Some Thoughts About Your Thoughts

Some Thoughts About Your Thoughts

31 Jan By 3 Comments

I’ve been pon­der­ing this post for a cou­ple of weeks now, try­ing to fig­ure out how I want to tackle it.

I recently wrote about sav­ing your mar­riage from an axe mur­derer, specif­i­cally talk­ing about how to pro­tect our mar­riages. I had sev­eral very thought­ful com­ments, which I thought would best be served answer­ing in its own post.

First, Laura gave a good and wise exhor­ta­tion about extend­ing grace to peo­ple who have fallen into the sin of adul­tery. She expresses her­self this way:

 Don’t judge those who have. I have seen numer­ous times that those who so vehe­mently spoke in judge­ment against those who have fallen, have ended up falling into almost the exact same sin, years later. Remem­ber, “there but the grace of God go I”. 

She is right that we all are sus­cep­ti­ble to sin of all kinds. I guess that was sort of the point of my arti­cle. We need to be proac­tive to pro­tect it. But while we are doing that, we need to remem­ber that it isn’t we who are able to save us from our­selves. It’s God alone who gives us the strength to resist temp­ta­tion. Keep our eyes on Christ while we are nur­tur­ing our hus­bands. Thanks, Laura, for your gen­tle reminder. I do pray that I didn’t come across as sound­ing judg­men­tal about peo­ple who have fallen into this. I will say that those who find them­selves ensnared in this par­tic­u­lar sin need to repent and stop doing it. It’s not judg­men­tal to say that, even to them.

She added:

When peo­ple think that they would never do the same thing or fall in this way, it is pride.

Amen.

A cou­ple of the ladies who responded sug­gested that social media is the prob­lem. While it may give peo­ple more access to more peo­ple, I am pretty sure that stalk­ing, adul­tery, and temp­ta­tions to these things have been around nearly as long as peo­ple have. Even in Jesus’s time, adul­tery and sex­ual sin existed. We can’t run from the human heart. It stems from fallen man, not Face­book. We can only cocoon our­selves so much. Even­tu­ally, we have to go to the gro­cery store, where temp­ta­tion might slap us in the face in the check­out line.

Christine’s response really touched my heart. Thank you, Chris­tine, for shar­ing your heart. I pray that the Lord con­tin­ues to restore your mar­riage and grow you and your hus­band ever so much closer together as you grow closer to Him. It is a HARD road liv­ing the Chris­t­ian life. Respect, love, honor, sub­mis­sion. It goes against every­thing inside of us, doesn’t it? As wives, we are more closely watch­ing and see­ing the sin­ful atti­tudes of our hus­bands at their weak­est moments. And to be sure, they have a front row seat with ours! I won­der how any mar­riage sur­vives through it all. But, God is good. He is in the busi­ness of restora­tion, renew­ing, for­giv­ing, and giv­ing us hope.  As hard as it may be liv­ing the Chris­t­ian life, I think it would be a thou­sand times harder with­out Christ. Yes, we are con­victed, have to repent and FORGIVE peo­ple who hurt us. But, what a gift. Stor­ing up bit­ter­ness cer­tainly can’t be a bet­ter pill to swallow.

And then Lynn had a thought­ful response, which I really want to spend some time discussing.

I believe she either mis­un­der­stood what I was say­ing, or she was attribut­ing to me what per­haps other peo­ple have said.

If women and men can­not inter­act as friends, we miss what strength and grace may be offered to each other.
I have seen women so very over­pro­tec­tive of their hus­bands, that they become crit­i­cal, and catty, towards other women. They devolve into treat­ing their hus­bands like chil­dren, or per­haps as if they would have no self-control if left alone for a moment with the oppo­site sex or view a woman who doesn’t yet real­ize the impor­tance of dress­ing mod­estly. This leads me to ques­tion their level of self-control, trust in their hus­band, and sta­bil­ity in their marriage.

