Sweet Slow Season

The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.

—Psalm 29:11

Like every couple, we have our ups and downs, and we’ve had our sweet seasons and our dark ones. Sometimes it’s hard to get a handle on what causes what, but I’m paying close attention these days, because I want to learn how to live for longer stretches in these sweet seasons. Looking closely, I think some of the hard choices we’ve made in the last year have cleared a path for this season.

One of those hard choices was to slow down. I suspect that I’ll be talking and writing about this issue for the rest of my life, because it’s so easy for me to get too busy, and for the fallout of that to have negative effects on the rest of my life. This is what I know: my life works better a little slower. Our family life works better a little slower. And our marriage works better a little slower, when there’s space to listen and laugh, when we read together on the couch after the kids are in bed, when we don’t have to be fast-paced business partners and just get to be us.