Shared Sacrifice

CORE PRACTICE #51: Be willing to sacrifice to support your spouse’s passion.

Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us. —Ephesians 5:2

TONY

I like to think that I have sacrificed for Lauren and our family throughout our marriage. I believe I have, and I think Lauren would agree.

Yet here’s the plain, painful, and honest truth: For twenty-seven of the thirty-plus years we’ve been married, I was a professional football coach. That means for nearly three decades, I was away from home for summer training camps, college scouting trips, and weekend football games played in another city. If you figure each training camp was about a month long, that alone meant I was away from the family for more than two years just to prepare my teams for another season!

My career resulted in twenty-seven years of missed quality time and special moments with Lauren and our kids. Our family moved five times to five different cities during that twenty-seven-year period, which meant uprooting Lauren and our children and disrupting the relationships they had developed.

The real sacrifice during those years came not from me but from Lauren. She understood that coaching was not only my job, not only something I was good at, but also something I loved. She wanted to help me follow my passion in life, so she took every opportunity to make certain she could enjoy doing it along with me. Whether traveling with me to away games or helping our football teams become a force for good in our communities, Lauren was with me every step of my career. Yet it required sacrifices from her too numerous to recount. Sacrifices that I appreciated and that caused me to love her even more.

The only person Lauren can’t outdo when it comes to putting aside her own preferences for me is Christ. Of course, He did the same for her and for you. It’s only when we live out of gratitude for His indescribable gift that we can live and love each other “with one mind and purpose.”

For years Lauren knew that between July and February, my schedule was mapped out, which often meant that she would carry the responsibilities at home on her own. So when people ask me whether I have any desire to return to coaching, I have to say, no, I wouldn’t go back. Much as I enjoyed the challenges and the relationships with my players and staff, I appreciate being able to turn down a speaking request because it’s my daughter’s birthday and I want to spend the day with her.

And I like that today I can return the favor, whether by supporting Lauren as she trains for triathlons or by taking the kids to and from school and doctors’ appointments.

But I do so knowing that my efforts to help her don’t compare to the sacrifices she made for me all those years—which may be one reason why I’m more open to taking her out on the dance floor for a spin every now and again.

Adventure Application: Where can you do better at sacrificing to help support something your spouse really loves and wants to do? Find a way to do that this week.