Happy Anniversary!

Today, Richard and I are celebrating 19 years of marriage. As I look back at our marriage I am overwhelmed with gratitude to God for His love, grace and mercy in our marriage. The road to today has not always been easy, but I honestly can say I wouldn't have wanted to walk it with anyone else.

On October 7, 1989, I thought I knew what marriage was. I know now, I didn't have a clue. I thought we would say "I do," KISS, eat cake, open presents and live happily ever after. 

On that day I thought I was saying, "I do" to just a husband, but in reality Richard is so much more than that. By God's grace, He has opened my eyes to the treasure He gave me so many years ago.

Richard, thank you for being my husband and best friend. Thank you for your patience and love. You have made so many of my dreams come true already. But, even more than dreams you have given me life with you and our girls as we serve God together. On our wedding day, I couldn't have even imagined how happy I would be 19 years later.  I am perfectly content to live with you, no matter where the Lord has us (Hey, we lived in the valley for 5 years). Thank you for holding my hand, touching me gently, and even watching the Broncos' games with me.

As we learned in Bible study this year our marriage has a purpose and that is to bring glory to God. I pray that as we grow closer and stronger each day, we would bring honor and glory to God through our marriage. I pray that each day I would become more submissive to God and you.

I love you with all me heart and I thank you for 19 amazing years!

Trust

The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. -Psalm 31:11-12

Our husbands need to be able to trust us in every area of life. They need to trust us as we raise our children, in the running of our home and in our finances, to name a few. We cannot be too careful when it comes to our husband's trust.
As the above verse states, "The heart of her husband trusts in her...", we need to think about that as we make every decision. Are we going against what our husband would want? Are we breaking his trust?

Let's look at this practically.

In raising our children, we are usually with them more than our husbands are. We need to teach them diligently about God's word. We also need to teach them obedience. If we fail to teach them correctly they will suffer many consequences and they will also bring shame to their parents.

In running our home, we need to make sure we keep it presentable. If our husband needs to bring someone home, he should feel comfortable about calling a half hour before to let us know. We also need to make sure we provide for all the needs of our family: food, clothes, toiletries, etc.

In our finances, we need to be very careful that we are not being wasteful or building debt. Our husbands work very hard to provide for our needs, and we should honor them by doing the best we can with the money they have earned. We need to be frugal and wise.

Our husbands should be able to trust us in their hearts with no doubts. We will make mistakes, but we must humbly admit to them so we do not lose their trust.

Ways to say I Love You

Here are some simple ways to let your husband know you love him:

• Say "I love you"

• Make his favorite meal for no other reason than your love for him.

• Clean up (shower, hair, face, teeth, etc.)

• Mail a love letter to his work, put it in his Bible or in the car.

• Make sure the house is clean and calm before he comes home.

• Watch a "boy" movie with him.

• Scratch his back or massage his feet.

• Don't spend more than he makes.

• Always listen when he wants to talk.

• Don't neglect his physical needs.

There are thousands of other ways to express your love to your husband. Find ways each day to let your husband know how much you care.

Be a cheerleader not a critic

What a wonderful opportunity we have to serve our husbands with our words and actions, to be his cheerleader and friend. Look at this quote from Barbara and Laura Bush.

When an interviewer once asked Barbara Bush what advice she gave to her daughter-in-law Laura Bush, her answer was simple: “Don’t criticize your husband.” The elder Mrs. Bush recalled a remark she made about one of George Bush Sr.’s speeches: “I think you’re tired, and you mumbled your words.” The effect of this seemingly innocent comment? “When I criticized George, he remembered it for months afterwards.”

“So I really took her advice to heart,” Laura Bush said. “I knew there were plenty of other critics [of my husband] without me being one of them. Until one night we were driving into our driveway and he said, ‘Tell me the truth, how was my speech?’ And I said, ‘Well, it wasn’t that good.’ And with that, he drove into the garage wall!”

