By Lucy Martin
I always wanted to homeschool, but I thought that I didn’t have the right personality for it. I
thought I was too driven, and not patient enough.
So, my first two children went to a series of schools.
It wasn’t until I was afraid that my second marriage might end in divorce that I started the journey that created the thriving homeschool mom I have become today.
That’s why I know that the same mindset that creates a thriving homeschool can also create a thriving marriage.
It’s a mindset of cultivating delight. Of delighting in the Lord and how He sees my family. Of following the “God sparkles” of delight, creating a life that helps me flourish as mom so my family can blossom around me.
I used to view self-care as just one more thing to do, and I never got around to it. I never really understood what people meant by the phrase anyway.
Then I was introduced to the idea of doing three things that bring me delight every day. These were things I could do with my kids, like exploring nature, making music and gardening. Delight is the structure of my homeschool.
When my husband comes home from long days fishing offshore or building, he finds me replenished.
I’ve learned how to champion him by focusing on his good qualities. For example, it used to drive me crazy that he was always looking at his phone. I used to “communicate authentically” to him about this, and of course that complaining just made him check out more and more. When I learned to focus on the good, I started to speak life into the other half of the story. It
turned out that when I committed to focus on the idea that “he’s such a present dad” instead, it was already true that he wasn’t looking at his phone half of the time. It had just seemed like all the time!
The more I focused on him being a present dad and spoke life into it by actually saying “you are such a present dad,” the truer it became. One night I walked into the bathroom when he was watching my three little boys have a bath, and he was joyfully playing with them instead of playing games on his phone. I was overjoyed and spoke life and gratitude. These days, it is rare that my husband will take his phone out when we are having family time. He truly is a present dad.
In my own life and that of my clients, I have seen again and again that in any given moment, marriage is either in a vicious or a virtuous cycle. The good news is, the cycle can turn around in an instant. What good can you speak life into today? It just might surprise you how quickly things can improve.
Lucy Martin is a licensed therapist who was afraid she was headed for a second divorce when she found simple, Biblical principles that changed everything. She became a Certified Relationship Coach and now coaches other women to have victorious marriages, even under challenging circumstances. She is a homeschooling mom of five and loves getting outside and singing on the worship team at The Anchor Church in Rockport. She has a podcast, Facebook group and website called Easy Biblical Marriage.