Coach or Teammate?

I just have to take today to brag on (or "honor" for those of you who were in church yesterday) our amazing Pastor's wife, and Pastor herself, Terica. It doesn't matter how close or far away you have witnessed her life, you know that this blog could go on for a long time if I was going to list all of her amazing qualities. But for today I will just share one precious lesson that she has taught me without even knowing it herself.

I think a lot of women, myself included, tend to approach their spouses like they are their husband's personal life coach. Just like our high school sports coaches during game time, we think that our jobs consist of providing minute by minute directions from the sidelines of our spouse's life. Then after each game is over making sure that we go over all of their positives and negatives with them. We tend to think that we are the sole contributor to our husband's training and future improvement.

I have to admit that I tend to lean towards these methods in how I deal with Scott...not purposefully, but it is easy to see how the summation of my actions fall into this model. The problems that arise from this are obvious: we were never meant to Coach our husbands. We can't constantly critique their lives and expect them to want to share how their day went when they get home.

The only thing that has exposed these tendencies inside my own marriage, is that I got to see an amazing example of the grace that Terica displays inside her marriage. She, more than anyone else I have ever known, has shown me how to play a different role inside your marriage: teammate. Most people will spout that our role as women in the lives of our husbands is to be their biggest fan, and while I think we should root for the home team inside our marriage, I don't like the connotation that we don't have anything personally invested in the game. We can cheer, yell at the umpires, wear our favorite t-shirt, but at the end of the day when the game is over, go on with our lives. Being a soccer player, there was something special about the bond of a teammate; these were people you sweated with, put in extra hours of practice with, and puked in trash cans with after a 7am fitness training session. We got to see each other at our best and at our worst, we were all personally invested. How does this translate? We worked together to make our victories happen, picked each other up off the ground after losses, but most importantly for our current analogy: disagreed. We often disagreed with on-field decisions that were made by our teammates, but we also knew that for the team to stay at time that there was a time, a place, and a way to discuss those frustrations. For the sake of the team, we sometimes had to sacrifice our own opinions about the way things should be done in order for the team to be unified.

I'm not saying that Terica is the perfect wife, none of us are, but I will honor her by saying that she has acted out the example of what it means to be a teammate in her marriage. She has spent countless extra hours, sweat, and tears with Brandon in making his dreams come true (I'm not aware if she has ever puked in public trash cans for the cause.) She has seen him at his best and worst, high fiving him for during his best, and giving him grace and picking him up off the floor in his worst. And of course, sometimes disagreed and been frustrated with him, though it is hard to tell because she is amazing about dealing with these frustrations appropriately. And yes, she has had to make sacrifices in the name of unity.

Thank you, Terica, for teaching me that I am not responsible for my husband's improvement. My job is to continue to jump into the trenches and fight alongside him for his dreams. No one will ever be a better example of that than you!
~Laura