An Interesting Week Thus Far

I don't speak about my faith much on my blog because honestly that's just not something I usually discuss here. I prefer to stick to other topics. However, this will be a post that touches on my faith as a christian. If that's not your cup of tea, just click on to the next blog in your list today!

This week has just been a surprise for me. I started off the week just really wanting to get back to where we left off with DD and continue to progress with this new dynamic. I've also started reading more and through a recommendation found the book "For Married Women Only" by Tony Evans. Normally I steer clear of bible based books and I don't think I'll go into why. That would be a really long post! However, I figured this book would help me to get into a submissive mindset.

The book is a short read. The author made his points quickly and clearly without a lot of fluff. I really liked that because it was clear exactly what he was saying. While there were several good points in the book, the one that I took away is this. When women try to lead in their marriage and take over, it gets in the way of God trying to work on our husbands. Now a person may agree or disagree with this and hey, different strokes for different folks. For me, this was personally meaningful. I've spent so much time and emotional energy trying to direct my husband into the "right" ways of doing, living, being, etc...I'm exhausted from it all! It's been too much for me to try to direct our family, push him where I think he should go, as well as take care of my own personal needs. So perhaps I should just submit and get out of God's way.

Here's a conversation that my husband initiated while I was reading this book, which he did not know I was reading as it's on my Kindle and I hadn't bothered to say anything about it. "I think we should go back to church. I may not always be able to join you because of school, but you should go. I know you need it." Well, we had gone around and around about this in the past. It's not that he's anti-church or anything, but there were some issues that I won't go into regarding church. He went on to say "I know you get a lot out of being at [specific church] and you really need it. I want you to go back and I may even join you and the boys when I'm able to."

I was stunned by that conversation as it came out of the blue. I have not brought up the issue in awhile. Anyways, after finishing the book yesterday. I decided to post something online. My husband has worked so hard passing exams, juggling school, a job, children, a wife, and everything else life throws at him. So I decided to take a moment and thank him publicly. Except I didn't use the words that I as a woman would use and have used in the past, such as "He's awesome!", "I love him so much!" or "I'm proud of how hard he works." Those are surely beautiful sentiments and most men would be happy to receive them, but I wanted to go beyond that. I wanted to use language that would speak to him as a man, so the words I chose were "I am honored to have Tom for a husband." I went on for a little bit to discuss why. My husband was obviously touched by my words and the public praise he received.

I wasn't really thinking about the post today when the phone rang. It was an elderly lady from the church we discussed earlier in the week. She's one of the kindest older women I know and cares deeply for people she knows. I hadn't heard from her in a very long time. She had no way of knowing that my husband had just decided we'd come back to the church. She called to compliment me on my post that she saw. She went on to say that she doesn't often see that kind of respect coming from a wife to her husband and she thinks it's really wonderful that I'm able to be respectful of my husband. I was floored. If only she could be a fly on the wall and see my day to day struggles with this! Then she said that we'd been prayed for at church last week.

I'm not one to get the heeby jeebies about things that are likely coincidental, but having just read that book about submitting and getting out of the way and having my husband out of the blue decide I should take the boys back to church and then being contacted by someone I admire in that church certainly gives cause to wonder if God can be intimately involved in a marriage. I'm kind of at a loss as to how this could have happened or how to interpret it, but it also fills me with hope and optimism for things to come with my marriage and with DD.

Anyways, I thought this was too good of a story not to share!