The Blessing of Bed Rest (a husband’s perspective)

For me, not my wife.

She is going stir crazy!

Fowler Child

My wife is 35 weeks pregnant with our next child. After several trips to the doctor’s office last week she was put on bed rest. Our other children are ages two and three and are not what you’d call low maintenance.

Our three year old is being as helpful as she can, but there a limits on what a three year old can (and will do).

The two year old? She’s just busy being two & wild! Joyful, spirited, but wild.

Jill is supposed to lay in bed and only get up to go to the sofa or the bathroom. No lifting kids or even a full water pitcher. We had Jill’s mom with us for 3 days last week, but she left on Friday. That leaves me….

Before I dive into where that leaves me, let me first say that the doctors tell us our yet to be born child is healthy and in great shape. We only need to make it to 37 weeks and the little girl or guy will be considered full term and ready to make its grand entrance. So, we are very blessed.

What can feel like less of a blessing is the massive undertaking of picking up my wife’s duties while she is on bed rest. I was already feeling a little overwhelmed with just my duties!

But as I started picking up more and more of the duties over the weekend it began to dawn on me what a blessing this is. Below are the blessings I have uncovered so far. I know there will be more to come.

  1. The Blessing of Serving – My primary job in the Fowler household is to work and provide the resources we need to keep a roof over our heads. My wife takes care of pretty much everything else. She cooks, she cleans, and she takes care of the girls.Since this bed rest thing started, it has become clear that my job is by far the easier of the two.For the first time it is my responsibility to get the girls dressed (now where do their pajamas stay??), to put food on the table and to keep the house in minimally functional order.

    I get to serve. I get to wait on my girls to potty, wipe their behinds and try to keep them entertained. I get to try to keep my wife company in between all my chores and trying to get a little work in.

    What is surprising is how much joy I am finding in taking care of my wife, the kids and the house. It has also been a huge surprise to realize how little I was actually doing before!

  2. The Blessing of Understanding What Your Wife Does – Holy smokes. I do not want my wife’s job. In fact, I stink at it. I have no idea how she gets it all done and retains her sanity. How does she make sure the girls are dressed, their hair is right, clothes are clean and food is in the cabinet? I can’t even find where everything is in the house…The amount of stuff that goes on to keep our house functioning is insane!And if my wife was not put on bed rest I’d never know! Sure, I tell her how much I appreciate what she does but I really never had a clue of what all was being done.
  3. The Blessing of Time with the Kids – 95% of the time when I am with my girls, my wife is with us. She is there to make sure we have the right stuff in the diaper bag, to actually hear my 2 year old when she says she needs to go potty, to put the hair in bows and those little elastic things.I’m essentially along for the ride. It’s like showing up for an incredible dinner and not seeing the hours of planning and preparing that took place to make it so good. My time with the girls is all of the good stuff made possible by my wife’s preparation.Now I see that.

    I got to take the girls to a gymnastics birthday party this weekend. I was totally freaked out. I had no clue what I was doing. Jill made sure we had all the right stuff with us, but that’s kind of like handing me a sniper rifle and expecting me to actually be able to hit something!

    Using all the stuff was usually taken care of by my lovely bride.

    I was the only solo father at the party. There was no hanging out with the other dads while Jill took care of the kids. I was solely responsible for the entertainment of our two girls and it was awesome.

    I just played with them. They were my total focus and it was great.

  4. The Blessing of Giving Your Work to God – I am constantly under the mistaken assumption that I am the one providing for our family. This delusion has me believing that if I don’t work 50+hours each week that my business will fall apart and I and my family will be living in adjoining cardboard boxes in some alley.This is despite the fact that God has clearly stated that He is my provider (Phil. 4:19) and that He will give me everything I need (Matt 6:33).This time of putting my family above my work has been a terrific exercise in giving my burdens (and my unfinished tasks) to the Lord and trusting Him to make it all work out.

    One last thing I’ve found is the joy in some of the smallest accomplishments around the house. Things my wife takes for granted and does a thousand times a day, but that are actually pretty challenging when you rarely do them.

    For instance… that beautiful hair job you see in the picture above! I thought I’d never figure out how to get her hair into one of those rubber band things!

    So, the lesson is this. Next time God slows you down – with a bed resting wife, an illness, job loss, whatever, take the time to find the blessing in it. It’s there, you just have to look.

Thank you for being a part of our values driven community!

Image courtesy of The Fowlers.

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