Learning to Serve

For those of you who want to know, I've already discovered a thing or two about marriage I didn't know until I was married...when I got married... three weeks ago. And you get to hear my three weeks of profound marriage advice. I'm telling you beforehand to take it with a grain of salt, cause it's only been three weeks.When you make the marriage covenant, you are basically signing up to love and SERVE your sweet angel of a husband for the rest of till your dead. This is the same sweet angel of a husband who got told he looked like Harry Potter... at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter... by an employee. I was beaming with joy, so proud of him. MY husband looks like Harry Potter, of course I'll serve and love him for the rest of my life. Everyone else is jealous, I'm sure.

I've noticed though, that the ways I think are the "right way" to serve Brett, are not necessarily the ways he needs to be served. For years we all watch and take in how our parents either do or don't love one another. I had awesome parents that went together like "peas and carrots" as Forest Gump would say. They love each other and serve each other well. But the ways I saw my mom serve my dad are not always the ways Brett needs me to serve him. So my first thought, of course, is, "I'm failing at being a wife because he doesn't need me to serve him in all the ways I've been shown a wife should serve". Failure tries to mess with us so much doesn't it?

Yesterday I found myself in tears and at a loss, wondering how in the world I was suppose to serve Brett if he didn't need me to cook for him (I'm being so real right now, he is MUCH better in the kitchen than I am, and is putting up with a lot of my "I'm still learning" meals). I like things cleaner or organized more than he usually does, so usually I'm doing myself that service. But don't get me wrong, I find myself thankful that whatever "house wife" stereotype infiltrates or lovingly exists in a lot of houses, does not exist in our house. There's so much freedom in doing EVERYTHING together, without expectation of gender-based duties. I believe there's a Biblical calling for wives to respect their husbands and to fulfill who God has made them to be  as wives. But I'm thankful that doesn't mean I belong to certain duties, but that I get to respect and serve Brett in the ways he needs.

So I've found myself having to get creative with my man. Sure, there will be days I WILL cook for him. Clean for him. Leave encouraging notes on our bathroom mirror, on our front door, or under his pillow for him. Listen to him explain German to me even though he's the one learning it and I'm not. But I think the principle I have learned this week, is that you can never get too creative in serving your spouse. Tomorrow when he gets off work, he's getting a full pedicure... by me. Pedicure as in hot water, lotion massage, clipped toe nails, and shaved off dead skin. All while I attempt to not be grossed out and vomit. I'll do it, cause I love him, and his real life job is physical labor. If you've ever had a job that is physically demanding or walked the streets of San Francisco for a week, then you know the joys of a foot massage at the end of the week.

Here's to a new way of being creative. New ways of serving. New ways of learning. And new google searches that read something like, "creative ways to serve one's spouse".