He Leaves a Messy Sink

{Written by a woman from the chat room}

Hello ladies! I would like to share something about these pictures. They are before and after shots of my husband's side of our bathroom. I would like to give some perspective here. I know many of us are tempted to be irritated by things like this. Notice the whiskers in the sink? They are hard to see here, but the sink is full of them, but irritation is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about thankfulness. 

You see, when you have a husband who deploys, these things take on a whole new meaning. Sometimes, this is the last thing he leaves behind before he goes underway. There have been many times I looked at these things, or his pajamas left on the floor, or his shoes in the living room and thought,"He was just here, he just wore those, and now he won't for months and months." It's the last tangible evidence I have of his presence for a long time. 

Getting home after dropping him at the dock or the hangar, seeing him off for another deployment, and coming home again, I look at those pajamas on the floor and am reminded that just this morning he was wearing those pajamas and snuggled in bed with me. Tonight while I crawl into that bed alone, he has to endure the coldness of the ship's berthing or 16 hours of sitting on a jump seat or on the floor of a cargo plane, going to a hostile place and being away from the love and comforts of home. And so many times after he's left, I've left the "mess" sitting there a while. Not because I'm irritated by it, but because it reminds me of him. 

Now, that being said let me talk about these pictures. These were taken yesterday. My husband was active duty for fourteen years. He was gone a lot. He missed two of our nine children's births, and barely made it back in time for one of them. {He literally walked into the hospital with his sea bag on his back and I was beginning to push out his first son; having come straight from the hangar!} He now works a civilian job and has two years left in the Naval Reserves before he retires. He works a civilian job, drills once a month plus his two weeks out of the year. He is also in school. He does all of these things for us. He supports 9 {soon to be 10} children and a wife, and works hard so that I can stay home and raise them. This is his drill weekend. That means he won't have a day off until next Saturday, so that's 12 straight days of working, but he also has to fit in his school work around all of it. And he takes our sons to scouts. 

Yesterday, this was the "mess" he left before he went to do his "Navy Stuff," {as we jokingly call it}.  I saw it and thought, "That’s it? He didn't leave a very big mess behind!" lol! It took me less than a minute to put his things in the basket under the sink and wipe it all down. And I thought how thankful I am that he will be coming home later that afternoon and can do it again tomorrow, because he doesn't have to be gone right now. We don't have to miss him. We don't have to count the days until he gets back. We get to have him home, and I want to make sure that he feels safe and loved when he's here. 

So think about this, please ladies! When you are tempted to let these things bother you, that somewhere out there is a wife who would give anything to have her husband home to leave his things out, or track mud on the floors, or have him sitting in their couch; even if he is just watching TV or playing a video game. Be thankful he is there and you don't have to wonder and worry and miss him!

An excellent wife who can find?

    She is far more precious than jewels.
 The heart of her husband trusts in her,
    and he will have no lack of gain.
 She does him good, and not harm,
    all the days of her life

Proverbs 31:10-12

Compare her reactions to her husband to this woman's She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By the Sink.