Love and Respect

     The title of this post is the title of the book we're going to use in a class on marriage we're getting ready to start.  The full title is "Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs".  I haven't actually studied the book yet (I'm getting ready to after this blog post), but the title really says a lot.  Because it's so true.  Most women, if you ask them what they really need in a relationship, will say they want to feel loved.  That they want their husband to listen to them, like what they're saying really matters, even if it's about the 50th dirty diaper they've changed that day.  Most men, if asked the same thing, want to feel respected...they want to feel like their wives need them and appreciate them.  That when they go spend their entire day hard at work to provide for their family, even when they would just rather sleep in, it's not going unnoticed.  That, when they come home from a particularly hard day at work, and come to you for comfort, you stop and really listen.  You don't, as soon as they finish speaking, hand them the baby for a diaper change and then rattle off what's gone wrong about your day.  Not that a hard day for you is unimportant, but sometimes we need to put those things aside for a bit for the sake of our spouse. If we do this when our husbands really need it, I guarantee they are going to do the same for you when you've had a particularly awful day.  And believe me ladies, I am SO guilty of this one.  I can't tell you how many times I have done this very thing.  And not only done it, but all the while thinking to myself "He thinks HE had a hard day??  Well, I'm going to prove to him who really had a bad day...by the end of the night he'll think twice before he complains to me about work again."  Because really, what good does that do?  It just makes us like the woman of Proverbs 27:15-" A continual dripping on a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike."  I don't know about you, but that is not what I want to be!

     For men and women alike, the simple solution is this.....make God first in your marriage and lives, and everything will fall into place.  If you are placing God where He belongs in your life, then your marriage will naturally improve.  If you are praying like you should, then you will pray together.  If you are studying like you should, you will study together.  If you are worshiping like you should, you will worship together.  If you are following God's will in parenting, you will present a unified front when raising your children.  If your life is more godly, your marriage will be more godly.  You will me more fulfilled and content in life.  And you will be more fulfilled and content in your marriage.  The only way we can be truly fulfilled in life is through Christ.  I am writing this tonight because this is a lesson I so badly need to learn.  I try so many different things to make my life what it is that I think I want it to be.  But I'm always going about it the wrong way.  If we truly give our lives over to Christ, we will have blessings in abundance.  This is something I am wanting desperately needing to work on.  Pray for me that I will, please.  :)  We spend so much time chasing our dreams, we forget about what really is the most important at the heart of it all.  Our souls.  I'm going to ask God to forgive me for all the time I've wasted in my life worrying about the unimportant, and move on to the better things.  Because when it's all said and done, a home with Him in heaven is all that matters.  And our journey there begins in our earthly home.  How we live the life we are given here will impact whether or not we have eternal life with Him.  Let's make the best of it, and try to help win as many souls to His kingdom as we can along the way.

"...that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,  that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—  to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:16-19

     And that's the end of my ramblings for tonight.  I hope it all made sense.....there was a lot on my mind, and I hope when it spilled out into print it didn't become one big, jumbled mess!