Monday, June 8, 2015

Juggling Life & Still Making Time For Him

By: Jenifer Metzger

Do you ever feel like you are juggling too many tasks and you might just drop it all? Please tell me that I'm not the only one!

Daily I hear more than one person say, "I'm so busy!" I use to get upset when I heard someone say they were busy. I felt that if I could just show them my schedule they would sigh with relief that they weren't near as busy as I am. But the truth is, with so much going on in life, we are all busy. We all have endless tasks.

Through this busyness, we still must be intentional about making time for our husband.

Juggling life and still making time for him. #marriage

I wake up by 5am every single day of the week, with the occasional Saturday I get to sleep until 7 or 8. I am working from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed. Caring for my 4 wonderful children, homeschool, church ministries (we are children's pastors, associate pastors and lead other ministries), my kids' sports practices, my kids' sports games, 2 of my kids take music lessons, orthodontist appointments, doctor appointments, taking my son to work, I babysit 3 precious babies, my online ministry here and at my own blog, taking care of my home, and then there's my family who thinks they need to eat 3 meals a day.



We strive as a family to have 1 night at home. No sports, no going to friends' houses, nothing. We eat dinner on time -which for us is 5pm and at the dinner table- then we do showers and everyone gets ready for bed, then dessert, then brushing teeth, then we sit down and relax as a family until bedtime. This is our one night to be together, relax and go to bed on time. We protect this night very closely and do not have a problem saying no if asked to do something on this night.

Yet even with our 1 night protected so fiercely, I still must make time for my just husband.

For each of us this will look different. For us, we send our kids to bed early. On our nights at home, they go to bed by their bedtime. On nights we have church or sports, they come home, shower and get in bed immediately. My kids are all older -17, 15, 14, and 12- but they still have a set time to go to bed. (This is also helping them create good habits of getting enough sleep.) This is because my husband and I need time alone. Time where we can be together just the two of us. Where we can snuggle up on the couch, play a game, talk, lay in bed relaxing (him watching tv and me reading) with our feet touching, sit on the deck, and be intimate. Some nights this means we have only 30 minutes before we must go to sleep, sometimes we are blessed to have an hour or more. No matter how long it is, this time is vital to our relationship. We need to connect.

We also strive to date. Now, I must be honest with you here. We don't date as much as we should. I wish I could tell you that we had a weekly date night. Or even a monthly date night. But that is just not the case for us in the season we are currently in. Though if you can date weekly, or bi-weekly, please please please do so! That is wonderful! We have to be intentional about having a date night every other month. More often when we can. Sometimes date nights are leaving to do something, but our favorite date nights are when the kids are away at their grandparents and we have the house to ourselves. We order dinner in, watch movies, talk and catch up on sleep.

Another way I may time for my husband is by sending him text messages throughout the day. Some days are busy and I may only get to send him 1 or 2 texts. Some days I send him 3 or 4. Some texts tell him why I love him or why I am thankful for him. Some ask how I can pray for him. Some simply have a heart emoji. But this allows him to know that I am thinking of him and helps me to pause to think of him and pray for him.

Your daily connecting may be different from mine. The amount of date nights and what you do may be different from mine. It's okay. The key is to intentionally make time for your husband.

When you are juggling all you have to juggle, take some time out to lay the balls down and spend some quality time together. Date each other regularly and be together each day, even if for just a few moments.



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