I hope I didn’t com­mu­ni­cate that women and men can­not inter­act as friends. And, it isn’t proper for Chris­t­ian women to be crit­i­cal or catty towards other women, espe­cially their sis­ters in the Lord. And, please, ladies, don’t treat your hus­bands like chil­dren. Gra­cious, I hope I didn’t con­vey *that* mes­sage. You are right that some women haven’t learned the impor­tance of dress­ing mod­estly. Some never will. We do need to treat them with grace and patience. And love. Come along­side them and try to min­is­ter to them in a way that makes them feel loved as they, and we, are sanc­ti­fied in the Lord through the work of the Holy Spirit. But, that doesn’t mean that hubby should go on lunch dates with them, or have coun­sel­ing ses­sions alone with them. It just isn’t wise. And we are also to avoid the appear­ance of evil.

 Abstain from all appear­ance of evil. 1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:22

But that doesn’t mean we treat them like chil­dren. As to the sit­u­a­tion with the woman who said she wanted to inter­view him, how long must a woman “dis­cuss” it with a man before she actu­ally sets up an appoint­ment to do so? She was flirt­ing with him, heap­ing all man­ners of com­pli­ments on him, stroking his ego. My hus­band was gra­cious to her, say­ing that if she wanted to do an inter­view, they could set it up, but that they needed to stop chat­ting back and forth through email. He was polite, didn’t accuse her of any­thing. I wasn’t throw­ing a fit, nag­ging, etc. Glad for the oppor­tu­nity to clar­ify that, and I appre­ci­ate that you are not being pugnacious.

And then this:

To act as if we can­not inter­act alone with any man…including rel­a­tives, because surely there will be an affair, seems a lit­tle extreme to me.

I see you are respond­ing to another com­menter with this state­ment. I tend to think that this would be extreme for our fam­ily, but each fam­ily must stand and fall before God alone. I don’t know her fam­ily sit­u­a­tion, their his­tory, or the per­sonal heartaches they have faced in their lives, so I can’t really say that it is wrong to hold those views in their home. Per­haps for most peo­ple, this would be putting the hedge a bit far out there, but maybe not for them. Please know that this is not what I am advo­cat­ing at all.

My point is that we need to be proac­tive in pro­tect­ing and strength­en­ing our mar­riages. We can’t just set it on the back burner and hope that the sim­mer­ing pot doesn’t get burned. It stinks, makes a big mess, and is really hard to clean up. We have a respon­si­bil­ity to actively nur­ture our mar­riages, pro­tect­ing them from all sorts of evil that would seek to destroy a godly marriage.

Be sober, be vig­i­lant; because your adver­sary the devil walks about like a roar­ing lion, seek­ing whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8

It’s not a game. It isn’t child’s play.

I pray that this post serves to clar­ify any ques­tions raised in the com­ments. And I pray that your mar­riages will be strength­ened as you draw closer to God and to your hus­bands. Thank you for join­ing in the dis­cus­sion. I appre­ci­ate the thought­ful com­ments, con­cerns, ques­tions. Bless­ings to you!

Filed Under: VW Front Page Tagged With: , ,
How to Save Your Marriage from an Axe Murderer

How to Save Your Marriage from an Axe Murderer

9 Jan By 15 Comments

We have cre­ated a world that has lit­tle account­abil­ity, easy access, secrecy, and vir­tual iden­ti­ties. We can be who­ever we want to be when we are online. And it can prove to be very dan­ger­ous for us.

The other day, I received a pri­vate mes­sage through my Face­book account from a man who was one of my “friends.” We have sev­eral mutual friends. When he friended me long ago, I checked out our mutual friends, looked at his page to see what he was all about. Every­thing checked out. He is like-minded, our friends in com­mon hold the same con­vic­tions our fam­ily holds (and I *really* know most of them). So, I accepted his friend request and never had a word of inter­ac­tion with him. Until last week.

He sent me a com­pli­men­tary note, which both shocked me because of who I thought he was and the fact that I am mar­ried. I stopped in my tracks and con­sid­ered my options of response, if any. Do I tell my hus­band? Do I say any­thing? A sim­ple thank you? What is right and good and appropriate?

While I was con­sid­er­ing my options, he quickly sent me two fol­low on mes­sages which became aggres­sive and assault­ing. And angry.

I did some research, asked a mutual friend who I trust very much if he actu­ally knew him, and I dis­cov­ered that this man is not who he says he is. A sim­ple inter­net search told me that he has a crim­i­nal record, has served time in prison for assault­ing a female and false impris­on­ment. And appar­ently, he does this thing with inap­pro­pri­ately con­tact­ing mar­ried women. From what I have read, it can get uglier than what I expe­ri­enced by the things he sends to the mar­ried women he inter­acts with. Pic­tures and such. This “safe man” is any­thing but.

