Marriage Mondays ~ Homecoming Habits

Jeff will be home tomorrow, so it’s time to shift into “welcome home” mode. That means … end the laundry strike, go to the store, clean the bathroom, pull all of MY hair out of HIS brush, and shave my legs. Not that we’ve descended into pig-pen mode (after all, I hosted a shower Saturday, so I had to clean up), but I want to prepare the house for the homecoming of my beloved … and make a little room for that awesome present he’s going to bring me!  So to get our castle ready, I need to clean into the corners.

 

What’s in your corners? I’ve noticed a few cobwebs in mine, along with a dead bug or two … okay, three or four. I found a wadded up sock, an old magazine, and a plastic shopping bag.

More importantly, I need to prepare my heart for his return. It’s easy in a marriage relationship to be guilty of a “crooked” way, letting my conduct slip into dust-bunny condition. When Jeff comes home from a trip, he can’t wait to tell his stories, show all of his pictures, dump all of his tropical laundry & bugs on the kitchen floor, and then fall asleep suddenly about 6 pm. Meanwhile, the crooked part of me waits to take out the stack of bills that came, discuss kid issues from the week, dump my worries on the kitchen floor, and do a quick run down of the “waited for you/honey do” list. About the time he falls asleep in his jet-lagged condition, my mercy wears thin. I have a wicked soul…

The way of the guilty is crooked, but the conduct of the pure is upright.
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.
The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes.  (Proverbs 21:8-10)

As we’ve talked about reaching our “Near neighbors” this past month, we haven’t really mentioned that our nearest neighbor may be the man we share a bed with. If your husband has been away this week (I was surprised at how many people wrote to me saying THEIR man was away this week, too!), your closest neighbor may be about to move back in. It’s important for our house to be ready, but how about the inner room of our heart? Is our conduct upright and ready to receive our loved one? Is our attitude crooked, or are we feeling guilty from wasting time in his absence? Will we greet him with consideration and tenderness, or will the “quarrelsome wife” in us rise up and let out a whine or a roar?

The Spirit-driven wife in me doesn’t want Jeff to look for the nearest corner of the house to hide from me. Before he gets here, I need to let God’s word and His Spirit sweep out any DRA’s (Dirty Rotten Attitudes) and SSA’s (Self Seeking Agendas), replacing my evil desires with mercy for my mile-weary man. Come to think of it, he didn’t have to go to Asia for me to let homecoming habits deal with the hidden corners of my heart. He could just be at his office or out for a run. God forbid the poor man should long for quiet corners with a dust bunny over me. I think I’ll make homecoming habits a daily part of my routine. But maybe not the laundry ….?

Other than a dust bunny, what’s in the corners at your house that needs to be swept out in your daily homecoming habit?