Today, Brian and I took the day off together.
For me that meant abandoning my usual “to-do” list and even the sanity-inducing “one-load of laundry a day rule“. For him, it meant taking a vacation day from the home restoration business where he works as a carpenter (you know, like JESUS…) and even requesting off of his evening/weekend/on-call work as a flood tech as well as putting down the thick book that has been the source of much wrestling related to his ecclesiology paper which is the bane of my existence.
We didn’t do much outside of the ordinary, I suppose. Not only is the budget tight but activities that accommodate the ages of our kids are in short supply (outside of the playground). We talked a lot. We played with the kids. We ate both lunch and supper together. We had a cuppa tea. We talked some more. We made out while Joseph slept and Anne counted to ten repeatedly - onetotwee…fo…fiiiiive! six! sneven! eight! noine! ten! - in her bedroom.
In short, it was good for my soul. And Brian’s as well.
Have you ever heard of “The Five Love Languages” or taken the “Love Languages” test? The basic premise is that not only do we receive love in a certain language but we then need to love others with their “language” in order for them to receive it. For Brian and I, we both speak the language of quality time (his second runner up is Affection but for me, it’s Acts of Service…which explains why I nearly jumped him after this incident, also referred to as The Poop Story of 2008). But since our primary language is the same and, as you can ascertain from my first paragraph, that is in short supply, these days are the glue for us.
Even soulmates need time.
I am reading a book right now that claims that there is an “intimacy famine” in our society right now. We are too busy to be truly intimate in our relationships so we just skim the surface, never truly going deep with each other. In truth, it’s really a time famine.
One of the values that Brian and I have articulated for our marriage is that we wish to be fully and authentically present in the moment. We never want to be so busy looking forward or back that we miss where God has placed us right here, right now. We don’t want to be wishing away the stage that our children are in. We don’t want to be hurrying through this time of preparation. We have always – purposely – been very deliberate in how our life looks.
Our life looks the way it does because that’s the way we have chosen for it to be (sometimes that’s good, sometimes it’s not…we don’t always make the right choice). But we have chosen to follow what we believe to be God’s will for our life and that has brought us here. And here is where we want to be. Together.
These are the moments that we will remember.
In our wedding programme, we wrote this quote by Thoreau:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
The point for us was not the “going to the woods” but the “living deliberately” part. We’ve always sought to live our lives purposefully. No careening from circumstance to circumstance, appointment to appointment. Pause. Stop. Ask if this is what you really want. What should my life look like? Should it look like 10 hours in front of the TV a week? Should it look like living far away from family? Should it look like the easy job that looks “successful” to everyone else? Should it look like a lot of money even at the expense of our children’s early years? Should my children think that shopping is the only way to spend time with their parents or have fun? Should it be instant gratification for them – or me? Should it look like corporate Christianity or should it resemble something simpler and more authentic? Should it be Jesus-as-CEO or Jesus-as-Savioiur-Redeemer-Friend? Should it represent the incredible grace of God? Should my life – on a daily basis – speak without words of the Love that carries me? (And I was surprised when I read this book to see that quote at the front and those same sentiments expressed. Felt a bit eerie….)
So we took today off together, deliberately. We did it to have a “do-nothing” day of running errands, talking about our life, making meals together, kissing for an hour or two during naptime and generally pouring a bit more time into this – the most vital relationship of our life.
