Walking the daily journey with hidden disabilities can be wearying.  We all know this.  Somehow it feels better to say it out loud.

Walking the journey with your spouse is meant to ease that burden.

I don’t know about you, but rather than lightening the load, sometimes I find it adds stress.

Like any relationship, our marriage is attended by two broken people.  We each have our way of dealing with stress and responding to the challenges in our lives (related to disability or not).

We are intended to be growing in intimacy and oneness but at times are strained with distance from the wearying journey. How do we deal with this to lighten the load, brighten the darkness, encourage the weary?

Perspective: We both love and serve the same Father.  He called us to this journey together and He will equip us to walk in it.  I am so grateful for a husband who has stayed when so many others have taken the easy road of walking away.  I am reminded of the passage in Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12:  ⁹ Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. ¹⁰ For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. ¹¹ Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? ¹² And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.

Perspective: Let’s be honest.  At times we are weary from the dailyness of our lives.  The tasks can seem endless, the strain difficult.  Sometimes it can feel like the waves are crashing and you are going down.  Gratitude is a gift that changes your perspective even when your circumstances remain the same.  I am grateful for a husband who works long hours to support our family and then more hours to do homework with our son with gross learning disabilities.  Rather than focusing on how I wish we had more time together, I can choose to be grateful for his faithfulness in the dailyness of our lives.  And I can speak with kindness and gratitude for that faithfulness.

Will gratitude change the stresses of our lives?  Probably not.  But it will change my perspective.

Journeying with him and you,

Shannon

P.S. Bill can also make me smile: