Rotten Squash

I had a melt-down the other day. It was my day off and I woke up early, which was really a small miracle in and of itself, determined to have a productive "cute wife day." I did a ton of laundry (how is there this much with 2 people?? Lord help me when we have children!), and then cleaned the kitchen and proceeded to do meal planning for the next couple of weeks. I headed to the grocery store with a list long enough to impress the Krazy Coupon Ladies, and spent close to two hours on a grocery-finding-mission. Being the cute wife that I am, I came home, put all the food away and proceeded to begin preparing one of Josh's favorite meals.   And that's when disaster struck. I cut open the spaghetti squash to find that it was rotten. Disappointing, but I was having too good of a day to let it bother me too much, so I hopped in the car and went to a different grocery store to grab another squash. Upon returning home, I cut open the new squash only to find out that, it too, was rotten. And then I lost it. Literally flipped out. My cute husband heard me freaking out (I may or may not have slammed a few cabinets and pans...) and came upstairs to see what was wrong, at which point I got upset and started freaking out on him. Realizing that the situation was quickly deteriorating, he suggested we go out to eat. A welcome suggestion, right? Not to me. I got even more upset, that he hated my cooking, my hair and puppies. (Okay, maybe not quite that bad. Although, he may have a different story.) In a matter of minutes, my fabulous "cute-wife'day" had gone completely wrong...all because of rotten squash, or so I thought.

Later that evening, I made it to Adoration and was praying with the daily Mass readings from the day.

"On a certain sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely to see if he would cure on the sabbath so that they might discover a reason to accuse him. But he realized their intentions and said to the man with the withered hand, "Come up and stand before us." And he rose and stood there.Then Jesus said to them, "I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?" Looking around at them all, he then said to him, "Stretch out your hand." He did so and his hand was restored. But they became enraged and discussed together what they might do to Jesus." (Luke 6:6-11, RSV)

And then it hit me. I'm a "cute-wife-Pharisee." I'll spend all day doing all this random stuff to try to impress my husband, or the cute wife down the street, or Martha Stewart.  But then one thing goes wrong and I can't even speak lovingly to my husband. It becomes more about the meal I make than the man with whom I get to enjoy it. And that's not cute. And it's certainly not love. It's being a Pharisee...looking good on the outside, following all the cute-wife-rules...but not really loving. And let me tell you, it sure is easier to iron laundry than to really love another person. But I'm gonna give love one heck of a good try. Because he's worth it.

Thanks for teaching me a lesson, rotten squash. 

Joy :)