Marriage Monday--Grace of Marriage

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Marriage Mondays is evolving! And changes are good. Over the next several months, MM will be hosted on a different blog each month, giving us an opportunity to get to know some other great bloggers out there (and give Chrysalis a much deserved rest from hosting). The topics are also going to be more thematic. Each month there will be a topic of "The __________ of Christian Marriage" with the blank being the month's theme. I'm really excited to see what will be written in the coming months. The topic this month is GRACE. Our guest hostess this month is Robyn at Overflowing Grace (how appropriate!) so be sure and visit her as well.

About eighteen months ago I was challenged to never say anything negative about German in social settings. I was so tired of being around Christian women who spent way too much time complaining about what their husbands had done (or not done), how their husbands spent their time or what their husbands wanted. These were committed believers. Their husbands were solid Christians, leaders in the community and church, good providers and loving family men. Yet it would have been difficult to decipher that from the conversations that could be overheard. Please hear me correctly, no one was making dire accusations in these conversations. These are the "my husband never helps with the house" or "my husband would rather watch football than spend time with the family." But we all know, in reality, that type of talk is always filled with exagerration and only serves to make someone else look bad.

In that company, it becomes easy to focus on negative things. But the more I read and prayed and sought God's leadership in my marriage, the more I became determined that this type of conversation was disrespectful and therefore sinful. Even if I had such issues, it would be disrespectful to air them to the world for the sole purpose of making my husband look bad. I would not want German to air the areas where I fall short to his friends either. That would feel disrespectful and unloving.

Yet, none of us are married to perfect mates. And none of us are the perfect mate. We all have shortcomings. There are things that are going to irritate us about our partners. Other things are going to make us downright unhappy. If left unchecked, our emotions about these things can get the better of us. That is where grace in marriage is so important. Grace says, "you may not deserve my patience or my forgiveness, but I'll give it to you anyway." Grace says, "I may be the most unlovable person on the planet today, yet you are still reaching out to me and I will accept it." Grace is treating our partner with the love and respect that God says show them even when they don't deserve it. Grace is allowing our spouse to reach out to us when we know we don't deserve it. Grace cannot be earned, it is the conduit of allowing God's love to flow through us and guide our marriage in spite or our human failings. Without grace, we are going to fail in our marriages because we cannot ever totally please another person in our human strength, nor can we be satisfied with what they have to offer in their humanness. Grace is the part of the equation that places God in the middle of satisfying one another.

It has been, and will continue to be a journey. Yet I do find that my conversations with other wives are more edifying. It only takes one person to say "but look at all the good things he/she does" to shut down the negative feast on someone's shortfalls. In fact, lots of positive attributes have been professed as one begins to season their speech with respectful and loving comments. I am a more respectful wife because I have allowed grace to be the main ingredient of all I say about German. And the funny thing is, his actions aren't nearly as irritating when I'm focusing on and looking for the positive. I don't even see the things that would have been my complaints a year ago. They may, or may not, still be there. The eyes of grace are not seeing them. Hopefully, he is able to say the same about my actions.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
Colossians 4:6

Marriage Monday--3 Things Daughters Need to Know

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I have good intentions each month to participate in Marriage Mondays hosted by Chrysalis, but I always seem to fall short. But this month's topic, "Three Things Your Daughters Must Know About Her Marital Needs" finally got me to write.

My daughters are only five and almost three, so marriage is a long ways off. But this topic has been on my mind. Recently, at the Bridal Tea for a friend, guests were asked to help fill a book with advice. Much of what I'll write here is taken from what I told her. And most of it is fueled by the book Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. In fact, the first advice I gave my friend was read the book. Dr. Eggerichs gives good advice in an honest, funny and straight-forward manner with enough examples from his own marriage that you don't feel "he has it all together and no one else ever can." I know that by the time my little girls are allowed to date, fall in love and plan a wedding there will be a myriad of new books out there, but this one speaks to me right now.

The first thing I will tell them, is that the first year of marriage is HARD! I think so many people enter marriage believing that "we are so in love, this will be easy" and are shocked when it is most decidedly not easy. That first year, you are really learning each other's habits and routines. You are are learning how to fit two personalities and expectations under the same roof. You are learning how to dance the give and take that will feature throughout your marriage. And all of this is difficult and takes work. Don't be surprised by it, but be prepared to work hard at it. I told my friend they needed to "be gentle with each other" during this year. Be gentle with feelings--they are easily hurt and may not even understand why they are hurt. Be gentle with expectations and keep them realistic. And be gentle with words--while you need to communicate often and honestly, know that those words, especially at the beginning, do set the tone for the future.

