Those Old Weekends

The parks department must have fixed the trail because every day that is remotely nice there are cars packed in the parking lot and running down the street in a long line. I glance over every time we’re headed to the store or a playdate or bible study. It always makes me think about the people who have the time to be there. They have nothing to do just moments after work is over. Nothing to do on Saturday mornings and, some of them, nothing to do at 10:00 on a workday. I could give them something to do :).

A number of times recently driving by, particularly this morning, I was thinking about the weekends Jason and I used to have together before we had kids. Oh my goodness. I literally laughed outloud in the car, making myself go into a coughing frenzy since I have a lovely sore throat. This is crazy, but I actually used to feel stress out about free time. (I would take a moment to mock myself with uncontrollable laughter right now, in a released moment of parenthood criticism….but I am surrounded by nice normal people in a Barnes and Noble so I’ll just peer around cooly and let the madness form in my head). Why would I stress out, you might ask? Well. I didn’t want to waste my weekends. Yes, that’s good. But I just felt like I didn’t have a lot of time and I had so many things I wanted to do. Now, I still relate to that. But now I’ve got like two hours a week to myself so if I stress myself out over that time I am screwed and it’s over and then I’ve got another week to patient for more of that. So although I do recognize that uptight girl, oh yeah I do, it’s just not over a free weekend anymore. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to have a free weekend, at home. Even now, when we have a free weekend, we run off to another city. I literally just took a sec to text Jason to tell him that next time we get weekend babysitting I’d really rather stay home and relax and go on hikes and stuff. I’d like to have a weekend like we used to have.

We would always sleep in. 9:00 is when I would start feeling guilty. We’d mess around a couple of hours with breakfast and reading and this or that and then we’d go run errands or go on a hike or meet up with a friend. So easy. Head out to dinner that night. Watch a movie at home or out, whichever sounded better, and go to bed late knowing we could go to whatever church service we wanted to that day. A nap always made it’s way into the schedule, as well as some gardening and phonecalls here and there. And then Monday would come and I would feel all gypped and cheated out of my time.

He he he.

This season can be really hard for me and Jason. Hard on our marriage. Hard on our insides. Hard on our sanctification. Hard on our schedule. My nights end with putting Salem to bed around 6:30 and then I usually spend until 8:30 or 9:00 cleaning up the kitchen and doing various other chores around the house so that I can crash and not have a ton of things hanging over my head. Jason usually takes the girls from 6:30 on and does a sweet bedtime routine with them that lasts forever, but that’s what makes it sweet, and is usually done with them and tinkering around with this and that by 9:00 as well. We watch about one show and have a short “how are you” before I’m toast and head upstairs alone.

What made me laugh and also kind of cry a little inside thinking about those old weekends is that I have always been feisty and argumentative and hard on my husband. (Sorry baby. At least it's being confessed and hopefully becoming less and less and less). I am passionate. We have a great time and then we have some low times, often when I do not give the Spirit the reigns on my emotions. I very often feel a little bipolar and it doesn't give me much peace to know it runs in the family :(. Sometimes I feel like, okay, if we can get through this pressure cooker of a season, we will be fine. But then I have memories like I did today where I remember, oh crap, we weren’t in a pressure cooker then and I was still exhibiting some of those same qualities. Uh oh. So a new season isn't the answer.

That’s why I know the Holy Spirit’s message to us in this season is NOT, “Hey just make it through this season and then it will be easier.” Ha. That is not his way. His way is to change us IN the pressure cooker. He’s got a huge purpose for us. And it’s not to get us out of there or even just to sustain us while we’re in there. He sees it more like a crock pot. I went in there raw and he wants to make me into something like what I was supposed to be. This is not a waiting room, a get through it trial. Are they ever? I don’t ever think we’re just waiting. I think we’re changing. The pressure is heat that, with the gospel of Christ, is going to do something miraculous to us.

So I see those trails day to day and I miss. I miss the early days of our relationship, the time we had for each other, the freedom to just stop the car and go get on that trail even if I had been on my way to go do something else. But. We were also different people then. So I’m hoping in twenty years when this treasured season with children sadly comes to an end, that our weekends actually won’t look the same as they did. I think we’re going to be different. We’re going to be healthier. We’re going to look different than we did when we got into this crockpot. And just as I read in Romans 12 today, I am “joyful in hope” for us, because of Jesus.