Happy Wife, Happy Life

I had an epiphany that I thought I’d share here in the hope that it’ll help others. I was thinking earlier about this year drawing to a close and how I hadn’t yet finished the book I am writing. While I am proud of what I’ve written of the book and the articles I wrote this year, not to mention the editing and speaking I did, I was ruminating about what was left unfinished when I asked myself: What are you most proud of creating? And the answer that sprang to mind was: My lifestyle!

Of course, I owe my very life and any creative ability to The Creator, God, but within that overall context, I am very intentional about designing a lifestyle that I love and that is ultimately a reflection of God’s good gifts to me. Besides that I can think of no better barometer of how I’m living than that old adage: “happy wife, happy life.” It blesses me no end that my wife is happy, which in turn makes me very happy. As another saying goes: “if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

As I posted yesterday, we recently returned from a dream vacation to our former home of Nantucket and it was wonderful to celebrate my wife’s birthday with friends while we were there. What made it all the more special for me was to see how much my wife was enjoying herself, whether it was seeing all our friends at church, mailing Christmas cards from the island, or seeing snow on the beach, she was having the time of her life.

You can see the smile on my wife’s face in the above photo speaks for itself. We were about to board the ten-seat “puddle jumper” of an airplane just before witnessing a gorgeous sunset over the ocean as we approached the spit of land that is Nantucket Island. It all contributed to a memorable homecoming for us and it’s one that neither my wife nor I will soon forget.