Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Wife Rule #139: Pay Homage to the Everything Fairy

You know those stories of magical beings who come to your home in the middle of the night and do things for you? They accomplish tasks such as mending shoes, delivering presents, collecting old teeth, cleaning the toilets, etc.?

Well, there's one of those who, it turns out, comes to my home every night: the Everything Fairy.

Until tonight.

She's currently in Missouri, having flown there by commercial pixie dust just earlier this afternoon. I think this may be the first time she has gone without taking any of the kids with her. Truthfully, it's kind of funny how much I already miss her. Yes, of course I miss her soft lips and warm embrace, but all of a sudden I feel very conscious of all the things she does around here that I have blissfully taken for granted for far too long.

She wrote out a partial list of them and stuck it to our fridge before she left. The list includes "Water Plants," "Get Mail," "Afternoon Chores," "Soccer Practices," and other such things that you would expect. But it only took me about 10 minutes after arriving back home after dropping her off at the airport to realize that it's a rather shallow and incomplete list of all that must be done to replace the Everything Fairy, even for just a few days.

Here are a few more items that should be added to the list:

* Discern what things to save and what to throw away of the papers the kids bring home from school
* Have answers to any questions from any of the kids other than "Hmmmmm. We'll have to ask your mother."
* Provide food more nutritious than Little Caesar's Pizza and Cap'n Crunch for dinner
* Be able to calm the Mommy's girl when she freaks out upon seeing Big Brother's belly button in the bathtub
* Stay coherent even when it's late and actually get the kids to bed somewhat close to their bed times
* Have enough sense to push stop on the CD player after the CD has repeated for the 3rd time
* Pick up that dang little sock that's been in the middle of the carpet all evening--it ain't going anywhere on it's own (I've always wondered; now I know)
* Get me to bed on time rather than rambling pointlessly on this blog
* Make our house feel a little more like a home

So, my lovely Everything Fairy, here's to you. I appreciate you better now than I did yesterday, and I'm sure I'll appreciate you much more tomorrow than today. By the time you return, you'll likely be swimming in drippy pools of appreciation.

You hurry on back home, y'hear?

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Wife Rule #138: She is my Universe

There are a great many distractions and temptations in this fallen world where we live. It was meant to be this way. Living in this condition tests us to our very cores and helps us to know, to the deepest degree, whether we will prize and prioritize that which is most precious above all, when there seems to be a million other things clamoring for our time and attention.

Sometimes it is refreshing to "get above it all," to a place where the haze and confusion clears and where we can see to far-off, and far better places. I visited such a place this past weekend.

My wife and I returned to where we were married, to the temple where our kingdom began. We remembered that day, and in so doing we renewed our vows to each other and to the God whose authority binds us together as husband and wife for all eternity. And this thought came into my mind:

She is my universe.

Yes, indeed, she is my universe. A commitment of love, friendship, loyalty, and fidelity between a husband and wife that has no end does, in effect, rule out any and all other lesser priorities, distractions, and temptations.

She is my universe.

Our wedding vows have no end. We were married in a place and by authority that transcends this dim, mortal existence, into far brighter and better spheres. Our union will go on forever, if we will choose to make it last forever. The sometimes happy, sometimes arduous journey my wife and I are on, if we prove faithful, leads to an ever-expanding kingdom that literally has no end.

God has laid the path before us. The immortality of the human soul is a fact and a forgone conclusion; the quality of life we will live is highly variable, and is completely up to us.

If I allow her to truly become my universe--so that our marriage and family becomes central to every goal I make and every endeavor I undertake; so that my love for her supersedes all other interests and distractions in life; so that she becomes the preeminent figure in my world, excelling all except the God who gives us life and salvation and enables our hope for an eternal union; if I look ahead to the potential of every husband and wife so joined by eternal authority--there really is no end to what we can create together. There is an entire, infinite universe embedded in the souls of two people who love each other with their whole hearts and who follow God's laws relating to that love. Our universe is waiting, wanting to unfold, and all wrapped up in our vows to live in love together.

When I have such thoughts in my head, and such feelings of divine love and anticipation in my heart, she truly becomes my universe.

What a wonderful way to begin the rest of forever.