What I really want to dis­cuss is how to pre­vent the oppor­tu­nity for strangers to get under your skin and into your head. How to bol­ster your mar­riage so that when the temp­ta­tions come, you won’t be pulled toward them and away from him. And they will come.

As I dis­cussed it with my hus­band later, I noted that had I been a wife who felt unloved, unap­pre­ci­ated, dowdy, frumpy, and neglected, I very well may have found myself intrigued enough to respond with a sim­ple thanks. Or more. I could have found myself bait­ing for more com­pli­ments. Never imag­in­ing it would go fur­ther than that,  or that I could have found myself in very real dan­ger. Maybe not from this man, but from any stranger out there who knows enough about me based on what I post online to talk the talk I’m com­fort­able with. And, to note,  most peo­ple who fall into affairs never imag­ine it will get to THAT point. We all think we are stronger, more godly, above that pos­si­bil­ity. Yet, from what the recent sta­tis­tics are say­ing, 54% of women admit to hav­ing an infi­delity in a rela­tion­ship they’ve had. 68% of women say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught. Even more stag­ger­ing to me is the sta­tis­tic that shows that 31 per­cent of peo­ple have had an online con­ver­sa­tion that has led to in-person sex. 1 in 3. Is your mouth gap­ing? Mine is. I pray that those num­bers don’t include Chris­tians, but I would be naive to think it is impossible.

So, how to pre­vent your­self (or your hus­band) from becom­ing one of the ugly sta­tis­tics is impor­tant to fig­ure out. I have some ideas to share with you:

1. Stay deep in the Word of God daily. Med­i­tate on His Word day and night. Don’t leave room for the enemy to get a foothold. This one should be obvi­ous, so I won’t dwell too long here. But know this: the more you spend in God’s Word, fill­ing your heart and mind with God’s beau­ti­ful truth about who you are in Him, the more equipped you will be to fight off the enemy. And don’t be fooled:  Be sober, be vig­i­lant; because your adver­sary the devil walks about like a roar­ing lion, seek­ing whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8) He is actively seek­ing to destroy you and your mar­riage. Don’t get lazy in this.

2. Pray for your hus­band. Pray for your mar­riage. Pray for your chil­dren. Remem­ber­ing these aspects of your life daily in prayer will remind you of the impor­tance of these peo­ple in your life. An affair will shat­ter their lives right along with yours. When you are dis­ap­pointed or angry with them, pray dou­bly for them. Pray that the Lord will give you an abun­dance of love for your hus­band, a respect that shines in your eyes. Focus on your role as his wife, not on his short­com­ings and irri­ta­tions. You can’t change those. You can work on you, which remark­ably tends to have an effect on him. Funny how that works.

3. Apol­o­gize and For­give daily. I don’t know how to break it to you, so I’ll just say it: You are mar­ried to a sin­ner. And so is he. As much as you want him to over­look your three or four imper­fec­tions, be will­ing to over­look his. Be sin­cere in your apolo­gies and for­give­ness. Don’t do these begrudg­ingly. I strug­gle with this one. I so eas­ily caveat every­thing with the silly notion that my part of the prob­lem is so minor com­pared to his. And some­times they actu­ally are. I find myself think­ing too highly of myself way too often. This doesn’t build my mar­riage, it tears it down.

The wise woman builds her house,
But the fool­ish pulls it down with her hands. Proverbs 14:1

4. Smile at him more often. I know. The daily grind gets exhaust­ing. The dia­pers need chang­ing con­stantly. They ALWAYS want to eat. every. day. The laun­dry piles up. You don’t get “employee of the month” bonuses or park­ing or even recog­ni­tion most of the time. Drudgery and dis­con­tent can surely move in and set up  house in your heart before you even hear the knock­ing on the door. Smile. With a twin­kle in your eye. You are a team. He’s yours, and you’re his. Let’s act like we are happy about that!

