LOVE & Marriage : Part 2

I wish you could talk to her face to face.

If you came to her home, she’d greet you with a lovely smile, a warm hug, gracious hospitality, and her undivided attention.

(and probably some quiet, instrumental music playing in the background.)

She’s an expert on many things – especially when it comes to the topic of marriage - and she’s taken time to share some wonderful advice for us women.

I’ve witnessed her expertise first hand for the past (almost) 28 years.

So – if you’d like – sip on a warm beverage;

ready yourself to be encouraged to love your husband better;

and imagine you were sitting on the couch with my lovely Mother.

*

. . . .

I got tickled, not long ago, as I read an exerpt from a wonderful book called “Becoming the Wife of His Dreams” by Sharon Jaynes. It said, “The woman of his dreams adores, admires and apprecaites him. She thinks he is the most wonderful man to walk the earth. He’s brave and brillant, loving and logical, tough and tender, handsome and humorous, masculine and magnificent, sexy and savy….(remember, this is his dream)….. YOU become the mirror in which your husband sees himself.” 
It is a bit scary to think of myself as his mirror. But I have lived with my husband for 32 years and I see the truth of this played out before my eyes. I have the power to build or destroy. Proverbs 14:1 says it like this: “A wise woman builds her house, but a foolish one tears it down with her own hands.” All of us want a man like the one above, but we aren’t willing to be wise in how we build one. We would never tear our house down brick by brick. We would never throw rocks through our own windows. But how often, through frustration or careless words, do we destroy how our husbands see themselves?

Marriage 101 is this: I want to live in this wonderful, messy, scared, real, everyday, God given relationship in such a way that my husband hates to leave in the morning and can’t wait to get home at night. He has to go – and sometimes he can’t get home –  but there will be the “dream” of it always burning in his heart. At days end, he should be able to think, “no matter what has happened in my world today, I get to go home to a woman who thinks I am something”. My husband should never need go further than his own front door to know that he is adored and respected.

Eph 5:33 ” ….wives see to it that you respect your husbands.” This is love to them. Sometimes, they may not act or seem worthy of your respect, but just watch and see what happens to him when you build his heart and encourage him. As we, in this most precious of all relationships of our lives, give grace to each other, instead of what we deserve, we grow in beauty of oneness that God planned when He first created marriage. Your husband will “praise you in the gates” when you praise him in your home.

In the words of my wise and wonderful husband, “It is so much easier to be happy than it is to be miserable”. if we would take the energy that we put into anger, frustration, pouting, pride, unforgiveness and selfishness (girls, you know all those things zap the life out of you) and hang I Peter 3:8-9 over the mantle of our hearts, we would have homes of honor that are filled with the joy of Lord. On the hard days and the beautiful ones, build your house and watch it give birth to a HOME. The wonder of today is not drifting off to somewhere over the rainbow. it is in building your own rainbows end out of the sunshine and rain that comes to this life in a blessed and beloved place called “HOME”.

. . . .

And let me just say, this lady walks her talk!  It’s a beautiful gift – not only to her husband – but to her children, as well.