Does your spouse come before work?

The marriage statistics are so frightening I try not to look at them anymore. Many factors add up to the ultimate reasons why, but one of them can be easily corrected. To begin, women desire to be loved and feel needed. It is incredibly hard to feel either of those when your wife takes her place of importance behind so many less important things like your job for example. Many men place their career ahead of their spouse because they were trained their whole lives to do so. After all, we spend 16 or more years preparing for our careers so why shouldn't they be first, right? WRONG! After God, your wife should be the top of your priorities. She was designed to be that way, and deserves to take that place. A person cannot feel loved and important when they feel second rate or inferior.

Yesterday, I left the house like any other day to perform some work activities. As I was on a job site, I received a phone call. I didn't hear it ring, but I saw the missed call from my wife when I looked at my phone. I listened to the voicemail, and to my shock she was very upset and stressed out because of the messes our children had made. Now when I left the house it was clean and I had even done some dishes before heading out. So, I was a very surprised at this, but nevertheless I called my wife immediately. She begin telling me what had been done and just sounded overwhelmed and frustrated. What could I do from 80 miles away? I immediately stopped what I was doing and drove home. On the way, I called her very close friend and asked that she call my wife and talk with her. By the time I got home my wife had calmed down, but the house was destroyed. As the father and husband it was my duty to do two things: 1) Speak with my children about not making such messes for us to clean and enlist their help picking it up, 2) Take ownership of the situation and get it cleaned up. I took off my business shirt and began cleaning until it was back in shape. It wasn't my ideal situation to come home to and wouldn't be for anyone. But, just like job requirements there are position requirements for being a father and husband. I seem to learn more of these every day, but I don't think I'll ever understand all of them until I am with God. The amazing part is that God understands what we go through and He sends help when we need it. After I finished cleaning, our friends showed up and said they had come to help. There is nothing that felt better at that moment than knowing we "had help". The feeling of reinforcements arriving just when you are feeling beaten. It's a reviving feeling that gives you new strength. Well, the main areas were clean but the women WENT TO TOWN on a secluded room that was really bad. The girls had taken all of our school supplies, books, and various other items and thrown them all over the floor. The room just looked overwhelming. The women knocked it out and my friend Jason and I got food for everyone and even managed to relocate some tile to a room more fitting. It was an incredible end to a rough day. Praise God for great friends!