5. Respect him. I’ve shared this before, but my hus­band likes to fly me places for spe­cial events, like my birth­day and our anniver­sary. It always amazes me how I respond to these lit­tle jaunts. I sit there as his lone pas­sen­ger in the plane watch­ing him do his thing. He flew fight­ers in the Air Force for 20 years. I knew what he did, but I never saw this highly respected guy danc­ing in the skies with his jet, doing maneu­vers that would make my head spin. It occurs to me that most of us don’t see our hus­bands at work. They go to work, inter­act with peo­ple there, do their thing, and come home tired and hun­gry at the end of he day. We get the hun­gry and tired, but don’t see the respect they get from oth­ers. We don’t see how trained and skilled they are in their work. And they labor daily for us. I have heard it said that respect must be earned. Really? What does scrip­ture say?

 How­ever, let each one of you love his wife as him­self, and let the wife see that she respects her hus­band. Eph­esians 5:33

How would we feel if we were told that we had to earn the love of our hus­bands? If your hus­band said to you, “Wife, when you start act­ing lov­able, I will love you!” I think we would cry foul pretty quickly. How hor­ri­ble to be told such a thing! We expect uncon­di­tional love. Right? BUT-the com­mand for our hus­bands to love us is writ­ten the same way as the com­mand for us to respect our hus­bands. It isn’t based on works. Do you sus­pect that some­times it is just as hard for them to love us as it is for us to respect them? And maybe this is why God so wisely instructed us to do so? My hus­band has shared with me that the quick­est way to show him my love effec­tively is by respect­ing him. Pub­licly and pri­vately. Don’t just do it for show. Again, what if his love towards you was only for show when oth­ers were around? Do you think you might actu­ally resent it? Be sin­cere. Look at your hus­band with fresh eyes. He is the man God has gifted you with to pro­vide for you and to pro­tect you. To love you and to cher­ish you. Help him by remind­ing him through your actions why you two got mar­ried in the first place.

6. Actively LOVE him. Phys­i­cally, emo­tion­ally, every way you can. You know, you can’t love him too much. Find out what makes him tick. Does he like you to just sit with him? Does he like it when your hand touches his? What makes his heart soar with the knowl­edge that you love him? Find out if you don’t know. Ask him. While you are meet­ing his emo­tional needs, make sure you explore how to meet his phys­i­cal needs. Per­haps you have an idea in your mind of what fills that need. But, I want to encour­age you to ask him. Ask for specifics. You may be sur­prised at what he tells you. What you may feel is enough, may not be to him. Or, it could be the other way around. You never know unless you talk about it. Don’t be shy. He is your hus­band, and you don’t belong to your­self. You each belong to the other like nobody else on earth. This is such a beau­ti­ful gift. If you find that you are over­whelmed with the basics of life that this aspect of your mar­riage is suf­fer­ing, talk about it with him. Are you neglect­ing him because you have sev­eral young chil­dren who demand too much of you to have much left at the end of the day for him? Are the laun­dry, dishes, mop­ping, food prep tak­ing all of your energy? Tell him. He actu­ally may have dif­fer­ent pri­or­i­ties than you do. Many men would rather pay some­one to come help you dur­ing the day in order to have you at night. No amount of house­work is worth the sac­ri­fice of your mar­riage. And the chil­dren grow. Don’t be strangers at the end of the day. Make him your first pri­or­ity after your rela­tion­ship with God. And don’t put God at the bot­tom of the pile either. It’s not much con­so­la­tion to a man to know he’s right behind God on your pri­or­ity list, only to find out that God is way down there after every­thing else in your life.

7. Flirt with your hus­band. Admit­tedly, this is some­thing that will look dif­fer­ent for every cou­ple. It’s hard to put this one in a sim­ple box. But, show him you are think­ing about him through­out the day. Text him lit­tle mes­sages. Or email, what­ever works for you. Hug him and whis­per sweet words to him when he walks in the door after work. Linger. Remind him sub­tly and not so sub­tly that you are his wife, and that you embrace this role in his life. Keep his eyes focused on yours in such a sweet and inti­mate way. He’s your man. God has given you to each other. 

