How can I help?

As I started on my journey trying to get organized and get things done in my house and in my life, I found myself working really hard but I was still all over the place.  It still seemed no matter how hard I worked I was still left at the end of the day scrambling to get done what needed get done.  There was just not enough hours in the day!  I thought that to be organized, first I needed to make sure that everything in my house was organized.  I would work on projects that usually took all day in an effort to get my house in order.  Getting organized is a wonderful thing and I know I will get there eventually, at least somewhere close, but I realized that the answer to my problem of to much to do and not enough time was a lot easier then I thought!  My answer was actually in a question!

How can I BEST help my husband today?

I was created to be my husbands helper. (Gen. 2:18-25)  (If this sounds like a very strange concept to you, please continue reading.  I think that after you read the whole post, you may see that it is actually a very good thing!) So, what I needed to do, instead of getting sidetracked by all these projects, was to use my time THAT day for things that my husband most needed help with THAT day!  Instead of cleaning out every drawer in my house, maybe that day he needed me to work a little more to help out with finances.  Or, maybe, instead of scrubbing the floors til they shined,  he would have liked me to spend my time baking him some of his favorite banana bread.  This is when I started asking him what it is I can best help him with today.

When I did this, I started to see that it cut out a lot of my busy-ness because I was able to schedule my day according to what my family really needed done.  Before, I would be busy all day doing these projects and then in the evening, when the kids were home and my husband was home, I was running like crazy trying to get homework done, cook supper, tend to the baby, get baths, etc…and then, in the middle of that, he would either remind me of the things he had needed me to do that day or I would see him doing things that I should have already had done.  I would then scramble to fit those into my night as well. This always left me tired, cranky, frustrated and usually with a feeling of inadequacy because I was not able to do everything that my family needed me to do that day.  So, now, every morning, I make out my schedule for that day and I start out by writing at the very top, “How Can I BEST Help My Husband Today?”  Then, I make out a to-do list according to the answer to that question.

I know that sometimes I may be tempted to feel that this title of “husband’s helper” makes me somewhat less important, however, when I look to God’s Word, I see it should make me feel quite the opposite!  1 Corinthians 11:7 tell me that “…woman is the glory of man“.  I looked up the definition of glory in the dictionary at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glory and this is two of the definitions it had:

a) Great beauty and splendor
b) Height of prosperity or achievement

When I put those definitions in place of the word glory in that verse it gave me a clear picture as to what that verse is saying.

Woman is the great beauty and splendor of man.
Woman is the height of prosperity or achievement of man.

Regardless of if my husband’s attitude towards me always speaks to this truth, I am going to choose to strive to live in a way that shines light on this truth, that I am the glory of my man! 

I must admit that I don’t live up to this perfectly each day, but my efforts have not gone unnoticed.  My husband says that he see the difference.  However, I do not do this ultimately to please my husband. Although I hope that he is pleased and I love him dearly, I do this because ultimately I want to please God and live in obedience to Him.  I pray that God continues to show me ways that I can honor Him in my life.