This is the time

“When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up – one on one side, one on the other – so that his hands remained steady till sunset.” Exodus 17:12 NIV

This has been a heavy week. We know two people who lost their spouses. Both were long term marriages of people our age or older. It’s hard to think about anything else, to be honest.

My wife is also waiting for back surgery next week and is in pain 24/7. This has been a battle for around five years, and I pray for her victory that starts next week. I was working out of town and it just became time to come home, she was hurting. On the trip back I was thinking about how to put this week into words. I listen to perhaps an odd mixture of music, but one song hit home.

“This is the time to remember. Cause it will not last forever. These are the days to hold onto, cause we won’t although we want to. This is the time. But time is gonna change. You’ve given me the best of you and now I need the rest of you.” For the one person out there not a fan of Billy Joel, I’ll pray for you.

What hit me is that everyone wants the younger version of our best self to still be here. Everyone wants the times when you have some money left over after paying bills. Everyone wants to still be able to run, to move without tweaking that knee that needs to be replaced. The parts of life that we may identify as the best are probably some of the shortest time periods in reality.

Kids come along and thank you Jesus for that. They are amazing. But parents are often tired, hungry and need fresh clothes trying to keep up with them. I can remember a time when literally zero items of clothing in our house had not been puked on by either child. Aly told me once that she used to pretend to choke me with her bare hands when she was mad at me. I told her I used to think the same thing. We still argue, but I would not trade one second of her life for anything on planet earth.

If you work hard, promotions come along or professions change. The house that used to be just right can start to look too small. We own two vehicles and a camper when we used to own one. All of these are choices we made, but each of them represents a trade.

I have played several sports in my lifetime. I was on a team from fourth grade through college. The best memories of those teams is not from games. The best memories came in the grind. Practice, conditioning, drills, exhaustion – back to the huddle. Run it again. I had teammates who went on to play at the highest level. I have never had a team mate as good as my wife.

I feel like every second I spend sitting next to her hoping for relief from her physical pain is not all that different from times raising kids and losing one – praying for relief from the fatigue or the pain. Spending years praying for a night of sleep is real.

The trick is coming to peace with that tension. Commitment from my wife when there is no end in sight makes her look like a hall of famer. The best parts of our marriage have not come from the successes. The best parts of us surfaced in the huddle, holding hands. Run it again.

Do you think of your marriage as a team? If not, how do you look at it?

What training method do we use to make our team better? Do we spend more time trying to get better for our teammate? Or do we think more about how our teammate ought to get better?

Challenge: Don’t compare someone else’s highlights to your bloopers. Unity in marriage shows up in game situations. But marriages get game worthy in the practice.

Rick Claiborn