30 Days of Proverbs: November 5th

November 5, 2017

Proverbs 5: Pitfalls of Immorality

"Drink water from your own cistern,

And fresh water from your own well.

Should your springs be dispersed abroad,

Streams of water in the streets?

Let them be yours alone,

And not for strangers with you. 

Let your fountain be blessed, 

And rejoice in the wife of your youth."

Proverbs 5: 15-18

I've had these verses underlined with little hearts around the verse numbers for years. BECAUSE MARRIAGE, y'all. 

My husband and I have only been married for 12 years so there's a big part of me that feels inadequate to prattle on with my take on marriage so just give me some grace and bear with me, m'kay??

Matt is my best friend. 

I'm not saying that because he's my husband and I have to- I REALLY MEAN IT. Over the dozen years we've been married we've gotten to know more about each other than I ever thought possible. He knows how I feel about roller coasters and pumping gas and running late and Mexican food and gardening and coffee and office supplies and lamps and lemons and homeschooling. We've got inside jokes about silhouettes and Larry Bird and ceramic mugs and crazy quotes we say to each other. "You do not knoooow what I have been through..."  

His work is really hectic sometimes (lots of times) so there are days when we communicate primarily through random GIFs. It's hysterical. We've developed Kid Code Words and were once able to hide an entire family vacation from them because of our amazing teamwork skills because we're Team McReynolds FOR LIFE. (I feel like we need t-shirts or something.) 

But here's the deal- I think we've been able to cultivate this type of Best Friendly Marriage with one another because we're drinking from one another's wells. When I've had a looooong day with the hoodlums, I mean- kids, HE is the one I talk to first. If I'm stressing about any of the 7,931 things I like to chronically over analyze- HE is the first person to hear all my necessary/unnecessary back story about it. Do my pants not fit? Did I have an insane stress dream about being covered in ants? Is the shoe molding under the kitchen sink loose? Did someone accidentally head butt a Barbie house? Is there a personal situation I'm trying to process? Am I rethinking our Spelling curriculum? Did one of our kids just ask me where babies come from? HE GETS TO KNOW ALL THE THINGS. 

There are weeks when he's busy, INSANELY BUSY with work. He's away from the house for long hours and has to spend nights out of town. And it's hard. And I'm not a super huge fan of putting the kids to bed by myself- but it's not because I feel like he's slacking on his Dad Duties- it's because WE ARE BETTER TOGETHER. When he's gone it's like I'm walking with a limp or I'm drinking decaf coffee. IT JUST AIN'T RIGHT. 

These verses remind me to focus my efforts on my marriage first and everything else after. To spend my time drinking from our well before I go anywhere else to be refreshed. My prayer is that by continuing to build our marriage up this way, our fountain will be blessed and we'll create dozens more inside jokes with one another over the next 50 years or so. 

Have a Christ-filled day, y'all. And thanks for stopping by~ Katie.