Friend Friday with Simply Better

Today’s Friend Friday is a dear friend! I have enjoyed working with her and all the emails back and forth between us! She truly is a gem! Be sure to stop by her corner and send her some SHH love!

The Turkey Plucking Incident

I married a sportsman. He is his best self after a day or two of hunting. The woods are his cathedral, where he has communion with God and finds peace. Doing things like hunting and fishing are a must for him. As his wife and friend I fully support his outdoor activities.

I happily find new recipes for venison. Christmas eve I didn’t comment once about him harvesting a deer and then bringing it home to butcher from our back deck. I even helped and let our daughter ‘help’ him. (She is 2 and is crazy for animals.) I rarely say no to hunting or fishing trips he takes.

So my husband asked me a few weeks ago, “Will you help me pluck a turkey?” As his helpmate, I know I should have said, “Absolutely, whatever you’d like honey. Sounds like fun, when can you go hunting so we can pluck one?”

Instead my response was, “No, I don’t think so.” I’m just so human. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I should have proceeded with caution and asked something like, “Why do you ask?” Might have diverted the following mess.

We then proceeded to have a complete communication break down. No matter what we said, we could not get on the same page. He was hurt and frustrated that I wouldn’t help him and I was shocked that he would expect me to be happy about cleaning a turkey. (Something I have never done, and never thought I would.)

Finally after 10 minutes of crazy talk (from both of us), we started to see eye-to-eye.

He said: “I should have considered your perspective. To me it’s just cleaning a turkey, and it could save us some money. To you it’s keeping our daughter out of it, cleaning it up, sore fingers, possibly too cold, smelly, and a lot of work for something that could be bought at a store frozen and already plucked.”

I couldn’t help laughing at how he sees me. (Honestly that’s how he always gets me to laugh, I am so darn funny through his eyes!) He had nailed it. He was being the provider and I was saying no.

Colossians 3:18 says “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Okay, God. I get it. I will help my husband and be loving to him. He needs my help and in helping him, I help myself become the woman I was meant to be.

I will even try (with God’s help) to take it a step further as it says in Philippians 2:14 “Do everything without grumbling or arguing.”

In conclusion, I don’t really want to pluck a turkey, but if my husband wants to bring one home, I will help him. I will even put a smile on my face, and possibly enjoy it! (That might be taking it too far, but I’m sure it’s something I won’t forget.)

Blessings,

Leslie

You can find Leslie writing most days at Simply Better. It is a blog about her Christian walk, married life, and homemaking. It is simply a mix of positive, uplifting ideas. She wants to focus on what really matters and help to make the world a simply better place to live. She just released a free ebook Buried Treasure: Revealing Your Husband as the Man of Your Dreams. Please head on over to Simply Better to get your copy.