Thankful for nights like tonight

I love evenings where Chris and I just sit around and talk after the kids go to bed.  There's something about it that just makes me feel anew....especially when it's been one of those particularly challenging days.

You know when you have those days, the ones where your world just seems like it's out of whack?  When more things are thrown at you than you think you can possibly handle?  Well....that was my kind of day today.  I wasn't feeling well, and the kids were just really testing my patience, on top of everything else, so much that I had to pull out the 'if you keep acting that way, you're going to have to deal with Chris when he gets home' card.  He hates it when I play that card, but hey, sometimes it's gotta be done. He doesn't like having to be the 'bad' guy when he's been working all day and hasn't seen the kids.  Needless to say, even though bedrooms still didn't get cleaned...my sassy girl dropped the attitude, and for that, I was thankful.

Chris and I don't usually spend our time talking about the challenges that lie ahead of us; he's generally crashed out a few minutes after we put the kids to bed.  I, on the other hand, spend a lot of time in the evenings reading...books, blogs, magazines...and even more time praying.  It's then that I feel the most 'at peace' with the road God has put in front of me.  In the stillness of the night, submersed in prayer, I can feel Him closer than ever.

Tonight though, Chris stayed awake, and we started talking about a different situation in our lives that has presented itself, and how when you think you have it rough, all you have to do is look around and you can see so many people who are so much worse off than you.  I really needed him to remind me of that tonight.

Truthfully, when I look at my husband, I hurt for him.  For the incredible amount of loss he has endured throughout his 34 years on this Earth.  I look at him, and it makes me that much more thankful for having my parents to walk along side of me in this journey I am about to embark on.  I thought about how if something like this were to happen to him, he would have me and the kids by his side, but he wouldn't have his parents...and that thought caused me to turn into waterworks.  I can't explain it in any other way than to say, sometimes I just deeply hurt for him.

We spent a lot of time this evening just talking...something I wasn't aware that I was really needing until it happened.

As I was making his lunch for tomorrow, I started talking about how my Type A personality is making it nearly impossibly for me to wrap my head around  the fact that we are going to need help..probably lots of it...over the next several months.  And how I feel like I still have so much to do to get ready.  I was naming off all the frozen meals that are made and in the freezer, and what still needs to be done.  I think I lost him after meal #6.  I'm pretty sure his blank stare was a sign of mental overload.  It took him a second, but he cut me off and assured me, him and the kids would be fine...He said, he's pretty sure he knows how to take care of them....

Insert my thought process during the course of the five seconds he was talking

But your way is not the same as MY way!!!

Sometimes in my need to be 'in control' when I feel like there is so much chaos around me, I tend to forget that my way isn't the only way.  Sure Chris may not cook or even make sure the kids have well-balanced diets every day like I do.  But he doesn't let them eat Brownies or cookies for meals either.  He's perfected grilled cheese, and PB & J with fruit, and quite frankly, if that's what the kids end up eating for a few weeks...that's what they'll eat.  He's a great dad, and at the end of the day, our goals are the same.  To raise happy, well balanced, Jesus loving kids.

Now back to his five seconds of talking....

...Casondra, the most important thing right now is getting you through this.  The day can't come soon enough for this surgery and for the doctors to say you're fine, and that they've got it all.

I was staring at him, thinking about how lucky I am to have a husband who loves me THAT much, and who I fall more in love with as time goes on, when he nonchalantly asks if I can do him a favor.  Can you go get yourself a fountain cherry coke, and fill my truck up with gas while you're at it?

Why does he have to use my weakness for gas station, fountain cherry coke?  lol.  Of course, I told him I would if he promised to bring me a fountain cherry coke every day while I'm recovering.   Being the good husband he is....HE AGREED!