"So that no one will malign the word of God!"

Does your husband feel confident you love him? Does your husband feel free to always be himself around you both on good days and bad days? Does he feel inspired by you; does he feel relaxed around you?  Or, does he feel like he is always failing, always trying to keep up to impress you and always trying to find ways to make you happy? Questions that a wife should care enough to ask herself of a regular basis.

 To look at myself in the mirror and answer these questions honestly I know many times I fail. There are so many times I am sure that my actions towards my husband do not always show him love, they are not always kind and uplifting or encouraging. Many times I find myself degrading him, telling him what he did wrong and focusing on the things that I wish he would do better.  I say that I am just trying to help him become a better person. But in reality I just need to love him where he is and let God work his way into my husband’s heart. God has a nice way of convincing people where they need to grow and improve on their own, he doesn’t really need our help.

When reading through second Timothy this morning I got stuck on the following verse; 3-5 “likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to too much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.” This last part really stuck out to me. Even though I don’t have a ton of older women in my life encouraging me on a daily basis to be this way I still know that I need to be this way towards my husband and even my children. 

The goal and purpose of acting this way is actually at the end of the phrase, “so that no one will malign the word of God.”  Yah I had to look up malign just to make sure I understood the full meaning of this phrase.  Here are some other terms that came up when I googled the word; evil in nature, slander, defame.  So the meaning here is that we are to love our husbands so that those around us, including our children and husbands, will see Christ in a good and loving light from our actions.  That our actions and love and subjection to our husbands be honoring and glorifying to Christ so that it will not give those around us who do not know Christ a reason to slander our God or bad mouth him in anyway.

How cool is that! If we as Christian women constantly loved our husbands, stood beside them and were truly subject to them, showed much more self control than most of us do, were truly kind always, we would be awesome lights for Christ!  We are to start by loving our husbands whole heartedly. We are to love them even with the flaws we see in them, be submissive and care for them and our children.  Talk about a pretty easy mission for reaching others for Christ. To start with our actions towards our husbands to encourage them, lift them up, and pray for them daily without cutting them down and trying to do God’s job.  We are too be building them up to affirm them for who they are in Christ so that they know that just as much as we love them for who they are all the time, so does God.  Our pure love for our husbands comes only from the one who first loved us, but we must learn to love them with the same kind of love Christ has shown us!

Let's love our husbands with God's love so that we leave no room open to let others in this world slander our God!

Self worth as a stay at home mom

In a world where it is more common to be a working mom as a stay at home mom I can feel completely insignificant. The hardest year of my life was after I quit my job to stay home and be with my children. My oldest was 2 at the time and I was more than ready to stay home with him, hang out with him all day, relax, play, do educational stuff. Also keep my house in beautiful perfect order so when my husband came home from work each night there would be a perfect meal ready and waiting for him and all we had to do each night after dinner was sit and relax and enjoy each other’s company.  It was a hard year for me because there were so many things I didn’t understand about being a homemaker.  You don’t get training for this kind of a job, it’s a learn as you go and you better learn fast, hang on tight while praying your way through the day.

The dreams of playing on the floor with my one and only son, all while having a beautifully clean home with fresh cooked meals and fresh baked goods galore all while being pregnant, were in fact a dream.  In reality stay at home moms don’t have it easy like that at all. We don’t get to play all day and the idea of having a beautifully clean home with a 2 year old is an insane illusion. Clean a window and look back while you are cleaning the next one and he’s already finger printed it up the first one and possibly put his mouth all over it.  Cleaning is an endless chore.  At least when I worked out of the home no one was home to make it dirty 24/7 so it stayed clean a little longer.

But it wasn’t the endless cleaning battles I faced, or the fact that all the happy dreams of having a perfect life were not coming true it was also the inside battle that came along shortly after becoming a stay at home mom.  It was the feeling of self worth going down the drain. Needing to feel that I was just as important to the world as I was when I worked and brought in money to help support my family.  I had worked hard ever since I was 15 years old and now, now I didn’t make a dime and my hard work was hard to see as usually one room got cleaned the other one was getting destroyed all over again.  There wasn’t a lot to show for your hard days of work as a stay at home mom and it started to really wear on me. I couldn’t stand not being productive or at least looking like I had been unproductive.

So then I did this awesome thing to try and start feeling worthwhile. I started serving in every type of ministry opportunity that came my way. At least to the rest of the world, that seemed to look more lowly on the stay at home moms, this would look good. At least it looked like I did something again and the awesome part was I could do it for free and then it looked even better!  But the truth was that the more I did and volunteered for the unhappier I became.  The more I did the more I felt like I was jipping my kids. The more ministry opportunities I took on the less quality time I got to spend with my kids and my husband.

I know God has called me into ministry. I know that 100%.  Most who know me know that I have a huge desire to work with women’s ministry type programs. I also enjoy helping in kids ministry programs. I did my best to find ways to get involved in programs like this to help fill that void that I had to be involved and be important in the ministry of Christ; I needed a sense of self-worth.

The big problem with all this was that the more I got involved with those ministries the guiltier I felt regarding my personal life. Things just never seemed to go right at home. I was becoming extremely short tempered with my kids and soon with my husband. No one in my house was doing anything right in my eyes and the perfect home life I was striving for fell down the tubes and fast.

I had to really start praying as I didn’t understand. “God I know you called me to do women’s ministry, and help out in the church, but why is my life seem so rough so hard? Are you testing me am I doing something wrong. I just want to serve you.”  So many days I would privately pray this as I watched my home life become more of a struggle for me and for my husband and kids. I was so wrapped up in doing ministry for other people with the idea that I was doing it for God that I hadn’t looked at my own life with my family as my main ministry. I had not been the person at home that God wanted me to be.

I always thought that the dreams of being the perfect mom at home with a long long patience span, a great wife that ever adores and yes is even submissive to her husband was just in fact that, a dream. I thought it was something that was never going to happen, it didn’t really exist. However, I think it can exist. I think that the type of woman I dream of being, the type of life I dreamed of having for my family is actually a possibility and even something God desires for my life and the life of my family. I don’t mean that I would be a Stepford wife or anything like that, but I do believe that God desires me to be a wife and a mommy as my first ministry to the world and yes being happy may just be part of that.

If I can’t be supportive and helpful to my husband more often than I am then I am failing that ministry. If I can’t each day replicate the type of good Christian behavior that I should be showing to my children then I am failing that ministry as well. Honestly it’s hard. I am only human I would love for others to see me as something great and grand. But, more than the rest of the world, I care most deeply about my spouse and his ever growing faith and life and my children and their faith and future lives.  I have to take the time now while my children are young to teach them and show them the aspects of Jesus before it’s too late. I need to practice and work on my behaviors at home before they grow up and think more negatively about Christianity because of the twisted unloving ways that were not lived out in their home here.

I eventually stopped working in all ministries I had volunteered for and the worst part was at first I felt guilty. And then I looked at my home life. I am far from feeling guilty that I stepped back and listened to the voice inside my heart that told me my current ministry is to serve my family. The rest of the world will still be there when my kids were not so little and in need of so much of my love and attention.

My house, it’s still a wreck most days, I still feel like I can’t keep up with everything but my family, well even though it’s far from perfect and there are still good days and bad days, the good days far outweigh the bad days. It’s a process I am working on still. I am much happier severing along side with my husband and serving my babies and making sure they get the attention and love they need now than I was trying to serve the rest of the world only to feel important. I am important to the people who are most important to me and that is really all that matters. And I know that even though parts of me are super excited to move onto serving in other areas I know God has called me to I know that now is not that time and I am to embrace and enjoy the time and ministry he has called me to now.  I have a long way to go to be the perfect wife and mother but thankfully now I can at least enjoy the ride as I work to become the best I can be for the ministry I am in.

Please God through marriage-celebrating 5 years!

I am so excited for today! Today my husband and I are celebrating 5 years of marriage together. I know to some five years is no big deal. But to me five years is a big deal. Seriously, in today's world it feels like we have actually conquered something. With how I use to be 5 years ago it is also amazing to look back and see how much has changed. I know no matter how much Matt loved me when he married me there are times he never would have stayed married to me for this long without God helping to give him patience and wisdom to deal with me and all my weirdness and strange ways and stubbornness.
This isn't me writing to brag about five years of marriage, though I think any couple has a right to brag when they reach the mile stone of another year survived together, but I am writing to say that without us having both turned our lives over to Christ's direction a few years back and letting him rule our home we would have not made it to five years, at least not happily celebrating five years.
I find it so fun that just yesterday, the day before we marked 5 years of marriage under our belts, I picked up this amazing book to read called the Sacred Marriage. Such a great book! It has really caused me to take a look at not only myself but more at how I deal with my husband, and what being married and committed to my husband for the rest of my life should really mean.  Making it through the last five years has been great but part of me has worried that the next five years, because of who I am, would get boring.  I am so glad for the new perspective God has shown me through this book. My marriage to my husband is just as much of a service and mission to Christ's cause as witnessing can be.  God created Matt's and my marriage for a purpose and we made a promise to love and cherish each other in all phases and stages of life. My priority in my marriage is actually to emanate Christ, not just to my husband but, through our marriage may we show Christ love for the church to our children and those around us who are watching.
I am now a lot less nervous about becoming bored with the next five years but am looking forward to finding ways to enhance God's church through my marriage and also to find new ways each day to make my husband not only happy but also to help him keep growing in his own personal walk with God. This isn't just a goal to make it through the next five years. This is a goal to make it through life together and doing so in a holy, happy and honorable way that please God. There may be obstacles that come our way but I know they are to make us stronger together as a couple and closer to God so that through the struggles and the good times we can learn to properly show Christ's love for each other as Christ does for the church.