He who finds a wife finds a good thing,
And obtains favor from the Lord. Proverbs 18:22

While we, as women, are vul­ner­a­ble online to temp­ta­tions and advances of men, our hus­bands are also sub­ject to the same sort of issues. Many years ago, my hus­band received an email from a woman who was flat­ter­ing to him. She explained that she wanted to write an arti­cle about him. She gushed (in my opin­ion) about how mar­velous he was in all of his endeav­ors, and thought he’d make a great sub­ject for some­thing she was writ­ing. Since we have an open pol­icy about read­ing each other’s email, I saw their cor­re­spon­dences. I warned my hus­band that I thought the woman was insin­cere about her motives, and I cau­tioned him about con­tin­u­ing the cor­re­spon­dence. He wasn’t sure he agreed with my assess­ment, but in an act of honor towards me, told her that he needed to end their cor­re­spon­dence. If she wanted to do an inter­view, then I would be with him for that time. Inter­est­ingly, she became very irate and hate­ful. He hadn’t accused her of any­thing, but she responded as though he did. Her response spoke vol­umes, and my hus­band real­ized that I had been right in my assess­ment of her. Yet, he had been naive about it. We joke that the woman just seemed to be a smart, astute per­son who appre­ci­ated all of his won­der­ful qual­i­ties. I’m thank­ful that we have a strong rela­tion­ship based on trust and pru­dence. He eas­ily could have found him­self trapped in a place he never intended to go.

So, as we hang out with friends online, it’s good to remem­ber that we actu­ally may not really know the peo­ple behind the key­boards. While we invest in their lives, we may be set­ting our­selves up for real dan­ger. Please be care­ful. And, per­haps instead of fear­ing what might hap­pen in the great unknown out there, we ought to be invest­ing in the real life rela­tion­ship with our hus­band. Spend­ing time build­ing our mar­riages may in fact be the sin­gle most impor­tant thing that pro­tects our mar­riages from being vul­ner­a­ble to the crazy stalker who is look­ing for a way into our lives. And while we are at it, we are bless­ing our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren with a faith­ful­ness that over­flows into many gen­er­a­tions. What a legacy and gift! May the Lord be pleased with all we say and do. Noth­ing is secret from Him!

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I’ve linked this post at Cor­ner­stone Con­fes­sions and Grow­ing Home. Be sure to stop by and check out other arti­cles you might find interesting.

Filed Under: VW Front Page Tagged With: , , ,
She teaches me so much

She teaches me so much

10 Jun By 2 Comments

On Fri­day, I took the chil­dren to the CHEC (Chris­t­ian Home Edu­ca­tors of Col­orado) office to fin­ish up a lit­tle bit of work in prepa­ra­tion for our state con­fer­ence. The kids love going there since Dad works there. And they have candy and soda.

And Dad always says yes…

Or so they tell me. As they are walk­ing past me on the way to ask Dad some­thing. With a skip in their step.

Any­way.

So, while I was work­ing and they were keep­ing busy with var­i­ous tasks like fold­ing fly­ers and such, Faith got her hands on a lit­tle home­school comic book. She spent some time read­ing the comics.

Fast for­ward to Sat­ur­day morning.

I was on the ellip­ti­cal try­ing to get my blood pump­ing a bit before I started the marathon of a day. {Not a lit­eral marathon in case you mis­read that sen­tence. That would be seri­ously funny for those who know me in per­son. I am NOT a runner.}

Faith approached me and started talk­ing. She obvi­ously had been mulling over something.

“Mom? I was read­ing a Chris­t­ian comic book yesterday.”

Me, pant­ing, won­der­ing why this con­ver­sa­tion has to take place at this par­tic­u­lar moment, but real­iz­ing that it is weigh­ing heavy on her heart.

“Yes, Faith?”

“Well, Mom, it seems like all they do is mock non-Christians.”

I asked her for a clar­i­fi­ca­tion, and she gave me some exam­ples. Things that prob­a­bly would have flown right under my radar of mock­ing, but she was dead on. I asked her if some­one had talked to her about this, and she said that nobody had.  So, she fig­ured this out all on her own.

And she was right. I stopped my exer­cis­ing for the moment. Seri­ously stunned by her per­cep­tion. She’s a brand new 7. I’m slightly older than that. And she gets what I so often over­look. In our humor, do we mock what oth­ers just don’t have eyes to see? Are we insen­si­tive to the fact that God maybe hasn’t opened their eyes to see Truth? Do we take it for granted as though we some­how fig­ured it out all on our own?

