Early riser

The women at my church with young kids have just started up a book club, so we can get to know each other better and encourage one another during this busy season of our lives.

The first book we're reading is Shopping for Time. It has some good challenges in it, and one we discussed this week is that of getting up early (before the rest of the family) to spend time with God and to serve the family by preparing for the day.

I am SO not an early riser. I have always, always, waited until the last possible moment to get out of bed. Sometimes I have left it too long, most notably when my friend Jenny and I missed the train in yr 12 and would have been late for our trial english exam (very important event) had we not woken up her boyfriend to drive us to school - all because I slept in.

So it is a significant challenge for me to even think about getting up before I have to. Any time I've tried it, I've failed abysmally. Of course, these days, I don't decide when to get up - Hamish decides for me. But I could get up when he wakes, instead of lying in bed with a grumpy baby who really wants to get up and on with the day.

The benefits of spending time with God at the start of the day are pretty clear to me. The other aspect, that of blessing my family by preparing for the day, is one I am chewing over. Of course if I am sleep deprived because of a restless baby, the best way to serve my family (and myself) is to get as much sleep as possible and if that means sleeping in, so be it. But if I get to bed by 10pm, I can get enough sleep, or near enough, now that Hamish is doing better overnight (by the way, you have no idea how exciting that is for me). So if I were to get up at 6.30am instead of 7am, I wonder what I could do with the time? More thinking to do....

Wedding vows

Another idea that struck me from the DVD (see below), is that marriage is a covenant between two people. It's not, fundamentally, about feelings of love - it's about the making, and keeping, of promises. This is what distinguishes marriage from de facto relationships, where there are no explicit, public promises.

This means that the actual vows are really important - these are the promises we make and the core of the relationship! I wonder sometimes about modern wedding vows, whether the promises made are in keeping with what marriages need to survive and thrive. For example, some vows include sections about helping the other person reach their potential, or fulfill their life dreams, or become all they can be. This, in a subtle way, to me seems to be promoting the individual as more important than the marriage.

Of course there is plenty of room within the marriage relationship for people to achieve their own goals and develop as individuals, but when this becomes more important than the marriage things are in trouble.

If times are tough I try to ask not what do I need, but rather what does my marriage need. Why? Because I promised to. Here's what I said to Adam on 24 March 2001:

"I Alison, in the presence of God, take you Adam, to be my husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to submit to all the time, as long as we both shall live. This is my solemn vow and promise."

Now, I love Adam very much. But if those feelings weren't there, the promises would be. That's why vows are important to the health of a marriage - and why we depend on them!