This weekend my wife Tanya told me she was taking Naomi to downtown Silver Spring to help support one of her homegirls who was selling jewelry which was great for me cause I can ALWAYS use a break for some me time! They left around 11am and after a wonderful quiet day of playing PS3, making beats and watching some of Season 4 of the Wire…I looked up and saw that it was 7pm! I called Tee to make sure they were alright because if I’m out with Naomi for over 4 hours I start seeing double! And she said they were fine and that she was giving me a break from Naomi. Now, my first thought was “what did you do” or “what do you want”, but then it hit me that my wife was just being selfless.
My life is based on sacrifices… – Jay Z
My homegirl once called me selfish and I couldn’t believe it! I’ve known shorty for over 20 years and she knows more then anyone that I would give her or anyone on my team my absolute last! So I felt some kinda way about her calling me selfish. But then she broke it down to me that I’m not selfish with my money or possessions but that I’m selfish with my time. And after really thinking about it, she was absolutely right! When I wanna make beats, I wanna make beats. When I wanna play NBA 2K13 for 5 hours straight, I wanna play NBA live for 5 hours straight, and a lot of times I’m not mindful that at times I’m not putting my wife’s needs above mine.
We have to realize that once we become Christians, we are called to be servants. The reason I’m writing that is because I always say and hear all the time, that marriage is so hard but truth be told, being a Christian by itself is hard! So, once we decide to give our life to Christ, we should begin to shed the selfishness that we ALL have and begin to serve others. So, it should be a no brainer that once we get married we’re still called to be servants! I remember before I got saved, I was asking one of my peoples if he was buying the new NBA live game that just dropped and he said he had to make sure that his wife and his daughter had everything they needed and if they did, then he would buy the game because his needs come last. And I thought to myself, “You work hard everyday and you can’t buy a video game AND you come last?!?! That sucks!” But now I understand EVERYTHING he was talking about perfectly!
Thanks to my homegirl’s 2 cents, I see that I have to be more mindful of my time and being selfish towards my wife. I think when we hear the word selfish we automatically think money and nothing else but selfishness covers a wide range of things. I had to sit back and check myself and see was I putting my needs first or last. And that’s what many marriages need to do, because I truly believe that if both people are putting their own needs before their spouse’s needs that the marriage is not going to be able to grow the way God intended it to. And I don’t know about you, but I want my marriage and my family to be everything that God wants it to be. I believe marriage should be about putting my wife’s needs first and her doing the same for me. That way we depend on each other to get our individual needs met. But what I believe usually happens is each spouse is putting their own needs first and no one is caring about the other person’s needs. Which eventually leads to both people thinking “ummm, why do I need you again?”
Jay told ya’ll on “Politics As Usual” that his life is based on sacrifices and that’s what our marriage should be based on…our sacrifices for each other. We’ll brag to anyone who will listen about all the sacrifices we make for our kids (“I sold my car to be able to put ‘lil Malik in that private school” or “I gave up my dream of being an astronaut to be a stay at home mother”) and we do it without even thinking about it. And on top of that we don’t resent our kids for our sacrifices! Too many times I hear, “I put my dreams on hold for my marriage but now I resent my spouse for it.” We don’t resent our kids for our sacrifices so why do we resent our spouses? Let’s start bragging about how we sacrifice for our spouses and brag about how we put our dreams on hold for our marriages. So, my challenge for the week ya’ll is let’s (myself included) figure out what we can do for our spouse to show some selflessness.
BMWK – What are your thoughts on the concept that couples should be servants to each other? Do you have issues with serving your spouse? As you reflect back on your own marriage, can you identify areas that you have shown selfishness or selflessness?