Marriage Lesson: You Set The Tone

 
It’s true.
 
If you have started reading the book “Power of a Praying Wife” that I talked about last week, you will find this in the first chapter. When I read it for the first time, I brushed over it. It lacked meaning and importance to me. I felt like I gave Kevin enough love and support. WRONG {well in a certain way}. Do I only give my husband love and support when it’s convenient for me? YES I DID, and most likely still do at times.
 
This notion of me setting the tone of my home seemed unimportant and irrelevant to me until about 2 ½ months into our marriage. Let me set the stage for the story first: Kevin and I have never really had weekends together. He played Baseball at UTSA all through college, so we were always at games/practices. So, for me, I had an expectation that when we graduated, we would have weekends. We could do fun stuff together, go home and see our family, etc. But, Kevin now works on Saturdays. {this should also be a lesson on not taking too many expectations into your marriage}. So, It was a Saturday, I was at home, alone, all day. I was feeling down because I had nothing to do and all my friends were at a football game. I admit, some tears were shed because I was frustrated about not getting what selfish me wanted.
 
I had a bad attitude. Kevin would be home in 30 minutes and I couldn’t shake my bad attitude. All I wanted to do was complain to him about how bad MY day was and about me, me, me. Then, it hit me. I didn’t want to be negative, or have a bad attitude, or extend this attitude to the nighttime or to Kevin.
 
So, I took the next twenty minutes and turned all the lights off to just pray. I asked God to take away my selfishness, to take away expectations that didn’t really matter in my marriage, to give me a new attitude of gratefulness. And he did.
 
When Kevin walked in the door, I greeted him with a smile and asked about his day. I cooked dinner, we watched TV, we had a great night. I could have complained, I could have thrown that burden on my husband. But that is not where it would have belonged. In Power of a Praying Wife, she prays “ Lord, release my husband from the burden of fulfilling me in areas where I should be looking to you”.
 
I am not saying never let your husband know your feelings, but I am saying that the timing and attitude you have when you express those feelings set a tone for your house. If I would have complained, we most likely would not have had a good night. It would have been negative. But with God’s help, we have the power to change our mindset to what really matters and set a loving, safe tone for our homes.