Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 20

June 6: Accountability

God has built accountability into the very nature of the world. Consider, for example, what happens when you leave home for almost two weeks in the late spring. I know about this because I just got home two days ago. Do you think my garden is holding me responsible for the state it is in? Yes, indeed, it is. The weeds are a mile high for all the world to see. No pretending who has not been on duty or what has been going on while I was away.

Weeds are just one example of how God holds us accountable, but we can learn some important lessons about our Christian life by digging around in the garden. We reap what we sow. If we neglect our spiritual life and become distracted, we may hope no one notices for a while, but sooner or later it will come out. It always does. If we go ahead and just plant some nasties in our garden on purpose (which is what sin really is), how much more are we to blame for the state of our souls.

God has given us some ground to steward. You may have a little tiny garden you are cultivating, or you may have extensive grounds. Either way, you’ll be called upon to give an account for the state of things. God gives us the means to keep the weeds out: repentance and faith pull out the weeds and the Holy Spirit plants the fruit.

Sometimes you may feel so overwhelmed by the extent of the weeds that you’d rather shut the curtains and pretend you can’t see them.  You may not know how to begin or where to start. But God does. He is in charge of our sanctification, and He brings things to light so that we can repent and believe and work on tending the fruit. It makes so much more sense to get that ugly weed dealt with now before it requires a backhoe to remove.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).

Your mom may be able to tell you are not doing well by the state of your room. Your husband may notice you are a little moody. But our God knows our hearts. He provides the ultimate accountability. Not only does He hold us responsible for our sins, He provides the way out of them through forgiveness.

 

June 2: Vulnerability Part 2 (2 Corinthians 12:9)

 

 

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

 

Today we will look at another angle of vulnerability – the willingness to truly not be ashamed of our weakness. This is what is often thought of as vulnerability. The willingness to share your own weaknesses – to not build up a wall of pretend around yourself.

But this is truly tricky business, and I’d like to point out the big things that I think we so often mess up when we are trying to do this. First of all, this passage makes clear the point of glorying in your infirmities. So that the power of Christ may rest upon you. In other words, so that you may no longer be infirm. This is not a static situation. Our weakness is perfect for His strength. But that means that it is no longer weakness. So the Christian does not glory in the weakness all by itself – but we are free to glory in our weakness in the context of His strength.

Lets imagine a little vulnerability testing ground – a few ladies gathered around a table somewhere. What often happens is that one woman hauls out her pet sin and slaps it on the table right on top of the coffee cake. The other women may jump, whispering among themselves to cross her off the guest list.   They may look away with tears in their eyes, they may check to make sure that their own little nasty is safely squirreled away still, or they may say, “I’m so glad you brought this up – I have my own bathtub hairball in my purse right here that I have been wanting to bring out.”

What I would like to make clear is that none of these reactions are Christian, but all of them are common. We can be so thrown off by this kind of sin surprise party that we scramble around and end up completely confused. We are so afraid of saying something that might be construed as self-righteous, or proud. We are afraid of looking like maybe we sinned that way once too, we are afraid to have everyone laughing at us and saying, “You always think you have the answers!”

Now this is something that I hate more than a lot of things. I do not think that I have all the answers in my private little brain, and neither should you. But hello. WE have all the answers that we can ever need. Sin can be confessed. We can be forgiven. The righteousness of Christ has been applied to us. There is no situation so tangled that God cannot heal it. What I really want to know is where we all get off acting like this little struggle of ours – this little pet of having decided that we no longer love our husband, or the porn habit that is sneaking in, or the fact that we decided that we don’t like being a mom, or that we have gotten ourselves addicted to pain meds – where do we get off acting like these things are too big for God?

The honest truth is that there are times when we prefer our weakness to His strength. We lie to ourselves about the grandeur of our own sin. And once we have really started to believe it to be really important, we give it a little coming out party.

Christians must be comfortable with their own weakness, but only because in our weakness His strength is perfected. Our weakness is not our God. Other people’s weakness must not be our God either. We worship a God of strength. A God of righteousness. A God of healing. We are not to be comfortable with weakness for it’s own sake, in a state of not being transformed by anything. Our weakness is part of a wonderful story – a story about His strength. This means that Christians should never be comfortable with unconfessed sin, with treasured resentments, or with a proud spirit.

If sin was manure, a Christian can shovel like no one else. We are not to be the frilly city girl who runs away from the barn to get her smelling salts. But many people act like this is the only distinction – the person who is afraid of manure and the person who isn’t. But the truth is that there is a third, remarkably common way to behave around sin. This is the way of  lying down in the manure to better make fun of the stupid girls who seem afraid of it. That is also not the way to address sin.

