Category Archives: Confessions of a Christian Wife

Confessions of a Christian Wife

>Perspective

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>WARNING: This post is for the LADIES 🙂

When I was younger… just married… at a mere twenty-two years of age. I was under the strictest conviction that I had to look perfect for my husband to be faithful to me. I thought if I stayed in perfect shape and “pleased” him often enough then he would not cheat on me or desire to cheat on me. So I worked out for hours a day, because I have always leaned on the chunky side being short and short wasted all my weight gathers in the middle…

I would stress over magazine covers and any tv shows and movies that showed half-naked women because I feared that my husband would see that and look at me and be… well… repulsed. I feared every wrinkle, every site of cellulite, every hint of things no longer being where they used to be, if you know what I mean. I feared that my husband would not desire me and would one day move on to bigger, tighter things…

Then like a brick in the head it hit me.

I saw the headlines over and over again where these super models and famous actresses where being cheated on by there husbands. I mean really even here recently… Jennifer Lopez, Sandra Bullock, and well honestly you would think these particular guys would have realized they had “married up”, yet these women, who men all over the world gawk over and dream about where not able to keep there husbands from cheating… 

So what I realized was it must be more…

I realized that either my husband would be faithful to me or he wouldn’t…
He would desire me or he wouldn’t…
He would honor God enough to honor me… or he wouldn’t.

And you know what else I realized.

I realized that when I let down this guard and self-conscienceness that I had about my own appearance and looked at myself through the mirror of my husband’s eyes… I saw that he liked what he saw when he saw me… and he was not comparing me to anyone… I was the one comparing.

Now I want to keep myself as beautiful and appealing to my husband as I can… not to “keep” him, but to simply honor him, and to tell him by doing so that I love him.

As thirty-five quickly approaches me in two short days… I do not fear it like I once did. I still feel like I did when I was twenty-two… even if my body does not agree with me… most of the time… and well when my husband looks at me… I have realized he still sees twenty-one just like I still see that strong, determined, and handsome twenty-nine year old man who made me weak in the knees when I actually got him to talk to me…

Just this evening the headlines popped up about the ‘sexiest women ever’ stuff… my husband looked at me and said, “Well that’s not accurate” and I just looked at him questioningly and he said “They ain’t never seen you. How can they say that’s an accurate list when you haven’t even been considered?”

And yes I melted and blushed and got butterflies as I looked in his eyes and saw that he said this with all sincerity… that’s my man and he loves me 🙂

He said this and he thought of me and then I thought of all the beautiful women I know (that were not considered for that list either) whose husband’s no doubt look at them and think the very same thing…

Oh ladies, look at yourself in the mirror of your husband’s eyes and stop comparing yourself to airbrushed magazine covers and ladies with personal trainers and eight hours to do nothing but workout and eat specially prepared meals by professional dietitians… because guess what… not even all that could keep their men faithful to them… so there must be more.

Find the more.
Find a new perspective.

Do not let the fear of how you see yourself in your mirror keep you from “letting go”. See yourself in the mirror of your husband’s eyes and let go…

Confessions of a Christian Wife

>Breaks My Heart

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>

This young lady has an absolutely amazing voice. My husband and I had just been discussing how strong of a little girl she appeared to be as we watched her. Yet her strength crumbled when she thinks she has lost her dream. The fact that she was eliminated is not what broke my heart. It’s a competition. Only one can win. Elimination is a possibility with each of them.

What broke my heart were her personal comments to the audience.
Her plea to the people.
This: “thank you for giving me this because without you I am nothing”

Oh my that hits me like a brick in the pit of my stomach when it comes from an adult but those words out of a young girl… yes it breaks my heart. I just want to run up there and cup her face in my hand and look through her eyes into her very soul and tell her that she cannot put her identity and hope and worth in the hands of fickle man. She is something to God and without Christ she is nothing. I want to tell her, oh precious child put your hope in God, put your faith in Christ- not your talent, not the praise of the people, not the hands of four people called judges for a tv show. 

