Mirror, mirror on the wall

My wife is my mirror. She is able to cut through the crap and see who I am. She is able to see what I do and hear what I say and automatically know what I mean and know my intentions. That's been very valuable, to say the least.

So when I get frustrated with Miss S, she knows why. For some reason, I've waited 4 months to tap into her wealth of knowledge on the subject of Nick. We've had some great conversations about how Miss S and I are just not clicking. In a lot of ways, we're exactly alike. That tends to hurt us more than help us though. She likes to have things explained to her and so do I so I have no problem explaining them to her. The problem is when she starts to use it as a tool to argue with me. It all goes downhill very quickly and I haven't been able to stop it in a productive manner.

Last weekend I gave Denielle the opportunity to control and monitor my interactions with Miss S. At one point, Miss S said that D and I don't do anything for her or ourselves. This was right after I told her to take the trash out. I was standing about a foot and a half away from D. Her back was to me and I started to turn to face Miss S and give her a little info (or a piece of my mind, however you want to look at it). Denielle said "Don't." She then asked Miss S a few questions about things that are done around the house, some of which are done for Miss S. She started answering the questions by saying that D and I do all of them for her. After a half dozen items, D stopped and asked her if she thought her previous comment was still true. Of course not. Keep in mind, this was all done without D even LOOKING at me or at Miss S.

This time in our life has allowed us both to see the other in a position they don't want to be in (me at home/school, D at work) and yet trying to be used by God to do what He wants us to do. Right now that means taking care of a couple kids who stretch us to the max. For all the mental ping pong I play with these issues, this situation is one I will forever be grateful for if only because it's allowed me to see my wife being incredible at one more thing. I just can't get over how awesome she is. A lot of guys introduce their wife as "beautiful, gorgeous, lovely", etc. I can't help but think that sells Denielle short. Obviously she's all of those things, but to me, she's my amazing wife Denielle.

There have been a lot of times in the past 3 or 4 days where I've held my tongue to see what she was going to do or listen to her suggestions to me. It's paid off every time. The jist of it is to reward good behavior, ignore bad behavior, and not get into the "ping pong" matches with her. Instead of having her explain things to me, I just need to let her do her thing and correct the big stuff. I need to continue to pray that God will grab her heart and change it for His glory. I need Him to keep doing that to my heart as well.