True Love Stories Never Have Endings

I don't know about you, but if someone doesn't deserve respect, my first thought isn't "let me see how I can show this person respect?" Have you ever been there?  Or how about if you fought with your spouse and said some things you shouldn't have? Yeah me too. But we are called to show them respect no matter what. And that is what today's devotional centers on. Today we will be reading Psalm 139:13-18 and Ephesians 5:21-33. God is very detailed in the way He has made us. He made husbands and wives different for many reasons. We will focus on the husband's need for respect and the wife's need for love. A husband feels most loved and cared for when they are shown respect. Even when they don't deserve it. I think it is important to ask God for strength and for Him to show us how He sees our husbands in order to love them like He does. Not that we don't, but to love them more like Christ. That brings them to love us like we desire. Our ...

It starts out as something small: The garbage not being taken out,  the mail piling up on the corner of the counter,  or not filling the sponge wand with dish detergent after he uses it.  I try my hardest not to nag him...so I let these things "slide".  What I really do is let them fester inside and they come to a boiling point... And this is what happened over the weekend: The pot boiled over. I was dealing with stress from several different areas of life in general and lately we seemed to be nit-picking each other. ALOT. I was getting aggravated with him over such little things. And the pot completely over boiled because I didn't let him know what was bothering me from the beginning. After a long talk and a melt-down on my part, I wanted to do something different than focusing on the things that he did that bothered me. We were better than that. We were letting the stress of life get to us and I didn't like it one bit. I started a new video bible st...

When I don't like a book, it is so hard for me to get through it. I have a hard time getting to the end. It's like a race you are trying desperately to reach the finish...who am I kidding? I know nothing about races. I don't run... Anyway...I started this book in April. I am a pretty fast reader. I try to read a book every two weeks; not ways possible but I try. So not even halfway through this one, I was desperately trying to finish this book. I really wanted to like it. I have grown to like year long journeys. I find them very inspiring. This book, however, was not inspiring.  Rachel Held Evans embarks on a year long journey of the Bible. In this journey, she will practice Old Testament customs and learn more about herself and her Christian faith. Or so we are led to think. What starts out as a month by month task list devoted to particular virtues (Grace, beauty, submission, valor etc) ends up a whine fest drowned with overtones of sarcasm. I was highly disapp...

It's been a long time since a book actually made me feel convicted and made me question how I handle things.  Not that this is a bad thing...or a bad book; on the contrary...it was a great book. I absolutely loved it. But it was convicting for me. I finished it the other night. I have grown to love my mission to find good marriage books to share with you guys. For one, it gets me reading marriage books and I pick up lots of interesting tips.  This book was no different. The one thing that was so refreshing about this one was unlike most of the marriage books I have read so far, it was not a step by step on what you should do and not do. The author takes you with her on her journey of this experiment to discover what exactly it means to be a submissive wife. When she doesn't understand something or struggles with her role as a helper, she expresses it to the reader. I loved this writing style. It made it so much more personal. As I was reading this book, I start...

It starts with me saying something like "by the way, Noah is going to be sleeping over tonight". (Noah is our 4 year old nephew). Or one day telling K that I have invited family over for dinner. Because I just assume he is going to be ok with it. He never says anything; never says he is too tired or doesn't feel up to company. I just take it for granted and make the plans without consulting him first. That is the topic Sara Horn talks about in My So Called Life As a Submissive Wife: making decisions before even considering what our husbands think. In her situation, she took a job without talking to her husband about it. It's the feeling of wanting to be independent and making decisions ourselves. That we can handle what we take on. The chapter I read really convicted me about how I handle decisions with K. The problem with this way of thinking is that we don't trust our husbands to lead. I think we are assuming that by consulting them about things that involve...

Ok...you can say it. Or say it with me...I am a horrible blogger. Here it is almost 3 months since my last post. HORRIBLE BLOGGER. There are many excuses I can throw at you: I have started a new bible study on Wed nights...K and I are now going to Sunday school (now called life groups), work has gotten super busy, and for a week we had family staying with us. But all of that is my way of saying...I'm sorry for being gone but I am here. I just don't post all the time ;) I started reading a very interesting book: K and I spent a Saturday afternoon browsing Lifeway Christian bookstore and I stumbled upon this in the bargain section. I am only a few chapters in and I can say I am really glad I picked this up. Instead of doing a review of this book, I am going to treat it as discussion topic for now. As I continue through it, I am going to post about it. It raises some very interesting topics. The most interesting being  that dirty word we talked about : Submission. Sar...

I didn't realize how hard this post would be for me. I have been sitting here trying to get it together for about a week now. It's a topic that is very important to me and our marriage. After I read and studied my chapter in Song of Solomon, I felt God was telling me I was ready to talk about it. But, it was finding the words to do it.  It is something that is completely lost to our society and hard for us to follow as wives. Submission. The definition of submission from Merriam-Webster: 2) the condition of being submissive, humble, compliant  3) an act of submitting to the authority or control of another We are taught in today's day and age that submission is a bad word. It is a belief that is long lost and forgotten. But submission is a teaching from the bible; a teaching from God. As wives we are to submit to our husbands as we would to the Lord.   The Bible's definition of submission:  When I say submission, there are many ways I submit to K. ...