Finding joy in all my circumstances

Have you ever met someone that is happy all the time? The person that seems to be so happy that you would think they never had a bad day or ever had anything truly bad happen to them?  The person that is so happy that sometimes you are so jealous about their happiness and pure joy that you think it’s fake or you get irritated with them?  For me personally though I may seem irritated with someone like that, but actually it’s me being irritated with me not them. Deep down I wish I had their joy. When you ask them about their contentment they answer so honestly that they of course have bad days, and tempers and issues but you don’t believe them because they always seem so put together. But the other truth that they will tell you is the fact that they are so joyful with life in general because of the joy they get from Jesus.

For years this has bugged me. I mean truly to the depth of my core it’s bugged me. It’s almost that thought process of how come God loves them more than me that they are so content and I am not? The truth is I know Jesus, he is a part of my life isn’t he?  So why can’t I have that joy, that peace that same happiness that they have. And the answer is I can!

From the day I was born I was surrounded by “Christianity.” I pretty much grew up in a church as soon as I was brought home from the hospital. It was something I learned. I learned quickly at a very young age how to play the game. The game of pleasing my parents and the people in the church. I knew just the right things to say and do. I memorized scripture like it was nobody’s business. I had more verses memorized by the time I was in second grade than the average adult memorizes in their whole life. I was a pro at playing the game of “Christianity.” But when I looked around most of the people around me were doing the same thing. When in church on Sunday they played the part of a holy person and the rest of the week, unless surrounded by their Christian friends, they were no different than the rest of the world.  Most of them if they did have joy I found out were taking something on a regular basis to make them that way, little pills prescribed to help their anxiety, depression and other issues go away. So I went along with them all pretending on Sunday’s to be happy and full of Jesus love. I became one of the best Christian game players of them all.

But the truth of it all is that I never found the true contentment and happiness and joy that some Christians have actually shown.  It use to drive me nuts when missionaries would come to our church and talk and they were so excited and full of joy and all I was thinking was you people are nuts to be so happy you could die in the world you live in!  And then I would think things like maybe I should be a missionary so I can find that happiness too.  After all if I was a missionary then God would really love me more and give me joy. All I knew was I wanted what they had and I had no idea how on earth to get it.

After returning to the church a couple years ago and surrendering my life back to Christ it was so easy for me to start playing the game again. I got so frustrated with myself. I mean honestly I needed that real joy I craved it! On occasion I had it and in the beginning it was all real I had an inner peace most of the time. But soon playing the game took over.

  About a year ago I started meeting some lovely ladies in my church. And I mean they are lovely, not just in appearance but they have what I wanted so badly. They have the joy, that peace and they are truly content with their life. I started questioning again what it was that was so different about me to them. They were happy, their lives seemed perfect, and funny thing none of them are on drugs to make them happy.  These girls seemed to just have it all together and I LOVED IT!! Sure I can admit I was jealous of them all for being so happy, and honestly I think it was a righteous jealousy.  All of them are mommies with kids about the same ages as my little ones and at first I started thinking, oh they are so fake, no one is really that happy.  But they were, they really are that happy!  They are that joyful and they are that content with life! These are ladies that I look up to so much. They have pure Godly joy.  At first I thought yah it’s easy to have that kind of joy when your life is so perfect. But I started getting to know them. They did not have perfect lives at all they had struggles like cancer and I knew a couple of them as they went through miscarriages, something that honestly would have made me not to long ago question God and my relationship with him. But these girls still smiled and didn’t let their circumstances take away their joy.  These girls are seriously such a blessing to my life as they have shown that their joy doesn’t come in their circumstances but in the Lord. They aren’t perfect but they are real. They are the real deal and I love that I get to hang out with them all. They are the prime example to me of, “the joy of the Lord is my strength.”

