Choosing Joy in Marriage
June, summer, love. I had big plans of writing about marriage this season, but the tone changes when we’re surrounded with the news of national injustices. We all want to speak out, help raise the awareness and justice we believe in. As much as we must never stop trying and looking for those big opportunities, wisdom teaches us to start with the small opportunities to show love, mercy and justice right where we already are. As wives and mothers, we practically ask “what can I do with where I am, with what I have?” Remember that wisdom reminds us, “the family is the basic unit of society, and the marriage is the basic unit of the family.” It’s of course never a small thing to believe that by trying to be the best wife and mother we can be, we’re greatly contributing to our society. We want to change the world! Let’s first listen to Saint Mother Teresa, “Go home and love your family!” As married women, that starts with loving our husbands. Why do we think the devil turns to the critical wife attack so frequently? He knows the destruction of family peace starts with destroying the marital foundation, most commonly through the hardening of the woman’s heart. I’m currently reading an amazing book about marriage, (I can’t wait to finish & share with you soon!), but one of my favorite excerpts so far is about a wife sharing how “she once hated when her husband drank with a spoon.” It was a simple habit that got under her skin and started this subconscious trail of negativity toward him! She shares how she finally decided to write a list of all the negative things about both herself and her husband, and after honest reflection noticing how much bigger the negative list of herself was, she decided to burn the negative column of her husband and just keep the positive. Spoiler alert, it drastically changed her, and drastically improved her marriage. I loved how simple the story was. How relatable that we allow a simple annoyance to turn into a spiral of negatively to those we love the most. It was her change in mindset and her deliberate choice that saved her from that. We all want to help change the world and make an impact to the current injustices we see; yet let’s not forget that starts with amazing marriages and amazing families we can choose to build. If the game of life is 90% mental, we must learn to focus on our thoughts in order to stay on that winning track. We can, we just have to consciously, daily, choose to.
Here are 5 small tips I’ve learned to help that choosing joy in marriage mindset:
Keeping a picture of my husband as a little boy and a man by my bed, and in my journal
Changing his contact in my phone to “hubby (heart emoji)”
Keeping that list of his positive traits close by :) “I married such a good man!”
Hanging that quote by Mother Teresa in our hallway, “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” Seriously an ALL time favorite!
Keeping something to look forward to on the calendar with just me and him. Can be a simple movie night, fun date-night, or small or big trip planned further out.
Remember, one of the BEST things we have the ability to do right now, right within the walls of own homes, is to give the love and justice our marriages deserve. That will ensure the ripples of love flow into our hurting world. We can all choose to do those “small things with great love,” within our own homes, families and marriages. We got this! Continued prayers for the injustices of our world today; may the love within our marriages be a blessing to them all,