In one of email devos this morning I read this quote:
One definition of “faith” is: Forsaking All, I Trust Him.
When we lose our faith in Jesus, instead of clinging to
God we find ourselves grasping for the things of the
world. Life is reduced to merely the physical world. So
we miss out on opportunities to experience the vitality of
a living relationship with God, which comes only by faith
(Hebrews 11:6).
~ Poh Fang Chia

The last thing I ever want as a parent, is to point my children to defining their worth according to the praise of people. I don’t want them to live for the next trophy, for the next award, for the next headline… just to be the best in the eyes of man and get something to stick on a shelf…

Yes I want my girls to have dreams, but I want there dreams to be in line with the will of God and His purpose for them, not their own personal ambition.

When tucking my Bekah in bed tonight she said, “Momma, I don’t know if Jesus wants me to be a vet or a doctor.”  She didn’t know what JESUS wanted her to be. It wasn’t a concern about who she wanted to be, but who HE wanted her to be.

Oh how I pray that truly that desire for His future, His plan, His way, is deeply ingrained in her heart so that she never stares into a camera and tells a sea of anonymous faces that she is nothing without them and their praise…

That no matter what this life brings in its ups and downs- and twists and turns- and highs and lows- and successes and failures- that she will know in the depth of her being that she is indeed nothing without Christ, but to Him- and in Him- and through Him- and with Him she is something, she is HIS and her life is for HIM and for HIS glory.

That is the desire of this mother’s heart for all my girls!
That is the desire of this woman’s heart for every child of God that I am able to have the opportunity to minister to in any way… let not this world define your identity or your worth.
Die to this world.
And live to Christ!

Oh how I hope against hope that this cry from little Rachel was a young child’s slip of the tongue in an emotional and distraught state and what she truly meant to say was to thank God and give her praise and love to Christ for this opportunity and that without Him she was nothing…

Until then I lift her up before the throne of grace and pray that Christ would capture her heart before it is devoured and twisted and darkened by the savage wolves that desire to rape her of her talent and gift to simply build their own kingdoms and enlarge their own storehouses and fatten their own pockets and then leave her standing alone on a dark stage an empty shell of a woman with a void that she has realized that no amount of money, praise, fame, power, drug, drink, or boy can fill.

May she be caught up in the grace of God.

Confessions of a Christian Wife, Proven Path Ministries

My Body

PPM-3.jpg

I found this in my posts that I never actually posted… think I’ll post it now 🙂

So I have been reading and reading and soaking in the words of wisdom found in The Pursuit of God by AW Tozer… and well I have finished it and I suppose I shall finally return it to the library and pray that some other soul chooses to take it home and be enlightened by these words of exhortation.

The last chapter is titled The Sacrament of Living which is based from 1 Corinthians 10:31 

Whether, then, you eat or drink
or whatever you do,
do all to the glory of God.
Tozer writes:

One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas, the sacred and the secular.

As these areas are conceived to exist apart from each other and to be morally and spiritually incompatible, and as we are compelled by the necessities of living to be always crossing back and forth from the one to the other, our inner lives tend to break up so that we live a divided instead of a unified life.

He goes on to write:

This tends to divide our total life into two departments. We come unconsciously to recognize two sets of actions. The first are performed with a feeling of satisfaction and a firm assurance that they are pleasing to God. These are the sacred acts and they are usually thought to be prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing, church attendance and such other acts as spring directly from faith. They may be known by the fact that they have no direct relation to this world, and would have no meaning whatever except as faith shows us another world, “an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Over against these sacred acts are the secular ones. They include all of the ordinary activities of life which we share with the sons and daughters of Adam: eating, sleeping, working, looking after the needs of the body and performing our dull and prosaic duties here on earth. These we often do reluctantly and with many misgivings, often apologizing to God for what we consider a waste of time and strength.

He also shares:

This is the old sacred-secular antithesis. Most Christians are caught in its trap. They cannot get a satisfactory adjustment between the claims of the two worlds. They try to walk the tight rope between two kingdoms and they find no peace in either. Their strength is reduced, their outlook confused and their joy taken from them.

I believe this state of affairs to be wholly unnecessary. We have gotten ourselves on the horns of a dilemma, true enough, but the dilemma is not real. It is a creature of misunderstanding. The sacred-secular antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament. Without doubt a more perfect understanding of Christian truth will deliver us from it.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no divided life.

And he goes on to write:

That monkish hatred of the body which figures so prominently in the works of certain early devotional writers is wholly without support in the Word of God. Common modesty is found in the Sacred Scriptures, it is true, but never prudery or a false sense of shame.

