My Focus Was On Me

Discipline came naturally to me, and I had lots of ambition. He was stubborn and disciplined and smart and so many things I didn’t yet have the words to express. But he sure could make me mad. I loved Benjamin and wanted to be a good wife to him, but I was mostly trying to prove my worth. My focus was on me and what I could accomplish. This often resulted in butting heads with my new husband, who was working out his own stuff. We’d been married about seven months when we realized we needed to seek some help. So we sought out some wise counsel from Paul and Virginia Friesen, the couples’ Bible study leaders for the Patriots, where Benjamin was playing at the time. As we applied what we learned to the everyday moments of our marriage, our relationship became stronger. We started discussing and praying about starting our family. We wanted to try for four kids. Much to our joy, we got pregnant pretty quickly.

All Sold Out

We were falling in love all over again. We knew becoming parents would change us both forever, so we wanted to enjoy every moment before things took a radical shift. The tiny island we stayed on was stunning. Our room overlooked the ocean, and the beach was beautiful. It would have been glorious . The hormones from the pregnancy left me alternately ravenous and nauseated. Benjamin knows how much I love to eat, so one night he made reservations at a romantic spot overlooking the ocean. We got all dressed up, and for once my nausea dissipated. Everything on the menu sounded good to me. The meal I ordered tasted great. Then, as we headed back to our room, I broke into a run for the bathroom. Sure enough, I was sick again.

Inside My Head

This is miserable, I thought. What a waste of money! We’re in this enchanting place, and I’m spending all my time in the bathroom! As I lay on the floor, sick of being sick, the door opened. In the middle of feeling so bad, I was enveloped in peace. I’m not alone, I thought. He’s in this with me. When I was at my weakest point, Benjamin valued me. He made a lot of great plays and had a good reputation, but any notoriety he got was for the work he did in the community. As his wife, I’d pray for him to prosper. And Benjamin did prosper. He was even nominated by the Saints and the Ravens for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. Still, he wasn’t in the spotlight during most of his football career. National fame came into our lives in an unexpected way.

One Against The Others

For as long as I’ve known Benjamin, he’s been a writer and a deep thinker. One night we were at Target with our four kids, all four years and younger. We’d just left a community event and stopped to help a couple on the side of the road. After we helped them get a hotel room for a couple of nights, we stopped at Target to get a few items for them. I stayed in the car with the kids while Benjamin went inside. I’d seen Benjamin typing his thoughts on the notes app of his phone, but that was pretty typical. While Benjamin was in the store, VeggieTales kept the kids entertained in the car. This was a surprise to me because neither of us used social media much at the time. I thought Benjamin had pretty much forgotten it was even out there. People appreciated the way he approached the topic of race with clarity and compassion and how he shared the gospel. Suddenly everything in our world shifted. I’d been praying that Benjamin’s work in football would gain him a platform to share Jesus. Benjamin’s integrity and his extraordinary discipline on and off the field set the stage for him to share his faith in a totally unexpected way. She invited me to join her at a Christian women’s conference, where the speaker talked about lies the enemy uses against us. To keep us from the glory we’re given in Christ to share with the world. Each of us has at least one lie that’s specific to our story, and it typically comes to us when we’re young. I was happy to be at the conference, but the idea of having to discover and confront a lie I believed about myself didn’t appeal to me. Still, not one to back down from hard things, I did the work of confronting my own lie that weekend. This turned out to be a game changer. Truly, it was a life changer. You have nothing to say. Maybe you can relate. Maybe the enemy whispers, You’re not special. What you feel doesn’t matter. Your opinion is worthless. I’m ashamed to admit I believed this falsehood about myself. I knew my intelligence. My parents raised me in the faith, with a strong moral compass. Most of all, I was determined to live out my faith in a big way. Even so, speaking up was hard for me. Somehow I doubted the value of my own words. So here I am, almost twenty years later. I’ve learned that the right words at the right time can be intense. As Scripture says, words have the power of life and death. Of course, some words are just noise. But words that are lovingly, respectfully shared about what we think, feel, and know? Words that are shared to speak truth and lift one another up? Those words are worth sharing. So yes, I have something to say. Something worth sharing. My deep desire is to invite you in to come and breathe with me. My heart longs to speak to you. To encourage you, challenge you, and help you grow. I’m sharing from a place of love, truth, and realness. I won’t take our time together for granted. Come as you are, with no judgment.