Service (Lessons From My Marriage, Part Three!!)

In honor of our Ten Year Anniversary this month, I'm writing out lessons I've learned from being married to my man. 

I don't think I'm an expert on anything really (except maybe how to nurse a baby while chasing a two year old and never even breaking the baby's latch), but I do think that Derek and I have something pretty great. While much of our relationship is due to just being extremely compatible, our life is not perfect, we are not perfect, and I've had to learn some pretty hard lessons in my ten years thus far as a wife. 
(Babies! We were BABIES!) 

Today's lesson is one I'm always relearning.

Service.

I preach it right and left to my kids: Serve each other, help each other and don't complain about it.

And then sometimes I forget to serve my spouse.

I don't mean this in any sort of 1950s "Here are your slippers and smoking jacket" way either. (Have you ever met me? Yeah, that's not happening...) I mean it in a mutual, equal way. Derek is excellent at this. He thinks about what I might need/want and makes it happen, or asks how to make it happen.

It's a skill he has.

Me? Well, I'm quite good at wiping bums, and feeding the small people, and sometimes I forget to serve him.

(I'm a slow learner, what can I say?)

So. I have to make efforts to do something Derek seems to do naturally. I make the effort to make his lunch, or scramble him an egg. I have to try to remember to hang up his shirts out of the dryer so they don't wrinkle (this so does not happen).

Little acts of service can make a big difference. I'll never be perfect at this, but it's a lesson I always am learning.

Thomas S. Monson said,

 “Spiritual strength frequently comes through selfless service.” 

What better way to be strengthened spiritually than by serving my spouse? 

I'm trying. I hope I'm always trying.