The New Testament accepts as a matter of course that in His incarnation our Lord took upon Him a real human body, and no effort is made to steer around the downright implications of such a fact. He lived in that body here among men and never once performed a non-sacred act.

His presence in human flesh sweeps away forever the evil notion that there is about the human body something innately offensive to the Deity. God created our bodies, and we do not offend Him by placing the responsibility where it belongs. He is not ashamed of the work of His own hands.

And then he writes:

We need no more be ashamed of our body–the fleshly servant that carries us through life–than Jesus was of the humble beast upon which He rode into Jerusalem. “The Lord hath need of him” may well apply to our mortal bodies. If Christ dwells in us we may bear about the Lord of glory as the little beast did of old and give occasion to the multitudes to cry, “Hosanna in the highest.”

That we see this truth is not enough. If we would escape from the toils of the sacred-secular dilemma the truth must “run in our blood” and condition the complexion of our thoughts. We must practice living to the glory of God, actually and determinedly.

By meditation upon this truth, by talking it over with God often in our prayers, by recalling it to our minds frequently as we move about among men, a sense of its wondrous meaning will begin to take hold of us. The old painful duality will go down before a restful unity of life. The knowledge that we are all God’s, that He has received all and rejected nothing, will unify our inner lives and make everything sacred to us.

**************************************************
Wow…
God is not ashamed of my body.
Not ashamed.
He is not ashamed of the work of His hands.
He formed me.
I will give thanks to You,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
Psalm 139:14

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
God is not looking upon me in this flesh of mine with disgust.
How often I forget that.
How often I even pray for the day that I can worship Him apart from this flesh that I have come to hate.
This flesh that God loves.

I find disgust with my body.
I look with disgust upon this flesh of mine.

But quite possibly my Creator does not…

This body, this flesh, that I find myself cringing in shame over at times…
My Creator created fearfully and wonderfully…
And this He wrote after sin entered the world.
This He spoke through the pen of David…
It is God who said He was ruddy and handsome.
It was God who said Esther was beautiful of form and face.
This He said while they were in their sin sick flesh…

I think of my children, those I love, there is no deformity of body horrid enough that I would not desire to wrap my arms around them and pull them close up to my chest and hold them with all my heart and tell them that I love them… God loves me in the sickness and defomity of this wretched flesh no less.

This body He gave me to do His will.
It will serve His purpose.
It will carry me through this life and into His glorious presence.
Of this body I should not be ashamed.

God did not design this body of His to be a split personality. It was not meant to be categorized as sacred or secular… all of it was created for the sacred.

Everything that I do is to be an act of worship to my God at all times.
We are not to divide up our lives… Christ unites.
I am not to feel condemnation because the work I am called to do consumes my day and leaves me weighing the scales of secular vs sacred deeds to find me ashamed with my head hung down because my scale is heavy on what I deem the wrong side…
I have even found myself guilty over the desire that my body has to sleep. Feeling this time wasted… what could I accomplish if this body just did not grow tired, weak, and sick.
Yet God is not ashamed.
All things are His, the works of His hands.
Did I honor Him in my deeds?
Did I honor Him with my body?
Did I speak with Him during my toil?
Did I seek Him for guidance with the business of the day?
Did I do my work with honesty and integrity?
Did I represent Him well where I was at?
Then my work was sacred, done as unto the Lord.
Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it.
The motive is everything.
Of course this does not mean that I throw out the Word, prayer, or the assembly… it means that all these flow into every aspect of my life and body.
Whether, then, you eat or drink
or whatever you do,
do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 
Confessions of a Christian Wife

Victory

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confessions

Victory comes in different forms.
I experienced victory today.

Today at the Author Expo I sat there with my mother for four hours and sold zero books.
Yep that’s right.
A big fat goose egg of a zero.

So how did selling zero books after smiling at strangers and handing out business cards and book info cards for four hours result in being an experience in victory?

My response to selling zero books.
That’s how 🙂

Probably no less than six months ago, driving over an hour, to sit for four hours, and sell zero books, and then spend over another hour driving back home, would have resulted in my very own pit of despair. Oh the slump of my shoulders would have been great as it matched the sagging slouch in my back as my face fell heavy and my smile diminished in my distraught state of doubt and confusion and frustration. By this time I would have told myself how foolish and just plain silly I was for thinking anyone would want to read anything by me.

