I knew going in to being a stay at home wife that it would be a struggle to stay busy and keep myself from being bored. Especially since I've always largely identified myself with who I was as a career woman. And if you had asked me when we first got married what my life goals were, I would have listed career as a top priority. I know that when I was a manager in retail, I often wanted to stay at home, but that was mostly from the stress of being constantly on call. It wasn't until a few months ago after a marriage series at Journey Church that Nick and I realized that I really should stay at home. And not because I was burnt out at work, but because it was what was best for our marriage, our relationship with God, and our future family.
If you are interested, check out these two sermons. They are very powerful. They had the utmost impact in our marriage as well as the life decisions we made. Not to sound cliche, but they changed our lives.
Happily Ever After? Part One
Happily Ever After? Part Two
So after those two Sundays, we realized that in order to have the home life we wanted one of us would need to stay home. The laundry, cooking, cleaning, pet care, etc needed to be taken care of during the day so that when we were home together in the evenings we weren't worried about it. As it speaks about in the messages I posted, your house should be a haven from the world. It should be a shelter. While that largely includes a healthy relationship, to us it also includes being clean, physically healthy, stress free, and a place you can relax and be yourself in.
To achieve this, we knew that I needed to stay home. In Raleigh it just wasn't feasible. Too many expenses, I'd built myself up in my career and was pushing forward, and we hadn't built a lifestyle that could be sustained with one income. When Nick found out about this job in Jacksonville, we knew that it could support us. Our expenses would be lessened, we wouldn't be using as much gas in our vehicles, more time to coupon, etc. We spent A LOT of time in prayer about it. We knew that if he got this job, it would be heart wrenching to leave our families and friends, but we also knew that it would because God wanted this for our family. It was confirmation that our prayers about me staying home were being answered.
He got the job and now I stay home. And it's been the best decision. And it has been terribly hard to be away from my loved ones, but I'm coping. I'm trying to make a new life for myself and for Nick. But what I know for sure is that I'm doing the absolute right thing. I feel calm and at peace. I feel sustained, fulfilled, and like I contribute. And honestly, that's what really matters. Prayers answered!
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