Meditate on These Things

This morning I sat with my five year old while he was watching television. Suddenly, the network was having what we grown-ups call "technical difficulties". (Children call it "the-world-is-coming-to-an-abrubt-halt", by the way). Something was wrong with the audio, as in the program went completely silent. We switched the audio selection to the Spanish option (which in this case, for some reason, wasn't actually Spanish, but an option for the visually impaired- so the program played with the usual audio plus a running narrative of everything taking place). My son was happy with this, even though I kept telling him to check if the regular audio was working. Thankfully, it starting working properly again after a few minutes.

Well.

Apparently we hadn't seen (or heard) the last of the issues from our (usually) trusty public television station. The signal started getting interrupted, and we saw the digital equivalent of static for several minutes.

"Mom, it isn't working! I'm never, ever going watch TV for the rest of the day!" he declared, with tears nearly welling up in his eyes. (He could totally win an Oscar someday).

In my mommy-wisdom, I quickly suggested, "but think about all the times you watch TV and it's not messed up."

In that moment, I saw myself in him, and recognized all the times I have had the same reaction to my husband over silly things (and of course, the not silly things too!)

"Oh-my-word-our-marriage-is-in-serious-danger-how-could-you-make-such-an-awful-mistake-and-believe-that-we-could-still-be-happily-married-how-DO-you-live-with-yourself?" (Ahem. I never claimed to be totally mature. At least not publicly.)

God is always challenging me to look for the positive in the situation (I confess, I sometimes have trouble with this one). To keep track of the good things my husband does, they ways he exhibits good decision making skills, and whatnot. I think as humans, we usually have the tendency to focus on the negative and let it paint the whole picture for us. To view the world through smoke colored spectacles. But if we'll regularly take notice of the good, we will find that it far exceeds the bad, or unpleasant. We should have logged in our memory all the great things they've done and when they make a mistake (like we often do! Hello.) it should be no big deal. That's just one reason why the Bible instructs us to meditate on good things.

"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things."  Philippians 4:8 (NKJV)

Today, I'm challenging you (and me) to pause for a moment and take note of the "true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy" things your husband has done and quickly overlook the momentary static. Think about all the times your marriage is right!

Do you struggle in this area too? Let's start here. What is something admirable about your husband that you'd like to share?

Linking up with:

A Day in the Life

I interrupt this (unintentional!) blogging hiatus to bring you a day in our life! I'm linking up with Simply Rebekah- she says, "The concept is simple, but the results are awesome. Take one picture every hour, for one day, and an unique hour by hour snapshot of your day is created." 

Oh boy, this was a hard one for me to remember! I finally left myself a sticky note reminder to take pictures, but then quickly forgot to take them every hour. I remembered yesterday to take pictures and ended up having to set an alarm on my phone to remind me every hour (mommy brain, anyone?). 

Yeah, so I stared at this reminder near my bed for about a week, and then my husband asked "why does this say to take hourly pics?" Ha ha. *Ahem* (Yes, that's my handwriting. No, it's not normally so chicken-scratchy).

This is my 10:00 am picture. Making oatmeal for breakfast. We've been getting up pretty late recently. I think I can attribute that to me weaning off of caffeine. It has done wonders for my mood and overall well-being, but I think as my body is adjusting, I'm just sleeping as much as possible. Lest anyone be jealous, I'm usually awake super early to make sure my husband gets off to work, and then take a while to actually get back to sleep since the baby normally wakes up for a feeding during that time. Since my babies stay asleep pretty late, I'm afforded the opportunity to catch up on my rest!

11:00 am- My five year old and three year old got balloons from the movie night at our church the night before. Oh, balloons! So much fun. Until two children are playing a round of "hit the person with the balloon" and only one child knows about it!

12:00 pm- I had gotten the baby down for his nap, and now sneaking in some quiet time while PBS Kids is still on. Normally, I would choose to do this earlier in the morning, but everyone pretty much wakes up at the same time right now. (See 10:00 am photo).

1:00 pm- Lunch for the little ones! Peanut butter and jelly, and sun butter and jelly, respectively. I reheated some leftovers for my lunch.

2:00 pm- By this point, the older two children and I had read our children's devotional together, and then we began reading Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. We are doing Five in a Row for school, but still trying to find our "groove" with that. This was our first time reading this particular book, so obviously we aren't going to read it five times in a row this week! (I had to include a picture of the next page, since it so aptly described the scene in our home a few minutes before {minus the finished cellar, of course}- brother and sister had gotten into a squabble of some kind, then when I rounded them up for our devotional time and book reading, everyone calmed down, thankfully!)

3:00 pm- We were still in school mode. Brother was playing with his number cards and counting with the glass gems, and sister was playing with the letter cards. Baby brother was exploring the living room, and when I found that he had made his way under the futon, he was kicking excitedly and could not sit still for a good picture. (You'll notice that apparently, sister had forgotten to get dressed today. Thankfully, mama is secretly a fashionista and also handy with Microsoft Paint. Hee hee!)

4:00 pm- Trying to get this guy to sleep. He paused for a picture, naturally. Then, it was off to the shower for me (I know, I know! You just gotta get them when you can around here!) and time to get ready to go out.

5:00 pm- Off to one of the five and under programs at the library (the baby didn't fit in the photo, he's actually next to my daughter). I'm so happy they added some evening sessions. Did I mention mornings have been rough for us lately?

6:00 pm- Busy at the library- forgot to take a picture!

7:00 pm- About to finish up at the library, but still had time for a quick puppet show before the baby was D-O-N-E!

8:00-11:00 pm consisted of putting the baby down for one more nap, cooking dinner, refereeing the five year old and three year old, greeting the husband as he arrived home from work, eating dinner, and getting the big kids to bed. Needless to say, I completely spaced on the pictures!

11:30 pm-ish- Nursing the baby to sleep for the night while getting "caught up" on Facebook.

12:00 am- All's quiet in the house. Time for this mama to go to bed!

And there it is! A day in my life. What do YOU do all day? Don't forget to click over to Simply Rebekah to take a peek into some other people's days!