I would be wollering in self-pity and pouring into my spiral notebook pages of all my “why’s” and “how come’s” to God. My wide-ruled page lines would be bleeding blue because of the wetness of my tears as I sobbed my drama queen fit out in written words to a God I am thankful is willing to not strike me dead for my way too often and too easily come over-reactions.

However this was not my responce today…
Today was victory!
No self-pity!
No wallowing in tears or blue bleedings from blubberings!

I sit here now and I am good and I am perfectly at peace.

I had a wonderful day with my mother.
I met some pretty interesting people.

And I don’t have to worry about whether or not I should order some more books to have on hand because I still got plenty.

My God is good.
My God is not going to let all that He has put within me die.
It is His word that He has put within me and His word endures forever.

The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.
Isaiah 40:8

He will accomplish what He started in me. Though I may presently remain clueless as too what exactly He has started in me… 🙂

The LORD will accomplish what concerns me;
Your lovingkindness, O LORD, is everlasting;
Do not forsake the works of Your hands.
Psalm 138:8
My God is good.
This I know full well.
So when up at 5am on a Saturday plus driving over an hour to sell zero books equals it still being well with my soul… Well this most definitely clearly means victory experienced!I hope maybe, just maybe, the Holy Trinity is up there looking down on me and saying Awww look, I think she might actually be growing up, look at our baby girl, you know just six months ago this little trial would have sent her over the edge and she would have been pouting for a week… but look at her now, yep our baby girl is finally starting to grow up…;-)  
Confessions of a Christian Wife

Do Dreams Die

confessions

Today I am up at 5am and about to jump in the shower and head to Birmingham AL with my Mom to attend the local author expo. I will be taking the last box of Devotions From Genesis that I have in my possession. It might be the last box ever…

The dream I had, the calling I thought I had received from God, was to write a devotional study through the Torah. Something that was manageable to anyone at any point in their walk with Christ, even someone who hadn’t yet began that walk… to introduce Him to them from the beginning. My desire is for people to see that the life of Christ did not begin in that manger. My dream was that God would use this series of devotionals to do that in the lives of His people.

My dream has began to die… as I had dreamed that by now I would have sold enough copies of the first book to pay for the publishing of the one I have been approved to publish… but sits in My Documents waiting.

I don’t know if there is any more disappointing feeling than to realize that maybe you heard God wrong…

If I had not have had such an overwhelming assurity that this was His leading, His Spirit driving me, working in and through me…

Oh me the “I don’t know’s” of life can be so terribly frustrating.

Yet, today I am off to the expo.
I am looking forward to a wonderful day meeting other author’s and hopefully selling a few books.

But most of all I am looking forward to a fun day with the woman who shared her love of books and reading with me and always told me how wonderful my writing was, even when it was written in crayon with backward letters and every attempted word misspelled 🙂

The woman who will never let my dreams die because I will always be able to see them living in her eyes.

So whose dreams are living in your eyes?

I think of my own girls…
My husband…

Can they see their dreams living in my eyes?

Because sometimes dreams that appear to be dying are not dying at all… only changing in form… yet they remain the same dream 🙂

Confessions of a Christian Wife

>Christmas Struggles

>Yes, I must confess that I am the woman whose stomach starts churning and dreading the coming too soon Christmas season around October…

Why?

The whole money issue.

Yes, I am a woman who hates spending money… shocking as it may sound. There are some women who do not fall into the shopaholics anonymous category. I even refuse to stop at a gas station that won’t allow me to pay at the pump because I do not want to be tempted to buy cokes and bags of chips along with my gas.

I feel guilty for every dime I spend on me. I hate to shop… so I only go when I am in actual desperate need of something.

When at the beach earlier this month it was colder than I had packed for and so I needed to pick up a warm outfit. We went to an outlet mall and I found a fleece sweatsuit that was on sale for %60 off, yet I still walked around the store for an hour, yes literally an hour, trying to decide whether or not my conscience was good with making the purchase. I was praying for the okay from God as I was trying to decide if I was under conviction or condemnation.

Does anyone else do this?

So now Christmas is here, the purchasing must be done…
Now once the shopping actually begins I usually get excited because I get caught up in the joy of actually buying things that my loved ones will really be excited to receive… so I am not a complete scrooge 🙂

Now our first purchase from our Christmas budget was for our home, we have some repairs that need to be done, and I have been wanting a new chandelier since we purchased our home over five years ago (I got a gift card to pick one out with last year, but the vacuum cleaner broke, so I got a vacuum cleaner instead) and we picked one up when we purchased the material to do the repairs. Then the day before yesterday I made my first Christmas purchases for our girls and I was excited and ready to shop some more… bring on the Christmas cheer!

