To learn more about what Jackie is up to you can check out her facebook page HERE, her Pruning Hooks site HERE, and her blog HERE.
I could paint you a really pretty picture. I could paint you a picture that would seem, almost, perfect. I could do it. It’s not hard to do. Watch: My husband coaches our two oldest boys’ soccer teams. He completely manages our finances, and I never have to worry about debt or money. Corey and I have known each other since I was 7 and he was 8. We met at YMCA camp…a gymnastics camp…that’s a humbling story for another time. I’m a stay-at-home mom. I cook dinner six nights a week. We sit down to dinner as a family every night. Corey prays for our sons every night while I read to our daughter, Grace. We go to church every Sunday. I’m on PTA. My husband makes each of our kiddos the birthday cake of their choice for our family birthday dinner which is a tradition. Corey does all the Santa Clause shopping because he absolutely loves doing that part of Christmas. We have been married for 15 years. Every Saturday and Sunday morning all four of our children snuggle in our bed. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Have you thrown up yet?
I could paint you a really pretty picture if I just give you some random facts. If I do that, then I don’t tell you about yesterday. And yesterday was really really really hard.
You see, we have been married for 15 years now, and that is the end of the beginning of our marriage. If we stay married for 45-50 years (just using hopeful numbers here) then this is the end of the beginning of our marriage. We have moved into the middle. And we have moved to that middle with four kiddos and some water flowing under some bridges. We have done our best to let things go, to move on, to move over as more people insist on snuggling on Saturday mornings, but, let’s face it, some Saturdays you want to sleep in a bed that is not crowded with little humans and their non-whispering voices. We are in the middle. Things happen in the middle of life. Good things. Bad things. But things happen in the middle. Things you will look back on for the rest of forever and remember with a smile. Or with tears. Things happen in the middle that make you look at the beginning with such nostalgia…like in the beginning we were so young and naïve…we had no idea…But we have ideas now. This is the middle. It is good. But the naivety is long gone.
So, yesterday we awoke as we typically do with the baby smacking us in the face with either his hand or his empty sippy cup that once had milk in it. This is a jarring experience even if it happens every day. My husband is typically the recipient of this morning beating. What can I say, the baby adores him. I can hear Corey talking to Joshua. They are happy, and Corey gives him his cup of milk and they snooze for a while longer. Next comes Grace into the room and she is tattling. One of her brothers has done something. Her brothers are following her into our room. I’m telling them to take turns talking, please whisper, put away everything that is remotely causing a problem and then I just stick them all in bed with Corey and I get up to make breakfast. They all watch hockey. The baby wakes up. Corey is really into this hockey game. I forget to make him coffee. This is possibly a daily annoying occurance. I make MY coffee, make breakfast, set the table, start the laundry, empty the dishwasher, begin my grocery list and call the world to order. My little world comes to the table and Corey informs me not to worry, he has been blessed with the morning baby poop. This does not appear to actually be a blessing.
We launch into the breakfast discussion of Saturday mornings: who is going to what birthday party, at what time and what else has to be done. I have a hair appointment. I was going to run the birthday present buying errands with Grace. Corey is making a stand that he would like to leave the house and not get stuck at home with the kids while I go shopping and as I am explaining how running errands does not constitute shopping at all, Grace chimes in that she thinks Daddy clearly needs to spend more time with her, and he should take her to buy the birthday presents. Corey looks dumbfounded. He tries to maneuver out of this and explain how I am so much better at this than he is, but he is stuck. Grace doesn’t budge. Corey will be running errands with Grace. He hurries. I clean the kitchen and get Grace moving. He takes her to buy birthday presents. This is not an easy task. As he pulls out of the driveway I am thinking that he will wish that I had gone and not him, but Grace will be over the moon that it is her daddy and not me. He calls me three times from the store. It’s not easy.
He offers next to take Jude to some trampoline place for the birthday party he is attending, and I stay home as Grace is being picked up for her party, I feed baby Joshua in the meantime and Jake rides with his dad so he can hang out with him. Corey drops Jude off, and gets a phone call about 15 minutes later that Jude is hurt. He heads to Walgreens, grabs an ace bandage, heads back to the party and wraps Jude’s ankle, heads home just in time for Joshua’s nap as I leave to get my hair done…and I am running late…and Corey is really aware of this…he is hurrying…I could have made that easier on him…I didn’t. While I am getting my hair done, he sends me pictures of Joshua waking up. He lets me know since it is just him and the boys (Grace is still birthday partying), he is taking them to go get frozen yogurt. And right in the middle of that day that may have just gotten a little bit easier, my car broke. Yep. My car won’t start. I have his car, and he has my mini van so he can take the kiddos for a treat. He calls a neighbor with jumper cables, attaches them, turns on the car and the engine makes a horrible noise and starts smoking.