The second thing I hope to impart to them is that their love for their husband will not be enough to solve all the problems they may face in their marriage--but their love for God and their desire to follow God in their marriage will be enough. It is imperative to keep our relationship with God in priority in our lives and for it to be an active and intimate relationship. Only then, can we lean on that relationship when we don't have the answers to solve the problems--big life changing problems as well as small irritations--that are sure to arise in our marriages. Prayer changes people, and I find that often I am the one God changes not my husband. :-) Early in our marriage, German had a persistent habit that not only irritated me, but scared me in that it could have led to danger. I nagged, I complained, I sighed heavily, I rolled my eyes--you know all the things that wives do to show our displeasure. Nothing changed. Finally, I started praying about it, telling God how scared I was and asking Him to change German's attitude toward this one thing. Almost immediately I stopped noticing it as much. God gave me a peace about it as I let it go to Him. But he did not immediately change the behavior. In fact, it took eight years and the birth of our first child for there to be a noticeable difference. I'd love to say I was the model of waiting, but I was not always. But as God worked in my life and I learned to trust Him more and more, I became less of a part of the problem. Then God was able to work in German's life. All that to say, trust the relationship with God. Sometimes only He can affect change. And in the bigger things that attack your marriage, He is the only chance you have. The more each of you depend on God for the little things, the easier it is to trust God with the big things in your marriage.

My final piece of advice actually stems from the last. It is that your husband will NOT meet all of your needs (especially spiritually and emotionally) and just as importantly you will NOT meet all of his needs (especially spiritually and physically). God did not design us to meet all the needs of our spouse. He has always intended that He is to be the One on Whom we depend for all of our needs to be met. He did, however, give us our spouses as a help meet. Our spouse helps to meet our needs. But just as our husband is human, he cannot fill the parts of us that are designed to be God-filled. We cannot fill the parts of them that are designed to be God-filled. Oft times when I am struggling that my needs (especially emotional since that is how women are wired) are not being met, God quietly reminds me that I have not asked Him and I have expectations that German cannot meet. This does not mean that we can check out and say "well since I can't meet his needs I won't try" but instead it is to remind us that when we have done our part and it seems like it is simply not enough, we need to trust them to God to satisfy the rest. And when we feel we are empty, to not immediately blame our husbands, but to seek God and ask for His satisfaction.

Marriage is the best thing that God has blessed me with. But it is also the hardest. I find that true even more right now, with young children that need and rightfully demand attention and energy. But I'm learning that this relationship is still the most important, outside my relationship with God. I pray that my little ones grow up seeing parents who are in tune with one another, who seek God together and who enjoy being together. That would be the best heritage I could hope to give them!

On Being Happily Married

I'll just warn you that this is a long post as I work out what God is refining in my thoughts of marriage. So you may want to go get a cup of tea. You may be here a while, lol.

German and I have been happily married for 11 years. We have our ups and our downs, but we are absolutely certain that God brought us together to be each other's complement and that apart we are not whole. We are happy, but we are not content to stay exactly where we are in our marriage. We believe that, as with every other aspect of our walk with Christ, He wants to give us more. That is where my meditation to be a more respectful wife came from at the beginning of the year. I knew in my heart and in my head that I respected German, but I knew that it could be more. And if the more came the marriage was going to be greater as well. When we are faithful to seek God with our hearts, He is faithful to refine us. And He has been blessing in incredible ways.

At the same time, I believe that if a theme becomes recurring in my study and my time with others, God is usually speaking. As I've stated before, I'm reading Dr. Eggerichs Love and Respect, which has been revolutionary for me in how I listen to German and how I expect for him to respond. This week I have been absolutely challenged by his statement that "ultimately my relationship with my spouse is not about my spouse at all but about my relationship with Jesus Christ." Wow. Ugh. Yeah. And I am reaping the benefits of that. God has honored my efforts over the last 6 weeks to prayerfully read this book and try to engage some of it into my marriage. The theme of marriage recurred in my time with two friends a couple of weeks ago. One of them asked if it was true that the wife was not allowed to say no to a husband's advances (alluding to 1 Corinthians 7:4-6). This led to a healthy, if not lively, discussion of the differences between a husband's needs and a wife's needs and how to find a balance in everything. These ladies were not newlyweds (one married 7 years and the other nearly 20) but still found it difficult to cope with differences in needs. Again, I was reminded of how different we really are and marveled at why God made us so different.

