Last week my husband called me out on not prioritizing him properly and putting my hobbies ahead of him. Not in a selfish way by any means. He was calling my priorities into question and realignment, of which he was right. I apologized and said I would work on it.
Later that day he said he wanted to watch a bunch of Christmas movies before Christmas. We sat down and made a list. I counted the number of movies and compared it to the number of days left until Christmas. We could watch them all in time with two or maybe three grace days.
The next day at work I'm thinking about it and thinking about how over the next two weeks I wouldn't have any time to myself. Our afternoons and evenings would consist of walking Blessing, shower, supper, Christmas movie and then bed. With no personal time. I'm not sure if my next thought was mine or Holy Spirit, but I don't remember and I don't wish to sound more spiritual than I am. Anyway, my next thought was that by laying down my own desires and such for the next two weeks and watching movies with hubby, this would be a great way to practice sacrificing my wants and putting hubby first. He won't always come first, of course, sometimes I will come first because that's how love and marriage work. Love is an action and sometimes that action is sacrifice.
That Monday evening he asked me to watch a Christmas movie I sighed. He momentarily got upset and then I explained what happened in the primer booth earlier that day. I told him how I was going to practice sacrificing my time for him. He was appreciative and excited to start watching Christmas movies. I also told him I had a plan to make him sugar cookies. I tried last year and it failed. This year I had a better plan. The first recipe flunked, the instructions were not written well and therefore confusing and then leading me to fail. I found a second recipe, with the same ingredients but better instructions that worked. A few days later I tried to make icing but we didn't like the flavour of it. Hubby saw how much work I was putting into that endeavour and told me to stop and try again next year. I was grateful and relieved. He felt loved and blessed and I now have a better plan for next year.
Anyways, back to the movies. The first few days of movies went very well. Hubby was feeling loved and prioritized. On Wednesday, he asked me to go on a dinner date with him. He said we hadn't been out for a nice dinner in a while. He wanted me to get dressed up so that he could take me out for dinner. Music to my ears. On Saturday night we got dressed up and went for dinner.
The next week started to feel hard. I started to get tired and wanted some downtime. I was then reminded that sacrifice isn't easy, if it was, it wouldn't be called sacrifice. I told hubby I was struggling but pushing through and processing in my journal also helped. One night during the second week we picked a shorter movie, which allowed for some downtime afterwards and helped me to feel refreshed. I knew that it would all be worth it in the end, and it was. Hubby felt loved and prioritized and I had practiced sacrificing my me time.
Again, this was all back in December and now we are in mid-January. Looking back, I barely remember the sacrifice. I do remember feeling satisfied checking off the last movie on our list a few days before Christmas and getting to love on my hubby.
So, do you need to practice sacrificing something in your life in order to love on someone in your life? It's not easy, but its worth it.
I pray this blesses and encourages you today, friend.
God Bless
~Hannah
No comments:
Post a Comment