Playing House

Gaye Haugen asked me this morning at church if I’ve been learning a lot of new things since I’ve been married. She smiled knowingly. I promptly answered in the sense that it still feels as though we are playing house. I contemplated the fresh and obvious plots I have to effectively take care of this home - the trivial little things that I’ve accomplished with small huffs of pride, somewhat-successful dinner experiments, and humble morning tasks like bed-making and the assembly of hasty breakfasts for two before work. These are miniature triumphs compared to the greater call to a new bride. Let me broaden my reply more thoroughly.

The new things I’ve been learning, Mrs. Haugen, are surely some of the most fascinating, electrifying, and profoundly mysterious lessons there are to be learned. I’m learning about the care and keeping of a husband. Oh, how little we knew as young girls playing “house”! How easy it was to dismiss our “husbands” to work all day while we “cooked” and “cleaned” and rocked our “babies” to sleep. When we played as such, our husbands never really came home. They didn’t have rough days or emotional needs or empty stomaches. Our invisible mates were simply too many characters to play at once, so we never explored their companionship. (I shall taunt the memories no further, lest I dissolve the beauty of being young ;).

Gone are my days of drinking imaginary tea from pink plastic cups, and shopping for cutouts of tomatoes, and swaddling sleeping dolls. I now long for the hour I know my husband is on his way home from work. My greatest pining is to invest time in him, and the result is a surplus of lessons learned far more valuable than home economics! Whether he is coming through the door or on his way out, there is required encouragement and love from his wife. Yes, I’m learning lots of new things. Proper housekeeping is the core of a functional and organized dwelling, but a vibrant, thriving marriage is the rich and fertile topsoil out of which grows an abundance of living. Without that, what good is it for me to know how to cook a chicken or clean a toilet?

I look to you and your marriage, Mrs. Haugen, as the result of one flourishing from a well-cultivated topsoil. And I admire it way it ripples and blesses the people in your community. That, I know without doubt, is one of the most spectacular calls on every marriage.