Confession. I am ending my affair.
Pause: A temporary stop in action or speech.
Punctuate: To interrupt periodically.
Over a year ago I went to a beautiful local spa thanks to my husband and kids. I am always in heaven at a day of pampering. I went in for my massage and the masseuse talked a bit much for my taste. She kept telling me about all my knots and she was making suggestions of things I needed to do to take better care of my back. I was thinking “Lady, I am trying to relax not be lectured about all the things I need to do.” She obviously hadn’t seen my to-do list that never ends! As I was leaving the room she said to me “Don’t forget to punctuate life with a pause.”I simply looked back at her and smiled.
“Don’t forget to punctuate life with a pause.”
My brain started working on over time. What did she say? What does that mean? I have multiple journal entries trying to dissect it. Here we are over a year later and the words have not left me. I ponder them often wondering what God is trying to say to me through them.
Well over this past weekend we attended a Family Life, Weekend to Remember, event. My husband and I have been married 5 ½ years and this was our first marriage conference. We didn’t go thinking we had a lot to work on but we were simply just excited to have one-on-one time together. We were having a great time until a bomb dropped. In one of the sessions the speaker declared “At some point in your marriage all of you will have an extra marital affair.” The room audibly gasped.
I did not.
I knew exactly what was about to be said and I knew I was about to be busted for my affair.
The fact is over the course of the last year and half I have been having an affair with this place and space. Cravings gets all my extra energy, it gets my evenings, it gets my minutes when the kids are napping, it get my creativity, and I have finally had to admit it gets more of me than God, my husband, and my family do.
GULP!
As I was internally processing all of this the words “Don’t forget to punctuate life with a pause” rose up inside of me. Over the next session at the conference we were given a project to write our spouse a love note sharing why we fell in love with them, why we are thankful for them, and what our hopes and dreams for our marriage are. I attacked my love note with a lot on my mind. When we were done my husband asked if we could read them out loud to each other. GULP! again. I knew what I had said and didn’t think I could make it through my letter. But I tried. After lots of tears and confession I committed to my husband to being a better wife than I had been. I committed to passionately pursing being the best wife I could be!
I know what that is going to mean for me. I know the things I am going to have to do differently, I know the choices and at times sacrifices that need to happen and here is the best part I don’t feel the slightest bit worried about it. I feel released! I feel like I am going to: Punctuate life with a pause!
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” Philippians 2:3-4
Honestly, I haven’t been this excited about something in a long time. And when I am excited things get just a tad bit crazy!
I don’t know where you are right now? Maybe you are in the midst of your own affair? Maybe your family and spouse are getting the last bits of you? If so can I encourage you to stop, take a deep breath, and punctuate life with a pause?
P.S. – I am not disappearing. I am simply hitting the re-set button.