We had a busy morning getting kids off to school after being out for an entire week from the Swine Flu scare. ChellBell is definitely ready for summer and wasn’t too excited to wake up early and face math and reading today. But it’s a 2-day school week, and that is do-able.Our friend Andy is a camera man for a local news station, and he happened to be filming the traffic at ChellBell’s school to put on the evening news. Of course, he decided to pull me over and ask me questions that will be on the news tonight. And, of course, I had no make up on and had not had coffee. Recipe for disaster. At minimum a recipe for embarrassment, should anyone happen to watch the news tonight.
After carpool, I realized that my gas tank was on E (panic!) and that I wouldn't be able to make it to the office on what little gas I had. The week has just been so crazy that I’ve been procrastinating a fill-up. Everyone else must have been in the same boat, because the gas station was crowded. I kept thinking,”At least I’m in the right place, should I run out of gas right now...”
During my long wait to reach the pump, I had the thought…
Life is like my gas tank.
More specifically, my marriage is like my gas tank.
When Chris and I got married, life was fantastic – our "gas tank" was full, almost spilling over. And we started our lives together going 90 miles an hour, without a care in the world. Now at almost 13 years, I realize that there are seasons when we’ve taken from our marriage and forgotten to fill the tank back up. We’ve dipped into the supply and forgotten to replenish. And honestly, there have been days where we were running on fumes. And we’ve panicked a little.
So we fill up. We go off for the weekend, or we do something sweet together, and get the tank back to Full. But if we don’t fill up on a regular basis, we find ourselves right back at fumes, panicking, hoping that we can fill up in time. You know that when a car runs out of gas, it does a lot of damage. Think about what it does to a marriage.
Just a reminder to fill your tank. Add back into your marriage what you take, so that you never have the fear of being on empty.
All of that sitting in the line at the gas station… :-)
So well said. You really have a wonderful way with words.
ReplyDeleteI love the analogy- Matt & I feel we "fill our tank up" when we go on vacation together, but also have found that just being down here the first 6 months with no other friends or obligations pulling us away from each other, made us focus more on each other as well. Maybe that is where the baby came from??? :)))
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insightful post. I blogged about you today....
http://web.me.com/darling729/Site/Blog/Entries/2009/5/7_A_Great_Day_at_the_Mailbox!.html
Good luck on the news tonight. I am going to look online for it as well!!
~Becca
Love this.....been feeling very EMPTY lately.....just this season in our lives. I find that it's just like when my stomach is empty, I very much crave something to fill it up!
ReplyDeleteIt's been good for me, lots of opportunity to practice patience and self control!
So, true, Christie! We're going in for a fill up this weekend and we're really looking forward to it. We've been on fumes before, too, and I don't like it there!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post! Greg and I try and go whenever we can. Its hard with four kids but thankfully my parents understand this! We are going out tonight...yipeee!
ReplyDeleteBeen away for awhile so late in replying to your post, but this is so awesome! All marriages do go thru this! The devoted, strong couples recognize this and remember that commitment even when you are "running on fumes"....
ReplyDelete