This post was to be a continuation of Tuesday’s posting, but we’ll sandwich A Word to the Wise in between! I’ll finish the lesson on A Heart for Your Husband on Thursday.

However, while we’re thinking about husband/wife relationships, I’ll share some thing today that will help in married life.

If you haven’t read the Book, Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerich, you must. I wish I’d have read it years ago! It would have saved my poor husband lots of grief. I see that you can get it at Walmart for less than $14.

The book is based on Ephesians 5:33 – Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. It talks about “the crazy cycle” where the wife is waiting for her husband to love her before she’ll respect him, and the husband is waiting for his wife to show respect before he shows her love. The cycle goes on and on until someone simply obeys the Scripture and stops the cycle!

The book is easy to read, has lots of illustrations, and good questions for each chapter. If you only read one book this year, let it be this one! With God’s enablement, it can change your marriage.

Proverbs 19:14

A gracious woman retaineth honor…Proverbs 11:16

We live in such a “techie” world that many things have gone by the wayside. One of those things is a thank you note. I don’t think it would be wrong to send a thank you by way of an email – my point is just send it! Expressing gratitude for things people do for us or things they give us is a huge part of a godly testimony. It shows a humble heart and grateful spirit. I found a web site that gives some good encouragement about when and how to send a thank you note. Check it out. I’m sure there are many times when I’ve missed the opportunity to express my thanks to someone…shame on me!

Thanks for stopping to read today. I appreciate each of you!

With love and thanks, 🙂

Icing on the cake. This is how Elizabeth George describes her DVD presentation to those doing the Bible study, A Woman After God’s Own Heart. We have spent a month digging into God’s Word learning what He wants to teach us in our quiet time with Him. Then when we come together we listen to her pull all the pieces together and wrap it up in her 30-minute group time.

I love icing, and I love this time because she knows how to spur us on and encourage us to apply what we have learned. This month we studied A Heart for Your Husband. Aside from our own study time, let me share with you some of the practical things she shared in her DVD.

There are four specific ways in which we are to have a heart for our husband. They are:

1. Help him. Genesis 2:18 – A help meet is a counterpart and companion. The husband and wife are a team running towards the same goal with the wife running solidly behind her husband. “If he wins, I win.” This requires a commitment to respond to God’s Word. We must focus on our husband – on his goals, his responsibilities. Think, “Him first.” That’s what a helper does. Elizabeth asks her husband two questions every morning: 1. What can I do to help you today? 2. How can I help you make better use of your time? Ask if your decisions, actions and attitudes will help or hinder him.
   

2. Submit to him. Ephesians 5:21-23 Submit means, “to bend in his direction. Fit into his life, his way of doing things. No resistance.” God Word says it, so we must make the commitment and trust God to enable us. It also helps to give a positive response. Find a word to use. Elizabeth uses the word, “sure!” She says it’s also important to say it with music in your voice and an exclamation point afterwards. Start on the small things. Elizabeth used her word on the trial of their marriage – getting donuts on the way to church every Sunday. It had caused much conflict between them – too much sugar for their little girls, chocolate on their Sunday dresses, no money or time for it! But once the Lord worked in her heart about this, her husband suggested they stop for donuts on the way to church and she said, “Sure!” What a difference it made in their attitudes and family life! They sang in the car, “When we all get to heaven…” The difference wasn’t the sugar in the donuts, it was the positive response from a wife to her husband.

Do you have a positive word you use with your husband? If not, ask the Lord to give you one.

continued tomorrow…

Today is a special day at our house because it’s someone’s birthday – my husband’s. Birthdays are big events for our family. The morning always starts with breakfast in bed for the honoree, and they get to choose the menu. This morning it is Mini Sausage and Egg Casseroles, coffee cake and fresh fruit. I bought a bed tray years ago to help minimize disasters of having a bed-full of breakfast! It also has openings on the sides to stick cards and small gifts. We pull out the china, crystal and a pretty cloth napkin so breakfast is served in style! The girls in the family usually have fresh flowers added to the tray as well.

Cards and gifts are opened after breakfast and the day of celebrating has only begun! We have a birthday mug for coffee, and on my last birthday I received a birthday plate for cake.

When the girls were growing up they got to choose what the supper menu was, and of course what kind of cake they wanted. They didn’t have to do chores on their birthday – a special privilege. They were the ones to go out and get the mail on “their” day, so they could retrieve the cards that were waiting on them.

Birthdays are great days to let our family members know how special they are! Having said that, let me say how thankful I am to have celebrated 29 of Dale’s 51 birthdays. God gave me a treasure in my godly husband and I know how blessed I am.

Does your family have any traditions for birthdays? What do you do to make it a special day?

Off to celebrate,

At the end of our mission’s conference my mind goes to a poem I read a few weeks ago while reading the story of John and Betty Stam. Let me start with the background of the poem:

Remarkably, on the same day that news of the Stams’ death reached America, John’s father, the Rev. Peter Stam, received a letter from his son that had been posted from China many weeks before. In his letter he told about the threat of the Communists, but reiterated his faith and commitment to serve God in China regardless of the cost. John Stam repeated a poem written by another China missionary, J.W. Vinson, who had himself been captured by bandits. The bandits asked Vinson if he was afraid to die. Vinson replied, “No! If you shoot straight, I shall go straight to heaven!” His captors did shoot straight, and Vinson entered heaven as one who “loved not his life unto death.” Earlier, Vinson had penned this poem, which Stam now quoted to his father: