The older kids are easier. They are well rehearsed, and keep themselves quarantined to help cut down on the contagious spread. The oldest of the bunch, a true pro, has managed to avoid the latest outbreak. He has spent the past week walking around the house with his shirt pulled up over his face like a mask.
As for my beautiful wife and I, we are experts. This is the third consecutive year we’ve started Christmas break with illnesses. At the first hint of the familiar not-quite-coughing sound, we emerge from our sleep, spring out of bed, and go into action. One cleans the patient, while the other sterilizes the surroundings. We have experienced this a thousand times over our marriage, thanks in great part to a multi-year stint where the side effects of chemotherapy treatments caused the sicknesses in one of our children. Now, with kids in four different schools, any bug that is floating around town will be brought into our home. We are certainly not martyrs, as I’m sure many of you can relate to similar experiences.
Remembering back, we were the first of our friends to get married. The first to have a child. The first to buy a house. During the early years of our marriage, they often asked, “How do you do it?” With house and cars and kids, the American Dream was supposedly in hand. I assumed they thought we had it all figured out. I felt compelled to share our ‘vast wisdom’. As they started getting married, I tried to come up with clever advice to give about marriage…about love. Concentrating on some romanticized version, and forgetting the reality. Trying to write something short and memorable, like you might see on a Hallmark card.
The reality? Marriage is hard work. Love? It is a conscious effort. Emotion and feeling are something different, and can easily be ascribed to a favorite pet dog, or can be experienced watching an exciting football game. The word ‘love’ flies around too often. But maybe it should. Maybe it needs to. We just need to use it correctly, and not attribute it to lesser things.
When I get home and see my wife exhausted from a hectic day…When she sees me becoming overwhelmed by the stresses of work and finances…At those times, how do we Not tell each other we’re proud and thankful for everything they do? How do we Not step up, and help with the kids? How do we Not allow the statement “I LOVE YOU” to fly from our lips freely and often?
As my wife slips into bed besides me, she has a radiant glow about her. Her hair is disheveled. She is wearing an old pair of glasses. Her clothes are mismatched. And she has the aroma of Lysol. I love her. Not because of a fleeting emotion, or even because of what she just did for my child, or what she has done for me over the years. I love her because…I do. She is more beautiful than the day we first met. She has added the look of a mother. The look of wisdom, caring, and self-giving love. The same look Mary certainly had, when blessed with Jesus.
I think of the Holy Family at this time, 2,000 years ago. All of the nativity scenes are cleansed, romanticized versions of what likely happened. After all, Jesus was born in a manger. In a barn. Have you ever been in a barn…smelled a barn? Mary rode a donkey to Bethlehem on dusty roads. Joseph was required to take his pregnant wife on this journey, or risk punishment under Roman law. The shepherds who visited had been sleeping in their camp outside. Think about your last camping trip and how you looked. Certainly not an ideal scenario or quite the scene we normally imagine. But it was somehow beautiful and glorious none-the-less.
Why did Mary and Joseph agree to go through with that? Why did they say Yes to God? Yes to each other? It’s like trying to explain why we have faith. Why we believe. Why we trust in God ourselves. There are many beautifully worded answers, and many quotes of advice (each one worthy of a Hallmark card.) But when you really push, when you really dig; I don’t know if words can ever express the fullness of that mystery, and the beauty of the true answer.
Why do you believe? We just DO. When we look at each other, and our children, and friends and family surrounding us, how could you Not believe? Amidst the sickness and the troubles and the difficulties (and smells) of life, there is no profound single answer we can share. We have no great advice. We have fallen many times. After many discussions, and arguments, and struggles over the years, no words between us have been exchanged that would be earth shattering.
There were words at the beginning of our marriage, however, that set the foundation for our commitment as strongly as any words since. We believe in them fully, and we’ve had those words tested many times. They were exchanged nearly two decades ago. They have to do with How and Why and When we love each other…in sickness and in health…good times and bad…richer and poorer…
This is such a wonderful, yet stressful time of year. Whether you’re dealing with sick kids, or you’re 9 months pregnant and being forced to travel, or you can’t find any available hotel rooms, or your insurance will only cover one night in the manger…I pray you are able to see through to the things that really matter. It may be hard, and sometimes seem impossible, but when you say ‘yes’ to God, you WILL get through.
I pray that you have a wonderful Christmas with your spouse and all those you love, and that you feel God’s loving embrace through them in return!
-written by Matt Buehrig, inspired by Wendy Buehrig
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