Alarm clock goes off. Snooze. Finally get up and start my day. But what shall I do. I’m so used to packed agendas. Be at this place by 8am, another by 10am, and so on and so on. Come home, fix dinner, wash dishes, everyone take baths, bed…and if we aren’t too tired, a little QT with my hubby.

This entire year I had one major goal…the retreat. Day in and day out, thoughts consumed around the retreat. To do lists changing weekly and sometimes daily. Checking items off and adding actions on.

Outside my agendas, the kids had a plethora of activities. My son played on 3 different baseball teams (travel ball, Rec ball, and AllStars). London had gymnastics, an angel pageant, and dance. I mean these kids kept us busy. Often times, people would ask how I did it all. Hell I still don’t know. Needless to say, we were busy.

Sometimes too busy for us. We would both crash at the end of the night. Date night? What’s that? A night of rest was sufficient for the both of us. To do nothing was acceptable.

Here we were breaking all the rules/advice we give others. But this was our routine. Our habit. And as you know, habits are hard to break. And crazy part is that we both participated in setting these bad habits and know better…yet we are prisoners to them.

After the retreat, we all were high. High on love and happiness. You know how you leave church high on His Word, vowing to do better? Well, that’s what happened. We all left vowing to continue communicating, to date more, to laugh more, and to essentially do more of the things that make their spouse smile.

Welp, I’m sure we aren’t by ourselves but once we returned home, our routines met us on our doorstep. They even helped us with our bags. I’m not sure why, but it seems that it was easy for us to allow them to welcome us home. Arms outstretched. Big hugs. Sat and told them about what a wonderful time we had at the retreat.

Only to wake up the next day with them back in control. Wait. How did that happen? We wrote love letters to each other. We cried and we cried. We released all kinds of things that needed to be purged. We got healing in our hearts. Yet, we allowed the routines to consume us again.

I never said we were perfect. We are just like you. Being self aware just reveals the issue, it doesn’t solve them. It takes constant attempts over and over again on a regular or daily basis. There is no difference from experiencing the Holy Spirit on Sunday and return to work on Monday in a negative funk.

It’s referred to as our default settings. We can have the best intentions, but until we change those settings, we will keep the same routines. This takes time. This is hard work. Daily actions and attempts to alter settings that have been saved for so long.

But I know we can do it. So as I encourage myself to work on my defaults, my routines; I want to encourage you to work on yours. We can form better routines and habits. It is possible with a little effort. And don’t worry about your spouse. Focus on yours and as you improve, chances are great they will notice and improve as well. Even if it’s as simple as just following your lead.

It only takes one of you to change the atmosphere in your home. It only takes one of you to setup better routines. Routines that will grow you two closer together. A stronger bond. One that can’t be broken.

You can do it. We can do it. Let’s do it together.

Thanks for your attention. Remember you are your own competition.

Competitionof1