After my last post a few days ago I realized I had already posted on that same subject the week earlier.  This is a by product of having bad short term memory.  Short term memory for me is one of those things that goes on and off as fast as you can flip a light switch.  This is one of the unfortunate side effects of having my right temporal lobe removed.  Amongst a few side effects of my surgery this one is definitely the most challenging!

For those of you who have chatted with me online you know my typing is horrendous.  That is caused in part by my brain thinking “type this” but not remembering to tell my fingers to do it!  I might type wrong words, type the same word twice because I forgot I just typed it, or simply forget which key I pushed last!  Alone with bad typing I am blessed with the inability to remember simple things.  I fear one day my husband will get tired of being my personal memory storage, as I am always telling him things we need to remember.  I tell him what I need to get at the store, what I need to do, and I even tell him “I know I’ll forget this so will you remind me”.  Of course if he forgets these things it causes a problem!  My memory has literally become like a strainer, great for draining things but not for storing them!  The funniest thing is I never know what it is that will fall through all those tiny holes.  For example, every Thursday I ask my husband what time he goes to work on Friday, since that varies.  There are weeks he has to tell me a dozen times.  That same scenario is repeated on Friday for his Saturday start time.  I cannot count how many times he has told me “I already told you that” only to forget I asked him a little while later

The most frustrating part of losing my memory is that I use to be the one to remember everything!  I never wrote anything down, I never used a calendar or appointment book, I never struggled to remember peoples names, and I rarely took notes in school.  My memory is one of the things that made me good at my job.  Now, my memory is what makes me so bad at so many things.  At first I cried when I would forget simple things, like the 3 things I went into the store to buy.  Now I am happy when I can remember those 3 things!  I have learned to have a schedule, not wait until the last minute, write things down, and ask others to remember things for me.  My memory may not be so good, but I have learned to ask for help, which is better then doing it all alone.  It is when we are at our weakest that we learn the most about ourselves, and I learned I had been to proud to ask for help from others.  This is certainly not the case anymore, for many things, including asking my husband to be my back up memory.  There are days that without that help I would have no idea what day of the week it was.

Over the last few weeks I have been challenged to evaluate what my primary responsibilities are.  This is not the first time I have had this challenge, and not the first time I have come to the same conclusion.  I was challenged because the enemy was not thrilled with what I was doing, and as always when he is not happy he tries to throw me off track!  Today is the perfect day to share this, for it is my husband’s birthday.

Now I will preface this by saying that I have been both a working wife and mother, and at home.  Neither one of these is more Godly then the other, what is however is where our priority lies regardless of which we choose.  Several years ago when I was working something happened in my life that made me question where my priority was, and where it should be.  I came to a pretty distinct conclusion, and now today I know my conclusion was right and am glad I determined myself to change my priority.  This is not about whether you do anything in particular, work or not, whether you’re a parent of 1 or 6 or even none, whether you home school or not, what kind of car you drive, or if you vote.  This is about what God intended when we are married.

When I faced that challenge I concluded this, that my primary responsibility as a wife is to support my husband in his ministry and ensure he is able to complete it without hindrance.  That I must ensure that he has the time to do it, the resources to do it, and the support in prayer to do it.  That regardless of what I do about working or what ministry I am in, I must always ensure he is able to do his ministry.  This may mean I need to work to support us, it may mean I need to be home ensuring all things are done to free his time for his ministry.  It may mean spending money on things that will support his ministry rather then buying what I would choose.  It most definitely means not doing anything that would cause him to stumble.

When I first figured this out I was working, and it was difficult for me to change my thought process.  At the time I thought we should both be equally responsible to do everything, and that he had to sacrifice as much as I did.  The reality is I was making him compromise to get what I wanted, which meant I was not supporting him in his ministry.  I discovered that by freeing his time to do his ministry, and being his helpmate in it, we were stronger.  Now that I am home all the time I have concluded that supporting him in his ministry is still my primary responsibility, not cooking, laundry, dishes, and other chores.  Yet, by being the one that does the dishes, the laundry, the cooking, and those other annoying things like cleaning the bathroom, I am allowing him to have the time he needs to prepare for and do his ministry.  I can not expect him to be successful in his ministry if I also expect him to do things I can easily do while he is at work.

The most important support I can give, over anything else, is prayer.  Without prayer all the other things are insufficient to ensure he can do his ministry.  So in the midst of cleaning, laundry, cooking, or any other thing I might be doing, if I think of him I lift him to the Lord.  Do I dare ask when was the last time you prayed for your spouse?