A Handy Habit

            As a wife, I know that dinner takes longer than the most enjoyable part (eating).  Dinner preparation and the clean-up is also part of the meal!  I like washing and drying the dishes and putting them in their places, but I like preparing the meal more and enjoy far more eating the meal with my husband!  Here is how I found a handy habit to cut down on the mundane dish-washing task and to help make dinner time with my husband more enjoyable.

After I was married, I was visiting a friend of mine who was also married.  I asked about her dish-washing habits, to which she answered that she washed them as she goes.  The simple motive behind this, to not have such a big mess at the end of the day or at the end of the meal, was enough to get me to want to do the same!  I tried, and it was a little hard to adapt for myself, until I implemented my personal idea with it.  

My way I added is to actually fill the sink about a fourth or third full with hot water and a squirt of dish soap as soon as I come into the kitchen, before beginning any food preparation.  It makes the idea of having to wash one dish at a time after they are used easier, as the water is right there and ready.  I have done these “water in the sink” and “wash dishes as you do” ideas for several days now, and dinner has been much more enjoyable with my husband.  “Dishes” is not just something that is dragging in the back of my mind during dinner, making after-dinner thoughts drudgery.  I want to continue this habit! 

What Matters the Most ~ Guest Entry

When I was younger, there was a family friend that really inspired me to be a loving and devoted wife to the man I would someday marry. One of the things she did that made a deep impression on me was, every day, just before her husband was supposed to get home from work, she would put on a clean apron, fix her hair, and make sure that her little boys were clean and ready to greet their daddy. She treated him like a king, and he, in turn, loved her and treated her like a queen.

Now that I have a wonderful husband of my own I’ve been thinking a lot about how to show him love and honor, and it occurred to me that each husband is unique and values different things. While there are definitely some basic ways that show honor to every man, my husband, and every husband out there, has specific things that are meaningful to him, and other things that don’t really make much difference to him one way or the other.

I was visiting with one of my friends about this subject, and we both decided to specifically ask our husbands what mattered the most to them when they walked in the door from a long day at work.  Since then, I have asked a few other friends for some feedback on the same question, and these are some of the different ideas our husbands gave us: A clean and tidy house, a special kiss, just being there to greet him and welcome him home, and a tasty dinner coming up.

These are just a few ideas – the important thing, I think, is to find out what your husband values, and then do your best to give that to him lovingly and respectfully.

A Husband Feels Commitment When a Wife Submits

I feel encouragement and give encouragement to not only others but mostly to my husband and let him know and feel commitment when I support to him.  Sometimes it has been hard for me to let my husband know and feel commitment and has been hard for me to defer.  But when I submit, that is when he is most encouraged.  It is rightly so for anyone to interpret this kind of support as commitment.  Feeling commitment is so important in the heart of a husband, which would result in the husband’s heart completely trusting in his wife, a description of the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 and wise goal of any modern day woman.  If our husband’s hearts completely trust in us, a result of our commitment, what results is mutual teamwork that makes for a marriage of value and quality, what our society needs desperately. 

All the Good Things

            Sometimes it is good to keep busy.  If I feel so overwhelmed with all the stuff to accomplish that by my response to it, others are burdened, I need to change my perspective.

            Having my daughter and knowing children like songs, I looked up on you-tube some old fun children’s songs from “Salty the Singing Songbook” whose music I used to listen to as a child.  There was a song I came across that I remembered and that I really liked the tune to.  The lyrics are really nice as well and are a good source to support the message in this entry.  The song is “How I Want to Be, Lord, Just Like You.”  A couple phrases of the lyrics are “How I Want to be, Lord, just like You… And all the good things that I want to do” and “when You give You peace and You share Your joy, and You show Your love, oh Lord, how I want to be like You.”

            If I change my perspective from thinking all the stuff I have to do is a burden, burdening others with a stressful attitude, to thinking of them as good things I’m doing to help me be like Jesus, I will look forward to each task with a smile.  I will know that by it, I am “singing” to Jesus, how I want to be like Him, and sometimes I really have sung it when I do my work. 

            Other times, it’s not good to be busy, and those times are being with family and on the day of rest.  But those are good things to do, too.

Making the House More Livable

            I really feel that if I make my house more livable, the things I want to accomplish for my man, I will be able to accomplish more easily.  If I can accomplish them more easily, I can accomplish them more quickly and with just about zero frustration!  So, over two weeks ago, I began the mission.  I had a tentative goal by the end of that week to make our house more livable—the places for the items I use in the kitchen to be in places so that when they are needed, they can be grabbed easily.  I moved items around in the cupboard in the bathroom, so that the items used daily there are more accessible.  I organized the clothes in our closet so that locating what should be worn on a day is not frustrating!  I organized our diaper changing station, clearing the clutter out of that zone.

            By the end of last week, things were more organized (the house was more livable).  I wanted to post this a time ago but didn’t feel it (or me!) was ready!  A spot that is supposed to be normally very useful was not because of clutter.  Well, I have since, moved these items into a bag, and I plan to go through them and organize.

