Closet Pondering

My daughter has a dear friend from college here for most of the week.
It is delightful to watch their friendship.
Each girl is in the same major: digital media.
Each is creative and artistic; each loves the Lord.

We have things planned during the day.
The evenings are theirs to spend time with some of my daughter’s friends.
Or perhaps go to a wonderful ice cream shop nearby.
The evenings are theirs.

As I got dressed this morning, I found myself pondering in my closet.
I am able to pick just the right maxi skirt, just the right shirt, just the right sandals.
I can accessorize with a scarf or a necklace.
I can choose a belt that matches my outfit.

I was not pondering in my closet as if to say that I am in any way the height of fashion.
I pondered in my closet because I have choices.
If truth be told, too many choices.
Ask my husband, who will never understand the number of shoes a woman has.

I have choices.
You have choices.
I take my choices for granted.
My closet pondering convicted me that I am wrong in my presumption.

I am grateful to my husband for enabling me to stay home all these years.
He was the one that went to work each day.
I was the one who stayed home with the children.
That allowed me to be home base, the hub of the wheel, and the heart of the home.

My husband was the protector, the provider, the handyman, and the constant.
Like my closet choices, I realized that a constant could be taken for granted.
Not intentionally, but by being a bit too casual about its importance.
Like a compass always pointing north, or the sun rising in the east, it is expected.

Things become too familiar.
You get used to the way things are.
You become too nonchalant.
You find that you are careless in the amount of attention you give to what is always there.

There it was.
As I stood there in my closet, I understood.
I am careless in the amount of attention I give to my blessings.
Standing there in my closet, I knew that had to begin to change.

My husband has this Friday off.
It is always his desire to go out to breakfast with me on his day off.
I often have to rearrange my schedule, if I am unaware that he has the day off.
As if on cue, my husband asked me to go to out breakfast with him.

I gave him an easy, Yes.
Then my mind raced with all the things I needed to get done.
My to-do list blocked out any thought of time with my husband.
We may have to drive separately so I can go food shopping right after, I said quickly.

I saw his face.
He looked sad and disappointed.
He made a pout that he tends to do to make a point while trying to keep it light.
He put his sunglasses on and drove down the driveway to work.

My heart sank.
I was convicted.
Much like my closet pondering, I knew I had to make a change.
The constant, the man who is my husband, was coming in second to my to-do list.

If this was a game show, I could hear the buzzer, buzzing obnoxiously.
If this was a game in sports, I could see a yellow card being dropped on the field.
But this was real life.
This was my marriage and I had my priorities all wrong.

I could justify my comment.
I could make excuses.
I could stack the decks in my favor.
I could rationalize the need for driving separately and getting things done.

None of that matters.
This is the man with whom I have shared my life and my love for thirty-three years.
This is the man who is the father of my five children.
This is the man I covenanted with on that October day before God and witnesses.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke about marriage at a wedding.
He spoke about marriage being a covenant.
A covenant is more than a promise.
A covenant is binding.

The covenant from this day forward sustains the love, not the love, the covenant. (Bonhoeffer)

The covenant sustains the love.
To-do lists, busyness, indifference, and nonchalance will rear their ugly heads.
But the covenant puts things in perspective.
The covenant causes you to do a little closet pondering on your own.

The covenant will remind you of the blessings.
The covenant will remind you when attention must be paid.
The covenant will prioritize correctly.
The covenant will sustain what the world wants to tear apart.

The strongest marriages need to remember the covenant.
The weakest marriages need the glue of the covenant to hold them together.
The day-to-day marriages, stuck in the mundane, need to be energized by the covenant.
The new marriages with their excitement need to steady themselves on the covenant.

Closet pondering.
Too many choices.
Too much looking around, and at, and through, and between.
Too much taking for granted.

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain comes down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who builds his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. (Matthew 7:24-27)

A covenant stands on rock.
A marriage covenant stands on THE Rock.
It will not fall.
Its foundation is solid, since its foundation is God.

Too many choices made too quickly and often on autopilot are unwise.
Without a little closet pondering, the sands will shift.
Without a little consideration, things go along as they have been without much thought.
Without covenantal sustenance, the love is easily taken for granted.

I sent my husband a text after I came inside.
Food shopping can wait. We will go to breakfast together. Love you.
He answered with a kissing happy face emoji.
The covenant was remembered; the love is sustained.