My husband. My fierce, smarter than a whip, get up with the baby in the middle of the night, would do anything for his wife and kids husband, has started a new job. He absolutely loves it but the learning curve is steep. He’s transitioned from teaching fifth grade to working in real estate. He has given up what he knows and is working his rump off to serve his clients and serve them well. He’s gone from math tests to showing houses, exchanged reading “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” to negotiations over new roofs. It’s new, all new.
Photo Credit: Ivy and Tweed Photography
As he wraps his mind around the world of real estate I have a role in this. Support the baby daddy. My role is to encourage and affirm. He doesn’t need me to spew my fears of how we might not make it. He doesn’t need me to tell him what I would do or how I would do it. He’s the one in the ring, my job is to cheer him on like Rocky in the final fight. We are learning a new normal for our family and we each have a role in this change. Well, we each have multiple roles to play, but there is nothing more helpful to him than affirmation and sleep, he would like more sleep. While I doubt extended sleep is in his near future I can affirm him in his growing gifts and be a safe place for his concerns without flying off the handle.
This may sound simple but so many of us forget the power of consistent encouragement. It can be honey to my lips to hear an encouraging word when my heart is wrestling with something new, something blooming. Chances are it is for you too. Encouragement is a valuable currency that is curated deep in the wells of our heart. If administered properly, it can give us grit to go farther than we thought we could and believe for more than we thought was possible. It’s powerful. We each have it to give, not to hoard.
My heart is that I would grow in this. To fully live in all that God has for my husband and me in this season it will be imperative that we encourage one another.
If this is a weak spot for you, I invite you to stretch your wings and give words to another that will blow wind in their sails, inviting them to carry on more courageously than before. If you need it, let me be the first to say, your struggle is part of your story, you are uniquely gifted to handle what comes ahead and I pray Christ, in his glorious riches, would provide all you need for the road ahead as you heed his voice and his way.
Check out how and why I’ve managed to stay married.