Then that night about 10:30pm we open the laundry room door to discover the catch-pan under the hot water heater two inches deep in water.

Great. 

My first thought was…
Yep this is my punishment for shopping,
I knew I spent too much,
And we shouldn’t have bought that chandelier, we should take it back.
Hello, Murphy! I knew you wouldn’t stay gone for long…

(pout, pout, frown, sigh)

Then I remembered that my God was Jehovah-jireh, our Provider.
I remembered that we had prepared our budget and saved all year to make these purchases.
I remembered that God was sovereign over even hot water heater issues and I would not pout, frown, or sigh in doubt or frustration.
I would trust Him to meet our needs.
Murphy would not steal my joy.

And guess what…
God was faithful.
Imagine that 🙂

I will enjoy Christmas this year.
I will enjoy the time shopping with my husband as we buy gifts for our loved ones.
And maybe, just maybe, next Christmas I will not even experience that stomach churning dread of the coming Christmas season.

So how about you?
Do you want to throw up the first time you see the “so many days until Christmas” sign?
Or are you the one who starts counting the days down in overwhelming excitement at the first sign of the season?

Confessions of a Christian Wife

>Not Afraid Anymore

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>Our youngest is deathly afraid of fire ants… for good cause. She got in her first bed when she was still in diapers while playing at the park. Oh it was terrifying for me and her. There is nothing like being covered with what seems like thousands of little flesh eating creatures that you can’t get off of you fast enough…

Yesterday this same child got into a bed of fire ants again. Her Aunt got to her before I did and tried to immediately strip her down but she would have no part of being stripped in the yard. So they ran to the bathroom, where I caught up to find out what in the world was going on…

Oh me ants in the pants, in the socks, in the shirt…

Now stripped down.
Panic over.
And all ants dead… I wrapped her up in my sweater and handed her to her Daddy while we got all the dead ants out of the floor.

Then I took her upstairs to calm her and look her over really good and get her back dressed. While upstairs the tears begin to fall again and she cries, “Why did this have to happen on Thanksgiving!” 

(Ohhh me, can you say mom with broke heart)

Well today we discovered a huge fire ant bed in our yard and she would have nothing but Daddy getting out there and putting some poison on them things, like now. So due to her recent traumatic experience Daddy complied and went out to poison the ants.

Tonight we are cleaning her room and she pulls out a Highlights magazine that just so happens to have an article in it about fire ants. She says, “I’m going to go read this and learn about them fire ants”

About half an hour later she comes running up to me, “Momma! Momma! I’m not afraid of fire ants anymore! They eat wasps!”

So how did this article on fire ants relieve her of her fear?

I believe because of two reasons:
1) Knowledge
2) Purpose

Through reading the article she learned more about the ant. The more she understood about who and what this ant was, her fears lessened.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Hosea 4:6
 
For this reason also,
since the day we heard of it,
we have not ceased to pray for you
and to ask that you may be filled
with the knowledge of His will
 in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
Colossians 1:9

Through her gained knowledge she realized that even this fire ant had a purpose. It had a reason to exist. God had created it and it wasn’t as evil as she thought it to be in her fear and ignorance. It had value.

The LORD has made everything for its own purpose,
Proverbs 16:4
 
 
So what are you afraid?
What causes fear to rise up within you?
 
Maybe try studying a little about it and see if, like my Bekah, once you have gained knowledge and discovered a purpose, maybe just maybe, you too can shout, “I’m not afraid anymore!”
Confessions of a Christian Wife, Uncategorized

>Vaughn Elementary

>When I first began homeschooling our girls I was programed to carry out this mission according to the current public school system, the one I and my husband graduated from, and the one we had purposely pulled our girls out of. I would test my girls every week and what they got was what they got…

Then one day it hit me.

Wait a minute.
This is not public school.
This is Vaughn Elementary.
What am I doing?

Thank God I had a “lightbulb” moment. It just hit me out of nowhere in mid test (yeh it just hit me out of nowhere, but I know exactly Who it came from). I remembered what the whole point of a test was in God’s eyes.

