“mommy, I want to marry Thierry..”
“um, how come?”
“because he is a nice boy and has crinkly hair”
“hey richard come here”
“ezzy tell daddy what you just told me”
“daddy, I want to marry Thierry”
“I’ll tell you what Ezzy, if you can find a boy that loves God more then you, then you can marry him”

I’m sure that the expression on my face probably didn’t welcome Richard’s deep answer to his daughter’s fragile heart. That was not what I was expecting him to say to a little girl at an age that still thinks that Daddy is a perfect option for a future marriage. Maybe because the human side of me couldn’t handle to concept of my best friend, the other half of my soul, loving something, let alone someone more then me.

I filed that little conversation away in my heart, not knowing that those words would be something that I would experience coming to life just a few days later…

Mastitis, stupid, mastitis is a curse word in our home. I have battled it 4x in the past and was hoping that since we passed the newbornish age that I would be sailing through without finding myself sitting in a doctor office or worse yet another ER room, running a fever, wishing that the very things that give and have given life to my babies would be cut off of my body. Well, then 5 am came with me wincing as each suckle made my brain, body, and conscious battle each other over what really mattered. The fever came along with a hot red mass and soon my husband was sending me to bed as he cancelled his much anticipated trapping trip with a friend.

Guilt, pity, frustration, sorrow, anger…you name it, I experienced it as I laid in bed as the fever sent chills pulsating with each beat of my heart.

Banishment to the couch or my bed was what the king of the house ordained and I sighed with partial relief that my daily to do list wasn’t being ignored as he attempted to do all of my duties.

Yes, we do things differently. My standard according to him is impossible to reach and unrealistic for any human to obtain. Yet there he was feeding, clothing, packing lunches, shuttling kids to and from school and their activities. Meals, water, a hungry baby were brought to me and I was then relieved of any child rearing once a baby’s tummy was full.

He decided to take cayden to the store with him one evening to grab some of nature’s remedy for mastitis. I was informed that as they stood at the isle with the cabbage they laughed and searched for the biggest head of cabbage thanks to my mammories thinking they feed triplets. Even admist their trip full of laughing, he was modeling to our son how to care for sick wife.

Why did it bother me so much to allow my husband to care for me? Doesn’t it say in Ephesians 5 that a godly husband is to “love his wife as Christ loves the church”? I have read this passage countless times, then I watched my husband live it out. Christ loves the church, his bride, his people so much they he gave up his life for her. Richard didn’t give up his life in that moment as he slaved away over laundry, dishes, butts wiped, babies rocked to sleep in the early morning. But he attend to me in a way that made him think less of himself and more of someone else.

When his 3 days of being Mr. mom came to an end, we sat across from one another and discussed that we are happy with the roles that each of us have in our family. He told me respect has been given, I told him that I couldn’t do what he does each day, because believe it or not I missed being needed, beckoned, ran to when something happened. I watched Kyre soak up all his extra attention and knew that when he went back to work it was going to be hard on me, her, and Ya’el. The proof was hearing Kyre ask daddy why he had to go back to work the next morning.

We all in a way loved to be tenderly cared for in selfless love. He didn’t gripe when Ya’el woke yet again when her tummy needed food, when Kyre’s dire state required his action or when he crossed off yet another task in the daily needs a family of 6 have.

My Ephesians 5 man is currently in Seattle with Ezzy, they just completed her sleep study and we have be warned surgery most likely is in her future. But I am thankful to know that whatever health issues that get thrown our way that I, my children, or my husband don’t have to go through it alone. He is the head of our household, who he looks to to lead him impacts how he leads us. I witnessed my little guy see that his sister was embarrassed and immediately made her laugh about the wires stuck to her head. By the time they stopped talking she wasn’t covering herself up in shame. Yes, he IS learning from his daddy.

I get it now, I get why he must love someone more then me.

Thankful that my girls are having a standard set higher then most have in a broken world, because he examples what it means to have selfless love. He strives to answer their adoring female hearts not in fairy tales, but instead in Truth that can only come from his Heavenly Father.

Thankful my little man is looking to his daddy to teach him how to care for his family. I recently received a message on how my little guy was doing. I know that as his dad spends every night doing devotions with him, just the two of them, that my hubby is making sure that Cayden learns how to love his bride one day, but first points him to who he should love more then anything.

Hard to believe that 14 years ago we started out, unsaved, wide eyed with hearts full of youthful arrogance.

Proof that God can take you no matter how/where you are in your life and say “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness”- 2 Corinthians 12:9