This One Is Actually Not About the Kids

I’m willing to bet that you have pictures like this one. Okay, so maybe you’re not wearing a football jersey, but you do have photos somewhere–online, on your desk, hanging on your wall–that remind you of who you were and what life was like B.C. Before children.

As I look at this picture, I see fewer gray hairs and “fine lines.” I don’t see any bags under our eyes. In fact, both my husband and I look…relaxed. An elusive sensation in our lives right now. (I do think it’s funny that there is a bulk size diaper box in the background–which my older sister had given us to use as moving boxes. A harbinger of the coming diaper deluge…)

I could write any number of posts about all that has changed in my life since having children. My appearance. My priorities. My daily routine. The fact that I’ve been up during the night for 5 years straight, and my body no longer knows how to sleep through until morning. (It’s true!!) But not this post. This time, I’m looking at that smiling face next to mine. This time, I’m pondering the upheaval in the life of the one I promised to love, cherish, and at least pay a little attention to every once in awhile–my husband.

My husband never felt the need to spend two weeks of deer season in a buddy’s hunting lodge. He’s not a fisherman. He’s not a golfer. He doesn’t hole up in the garage restoring something with a motor to its former glory.

But he does like football. Before kids, he never missed a U of M or Lions game. And he certainly never missed any big post-season games.

Fast-forward five years. He now averages maybe two quarters of a couple Lions games, with numerous interruptions from little girls who love to yell “Go, Lions!” at the TV with him, but start begging for Paw Patrol after the second play.

He now manages maybe one full U of M game but only because he has gone over to my mother-in-law’s to watch it with her on ESPN, which we don’t get because we’re trying to save money.

And you know what? He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t ever heave a big sigh and mutter something about all he’s given up. He doesn’t even ask me to take the girls somewhere and do something with them so he can watch the game in peace. He knows that I’m tired by the weekend and so he gives me a break, dressing up the girls in their jerseys or U of M cheerleader outfits and setting them down on the couch with him during a game that he will only be able to half-watch. Because he loves them, and he loves me.

It’s the month of love. Everyone wants true love. But true love is, well, hard. It’s action, not feeling. It’s asking first what you can do for your spouse. And then doing it. When you add kids to the mix, especially little ones with their constant needs, the going gets really tough. I don’t do it perfectly. In fact, when I look at this smiling face in this picture from a bygone era, I wonder whether I do it very well at all.

One thing I know to be true, my husband does it better than I. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). My husband has taken these words to heart. And, no, he doesn’t do it perfectly, either, but I often fail to realize and appreciate all the ways that he lives out a what-can-I-do-for-you kind of love. With all the sacrifices that come with it.

I don’t take time to appreciate the way he has embraced fully his new life, never looking back. And I could be asking myself more often, “What can I do for this man who promised to love, cherish, and sacrifice almost the entire football season for me?”

God led me to ponder that question at just the right time. Yup–Superbowl Sunday. I did a little planning. We had an earlier supper in front of the TV–no, not the pre-game, (maybe next year, sweetheart) but a dog movie for the girls. It finished right at kickoff. I took care of the bedtime routine, and my husband actually got to watch almost the entire Superbowl interruption-free.

We all have something that bridges the chasm between our B.C. selves…and the craziness of now. For my husband, that thing is football.

And I made a promise to him…a promise to love him, cherish him, and help him not forget entirely who he was before our beautiful children came into the picture. After all, before the three of them, there was the two of us. That’s something to ponder, to protect, and to cherish.