Well - last night was another night of getting hit by a 2 X 4 - only this time it was really Steve’s turn.
Let me back up a bit and start with Saturday night, for some weird and unknown reason, Steve and I seem to have the most serious discussions just before we go to sleep. This time the discussion was about how I was holding a lot of stress and worry inside and not sharing it with him. Over the last 4 months, I’ve kind of been in charge of the budget and the bank account - Steve’s been really busy with work and I’ve just been taking care of it - needless to say - I’ve been worried because we’ve been trying to pay off our debt and it hasn’t been happening. So I finally opened up and shared the worries that I’ve been carrying and Steve started to feel guilty.
We decided when we got married that we would go with traditional Christian roles (for the most part - I’m an extremely independent woman so sometimes that’s a problem). So Steve’s been the head of the household spiritually - and as he put it - he abdicated his role about 6 months ago when he started his new job and got really busy. On Saturday night, God nailed him with the 2 X 4 about making decisions and leading the family (just me for now) and being responsible for more than just bringing in the income.
Well - last night we went to small group and it was a game night so nothing very serious - just a lot of laughter - Apple to Apple is a totally fun game! - and good food. When we got home, though we found that our dog Cairo had had an accident - he’s on antibiotics and it’s making him super thirsty all the time - which means that he drinks a ton of water and pees a lot too.
So I cleaned up the mess and was talking to Steve about what we could do to keep this from happening and I was getting more and more exasperated because Steve wasn’t really helping me. I made a somewhat crazy suggestion of leaving the back door open when we aren’t home (not a problem in Iowa but a really dumb thing to do in Phoenix Arizona) and Steve was not thrilled with my suggestion and let me know it. I dropped the issue for the time being…
So we got ready for bed and did our devotional and prayers together and then based on something my parents taught me - I brought up that my feelings were hurt from the way he had snapped at me. And I also told him that I’m tired of always being the one to take care of the dog and the birds and that I can already see where things are going to be when we have kids - and I want it to stop now!
2 X 4 number 2 upside the head for Steve, he realized that he’s leaving most of the household work and care of our animals in my hands and he’s not really volunteering much in the way help right now. I had to stop and make sure I didn’t start piling all sorts of things on top of the issue I had brought up. So instead I asked him what he was thinking (he got really quiet) and he said he was mad at himself for not noticing that I needed help.
We ended up talking for over 90 minutes trying to get this settled before we went to bed - and I have to admit we both woke up this morning in better spirits because we had followed God’s leading and worked together to grow.
There are times when I’m amazed at the amount of work God is doing in Steve and me and I wonder what His plans for for us in the future - it’ll be fun to find out!