Yesterday there were about 582 text messages over about a 2 ½ hour period about cars, who was to blame, how the kids were acting horrible while he was trying to figure out what to do. There were text messages apologizing saying it was not anyone’s fault. There were text messages that were rude, funny, blaming, more apologies, factual, diplomatic, depressing, wise and stupid all in the span of 2 ½ hours while I was getting my hair done and Corey was navigating the waters of four kids (Grace came home), a broken car and a warranty while the hours ticked away on his Saturday. Corey was stuck in the middle of our life. In the middle of a typical Saturday filled with lots of 10 minute moments in the mini van, remembering to feed people, answering an exorbitant amount of questions, reminding people to use their inside voices please, telling kids to back up from the TV more than anyone should ever have to have that conversation, setting 2 million timers so that kiddos will actually take fair turns, sending kids outside, bringing them all back in, dealing with a wife who he knows rarely gets her hair done (who might have reminded him of that quite often), trying to make everything smooth, trying to not place blame when clearly I knew my car was making a noise and clearly I had just kept ignoring it…He was in the middle. He was stuck between his wants, everyone else’s needs and who God has called him to be…
And it was Valentine’s Weekend, y’all.
And he bought me a new big orange purse.
He even got me a gushy card.
And I was off getting my hair done…
Y’all, it was supposed to be so much better than the middle of life on a Saturday.
I’m thinking about Joseph tonight. Mary’s husband of few words, but huge deeds. I’m thinking about him staying with her through the good and the bad and the busy. I’m wondering if he felt like there was a nobler calling to his life because he was helping to raise the Messiah, or if there were days he was just a carpenter raising a small crew of kiddos and wishing that Mary didn’t always forget to make him a cup of coffee too. In Matthew 2:13-23 we read about Joseph, just after the Magi left, having an urgent dream telling him to take Mary and Baby Jesus to Egypt because King Herod is going to try to kill Jesus. And Joseph got up, took them and made sure Jesus was safe. King Herod killed every boy who was two years old and under in Bethlehem and the surrounding towns. Joseph’s obedience had kept Jesus safe and alive. The little family stayed in Egypt until Herod died, which is when Joseph had another dream (vs. 19) where an angel of the Lord again appeared to him and told him to return to the land of Israel. And on this journey, Joseph would have another dream telling him to go to Galilee, and they lived in Nazareth keeping Jesus safe again. All of this is really amazing. And Mary, I bet she came to rely on Joseph and what he had to say. His obedience to God had saved their family. His willingness to follow God had changed their lives many times, and they had always been safe and they had always been protected. And Joseph had been the one to manage in the middle of all that chaos which kept coming their way. We don’t hear a word from Mary in Matthew 2:13-23. This is our window to see Joseph. Don’t miss it.
So, this family, the Hooks Family, we are a mess a minute. We are constantly sinking in a sea of laundry, and running a few minutes late, and bath time and bed time. We are constantly pulled in twelve different directions all at once. And it’s not real pretty, y’all. I could paint you the pinterest picture, but the real picture is so much more real, ya know? The real picture is that I am a wife in the middle of my marriage. I am married to a man who is in the middle of that same marriage too. We are trying. And sometimes we are not trying at all. But I know, what I’m sure Mary came to know too, I cannot do it without this man. All the trials in the beginning and we are still here stepping headlong into the middle, and the fact that we’re here, well, let me just offer a round of applause. No, a standing ovation. My knight in shining armor is often dressed in business casual, and his hair is turning grey. My partner in crime falls asleep on the couch when we watch a kid movie and pretends like he was awake the whole time. My better half is the best chocolate chip pancake maker in the universe, and on the mornings that he makes them the whole house is happy…he even makes heart ones for Grace…and they seldom notice how great that is…yep that’s real y’all. It is his obedience to Jesus that has kept him here, kept us together and saved us more times than I can count. And I can’t do this without him. And the bottom line is that I never want to.
This morning the same brigade of children began to trickle into our room and cram their way into our bed. Four people lay between the two of us. Somehow, or by some miracle, underneath the comforter and in the sea of feet, my foot touched his and I felt that same jolt from 15 years ago…when my much younger feet would find his under the covers…And I almost cried. I looked across the four precious children in our bed who were alternately arguing about what channel to watch and who had the most room, and I saw him…my man. He is nothing like the man I married. He is older. He is sleepier. He is much more protective of me than he ever was before. His glasses are a necessity now, and he sleeps with cough drops by his bed. He is calmer. He is wiser. He is actually a lot funnier. He is braver. He is here. Right here. In the middle of it all. With me. And we have made it to the middle. And I think I know a little of what Mary must have known after all of the chaos of moving in the middle of the night with Joseph and the baby…the craziness that was the beginning of their marriage…when she had to trust that this man, the same man who forgot to make reservations at the Inn when she was 9 months pregnant, was the man to trust in the middle of a crisis…That was the beginning of her marriage too. And by the time Mary had made it to the middle, and they were raising all the kids in Nazareth, she knew what we all know in the middle: she NEEDED him.
There is not one crisis, or hiccup, or headache, or family gathering, or report card day, or sports scheduling nightmare, or sleepless night filled with sick kids, or road trip, or broken down car, or forgotten morning coffee that I want to spend with anyone else.
Not anyone else. Ever.
“So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matthew 19:6)
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