In the wilderness He fed you manna
which your fathers did not know,
that He might humble you
and that He might test you,
to do good for you in the end.
Deuteronomy 8:16

The object of the test was not to leave my children in failure in a particular area and then move on to the next thing. The test was not the final word. I was.

The object of the test was to see if I had done my job well enough that they understood and learned. If they failed it was my job to go back and go over the information again. My job is to teach. The test is to show me what I need to teach again. The object of the test is to do good for them in the end.

For a period of about forty years
He put up with them in the wilderness.
Acts 13:18

Yes it may seem like it takes 40 years to get my child to understand how n = 3009 but if it takes 40 years… well that means we’ll just have to do school right on through summer and on Saturday too, but they will finish in victory, not marked as failures. The test will be for their good in the end. We will take as many trips around the math mountain as we must for them to get a grasp and understanding of the material and do our very best to keep the joy of learning alive and well.


Examine me, O LORD, and try me;
Test my mind and my heart.
For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes,
And I have walked in Your truth.
Psalm 26:2-3

When the Lord examines us He does not pull out our flaws, our sins, and our failures to point them out and then leave us in them. He tests us to refine us, to perfect us. He tests us in love in order to make sure we fully understand truth. This is what I decided should be my goal in testing my girls as well.
  
Consider it all joy, my brethren,
when you encounter various trials, 
knowing that the testing of your faith
 produces endurance. 
And let endurance have its perfect result,
so that you may be perfect
and complete,
lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4
So yes at the end of the year my girls will be “straight A” students, not because the grade was handed to them by their mommy, but because they have the privilege of living with their teacher and having my full attention so that they might go over and over material until they understand it. They can move ahead or stop if they need to, because the goal at Vaughn Elementary is for them to learn the material. I do not have a school board or a union telling me what, when, where, how much or how far.
Granted I do believe that my stand on testing will change and adjust as my girls pass from elementary into the high school years so that they might begin the transition into college, but right now this is where I am…testing to perfect not just to point out failures, focusing more on building a solid foundation than just passing on to the next scheduled lesson. At this point in their life keeping learning fun is vital.
So if you homeschool what’s your stand on testing?
How often do you test?
What is your grading style?
Did you change how and when you tested as your children grew older?

Confessions of a Christian Wife, Uncategorized

>Warning: Nagville Next Exit, All Roads Dead End

>Those who have no interest in turning from their destructive ways must, through the prayers of others, be turned over to God. Ultimately, they are responsible for their own actions; it is not our responsibility to change our loved ones. We can try to have a positive influence, but in the end it’s up to them to seek God for the necessary changes. Pressures, nagging, complaints, criticism, scolding, and similar actions aren’t going to do a thing. Instead, pray that you’ll see something supernatural happen. Your mate has the capacity to change, but he or she can’t be beaten in to restoration.
~ James Robison from Living in Love

 In the same way, you wives,
be submissive to your own husbands
so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word,
they may be won without a word
by the behavior of their wives, 
as they observe your chaste
and respectful behavior.
1 Peter 3:1-2
This can be a hard one can’t it…
This is one of those commands in Scripture where we have to prayerfully choose to take God at His word and walk by faith. 
It is so often in our nature as women to be the “nag”. And depending on our husbands the levels on which we reach Nagville can vary. For some husbands, just a mention makes you a nag, to others you have to have actually reached the point of following behind them with a wagging finger giving them your what-for. Regardless of where or when you reach this with your husband… it is not pleasing to God. We need to be sensitive to when God says… “Honey, you’ve hit Nagville, find a place to turn around and head the other direction immediately, there is no profit for anyone in Nagville… ever. All roads are a dead end. They will get you nowhere.”
It is better to live in a corner of a roof
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.
Proverbs 21:9
It is better to live in a desert land
Than with a contentious and vexing woman.
Proverbs 21:19
It is better to live in a corner of the roof
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman
Proverbs 25:24
A constant dripping on a day of steady rain
And a contentious woman are alike;
Proverbs 27:15
Okay ladies… did you count those?
Four cross-references all concerning nagging women.
You know if God says something once it’s pretty important. If He repeats Himself it’s very, very important. He has repeated Himself four times within a seven chapter span on this issue… I believe that puts this in the “Girl you better pay attention or else” category.  
Now the word contentious in these Scripture references is Madown. It means strife, contention, object of contention and it comes from the root word Diyn which means to judge, contend, plead, to act as judge, minister judgment, to plead a cause, to execute judgment, requite, vindicate, to govern, to contend, strive, to be at strife, quarrel.