Now if you are the woman in your muck boots standing at the ready, when someone shows you a big pile of manure somewhere that they thought was secret, and probably immoveable, you are in an able position to help. This is what we do with this. Here, watch. Try this. Shovel. Did you know what God does with this?! Do you know the story of how our horrible messes are part of the glory of His strength? Stand up! Let go of it! Let His strength transform your weakness. Let the power of Christ rest upon you.

Being vulnerable and willing to help your friends means being willing to help your friends deal with their problems. It is not about sitting around and unveiling sins to each other, because what possible good could that do any of us? We are Christians. We are willing to labor alongside each other in the fight against sin. We have work to do.

 

 

May 30: Vulnerability, Part 1

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

I’d like to spend a few days covering the big topic of Christian “vulnerability”, which has in recent years come to almost mean “cool” among Christians. Often times Christians are swinging out of some environment where they felt like no one was honest ever. No one mentioned that they themselves might sin at times. Everyone pretended that they too lived in the world of Thomas Kinkade, where there are no garbage days, or vomit, or headaches, or remodels that leave your thatched roof cottage with a construction dumpster out front and tarps all over the roof for three years.

This is an understandable response. What are the people of God doing pretending? Why would we act like we are strong, and perfect? What is with pretending that we have our act together? This becomes especially difficult if you yourself are struggling. You need someone to say, “This is normal. This is what it is like for all of us. You aren’t alone.” But when you look around the church you see a lot of people that you would rather die than tell about your problems. They all look happy. It doesn’t seem like they have a struggling marriage. None of these ladies look like they ever had an abortion. She is never tempted to complain. Look at her smiling at that snotty kid. These people cannot be real. If I told anyone about my problems, they would pull up the hem of their colonial re-enactment gown and  and flee from me forthwith.

Now a number of different exciting situations come out of this kind of problem.  The first angle that I’d like to cover on this whole topic is the accusations. Because often when this sort of thing happens to us, we start brainstorming for answers and frequently come to the conclusion that all these people are fake and their religion is not real. Not real like mine. Look at them being fakers. What are we going to do about this?!

When you see a follower of Christ, who you believe has some level of “fake-ness”, what are you doing about it? If you feel that it is clear that the plastic smile is there to cover up a hurting marriage, why are you standing and pointing? What possible Christian reason could you have for wanting to expose this person as a charade? Are you reaching out to them? Are you looking for ways to show mercy to them? Are you lifting them up in your prayers, asking God to pour out His grace on them? Are you asking Him to make His strength perfect in their weakness?

Far more often you will find Christians open air preaching about the cover up jobs they believe other Christians are perpetrating. We point fingers. We sneer. We confer amongst ourselves to come to the conclusion that the image they are projecting is, in fact, impossible. Really? To what end?

Imagine that we are all in one of the gospel stories, walking behind Jesus. Imagine bringing this concern to him. “Lord, Lord! Stop! Christine thinks she has it all together! She thinks that she is a good mom! She thinks that she knows it all about marriage! Lord! Stop her! And she keeps hanging out with other ladies who look like they think they have it all together! Stop them, Lord!”

What do you actually think would come of this? What do you think Jesus would say about this? He would probably ask you why you care. You would probably camouflage the envy with worry about how this person is making the church look. Look at what they are doing to the evangelistic cause, Lord. Look at how she is making other moms feel bad about themselves.

And Jesus said, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow me.” (John 21:23)

If you are following Christ, what is that to you? So the next time you feel annoyed or angered at someone who you feel is not being vulnerable or real, imagine yourself bringing that concern to the Lord. Then actually do it. But be prepared for the answer that He will have for you. What is that to you? You follow me.

 

 

 

The Good Nightie Night!

One of the really great things about my life is that I have four daughters. Count ‘em, four. That’s a lot of little hairdos, and purses, and doll clothes, and chapstick. It’s a lot of wonderful. But one thing that cannot be denied is that it is also seriously difficult to sew for them. Want to make Easter dresses? Just start at Thanksgiving. They are so fun to sew for, and they love it so much. But it is so hard to make that much of anything. Combine that with my love of cozy jammies for all and you have a problem.

