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This is one of those posts I really don't want to write but once again I said I'd be honest. This blog is about me trying to live out my priorities-the good, the bad, and the ugly. So while I'm a little embarrassed here's some of the bad and the ugly!
For the last couple weeks I've been a rather bitter wife. My husband has been working to provide for our family, coaching and then on weekends he usually is hunting or fishing. He hasn't been home very much at all. I'm 35 weeks pregnant and felt that instead he should be home catering to my every need! Isn't that what husbands are supposed to do while you are pregnant? Run out for every craving, rub your feet, wait on you hand and foot?
That's not what the Bible says and I've been convicted on that this week during our GMG study. So many people turn to self-help books or counselors but whom better to listen to than the one who not only CREATED man and woman but the institution of marriage! He's already laid out the "secret" to a successful marriage for us. Somehow until this week I'd missed part of it. I'd read and comprehended most of it but hadn't really let the 33rd verse of Ephesians sink in and boy is it important! He created us quite differently but then He told us exactly what the other one needs:
Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:33
Our GMG post on Monday was a guest post by Dr. Emerson Eggerich. He says,
"A husband is to obey the command to love even when a wife does not obey this command to respect, a wife is to obey the command to respect even when a husband does not obey this command to love."Ouch! That one hit home!!
Then Tuesday I read: "Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it." Ephesians 5:25.
I went to a Bible Study not long ago and loved the way this scripture was brought out. Christ not only died for the church but he gave himself for it DAILY. Making sacrifices for us so that not only do we have life but we have it more abundantly. While this says husbands you could easily exchange it for wives too. We should strive daily to make our spouse's life better! It's easy to say we'd die for them but what about those everyday sacrifices we could make to put them first so that their life could be easier and more abundant?
By Tuesday night when my husband got home I was apologizing. No more griping, trying to make him feel guilty when in reality he was trying his best and doing all he could! And truth be told I know that if I'd of shared any craving or other want (not even need) to him he would've gotten or done it for me! As he has many times!
We are often so stubborn (me especially) and don't want to humble ourselves and admit when we are wrong. However, I've learned that since we are one (Ephesians 5:31) when we love and respect each other then love and respect are usually returned. Of course it also works the other way, when we hurt each other then we are only hurting ourselves!
I love what Whitney says about love and respect and the "Vicious Cycle" in her post this week:
"Much of our wedding day is a blur, but one thing I’ll never forget is our pastor friend speaking of the “vicious cycle” of love and respect that day. Since then it has become a popular term that Tyler and I refer to often in our marriage. It’s the “vicious cycle” that’s explained in Ephesians 5: when I respect and submit to Tyler out of obedience to God, then it prompts him to respond in love. And when he loves me as Christ loved the church, I want to respect and submit all the more. And the cycle continues."
Can you relate? Where is your marriage in this cycle? Do you need to "re-set" the cycle?
Here are a couple other blogs on marriage I enjoyed this week:
Being Kind - Joy from Grace Full Mama
Hubby First Hospitality - Karen Ehman
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