The world tells me it's o.k to be negative and upset with things like my past and maybe even current circumstances I go through, but I don't want more excuses I just want pure, long lasting joy. I am still learning to keep the joy in my circumstances but I am learning also how to keep the joy no matter my circumstances.   It is not just ok to know that Jesus is there and he died for me but to embrace the fact that no matter what I do he is going to love me and accept me. But, in truth I knew this before what I also needed was to make time to have a real relationship with God.  It is really hard to know the Joy of the Lord when you don’t actually know him! I am still working on the getting to know God and trying to find joy no matter what is going on in my life or how stressful my day may appear. It’s not a fake thing anymore it’s learning to trust God knowing him and knowing that he can see me through every little detail of my day all I need to do is trust him and stay with an open communication with him.  I use to use every excuse under the sun, I have kids, when do I have time to do that? But the only way to keep a relationship strong and growing with love with anyone God or man is to work for it. If it’s really important to you to find joy you have to sometimes work for it and after a while the work doesn’t feel like work it feels more like a relaxing break you can get when talking with a friend over a cup of coffee.

Do Christians brainwash their kids?

So a while back I was sitting in a meeting with some wonderful Christian leaders and we got into a little discussion about our children and their faith. Someone said something about having children become Christians at such as young age as brain washing them and it wouldn't be sincere. I had to sit and think about it. I mean honestly it kind of makes sense to say something like that if you are trying to make little replicas of yourself.

But I’ve been thinking about this now off and on for the last few months ever since it happened because for me I need some serious clarity to my thoughts and how I really think we should be with our own children. If all I am doing is ‘brainwashing them” to believe as I do is that really right? We think of brainwashing someone like a negative thing. When in reality when you are brainwashing someone it is you repetitively insisting upon them your thoughts and beliefs in something hoping they will one day believe and think the exact same way.

So technically we brain wash our kids to learn their ABC’s right? We repeat it a thousand times and another thousand times again if we have to in order to make those letters stick.  We tell them how to count to 100 over and over and over again. Why? Because we believe that they have to know those basic facts in order to succeed at life. But, that is a belief most people have and it doesn’t go against the structure of our natural world.  The world where we don’t have to question the existence of letters and numbers and how they work because we know, after going through school ourselves, that these really are necessary to succeed in the future.

However, to me faith is the same thing. I am sure beyond a doubt of anything that my faith in God and his Son Jesus Christ is a necessity not just for this world but for all of eternity. I believe it with my whole being just as much as I believe that the ABC’s are a necessity for my children to graduate from high school and go on to succeed in their adult life some day.  So are we brain washing our kids? Call it whatever you want to but if you believe something without a shadow of a doubt aren’t you sure to try and tell not just your kids but also the world around you to convince them of the truths you know? 

 I know my children will end up making their own choices in life and what they believe in their future regarding God and Jesus I cannot control. But I can control the environment in which they are raised in so that when I get to heaven one day I do not have to be questioned by God as to why I didn’t try and raise my child with a sound Biblical background. At least I’ll know I tried my best to raise them to know God and fear and love him all at the same time.  If that is brainwashing my children then I guess that is what it is.  But to me it’s helping them grow up with a sound belief in the one thing I know as well as my ABC’s, that Jesus Christ is God and that we are to fear and respect and love him with our whole being. 

Thoughtful randomness from a 3 year old

Some days I am more stressed than others. But no matter how stressed out I may be my three year old never ceases to amaze me how sweet he is and how much the little words like thank you and I love you can mean so much and brighten up my day.

The other day I was having a pretty good day. I mean morning sickness was there and all but everything else was going pretty good.  And he says these cute random things where he is like, “mom I love you.” Or “Mom you are a good mom.”

And I’ve started to also notice his random statements like, “mom, thanks for…” he is always randomly finding something to thank me for these days. How sweet is that right? Ok so it makes me feel loved and warms my heart each time to know that he really does have thoughtful moments even so young. The random I love you’s from Alex are so much cuter to me when they aren’t put in his mind by anyone other than himself to say them. There are times I say I love you and he says “I love you too” but the times that really warm my heart are his own random thoughts.