I told Faith that she is right, that we shouldn’t mock oth­ers, even those who don’t know Christ. We need to love them and show them Christ, that we need to be care­ful with our speech. I’m sure all of the comics weren’t of a mock­ing nature. I’m pretty sure some of them were funny in their own right, not at the expense of a non-Christian. But I got the point.

And then I went upstairs to share this with my hus­band who was equally stunned by her per­cep­tion. God has been so mer­ci­ful to us. Let us show that mercy to oth­ers. And stop the mock­ing. Even if we think we’re just being funny. It’s really no joke.

Filed Under: Faith's Corner Tagged With: , , , ,
I want to, but he won’t let me…

I want to, but he won’t let me…

15 May By Leave a Comment

At the Fam­ily Eco­nom­ics Con­fer­ence last week, I was priv­i­leged to par­tic­i­pate on a panel con­cern­ing hos­pi­tal­ity and min­istry. Many really good ques­tions were asked, which we were able to address. I enjoyed lis­ten­ing to the other pan­elists, and I learned much of the grace of the Lord from these godly men and women.

One thing that seemed to res­onate with those in atten­dance was the point that things don’t have to be a pro­duc­tion to be hos­pi­tal­ity. A sim­ple meal shared with joy and thanks­giv­ing is so much more enjoy­able than a 5 star meal served on china if it means that rela­tion­ships are strained and the bud­get is exceeded.

One ques­tioner asked what to do if a father/husband is hes­i­tant to open their home to oth­ers, but the daughter/wife still wants to extend hos­pi­tal­ity. This can truly be some­thing that is dif­fi­cult to live with. Like many other areas of fam­ily life, we must remem­ber that we are com­manded to honor and respect our fathers and hus­bands. We can con­sider alter­na­tive ways to express hos­pi­tal­ity. For exam­ple, per­haps he wouldn’t mind if you brought cook­ies or a meal to some­one in need. But, some­times the issue is big­ger than we think. Per­haps it is an oppor­tu­nity to hear your hus­band or father’s heart on the mat­ter. In all respect and sin­cer­ity, go to him and ask for ways that he would be will­ing to let you extend this grace to oth­ers. And, with humil­ity and sin­cer­ity, ask him what his hes­i­ta­tion is in this area. You just might be sur­prised by his answer. But, before you do that, maybe you can trou­ble shoot it for yourself.

How do you han­dle the fam­ily bud­get? Is he work­ing long and hard, only to find that the money just isn’t quite meet­ing the needs to keep the house run­ning at his expec­ta­tion? Do you com­plain about not hav­ing enough money to do or buy things? We must learn to be con­tent and thank­ful for how God pro­vides for us through our hus­bands or fathers.

How have you han­dled sit­u­a­tions in the past when you were expect­ing com­pany? Were you joy­ful and gra­cious while prepar­ing the home for your guests? This was once my biggest strug­gle. While the fam­ily enjoyed hav­ing com­pany over, NOBODY enjoyed the process of get­ting the house ready for them. I was a bear, grumpy, yelling, frus­trated, angry. Ugh. It was any­thing but pleas­ant. Are you like that? Has your fam­ily learned that this is not a happy expe­ri­ence? Could this be why he is hesitant?

And then there is the issue of clean­li­ness. Is it pos­si­ble that he is embar­rassed to bring peo­ple into your home? Your home, and the state of your belong­ings, reflects on his abil­ity to pro­vide for you. It directly and imme­di­ately shows whether or not he has his house in order.

Can you per­haps take a quick inven­tory and see if any of these issues might be a fac­tor in his unwill­ing­ness to open his home. We need to be care­ful not to assume that the prob­lem lies with an unchar­i­ta­ble hus­band. It might be more with us, and he is hes­i­tant to tell us. I don’t usu­ally enjoy self-examination. But, I’m thank­ful for it. I’d much rather fig­ure it out before I need an exhor­ta­tion from some­one who loves me. If you sus­pect that one of these areas is lack­ing, maybe you can spend a few months build­ing a rep­u­ta­tion that is more hon­or­ing and godly before you approach the sub­ject. Maybe he will notice the extra effort and the sit­u­a­tion will be dis­pelled. But, please remem­ber that this is not a manip­u­la­tive tac­tic. He doesn’t owe you the results you are hop­ing for. Even if you don’t get what you want, if these changes need to be made, then you will be blessed and your fam­ily will be blessed by the results.