Then, this week I came upon this post at She Lives. This is one of my favorite sites because it is well-written and honest and incredibly funny. And I found myself "amening" through much of the post. Yes, it is over the top in places. But sometimes hyperbole catches attention to teach the lesson. (Read some of the parables looking for Jesus' use of hyperbole, great fun.) Yes it is more stark than I would have said it, but that is difference in personality. But in general my reactions were that the heart of the message was so right. We, as wives do need to make our husbands feel special, dress nicely for them, meet their physical needs, and respect them. Actually I believe that we are respecting them when we do those other things. I loved the post. I printed it to share with others (maybe even with my daughters 40 years from now when we finally allow them to look at boys). And I was mulling over it when I went to Restoring the Years site yesterday and found this post. And I nodded in agreement throughout it as well. But more in terms of "yes that is how it should be" and "gee I'd love to be that in synch with my husband" but not really in a "that describes my marriage" sort of way. And since I am so often in synch with GB at Restoring the Years I began praying about what was I missing.

I took both of the posts to my Bible Study today. The ladies present represented being married from 7 to 23 years. There was me (an American transplant), a born and raised Brit, a British Indian and a transplanted Scot in the group. We represented the Baptist, Anglican and Catholic faiths. Lots of diversity. First I read "She Lives" and everyone agreed that it was witty, had some good advice and was over-the-top. There was issue taken with "treating our husband as if he were Jesus." So a large part of our discussion was how do we serve our husbands? Why do we take them for granted or treat them with familiarity? What happens in the relationship when we truly serve? And when we got past the notion that "serving like Jesus" was treating them as a god (i.e. idolotry) and was really serving as Jesus commanded us, there were some good ideas come out of the discussion. Then I read "Restoring the Years." Without exception the comments were: I would like to have that but I don't. And we discussed why a marriage where we don't have to ask for our needs to be met they just are met is so difficult to grasp at.

It was a healthy discussion. And in it, I think God whispered to me that I was not missing anything. He whispered that He makes each marriage as distinctive as each person. What works for one of my blogging inspirations will not feel right for another (as GB put it "one size does not fit all") He drew me to ask, what does "oneness" look like in my marriage--not in others' marriages. Therein lies my answer. I believe that I am one with German--knit that way in God's perfect will. The crux of it comes in one of "She Lives" opening remarks. She says, "He's [her husband] one of the ones who didn't just marry a woman he can live with, he married a woman he can't live without." That is how I feel about German. I absolutely cannot picture my life without him. It would be as if I lost a part of my physical self if he were gone. But Oneness does not come at the expense of our own personalities. As I said at the beginning, we complement one another.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) -
com·ple·ment –noun 1. something that completes or makes perfect: A good wine is a complement to a good meal.
2. the quantity or amount that completes anything: We now have a full complement of packers.
3. either of two parts or things needed to complete the whole; counterpart.

We take two disctinctly different personalities (an ESTJ and an INFP if you know Myers-Briggs terminology) and form a whole. We need each other. And the more I allow God to knit us into one, the more thankful I am that German and I are separate personalities, and that our needs, our perspectives and our dreams are different. If we did not have our differences we would not serve the kingdom of God together as effectively. I need his analytical insight. He needs my emotional empathy. Together we serve. And that makes us a better team. Although the thought of German knowing when I needed togetherness and when I needed space (and vice versa) sounds nice, I am content with the fact that our differences may mean that sometimes we have to voice our needs. I am thankful that German shares so many interests with me (more thoughts on this here), but I am also totally happy for him to go play with the boys and he is happy for me to play with the girls. We understand that we can be each other's "best friend" and still have a need for other friends. We have learned to let each other be who we are, because we know that the two of us together is so much more than each of us separate.


