One Month

We just passed the one month mark in our marriage. How strange to think that we will only count up - never down - again in our relationship. But it is a good sort of strange!

A few firsts to have come about in our first month:

• my first chance to completely organize a home (the kitchen was especially fun . . . the rest is still in progress). A bit overwhelming at times, but worth it in the end.
• my first prolonged experience at menu planning. My cooking has generally met with success, but it has also included . . .
• my first major misjudgment on cooking time. The chicken didn't thaw as quickly as I thought it would, which meant it didn't cook as quickly as I thought it would, which meant that our main course consisted of squash and bread and apple crisp, with baked chicken for dessert.
• my first school loan payments. Yippee.
• our first budget (which didn't crash and burn as badly as we thought it would, yet I learned how quickly unexpected expenses like to raise their ugly heads!).
• our first time inviting people to our home!

Thankfully, this list doesn't include our first fight; we took care of that a while ago! :) Seriously though, there is a sort of relief to not have that looming overhead.

Something God has been impressing upon me lately is the blessing of my own insufficiency. During college, I could keep my chin above the water, and people generally believed that I was doing so with ease. I sometimes floundered and panicked, but overall I found the ability to pull myself up by my proverbial bootstraps and stay on the successful side of the grading process. I could make myself look good and get the credit for it, too. But this homemaker thing is different.

A couple weeks ago, I felt overwhelmed by all the new responsibilities. I would get up in the mornings and go at it and not feel like I had really gotten anywhere by the time I laid down at night. In homemaking, there is no deadline when you don't have to think about that project anymore. There is no final test when you can leave that topic behind forever. There is no last day in the semester and the promise of a final grade that pulls you through like a light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, dishes are constantly needing washing, the floor seems to grow dirt by itself, dirty laundry regenerates, and don't you know that nothing cleans itself! The clean socks have been in that basket in my living room for days and they still haven't figured out how to find their match!

Yet, this time of finding myself fundamentally lacking is also a blessing.

If I have everything in hand, where is room for God to work?
If I am successful at all I do, what has God done for me?
If I am wrapped up in my work and busy acing this wife/homemaker thing, how has God moved in my life?

When I can't do it and can't keep up and can't find the strength, I get to see God.

He works when I can't anymore.
He acts on my behalf when am unable to do it myself.
He moves and displays His strength when my strength is gone.

You know, I cannot figure out why I run myself ragged so often trying to prove myself. It is more fun to get to see God in all His grace and power, after all.

Is my stubbornness/determination coming between me and my experience of God's majesty?

Does God care about housework?
I think so.

And I am trying to learn to fall to my knees more quickly rather than flailing to keep my feet under me. After all, which is more important to me: the power of Christ or my stupid pride?

Is the key to success in the Christian life admitting to being an utter failure? (Hmm, that echoes the beatitudes.)

I'll gladly wave my white flag if it means that He gets the control and the glory in my life.

Although, I'm fresh out of white flags. Maybe one of these socks will do.

A Day in the Life of a New Wife

As a couple approaches matrimony, people delight in telling them how humbling marriage is. I heard it often enough that I could nod sagely every time I heard it, with a conspiratorial smile because I was "in the know" about how my selfishness and sinfulness was about to be revealed in a whole new way after I said "I do."

But marriage is humbling in other ways. No one bothered to mention them.

Take last Thursday for instance.

I needed inspiration for supper preparation and so had asked my darling hubby what would tickle his palate. His response was "Meatloaf!"  

Excellent, I mused. I can use Mom's recipe - I know that one is tasty - and it will feel homey for me.

"What would you like on the side?" his excellent wife pressed further.

"Something cold," he replied with a smile.

Something cold? I thought. What is a "cold" side? I am used to hot potato dishes, baked beans, steamed vegetables, etc., etc., adorning the sides of our dinner plates. I am prepared for the struggle to time them all exactly so they are finished at the same time and able to be served up hot together. WHY would someone want a nice hot dish served cold???

So, I asked him what he meant.

"How about creamy pea salad?"

