop.  I can’t get out.  I can’t stop thinking about it.  It is frustrating.  What’s more frustrating is that I know that I’m being that way and I can’t stop it.  That is frustrating.  I’m not supposed to worry or fret and yet I do.  It’s not the end of the world, it’s fixable.  But since I can’t fix it immediately and since I have like zip for experience in plumbing, I freak out and worry about it.  It gets me down.  I have to force, or rather FORCE, myself to think on other things.  One thing that helped today is just trying to recognize the God stuff that is at work in the midst of my non-trial.

God provided a friend who is a plumber that can help us out.  God has orchestrated a cool relationship between us and this couple.  There is, up to this point, no water in my basement and no major damage.   God provides and takes care of us more than I realize.  In the midst of such situations, He is there working.  Who knows what all else will come of this.  For now, I am just thankful that HE is always actively working, regardless of my performance or my do-while-worrying loop.

Father, thanks for your grace and purpose and means all of which are beyond my comprehension and yet I am able to see them.  bless our time tomorrow and this project that we might be back in working order soon. In Christ, Amen.