I pray that you will be able to extend more hos­pi­tal­ity in the future. If he still says no to peo­ple in the home, con­sider a meet­ing in a park. Pack a pic­nic that shows thought and love. One of the sweet­est and most gen­er­ous times of hos­pi­tal­ity that some­one showed us was a pic­nic in the park. They packed lunch, and it was var­ied and abun­dant. They had a lot of options, but not a ton of things within each option. For exam­ple, they had var­i­ous veg­eta­bles, but none of them indi­vid­u­ally would have filled any­one. And crack­ers, sand­wiches, cheeses, fruit. Sim­ple things, but some­thing for every­one. Aller­gies could be worked around, peo­ple could eat what they liked with­out draw­ing atten­tion to what they didn’t. It was fun. The chil­dren had the free­dom to play out­side with­out fear of break­ing any­thing. Per­fect for a sum­mer day!

Enjoy this won­der­ful prov­i­dence and grace of the Lord. May you be blessed and sanc­ti­fied as you reach out to others.

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Come fly with me…

Come fly with me…

8 May By 1 Comment

My hus­band likes to take me fly­ing. He’s a pilot. That’s what they do. He some­times wisks me away for my birth­day or our anniver­sary. We have fun, of course. I guess that’s stat­ing the obvi­ous. Funny thing, I never flew with him until recently. He was this fighter test pilot in the Air Force, and that’s just what he did. After he retired, he started fly­ing gen­eral avi­a­tion air­craft. He would take the kids up on short lit­tle local flights, much to their delight, but I just stayed home with who­ever wasn’t fly­ing that day.

Then, one day he said he had planned a sur­prise get­away for us, and that I needed to pack an overnight suit­case. Um. Small air­plane? Are you sure you know how to do this? Did I men­tion that he had been fly­ing fighter air­craft as a test pilot? He had oodles of train­ing and expe­ri­ence. So, I packed my bag and off we went.

flying ready to go

Ready for the flight

 

When we drive some­where, I find that I feel like I can offer some sort of help in his dri­ving. You know, “We need to turn left in 3 miles, you might want to get over.” That sort of (non)helpful com­ment. I was in the air­plane with my hus­band and was speech­less. I had noth­ing to offer. I had no idea what he was doing with all those switches and all those radio calls. Nothing.

And at that moment, my respect for my hus­band shot up 1000%. This man was fly­ing a basi­cally sim­ple air­plane, but had 20 years of expe­ri­ence fly­ing the world’s most com­pli­cated and dif­fi­cult planes. I was in awe. I had never really had a glimpse of what he did. I mean, I’d take the kids to the run­way when they were lit­tle, and they would wave at Daddy as he taxi’d by in his F15.

Mike returning from a deployment in the F15, greeting Jack.

Mike return­ing from a deploy­ment in the F15, greet­ing Jack.

But, I didn’t grasp how well trained and capa­ble he was.

Does that sound weird? Our hus­bands go off to work and do their thing, regard­less of what it is, and then come home at night to eat din­ner and kiss the kids good­night. Right? What we don’t see is the respect other men give them at work. And the respect they give to oth­ers. We don’t see the bat­tles they fight, the drag­ons they slay. That day, I felt I had my first aha moment about what he was doing all those years. Maybe I’m slow.

But my esti­ma­tion of my hus­band was increased. And I was ashamed that it wasn’t up there all along. But, at least I finally got it.

…and let the wife see that she respects her hus­band. Eph 5:33

The tricky part is remem­ber­ing to respect and honor my hus­band in the daily grind of life. At least he tries to make it easy for me. He’s a good man that way.

The cockpit after landing

The cock­pit after landing

 

Is this some­thing you strug­gle with also? How do you remem­ber to respect your hus­band? How do you han­dle it when you for­get? The thing is, we aren’t mar­ried to per­fect men. The per­fect man doesn’t exist in mere mor­tal men. And, guess what? They aren’t mar­ried to per­fect wives either. Funny how that is easy to for­get as well.

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