In one of the old I Love Lucy episodes Lucy says,
 “Boy, since we said ‘I do,’ there are so many things that we don’t!”
 She was referring to activities she and Ricky used to do.  But if we’re honest, there are lots of other things that happened in courtship that find a hard time making their way into marriage.

 Last Sunday my husband preached about two of those things – love and respect.  Let me share a woman’s perspective on this respect issue.  What does it look like and why is it so important to our marriage?

When a young woman is engaged, she believes her fiance’ can do anything and she tells him so!  “You’re the best ball player on the church league!” “You’re the hardest working employee on your job; they’ll be glad they hired you!” “No one plays tennis like you do!” “You’re so smart”  “You make lifting that heavy equipment look like it doesn’t weigh anything!”  Those comments are all statements of respect – the thing that every man longs for in a relationship more than anything else. He needs to hear those things by his fiance’, but then he needs to continue to hear those things for all they years he is married.  That man marries that gal because he knows she believes in him,and  is standing behind him to encourage him in every endeavor and at every turn.

However, once Married bliss has turned to the Married blues, many wives have a hard time saying respectful things to their husband.  All they see are their spouse’s failures (overlooking their own) and they ask, “how can I respect this man considering all his goof-ups I’ve had to deal with?”  Those “goof-ups” may be uncertainties about how to be a spiritual leader, a bad financial decision that hurt the family, or even a moral failure.  While those are all things that require God’s grace, they are not excuses for us as wives not to obey the command to “reverence your husband.”  We are not responsible for their actions, but we are responsible for our own.  No one – even our husband – can make us sin.  If we disrespect him, it is our choice.  We can’t point an accusing finger his direction and think that the Lord will overlook our sin because of his.

But wives also have a tendency, not only to keep from saying respectful things, but to saying crushing, ego-stabbing comments that pierce the ego that the Lord put within him to make him stand like a man. She begins to knit-pick at his driving, his eating, his sleeping, his work hours, his involvement at church or lack thereof.  Proverbs 19:13b calls these contentions a “continual dripping.”  All through our married lives it’s drip, drip, drip as the ugly, disrespectful words plunk down on the roof of our marriage drowning out the love songs that once graced our homes.  Oh, it may stop for a while, but then, drip, drip, drip – she gets aggravated and… it’s back. 

Perhaps you just caught yourself sighing.  You know the cycle all too well.  You disrespect, then he gives you the cold shoulder.  That’s the crazy cycle that my husband described and this is why our respect is so important.   Love is our greatest need as a woman.  We want to feel our husband’s love for us.  We want to see and hear his love demonstrated.  A hug, a flower, an “I love you” spoken.  We long for that…just like our husband longs to be respected.  Someone has to stop the cycle.  That someone can be us, ladies. 

Ask the Lord to show you how to speak respectful words and demonstrate respect to your husband.  Start with little things.  Thank him for going to work to provide for your family.  Tell him you respect him for being a provider.  Ask the Lord to put a watch over the door of your lips when you want to criticize.  If there’s an area of his life that is a hindrance, PRAY about it.  When God convicts him of it, his decision will stick!  Be your husband’s greatest cheerleader!  Make it easy for him to rejoice with the wife of his youth.  

While we don’t respect our husband with a motive, a wonderful thing will happen in time…he will love you for respecting him, and the crazy cycle will stop.  Oh, and you know what else?  You may even get back to doing all the fun things you did before you said, “I do!”

Because I care,

We never know how God is going to answer our prayers, but I believe an answer to my recent prayers came in the form of gastroenteritis – a type of flu that had me sicker than I’ve ever been before.

For the last couple of weeks I have prayed and asked the Lord to show me His nearness throughout the day.  You see, I so often find myself so caught up in the tasks at hand that I forget to look for Him around me – to keep the sweet communion we shared in the early hours of my devotions in all the little moments of the day.  

