Married to a Traveller, or Thoughts about Courage

A little while ago, Marc wrote about being married and traveling for work. I responded with a he said/she said blog post. At that time I realized (again) that I have so much to say about being married to a traveller.

One of the most common responses I get from people when they hear that Marc is traveling AGAIN is 'how haaarrrrd' that must be for me. There are a number of assumptions that people are making when they say this.

(isn't he cute?)

The first assumption is that I had no or little input into the decision that Marc would travel. This couldn't be a further from the truth. If anything, my input weighed more than his desire. In each opportunity, it has been talked through, prayed through, talked through some more. I know that if I sense a 'no', a 'not now', or a 'it's too much' that that matters a great deal to Marc.

The second assumption is that this is a new habit of his. But in reality - he has been traveling as long as we have been married. I have been doing the married to a traveller thing for 17 years.

The third assumption is that it is helpful and empathetic to tell me how haarrdd that must be. Does that even make sense? What if, when you told me you had to take the kids to the doctor, then take the dog to the vet,  and then had to make supper for you and Great Aunt Louise I turned to you and said 'That must be so haarrd.' How would you feel if, when you told me you had to do laundry, finish an article, and get to the gym I turned around and said 'that must be so haarrrd'.

The reality is, we all do hard things. For some of us, getting out of bed in the morning takes a great act of perseverance and courage. For some of us, we send our kids to school or we homeschool our kids. We write in places where people we don't know and people we do know are able to read it.

Yes, our lifestyle is hard. It is much harder now that we have three kids that are home schooled. Even when Marc is home, it is hard.

We have made the choice to not be stopped by hard. We have built a history of hard things we did that turned out really well and some not so well. In every hard thing we grew - as individuals, as a couple, as disciples. Even in this hard season, we are holding to the expectation that we are strong and that God is stronger.

The next reality is that we are all strong people. We have learned to sit, crawl, walk, feed ourselves, read, talk, engage. No, we don't necessarily celebrate all of those things in our daily lives now, but those are our roots of strength and greatness.

Each day we get to choose what courageous thing we will do. Dealing with a client or a 6 year old, having an honest conversation with a loved one, choosing not to have a conversation with another loved one, stopping the endless office work to do something that we love. All acts of courage. And courage builds upon courage builds upon courage.