Pancakes

Most afternoons my boys come home from school, drop their backpacks and head straight for the pantry. With a snack in one hand and a drink in the other they settle in to do homework or watch TV. It’s usually around this time that it dawns on me… I have to make dinner.

Now most people would not consider dinner a bad word. In fact, I’m sure that most of you look forward to dinnertime… but not me. You see I am… what you would call cooking challenged. I love buying food. I love eating food but when it comes to cooking food I’m just not that good at it. This may seem like small potatoes in the bigger scheme of life but five years ago it played a major role in my relationship with Justin.

Five years ago my boys were 9, 7 and 3. My house was full of active boys constantly on the move. Justin was a pastor of a church that was growing as fast as our boys. It was a season of life that I refer to as “organized chaos” you just never knew what the day would throw at you. I could handle laundry, diaper changes and dishes but dinner?

And would you believe that dinnertime came every day! 🙂

So imagine the angst I would have towards Justin when I actually made something edible (sometimes even good) and he would show-up 30 minutes late from the time he said he would be home. Imagine the arguments that we had over the fact that not only was he late but that he complained about what we were having for dinner. Unfortunately because dinnertime came every night there were many fights that followed.

Isn’t dinner such a silly thing to fight over? Think about how funny we would sound in a counseling session.

Me: I hate to cook and Justin is always late AND he complains!

Justin: I have a thing called a job and can’t always make it on time and dude her cooking is really not that good.

From an outsider looking in how strange would it seem to be on such opposite sides over something as minor as dinner? After ten years of marriage why wouldn’t one of us have the sense to figure out a new game plan?

It wasn’t until Justin and I were separated that we realized this simple truth:

When you enable your spouse to be whom God called them to be you prevent the small issues (like dinner) from becoming deal breakers.

Justin came to realize how much I struggled with dinner. He set me free from being solely responsible for it and partnered with me to figure out a new plan. Turns out he’s a really good cook! He makes killer pancakes! Although he’s not passionate about being Americas next top chief, cooking doesn’t stress him out. I found out that overseeing our day-to-day finances stresses him out. Although I don’t like math I LOVE to organize and balancing the checkbook is like organizing a shelf. I really enjoy it! It is amazing to see how changing some of the little roles in our marriage can make such a big difference.

Taking the time to figure out what breathes life into your spouse will breathe life into your marriage.

Do you struggle with this in your marriage?