Precious one, you are not, nor will you ever be your husbands Holy Spirit, you will not ever even be his conscience. He my dear is on his own. It’s all between him and God. All you can ever do is muddy the waters and harden his heart. So dear sweet one who might use her tongue as a lashing tool…

The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent.
Exodus 14:14

When you choose to hold your tongue, then you are choosing to walk by faith and you show that you trust that God has got everything under control…

Personally I have never felt that I was much of a nagger, my husband just is not the kind of man that would take that too well… so I have never really felt like I was a contentious woman in the nag side (my husband might have a different opinion on that, lol).

However, I have to admit that I have at times passed judgment on my husband in my heart, refused him grace, refused him mercy, refused him forgiveness, and punished him with the silent treatment and by withholding my affection. I get hurt and I through up walls of self-protection and forget that I am already protected by my breastplate of righteousness, my helmet of salvation, my belt of truth, my shield of faith, and I am already within the walls of the strong tower of my King.

I would give the silent treatment (and yes there is a difference in simply being silent and giving the silent treatment) because the truth is I had/have a fear of confrontation with him. I know I can’t out argue him, I am not quick witted at all. I know I cannot manipulate him. It’s just not in my ability to “handle someone”. I am the person who gets blindsided and stunned and then spends the next days and nights thinking of all the things I could have done or said at that moment instead of just standing there and taking it.

When we were first married and he would do something or say something that hurt my feelings and I hadn’t the nerve to address it in an appropriate way and time, I would try to show him what the issue was by doing it back to him.
I do not recommend this.
It does not work… at all.

See that no one repays another with evil for evil,
but always seek after that which is good
for one another and for all people.
1 Thessalonians 5:15 

So what do you do if you know something is off kilter with your spouse?
What do you do when you see them in destructive behaviour?
What do you do when that behaviour is toward you?

You address it kindly, when the time is appropriate.
You pray without ceasing about it.
And you leave it in the hands of a mighty God.

In marriage we get a first hand, front row seat, to every character flaw and deeds of flesh that our spouse has… but just because we see it and experience it doesn’t mean we have the power to fix it, nor is it necessarily our job to point it out, especially repeatedly point it out over and over and over and over.

Your mate has the capacity to change, but he or she can’t be beaten in to restoration.

However, it is without a doubt our job to lift our spouse up in prayer and listen closely to the leading of the Holy Spirit and only speak when He says speak and how He says speak and what He says speak.

It will never do any good to keep on addressing it.
It will however do good to keep on praying about it.
You can’t change anyone’s heart… but God most certainly can.

**** Disclosure: In cases of mental, emotional, or physical abuse seek wise counsel immediately. You are not alone and help is available and waiting.

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Would you believe this word from Chuck Swindoll was in my morning email devotions… so I had to come back and add it to this post.


“Always guard your words when your husband is going through terribly hard times. I want to confess something about us men. Mainly, I want you to remember: going through sustained hard times weakens most men. For some reason, hardship seems to strengthen women; we admire you for that. But we men are weakened when times of affliction hit and stay. In our weakened condition we lose our objectivity, sometimes our stability. Our discernment is also skewed. Our determination lags. We become vulnerable, and most men don’t know how to handle themselves in a vulnerable state of mind. So in light of all of this—hear me—we need your clear perspective, wisdom, and spiritual strength. Most of all, we need you to pray for us as you’ve never prayed. We need not only your prayers, we need your emotional support. We need you to take the initiative and step up. We need your words of confidence and encouragement.”

Confessions of a Christian Wife

>Leave to Cleave

>When Mother continued to counsel us against our plans, James faced the issue head-on. One night when he was over for super, he said to my mother, very politely and respectfully, “Ma’am, I cannot let you be in charge of this relationship. You will not be in charge of our wedding or our marriage. This is what we want to do, and if we have to do it totally on our own, we will. And if there’s no ceremony, it doesn’t matter.
~ Betty Robison from Living in Love

Oh I read this and I just wanted to cheer James and Betty on.
You go James! Thank you for being a man and stepping up and speaking for your family. And Betty way to stand by your man and let him lead.

