I've been thinking a lot about marriage. How sad it is that the word's "forever" or "as long as you both shall live" are not taken seriously. Just like how the word love is tossed around so flippantly that the word no longer carries the same power that it was originally intended.
Marriage, unity, is under attack and we need to check ourselves and remember Who brought us together in the first place. Our marriage is a gift that was given to us by God. We made a promise to each other and to God that we would stay together for the rest of our lives. I'm pretty sure there was no, "unless...". Genesis 2:24 says, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." I looked up cleave and found this definition, "to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly." So he is my other half! :)
What's even worse is marriages are falling apart over trivial things a lot of times. Something that could have been caught early on. My husband and I read this book written by Jerry B. Jenkins called Hedges. Like the little title states, it's about loving your marriage enough to protect it. It's mostly written to men but I think it's good for the wives to read it as well. Just to put myself in his shoes, since my usual day looks much different than my husbands and my weaknesses are not his. It's about having a plan before you come across a situation that could eventually be detrimental to your marriage.
So this made me think about my place, my role as a wife. Us women tend to be pretty opinionated and since we run the house most of the time (while our husband's are at work) we can sometimes fall into running our husband's too. We can put our husband's up on a pedastool and expect him to be what we ourselves are not and what he can not be, perfect. And then we get frustrated at him for not being perfect. But hello, I am not perfect! And he doesn't get frustrated at my imperfections so easily.
Eve was created for Adam because God saw that it wouldn't be good for him to be by himself. Genesis 2:18 says, "Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." I am the helper. I'm the one who sets the tone of the home. When my husband comes home from work I can great him with a smile and a kiss or barely acknowledge him. Which one would be more of a blessing to him? It's pretty obvious right? 1 Corinthians 11:9 says, "for indeed man was not created for woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake." I'm guilty of having a bad day, an emotional day and talking to my husband on the phone crying. Of course he's going to come home, not very happy and instead of him coming in to relax after taking care of things at work he's coming home to "fix" what's wrong with me. The house, the kids, whatever. I'm not saying we're not allowed to have bad days, but how we handle things and who we take our upsets to first should be God.
I went to a women's retreat last weekend for a day and the challenge was to think of things that we say or do or think that tears down our husbands, and then give those things to God and ask Him for help to stop. Then think of things that we could do to bless our husband's. I also have to remember that I'm setting an example for how a wife should be. What my sons should be looking for in a wife should be the way their mom blessed and respected their dad. And for my daughter, how she should be her husband's helper and not tear her husband down. Proverbs 14:1 was the theme verse for the weekend. It says, "The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands." If I'm building my husband up, I won't be tearing down my house.
These seem to be a couple different topics that could have been different posts, but I needed to get my thoughts down and they go together. :)
LOVE this
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