I am currently reading the devotional Wife after God by Jennifer Smith. She is doing an online 30 day Bible study focusing on the book. Each day has a focus verse, a short devotional, a challenge, a prayer and journal questions. Check it out! www.wifeaftergod.com and on facebook Wife after God - Online bible study. You can watch her back comments on YouTube.
Obviously, I think it would be great if you joined in and picked up the book. I'm not going to post everything on here but I'm gonna post what I'm feeling and maybe some of the journal questions.
Jan. 1 - God's purpose for your marriage. Honestly, I've been reading another book and studying it in my Sunday school class. I've posted about it. Day one in Wife after God made me think of it. It's Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. His statement/question is "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than make us happy?. I've come to believe this is true. It's also somewhat soothing. Yeah, I know that sounds weird. But honestly it's given me something to cling to thru the rough. Yes, I hope somethings in my marriage get better but currently I can let the hard times make me more like Christ. It honestly can give you purpose in a not so wonderful time in marriage. When I feel unloved, I can strive to love, respect and serve my husband anyway. Jesus does it. He loves me when I ignore him.
So the challenge was to talk to your husband and discuss with him about the purpose of marriage. My husband is away til Sunday so I didn't do this and honestly with our time schedule we currently don't discuss much of anything so I kinda got frustrated. I get frustrated with all the marriage studies that involve both spouses. What if your spouse isn't interested in being involved in it? But Day 2 made me like the study again :)
Jan. 2 - Marriage by Design. This discussed Love and Respect. Husbands love your wives, Wives respect your husbands. Check out Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. Although honestly, I think the book is repetitive and have found a lot of marriage material to be. SERIOUSLY, I think we get the fact that Husbands should love their wives and wives should respect their husbands. I guess I'm always looking for the answer to "what do I do and how do I handle it if I don't feel loved? or respected?".... But it's right in front of us in the Bible - Ephesians 5:25 - Husbands, love your wives and Ephesians 5:33 - and let the wife see that she respects her husband. It doesn't say, wives respect your husband when you are loved by them. It's called unconditional respect. I fail at it. The questions for today were hard... One of them... In what ways does your husband show you love? I sat here. I thought. I got frustrated because I didn't think of anything. Then I thought I am terrible, I know my husband loves me, I need to think. Here is what I came up with - 1. He sat down with me after the kids were in bed two times in the last few weeks and watch a movie. 2. He pays the bills. 3. He puts wood on the fire so I can have a nice warm house. 4. He glued my rear view mirror back on my jeep window. 5. I thought a few more things and then I was like Servant hood. He serves.
I know I could name so many things that I've thought he should do in the last month instead of spend his days hunting but I need to look at what he does do. Hmmm, mayb that is something I need to do weekly.
This question also got me thinking... If he was asked "in what ways does your wife show you respect?.... yeah, I'm thinking it would be hard for him... I need to ask forgiveness for not showing him respect - my body language has disrespect all over it... and I need to do this...
my plan: 1. acknowledge him when he is running out the door . 2. thank him often for what he does. 3. praise him/words of affirmation (even if i'm kinda annoyed) 4. hug him (one of his love languages is physical touch and mine is far from it) 5. serve him.
Those 5 things I need to do even when I feel unloved....
So I don't kno how well this is written but it's my feelings and thoughts...
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