I have seen almost marriages that should have been marriages crumble before they even had a chance to begin because Momma was not willing to let her baby be an adult… and now most of those are currently living in sexual sin and broken homes anyway… because the Momma used the excuse of fear of failure before the marriage even had a chance to begin and attempt success…

However, I suppose the real issue is the boy who was not willing to become a man and chose to let Momma be boss.

We are currently in a generation that simply blows my mind and makes me shake my head in complete disbelief and frustration. A generation full of parents who counsel their children against marriage…

I mean the last time I checked it was God who said

 Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm,
but how can one be warm alone? 
And if one can overpower him who is alone,
two can resist him.
A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.
Ecclesiastes 4:11-12
 
Why on earth would you not want your child in the power of a three-cord strand?
Most parents today have instilled in their children that they must do A, B, and C before they get married and if Mr or Mrs right comes along before they have gotten to C, well if they are “really the one” then they will wait until you finish your A, B, and C plan before you get married. 
 
Exactly where in God’s Word do you read of us saying to God, “Okay God here is my A, B, C plan for my life and I am not detouring from it… so send my spouse according to my (and my parent’s) plan okay, because if You send them before hand I am just so sorry but Your plan will have to wait on mine”  
 
Why on earth would parents rather have their child living in rebellion to God, in sin against their own bodies and sinning against the body of another, than enter into the God blessed and ordained covenant of marriage? It makes absolutely no sense to me. 
 
When young men and women have sinned against God and each other and God has chosen in this sin to create the blessing of life and these two have said that they have chosen to get married what I hear from so many these days is, “Well I am just not sure marriage is the answer…”
 
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother,
and be joined to his wife;
and they shall become one flesh. 
And the man and his wife were both naked
and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:24
 
Exactly when did we decide that marriage was not the answer when God said in marriage they were not ashamed… What exactly is wrong with allowing this young couple the opportunity to give this life they have created together a shot?
Yes it might end in divorce… but you know what, it might not.
Yes they might struggle in life. But who doesn’t?
So what if they are “so young”, our idea of “so young” today is anyone under thirty, it’s quite ridiculous if I do say so myself.
 
My grandmother was married to my grandfather at 15 and they were happily married and obviously head over heals in love with each other until death did them part. My mother was married to my father at 16, she graduated high school as a married woman and yes, today my parents are still head over heals in love with each other.   
 
My sister and her husband were right out of high school and working at Dairy Queen when God chose to create life out of wedlock within their rebellion and they chose to get married. My brother-in law worked two and three jobs for the first few years of their marriage to support his family so my sister could stay at home with their children. They are still happily married and obviously head over heels in love with each other today. Did they struggle? My goodness yes they did, but they learned that God is faithful and He has always met their needs.
 
To me, this counsel against marriage, seems to be playing right along with the warning given to us in Scripture concerning the last days…
 
men who forbid marriage
and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created
to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. 
For everything created by God is good,
and nothing is to be rejected
if it is received with gratitude;
1 Timothy 4:3-4
 
I do believe it was God who created marriage.
We tell our children don’t get married until you’ve got your own life just right. 
Ever wondered if this idea might have lead into the false concept that you have to get your own life just right before you can enter into a covenant with Christ?
Just something to think about…
 

So moms and dads… offer wise counsel, but offer it according to the Word of God. Be willing to cut the apron strings. Be willing to let your children be adults.

I had a dear friend tell me a story about how her youngest child was very sick when he was baby and she was concerned that now he was not walking as she believed he should be by the age he was at this time. She expressed her concern to her child’s pediatrician at the child’s check-up and the doctor lovingly told her, “if you want your son to learn to walk you have to put him down.”

For our children to learn to walk we have to put them down and be willing to let them fall…

And children, young men and women, be adults. Men be the head of your home and leader of your family and let your wife or future wife know that you are capable of standing strong. And woman, let your man be a man, and confidently stand by him and show him that you trust him to lead your family.

And in closing, a word from Betty…

While firm, he was gracious, and we certainly didn’t want to sever our relationship with my parents, but the time had come to change the nature of that relationship. We wanted an open door to wise counsel, but we didn’t want the open door to include intrusive control… Every couple should seek to maintain a good relationship with their parents but not at the expense of their own marriage. We had to leave in order to cleave.
~ Betty Robison