And, ultimately, it does come down to my relationship with God. If I am serving German out of a love relationship with German I will get tired, and frustrated, and disillusioned at times. He will as well if he is serving me only out of love for me. But when we serve each other out of a love relationship with God and out of obedience to God, He takes care of the frustrations and gives us a clearer love for one another. And that is what it is all about--a God-given unity and love for one another.

always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Ephesians 5:20-22

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33

Thank you Carol and GB for sharing challenging posts that help me see better where my marriage fits into God's plan for my husband and me.

photos from www.morguefile.com author=taliesin

Making the New Year's Meditations Real

I find in my life that I absolutely have to have accountability or nothing changes. I can look like I have it all together. I know the right things to say. I am a master at looking spiritual. I have a fairly good grasp of the Scriptures and am able to teach and speak well. So, unless I am vigilant about having accountability, most people around me would not venture to guess the gunk (nice description for sin) that lurks in my heart. And, even if they would venture to guess, I can come across way too self-assured and they would not pursue it. But the gunk is there. And I am giving that gunk to God this year. I don't want to live with it anymore. God is calling me to be honest about it and to share my heart, so that others can either a)help me grow or b)grow with me. And as much as I would like to keep this between me and one or two friends, I feel like I need to write about it. Here. So you can read it. *ugh*



We need to be careful what we pray because God will always honor prayers that are to make us more like Him. One of my meditations was that I want to respect German as my husband and the head of this household. It isn't that I don't respect him, I do. He is an absolutely great guy who loves me when no one else would. He is a Godly influence, a man of faith, a loving husband, a jubilant father, a great provider... He is everything I could have ever dreamed of and more. But there is that one issue--he's male and I'm female and often we just don't speak the same language. And it can cause us problems. But I want to work on this. God is calling me to work on this. And I am (or I thought I was). First task: get Emerson Eggerichs book Love and Respect and read it. I started it Christmas Eve. What an amazing book. I even joked that he had been listening in on our arguments. I definitely see the potential in this book. Then, Saturday happened. (disclaimer--please read to the end if you read past this point, this is NOT about German, it's about me. thank you.) German was leaving on Sunday for a five day business trip. I was not feeling well. I asked him what he wanted to do and he said either get together with the young man he mentors or do some work before the trip. I was disappointed because he was leaving, but said ok. I did not say "but I wanted you to want to spend time with me." (mistake number one) He tells me to rest. (yeah, right) But he doesn't leave. He packs his bag. Then he turns on the television. At this point I'm confused. He was going, but now he's not. I'm not interested in watching telly, but I know that he doesn't like it when I leave him in the bedroom to watch t.v. alone. It stems from him being an extravert and needing lots of human interaction. I'm beginning to suspect that my leaving him to be alone is perceived as disrespecting his needs so I stay. He watches a car show and then another show, neither of which interest me. So, I get out my cross stitch and stitch while we watch t.v. and talk about the programs. (mistake number two)


This is where it gets crazy. He is teasing me and poking me in the ribs. Flower had been doing this earlier, and I thought he was mimicing her. So I say, "It's really maddening to be the only introvert in a house full of extraverts. Sometimes I don't want to be touched." I thought I said it light-heartedly and joking. I must not have. (mistake number three) He lost it and said "You've had space all afternoon." What??! I totally hear in my head, "You aren't communicating." But I ignored that voice and reacted. Badly. Very, very, badly. WWIII badly. And we were right in the middle of an out of control crazy cycle. And when we finally spun down I said "I don't understand; I stayed with you all afternoon and you say I had space?" (or something near to that) And he pointed to my stitching which he hates for me to do when I am with him. In my head, he was watching t.v., why should he care that I stitch? And maybe he shouldn't. But he does. And I know it. And I did it anyway. And now I get it: stitching=disrespect when we are supposed to be together. Even if he is doing something else. Even if I don't understand why. It doesn't matter. I need to respect his wishes on this.

So, God is teaching me about respecting my husband. And I'm asking for your help. Please pray that I see things through his eyes and will act on it. And pray that when the voice in my head is talking to me, I'll honor it instead of pursuing my own hurt feelings. And pray that I'll remember to put up my stitching before he gets home every evening--where it goes in the sewing room-- so that it is not a deterrent to our time together.

And, if this sounds familiar to you...go get the book. It is amazing!

photo credits: both from morguefile.com; merry-go-round author is annika and heart author is sullivan