But the other day it kind of hit me that his randomness is just what Jesus is looking for too. He doesn’t want just the “good morning, thanks for loving me please grant me a good day.”  He wants that random in the middle of the day thoughts of, “I love you.” Or “Thank you for…”  I don’t do very many random prayers that are about God they are usually about me, my family or my friends. I usually do random prayers when I read things on facebook that a friend is hurting or I hear something else and have a random prayer for that person or when I am feeling like I am getting to that breaking point as a mom and need more patients to get through my day. There is nothing wrong with praying for those things but the truth is I think sometimes God just enjoys hearing how thankful I am for His presents in my life and thankful for his love and that I love him too. There is nothing sweeter than knowing that someone loves you in return and appreciates the things big and small that you have given them and that randomly they think to tell you each day when you are least expecting it.  

Can I ever be a godly, amazing wife?

Sometimes life is just straight up hard. It’s hard to find ways to balance out the routines of life. Lately I have been really struggling with finding the balance I need for my kids and for my husband. I may be a stay at home mom but lately all I want to do is sleep, get sick and eat which makes me even more unable to motivate myself to find the perfect balance. But, even when I don’t have those things going on I have a hard time finding that perfect balance of getting stuff done, running errands, volunteering time and the like.

I know so many times I focus mostly on my kids. I worry that I need to spend more time with them. I worry that I am being too strict or too mean or sometimes too gentle. I want to find the balance in there for them and be the best mom I can be. I focus on this a lot. I read blogs, devotionals, and other people’s thoughts on good ways to be an ‘awesome’ mom to my kids.  Many times I even try to look up what the Bible says regarding children and raising them.

I know there is nothing wrong with that. But I am starting to realize that part of finding that perfect balance should also lie in finding ways to be the ‘awesome wife.’ I know since I have become a mom my poor husband many times gets put on the back burner so to speak so that I can focus my attention on being a good mom.  The reality of it is that I wouldn’t be a mom to any of my kids had I not married their father. 

Though being a mom is a super awesome and rewarding I think that being a wife could also end up being just as awesome and just as rewarding if not more so. I know God made marriage to be something so unique and special to be shared between us and yet most days I don’t even work on my marriage. I don’t look for ways to be a better wife. I don’t read blogs on marriage very often and I don’t do a ton of devotional stuff on my own to find out how to be a good wife.

I get so jealous when I hear guys talk about their wives and how awesome they think their wife is. They don’t even have to say those words there the guys that have been married for a few years and are still madly in love with their wife and know she is just straight up wonderful to them and every time they talk about her you know they think the world of her. It just oozes from their conversations whenever she comes up.  Or when reading the Bible and I read things like how Sarah was a woman of old who was a godly wife and was such a good woman, I get a little jealous but I think it’s in a good way. I don’t get that I dislike them feelings I get the, I want to be them jealousy problem. How are they so good at being a wonderful wife?  What are their secrets?  Don’t get me wrong I have heard my husband tell me thousands of times he thinks I am amazing and awesome but the truth is I know I could be so much better to him and for him than what I am.

So lately I have been searching to find ways to be more the way I think God intended me to be as a wife. I have a long way to go to be even close to some of the women in this world that I find to be godly Christian wives and great examples, but at least I think I am on the path to getting there. I have always desired to be like the woman found in Proverbs 31 but I guess I just thought it would come natural. In all honesty I know now it is going to take more than just a miraculous switch, it’s going to take a lot of work.  

There are three things I am really trying to work on remember to do to try and improve my marriage and make my husband happy and all around successful as much as I can help.

1)      Lift him up instead of tearing him down.  This means when we are in private as well as when I am discussing things about him with others. After all he is a great man and has so much talent and potential.  I am usually the one to find the faults and let him know what all of them are but instead of finding faults I need to find positives and help him work and focus on those. I am trying to encourage him in all aspects of his life.

2)      React slower. I am known for having a big mouth and a huge opinion and I am not one to usually keep it to myself for longer than a half a second.  This is far from easy for me but it’s something that I am trying to learn to do both for my life in general but also for my husband as the poor guy gets bombarded with this problem of mine more than anyone I know.

3)      When all else fails I use my children to help me out. I know that I want both of my boys to grow up and marry Godly wonderful women who adore them. So, I try to think of how I should set an example for the kind of wife they should look for in the future.

I know there are so many other ways to be a better more godly wife but this is where I start. I am not saying it’s perfect or fool proof because it’s not. But it does help to remain focused on knowing that I have set goals for myself to improve and grow in my marriage. I am hoping to some day when I die have God be proud of the legacy I left behind for other wives to follow. But, even if at the end the only person who ever cared was my husband I will still feel successful in having completed my job as his wife.