Arm Pit Poo…

This week, Mallory decided that instead of a four a day, she’d become a one a day. And today’s version was that special kind of back poo that you have to get out of the arm pits. Five wipes, a bath, and a load of laundry. That’s a lot like sin. We’re up to our arm pits in it.

Gauntlets from CSPP is right on when she talks about how, in our sinful state, we demean our spouses and expect way too much of them. I don’t know what its like to be married to a pastor. But, again, my husband is in the National Guard, thinking about signing a contract to join the Army. I have a couple of friends who have firefighter husbands. I have a friend who is married to an EMT. And I’m pretty sure police spouses feel the same way. Why can’t normal wives be more appreciative of what they have? Further, why can’t I be a normal wife?

Military spouses, police spouses, firefighter spouses, EMT/Paramedic spouses, and pastors’ wives all put up with a level of whining from others. Why? It reminds us that someday we, too, will be normal again, and that we will begin to whine about things like colds, balancing the checkbook, and other everyday crap.

Here’s, on a practical note, how to deal with your husbands job, whatever it is. Set the bar low. The table of duties in Luther’s Small should do the trick. Do they live with us by showing us honor as the weaker vessel? Are they harsh with us? How does my husband provide for me when he’s not here? He hands over his paycheck, no questions asked.

Someone always has it worse off than you. Always. Unless your husband died in combat. I’d have to say those gals have it worst. Gauntlets says it right on here: “[c]onsider that the man God gave you is your husband but he is Christ’s slave. Do not, with cheap, repetitive rhetoric, distract him from his Master. The boiling pot of anger you so meticulously stir throughout your lonely day has very little to do with the real, flesh and blood man who bears the onslaught of your wrath. That inner dialogue that plagues you, that fills your brain pan with the sizzling fats of disappointment, revenge, and self pity, is born of lies. It is the serpent whispering, “Did God really say . . .” His whispers ape reality, but they do not reveal it. Close your ears and open your eyes of faith. You and your husband are both of you saints in the Kingdom of God, are both of you sinners carrying your crosses until the day of His coming. And your crosses are not entirely unequal…”

Or, as I’ve heard Soldiers say, “Soldier up. Embrace the suck.” We, all of us whose husbands serve God, country, or community in ways most don’t understand, are covered in arm pit poo. And Jesus is the only one who can wipe us clean. We will all sin again.