Encouraging My Husband

Emily, long ago, put up a great post about encouraging her husband. She asked several other people to throw out their ideas, and I never responded. Sorry, Emily! A month later, I'm going to finally get to it!

While I do have some ideas, I will be the first to admit that I fail many days at encouraging David. It is very easy for me to get wrapped up in my own little world, my own stresses as a Mom, and forget that he has stresses too! That said, here are my ideas, and maybe I will put his needs above my own tonight when he gets home and actually do them!

1. A long time ago, I asked him if it was more helpful to him to arrive home to a orderly house and no dinner or dinner and a cluttered house. His response was that he would rather help with dinner prep than come home to a pig-sty (although I have no idea what he was referring to; my home is never a pig-sty:) There are a few days when I can actually accomplish both, but most days, it's one or the other.
Also, I have read in several great books that you should reserve some of your energy for the end of the day. When Dad walks through the door at the end of the day, try to greet him with happy kids and a smile, instead of, "Here are your kids, I'm doing to go be alone for a while." Admittedly, I do not have great ideas of how to accomplish this. By 5 o'clock, I'm toast, the kids are covered in dirt, sand, and popsicle juice, and the before-dinner whining has just begun. (Ellie is our current master of this--I'm really praying that Laura will not pick up the habit.) Whether Dad comes home to happiness or crankiness really sets the tone for the whole evening.

2. Cook meat occasionally.
OK, this might just apply to me. Having a lot of vegetarian tendencies and recipes, it's fun to see the look on his face when he hears that tacos with shredded beef or beef stroganoff are for dinner instead of the usual risotto with tomatoes and zucchini or rice with steamed veggies.

3. Thank him for working hard and stick to the budget he's given me. Telling him at the end of the month that we are x-number of dollars over budget this month is really discouraging for him. He works hard for the money that he brings to us, and when I don't stretch that to make the budget, it sends him 2 messages:
1--What he makes isn't good enough. I'm telling him that my desires for fancy things mean that he should be working harder to please me. There are so many Bible verses that apply to this, I can't even begin to list them.
2--That while he works hard for the money, I'm not willing to work hard to conserve it. What kind of a helpmeet am I at that point?
On the positive side of that, if I can tell him at the end of the month that we' are under budget and able to put that extra into savings, he's thrilled!

4. Refuse to nag him for the ways that he spends his free time. This one is especially hard for me. David works hard with our church, and I especially need to be thankful that he is willing to give his time to God. In addition, he has several hobbies that mean that he might not spend an occasional Saturday afternoon with us. I need to remember that he needs time to decompress, and be thankful for all the time that he does spend with us when he could be persuing other interests! In all fairness, I also need to remember all the weekend afternoons where he has said, "Go take a nap, go read a book, go get a haircut, go get a manicure..." It is so miserly of me to begrudge him a weekend afternoon!

So, those are my ideas. I'm sure as soon as I put this post up, I'll think of other things to say, but here are the ones that I'm consistenly convicted of!