My hubba-hubba husband and I are abundantly blessed to have one another. He's my bestest friend in the whole wide world, he cherishes me, I dote on him. I could write a 10,000 word essay about our relationship but you get the picture. We are blissfully and nauseatingly in love.
He has to travel sometimes for his business and though we are used to it, it never ceases to make us sad to be separated (and as an aside, it never ceases to make me sad to be a single parent to 4 children! So much more challenging without my partner-in-life here. Hats off to you full-time single moms or single dads, you are amazing!!)
The separation of traveling is harder for him because he's in a quiet place and alone, whereas I'm still in the same noisy chaotic environment that I always am. So sometimes if I think about it, I will slip a card or a note in his suitcase for him to open in the hotel. Recently he was gone for SIX nights! I pre-planned and wrote him a card to be opened each night and he loved it! Said it made his trip so much better! He was gone last night (just for one night, yea!) so here's the card I put in his suitcase ~ RAOK #8.
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| (Sorry, you don't get to see the note part. That's between him and me!)
As much as we care for one another, we still fall into that "busy, complacent" trap that almost all couples do. You know... you've been married for awhile. A kid or 2 (or 3 or 4 or more) come along and you are juggling your responsibilities to your spouse, kids, work, church etc. It's not that things are bad between the two of you (hopefully not anyway) but the care and concern, the romance and the intentional acts of love that you had in the beginning seem to be the casualties of family life.
When all is said and done, this person you are living with is the one who is going to be left after the kiddos are gone. What is the temperature of your relationship? When was the last time you did an intentional act of kindness towards the person who should be your #1 here on earth?
I challenge everyone reading this blog to do ONE nice thing in the next 24 hours for your husband or wife (or significant other) with no expectation of anything back. It doesn't have to involve money. It can be a card, a note, an "I Love You" in lipstick on the mirror! An unexpected cup of coffee with a kiss! Anything! I personally keep a stash of different kinds of cards (sappy, humorous, racy, romantic etc) so I have some on hand all the time. But if you can't afford cards, you have paper and a pen don't you? Your kids have notebook paper from school you can even use, don't they? If you're not good at writing a sappy letter, you could do a short list "3 things I love about you". You finished 2nd grade once and know how to draw hearts, right? Come on!
Let's be intentional about loving our spouses. Let's be intentional about putting aside the differences and all the "junk" and focus on peace and friendship. It seems to me that we are missing the point of doing RAOK if they are only bestowed on strangers and not on the people that you love.
By the way, I'd love to hear what you did! Come back here and reply on this post with your hubba-hubba RAOK! |
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