Laura Bush points out something we must really think about, “I knew there were plenty of other critics [of my husband] without me being one of them." How often do we want to be the one to bring all the problems to our husband? He said this, he didn't say that, he wore that shirt out of the house and so on. Our husband has plenty of people around him correcting him. We should instead be his biggest cheerleader and encourager. I am not saying that we should be dishonest with him, I am saying we look for the good and compliment that.
Also, if we know our husband is under a lot of stress we should work hard to relieve that stress and not add more.

Lars Gren (Elisabeth Elliot's husband), presented this helpful challenge:

“A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy.”

We are not perfect and our husbands aren't either. Just enjoy the husband of your youth.

Show him RESPECT

This one seems too easy. We need to show our husbands the respect they are due. Not only because they are the love of our life, but because God has placed them as the head of our homes.
This is God's perfect plan for our family.
There may be days when our husband is not acting in way that deserves our respect, but that doesn't matter. We always show him respect because he is also a child of God and he is the leader of our family. If we are honest we don't always act like we should either.
Our children are always watching to see how we treat their Dad. They will model their behavior after ours many times. Our attitude toward our husband will have an amazing effect on our whole family.
Always show your husband respect.

Do Your Quiet Time

Hello,

I am sorry for the delay in this post. We have had several busy days around here. But now I am back.
I want to start on my series on being a Godly Wife.
Where else would we start but the Bible. The Bible is our treasure chest, filled with more riches than we can ever wish for. We all have this treasure right at our finger tips, yet we leave it closed and don't look at it many times.

Here are some of the common excuses:


1. The Bible is boring.

Is it really boring, or are we just used to being entertained by TV or movies?

2. The Bible is hard to understand.

It is NOT too hard to understand. We just need to make sure we are somewhere quiet where we can concentrate. Also, we need to have the right heart attitude, a heart ready to learn. We have learned to read patterns, recipes and even Html. The Bible is not that difficult. We just invest time in what we want to do.

3. I don't have time (My personal favorite excuse)
We have time, we just waste it many times. How we waste our time:

TV
Phone
Internet (Ouch!)
Reading (Not the Bible)
Etc.

You get the picture. We have the time, we just make bad decisions. Instead of reading our Bible and worshiping our Creator. We chose to watch the news, look at our blogs, read a new recipe or even go through our coupons. These things are not bad unless they keep us from God.

The Bible teaches us what God expects from us and how to live our lives. It is so valuable to us as mothers and wives. Our lives will be transformed if we devote ourselves to daily reading of God's Word. How might your life be changed you ask.

1. We are more patient with others as we realize we are all sinners.
Romans 3:23- For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

2.We realize that God loves us more than anybody else ever could.
John 3:16- “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

3. We realize God sent His one and only Son for us.
1 John 4:9- In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

4. We learn how to be a hard worker.
Proverbs 31: 10-31

5. We find God's promise if we are faithful to teach our children.
Proverbs 22:6 - Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

All of these things we learn from reading our Bible. There are so many other things we can learn and be encouraged with everyday in the Bible.

Take time to put God first in your life. You will be a better mom and wife.

A good marriage starts when they are young

No, I am not saying I believe in young children getting married. What I am saying is our children's first view of marriage is what they see at home. As moms we have an amazing opportunity to help our children's marriages when they get older.
We need to model the qualities of a Godly wife to our children. They need to know that we love their Daddy very much. We will have problems, but they need to see us deal with those situations as well.
Over the next few days I will go through some of those qualities we need to show our children.

What am I passionate about?

On Monday, Crystal over at Money Saving Mom wrote a blog entry about choosing a niche for your blog. I have been thinking about this a lot. I started this blog as a way of documenting our life as we serve the Lord. Not really focusing on any particular area of our lives.
But as I have continued to consider what I am passionate for, it is for marriage. It is the subject that makes me come to life. I love to talk to people who are happy in their marriages as well as those who are struggling. Marriage is an amazing gift from God. I am so blessed to be married to my best friend. I hope to focus on marriage in the upcoming posts.
This is what God has given me passion for and I will use that passion to serve Him however He sees fit.