It’s pure coincidence that on the weekend of our 16th wedding anniversary I was inspired to write about my husband. For the last six weeks, my husband has been doing this Body for Life program, working out every day before work and every Saturday when he awakes. He is dedicated (I mean enthusiastically motivated!) to going to the gym six days a week, taking Sunday off. This Saturday, with plans to go out of town with me for the night and then back out of town all week on business, my husband decided to skip his routine of going to the gym – the one activity of his day that he does for HIM…that he LOVES doing. Why? So that he could spend time with our children.
He got all four children up, dressed, hair done, teeth brushed, shoes on and out the door before I ever woke up. Out on the town for hours, he took them to breakfast at Waffle House, went to the cleaners, went to Big Lots, and then traveled downtown somewhere to buy fresh fish. I didn’t ask him to take the children, and they didn’t ask him to go. He took the initiative. He WANTED to be with the children. Knowing the next seven days he would be absent, it was a priority for him to devote time to being with the children. It was more important for him to spend time with his children than it was for him to do the one thing he looks forward to every day.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I thought about how I probably wouldn’t have done the same thing he did. (Or if I did, it would have been out of duty or obligation.) I thought about how rare he is as a father. I thought about how most fathers would probably be more like me (choose to workout as planned, justifying the choice because it’s the one thing I do for me). I thought about the heart of this man and how he has consistently proven by the choices he has made for the past sixteen years that his family means everything to him. I thought about how fortunate our children are to have him as their father, and how thankful I am that he is the man he is.