First of all, I don't eat pea salad.

Second of all, my mother doesn't make pea salad.

Third of all, I don't know how to make pea salad.

So I smile and send him off to work and set about finding a recipe from the all-wise Bing for creamy pea salad.

I found a recipe - one with ingredients that I mostly already had and that sounded agreeable - and set out to make it.

First, I hopped in his truck to do a little grocery shopping in order to fill in the gaps in my pantry. I couldn't find the lever to make the seat slide forward, so I just sat forward in the seat, leaned against the seat belt, pointed my toe, and managed to work the gas and break pedals somewhat comfortably . . . at least without being a menace to traffic.

I rolled into the little local grocery and set about making my purchases for my home-cooked meal for my hubby. As I strolled leisurely down the aisles, I saw the bread rack.

I make my own bread, was the snobbish thought which likes to echo through my head.

You are almost out of bread, was the impish thought in return.

Look, there's even some bakery bread. That can't be as bad as the factory stuff. You don't have the time or fresh flour for your own right now, and making bread with regular flour is a sad concession in itself.

Yes, I could rationalize it, so I sheepishly tucked some store-bought, bakery-made bread into my cart and tried to look nonchalant.

I got back home and put away my groceries feeling very much like a real homemaker. The bread went into the freezer and the rest of the groceries found homes in my cupboards.

Next task: creamy pea salad.

Required: a hard-boiled egg.

Hard-boiled egg? A hard-boiled egg? I don't eat hard-boiled eggs. I don't make hard-boiled eggs. How am I supposed to hard-boil an egg?

Back to Bing I went, feeling less and less competent as a cook than I had in years.

Eureka! Bing pulled through, and I made a few extra eggs to keep in the fridge, just in case the hubby likes to eat them. Good, back on track to being competent in the kitchen.

The salad slid together, and I even had to admit it was good. The meatloaf roasted, and it tasted like home.

I admitted to the new husband that his new wife had bought bread, which he happily forgave, and I glowingly enjoyed his praises over my culinary efforts.

So, it turned out well (better than well, actually!); but the next time you start waxing eloquent about marriage's humbling qualities, stop and make sure the couple you're talking to knows that it isn't just humbling as it pertains to sin and redemption.

Oh, no.

Once you start realizing that there are real, reasonable people out there that eat the food you always snub in the potluck line, you just might be serving up a cold side of humble pie.

New Wife, New Life

Maybe I should have a warning label: "Caution. New Wife."

My brain is going crazy with everything it needs to do: finish clean-up, finish moving in, finish laundry from the wedding trip, go through pictures, write thank-you's, stay up to date on outside life as it moves past, decide which church commitments to enter and which to wait til later . . . dishes, laundry, cleaning, friends, cooking, groceries . . .

Oh, and care for the husband. That one I like. A lot.

The funniest things make me feel like a "real" wife. Yesterday, it was filling the ice cube tray. Stupid, I know. But for some reason, that simple act said, "You are no longer defined as daughter, relative, sister, friend. Your new identity - and your main one - is wife."

And I've only had one laundry snafu so far!

The really strange part is the feeling of vulnerability. My heart is walking around outside my body in the form of a 6'5", twenty-five-year-old man.

When people slight him, it hurts.
Physically.
I can feel it.

When he is attacked, I would rather they come after me, because it hurts less.

This is the infant stage of marriage. I am that wide-eyed baby, awash in wonder at the simplest aspects of married life. Every sensation - every sight, sound, and color of marriage - compounds its intensity for my unaccustomed mind.

I know some of this (or a lot of it) will fade into a hum-drum background as this new reality becomes my new normal. But I don't want all of it to become flat and tedious. I want to retain the wonder of some of it.

It makes me think of Tae Kwon Do. Our instructor always warned us, "Getting your black belt is not the finish line; that is when the real work begins."

I guess I've begun the real work of my life, perhaps the realest work in life.

Right now, it's still fun and interesting. I know that will change.

But right now, watch out world. There's a new wife down the road!