I find a little bit of comfort in the fact that even Jesus’ disciples had this problem of remembering how near He was to them.  In Mark 6 we find that Jesus had just performed the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 with the 5 loaves and 2 fish.  Then Jesus went up into the mountain to pray and told the disciples to go get into the ship.  In short order, after they got on the boat and got half way across the Lake, a terrific storm blew up and they feared for their very lives.  They were afraid, yet they had just been with Jesus and seen Him do a great miracle.  What made them forget what they had just witnessed?  How could they have forgotten the power of the Son of God? Was it preoccupation of fishing?  Conversation with one another?  Lack of faith? At the most critical moment, Jesus walked out on the water and they cried out – not knowing who this was, but Jesus spoke to them,

 “Fear not.  It is I, be not afraid.” 

John says in his account of this story, “Then they willingly received Him into their ship and were safely at land.”

In the middle of the night when I was calling out to the Lord for His strength and help in my illness, He brought my prayer to mind – my prayer to know of His nearness.  He was very close in the night watches while I was so sick.  Even the couple of times that my loving husband didn’t hear me slip out of bed, my God did; just as Jesus saw the disciples on the Sea and knew their peril.   He allowed us to be able to reach my doctor (who “just happened” to be be the one on call that night), to get guidance about going to the ER for IV fluids, and He went before us and allowed me to be seen, treated and released within an hour and a half. 

Years ago I read this statement and found it so true this past week –

I made a very simple dinner yesterday because of still dealing with the flu, but I saved a menu and pictures of something I made a couple weeks ago for a time like this…

Summertime means grilling out!  Even on a Sunday this dinner can be assembled and ready to throw on the grill when you get home from church, and it won’t heat up your kitchen because the whole thing can be done in a foil package outside!

1 pkg. (14 oz) smoked turkey kielbasa, sliced
2 large potatoes, cut into wedges
1 each green, sweet red and yellow peppers cut into 1-in pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
4 tsp lemon juice
4 tsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt

Place 4 squares of foil on the counter and divide the kielbasa, potatoes, peppers and onion among the four squares.  Drizzle with lemon juice and oil; sprinkle with garlic powder, pepper and salt.

Cook on Medium-high grill for 30-35 minutes or till potatoes are tender.  You don’t need to turn it or flip it.  There aren’t even any pans to clean!

I cooked my corn in boiling water, but next time I think I’ll add it to the meat and veggies as well!  You can’t get any simpler than that!

Let me give you a little tip that I learned at a restaurant recently regarding corn on the cob.  Butter the corn, then sprinkle it with grated Parmesan Cheese.  This takes a good thing and turns it into spectacular!

I haven’t made these in a long time, but here’s a great dessert to go with the grilled dinner!  Banana boats.  You could also add ice cream after it comes off the grill!  That would bump it up to a Banana split boat!

What’s been cookin’ in your kitchen…or on your grill?

With love,

Shopping for clothes can be an exhausting experience!  Not only is it hard to find something that really fits well, it also needs to be becoming on you.  Have you ever tried something on in a store then walked out of the dressing room to show whoever was shopping with you and their response was,

 “Oh yes!  That really suits you”? 

Other than them telling you they like what you tried on, what were they saying?  They were saying, “That enhances your appearance.” Now you can buy one in every color and go home!  =)

 In Scripture, Paul tells women that we need to find – not clothing – but  the kind of behavior that enhances.  The enhancement is not our appearance, but our holiness.  He wrote in Titus 2:3a:

This is behaviour that makes holiness evident.  What does that include?  Let’s first talk about what it doesn’t include. 

• Walking around with our hands folded and our eyes closed to show we are in prayer
• Talking “religious talk”
• Dressing in out of date clothing
• Being only heavenly minded

Those are images that readily pop into our minds, but aren’t becoming to holiness.  It doesn’t enhance the look of holiness.  That is religion.  Holiness is giving the right opinion of Who God is.  When others listen to conversations, look at our appearance, or watch our behaviour we should be demonstrating what our God is like.  I Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”  Therefore, if we are going to have behaviour that suits holiness, we must ask ourselves:

• Is what I’m saying glorifying to God?
• Is where I’m going glorifying to God?
• Is what I’m wearing bringing glory to God?

Could it be said of us that our behaviour becomes holiness?  It should be our highest aim and greatest delight, because then, and only then will we be glorifying our God.

See you in church, Sunday!

With love,

A nice little flu bug bit me rather hard.  No blog post today.  See you tomorrow, Lord willing.