Week 24: Another Big Step

This week we started dance and drama groups with our youth from Revolution Ministries. We have a good group and I think it’s going to be really rewarding. Right now we’re focusing on team building, basic coordination skills and getting rid of shyness. It’s fun to see the youth in a different situation that’s a little less formal. It’s exciting, too, because little by little we’re seeing a lot of our dreams for the ministry come true.

The practices have brought out an interesting dynamic between Jairo and me. I am, surprisingly, very organized in my approach to all things ministry. I think being organized saves time and energy. My husband is slowly being converted to this outlook as he sees that it pays off, but we hit a roadblock when we started dance and drama. His unorganized approach (very latino, by the way) was really starting to get on my nerves in one practice, and I decided to tell him so. It turns out, I was also getting on his nerves, so there were a tense few minutes as we tried to work out an approach. It all got worked out, and the annoying is down to a minimum for both parties, but it taught me something.

Marriage is a great mirror into your own character, specifically your flaws. In this case, I saw that my own need to be right and in control (even though I was right! lol) was becoming more important to me than my husband’s feelings, or my need to respect him and submit to him. There is a way to help your husband see areas he could improve that maintains his honor, and it’s important for a wife to do this. It’s biblical. If I just yell at him or whine and complain or any other passive aggressive techniques currently in use by the average wife, I’m not honoring him and he will not ever react well to it. I’ve been learning how to honor him and respect him while helping him be better in certain areas. The great thing is that he sees the effort and he pays me back for it with a lot of love and respect. It’s not a perfect system because we’re not perfect people, but it really does work wonders on a marriage.

And a marriage can really work wonders on your character if you let it.