I am happy to make the house more livable because I see that it is staying within God’s favor.  God says in His Word in Ephesians 5:16 to redeem the time and that can be done easily when the house is more organized.  I feel that clearing out the clutter of what could slow me down is dedicating my house and life to serving my family.  I have thrown recently, a project that I began before I was married, a project which would take an extreme amount of dedication, and I am planning to give the time I had for the project to serving my family instead!  I hope that you are encouraged to dedicate more of yourself to your man! 

Respect is to Man as Love is to Woman ~ Guest Entry

        I am grateful for the perspective in this guest post from a writer on the topic of respect and love.


        Marriage is one of the oldest and most sacred vows in the history of mankind; the promise of man and woman to no longer be separate identities, but to be one unit, two halves of a whole, partners. It is the act of removing the desire to provide for oneself and trading it with the desire to provide for another out of love.

        For centuries, couples have exchanged vows, promising commitment, love, and honor. Until the 1920’s, the bride’s vows also included the mandatory promise to obey. Later, it was discovered that the phrase had been improperly translated; the original wording was defined as “to mean a promise; listen deeply.” While Ephesians 5:22-24 commands wives to submit to their husbands as to the Lord, verse 21 exhorts both spouses to submit to each other. In verse 25, it charges husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church. This is further expressed in Colossians 3:18-19.

        It often falls to the wife to start the cycle of love and honor. Why is it our responsibility as wives? Why is it not the man’s job to initiate this? I believe it is because, as women, it is easier for us to be soft, open and inviting. Men are taught to be strong providers; therefore, we must be the soft landing place. We can provide the gentle comfort and support that a weary man desires after a long day of providing for his family. 1 Peter 3:1-2 encourages wives to submit to their husbands in such a way that, if they are non-believers, the husbands will be won over by their wives’ behavior without any words to convince them.

        In my own marriage, I have found that my husband is the most loving and sweet towards me when I honor his authority. When I disagree with him respectfully, I notice a difference in his response to me as compared to when I contradict him harshly. He has told me that when I respect him, it makes him feel secure, which helps him to confidently make decisions. My favorite phrase in conflict is, “I will support your decision, even if I don’t agree.” When we respect our men, they are assured that their family will stand together, and it gives them the courage to be the leader and make tough decisions.

Empowerment

My husband and I just had a baby about a month ago.  There seems to be a healthy kind of empowerment that comes to a woman for giving birth.  It has been said by a mother describing it after giving birth: “You feel like you can do anything.”  Then there’s the unhealthy kind of empowerment where a mother will nag the father or go to extremes in telling him what to do, almost being the head of the house.  The “anything” described by the woman above should be good things, godly things…like the empowerment to love the child, and love the husband more than ever.

Something that keeps the unhealthy empowerment from building is the mother’s ability to overlook or ignore what could build pride, such as all the work she did in labor.  When you do something good, it is better to see it as something overlooked, rather than to keep thinking about how wonderful it was what you did.  If you can overlook it, it calms down your pride and is quite freeing from the unhealthy type of empowerment.

A mother after giving birth who can still think of others beyond herself is a valuable lady.  It is quite unselfish of her to think of her husband, who didn’t do the birth labor and who didn’t have the amazing experience from pregnancy to birth in a day or however long the labor is.  It is easy to overlook all others when pride could sneak in after a great accomplishment.  But something that could help you in your relationship with your husband in such a situation is to imagine switching the roles for a minute but in a different situation that can be used to understand.  You have a normal week.  You do the things you normally do on each day.  Your husband has a normal week, too.  He has been busy…but one of those days, he has a chance to go to the gym after work or spend time on your family’s exercise machine for a good hour.  He is so proud of his worked up muscles and wants you to say something about it.  How it is for a husband after the wife goes through labor is the normal week as far as she went through the labor, but he didn’t.  You can put yourself in your husband’s shoes about your labor experiences.  Do not expect him to almost “put you on a pedestal” for your amazing work… and you can keep from expecting it by realizing it’s easy to overlook.  Realize that the pride and what could lead to negative empowerment could be overlooked if you just think about others.  

What a Husband Needs Help With

There are many things a husband needs a wife for, needs help with.  The most important reason and goal behind doing all these things that a wife should have as a motive is thinking about him.  A husband needs a wife to keep his house clean, cook his meals well, keep a budget, and take care of his health.  Keeping a house clean is easy when I use the guide I placed on the fridge next to the menu planner.  I feel I can accomplish what needs to be accomplished at a manageable, non-overbearing pace.  I have wanted to cook better lately, and I know whatever it takes to gather recipes and record the needed items on a grocery shopping list can be done.  Before I was married, I had educational training from a couple different sources on budgeting.  I have desired for a while in our marriage to put the teaching into practice.  Slowly, some things are coming together which are allowing me to come along beside him in this way.  While it is in the process of coming together, I have a handy file folder where I have designated a place for receipts gathered after items are purchased for the current month.  Taking care of my husband’s health is a joy, as I feel it is one of the top ways to love him, wanting him to live a good, long life.