To me, clean cozy jammies are one of the greatest things about being little. Because no one else really appreciates them but you. It isn’t about family photos or church appearances. Clean jammies say, “Mama loves you” like almost nothing else. Wait thats totally not true. Tons of things say that. Tons of things shout that, but jammies whisper it? Whatever. The point is – I like jammies, and I like my kids to have cute ones.

Needless to say, most of the time they don’t. We have more than our fair share of halves of jammie sets of yore lingering on and handed down to whoever claims them. We have people wandering through in outgrown undershirts with too tight of leggings. But my point here is that we try to not have that. We aim higher.

One of my little standby solutions through the years has been the t-shirt nightie. I make them, so it is very personal and loving. They take about 4 minutes total, even when everyone breathes over your shoulder the whole time, so they are also realistic. They are cute! The girls love them to bits. When they get taller and taller they pair beautifully with a pair of random pajama bottoms that have somehow snuck through all the purges. And guess what?! They cost hardly anything (I have no trouble finding cute pajamas for my girls, but when you are shopping for four and everyone needs more than one pair, and each pair is $25 the tender beauty of a mother’s love as manifested in cute jammies gets too costly to matter anymore).

I buy the t-shirts at Michaels, and they go on sale very regularly. I saw them down to 5/ $10 for Memorial Day. If your girls are very tall they will need two t-shirts per nightie. I’d say starting around a size 6-7 you might want a little extra length.  I go with contrasting colors. I have settled on the adult large as the most flexible size. All my girls, from a size 3T to a 12 wear ones that start as adult large. You will also need some fold-over elastic. I buy mine in the cloth diapering section of JoAnn’s. It comes in all kinds of cute colors and is super soft and great to work with.

So having chosen which tee you are going to use for the main body of the nightie (for the one pictured I used navy), lay it out on your table and cut the whole neck off. About two inches from the sleeve seam, in a gentle scoop across. Like so:

 

Now – If you need to lengthen the nightie, cut the body off of another colored shirt (green in the one pictured). Then simply pin the tube of the body of the second shirt onto the body of the first. I let the hem of the main color be on the outside, so I can sew them together using the stitches of the hem as a guideline. Because I am always in a hurry on these, I always use some random color of thread that contrasts. That way it looks  a little bit intentional, even if your stitching wobbles all over the place like mine, and you don’t have to bother with rethreading.  At this phase, sew them together. You can tell I threw in a little zig zag there, because this was before all the kids started breathing on my neck and climbing on the back of my chair (you know who you are, Blaire).

Now you can throw on whatever extra embellishments you want. I used the back of an outgrown t-shirt of Blaire’s to make a book sized pocket for Lina. We threw in a little extra red heart. Just top stitch, because with cotton knits it will not unravel. Now for the neck. This is where I did not take any pictures  because I had way too many helpers at this juncture. But – you will take a length of elastic that is about an inch or so shorter than you want the neck to be when all is said and done. Right sides together (elastic only), sew the ends together. You should have a loop about the size of a neck hole.

If you have never worked with this elastic, it is quite simple. It folds in half really easily. I put one pin on each shoulder of the neck opening, just to mark the half way point. Now start sewing a top stitch along the elastic – stretching it out as you go and tucking the loose cut end of the tee shirt into it. Keeping an eye on the half-way point to make sure you can fit it all in. Just sew the loop all the way around. There you go. A gathered neck! The little yellow bow I put on this is just a strip of a yellow tee – about an inch wide, pulled on each end so it rolls into a tube. Tie it in a bow, and tack it on. Voila! A nightie!

 

May 23: Finishing the Tour

 

The Fellowship Hall: Wrapping up my little walk through the church building, we must visit the fellowship hall (if you are lucky enough to have one) or where ever you visit after the worship service. This is another opportunity for hospitality: visiting new comers, introducing yourself, and showing your children how to be friendly. I have sometimes (though not often enough) prayed ahead of time that God would lead me to the right people and use my visiting to be fruitful. I don’t know who I should talk to. It is tempting to stick with family or close friends (not that we have to avoid them!) and not exert myself to “work the room.”  We have to think about what it must be like for the people who don’t know anyone, and we need to find them and welcome them.  There may be regular members who need encouragement or just a friendly greeting. Remember, this is my life for yours. This time is to be given away for others.

Just as I mentioned earlier about the mothers’ room, this is not a good time for the soapbox, pushing or selling your methods or opinions or products on others. We fellowship around Christ. We should keep a high tone and try not to settle into small talk.

The Kitchen: The kitchen is for feeding people, serving people, and working shoulder to shoulder with other women in the congregation. You might be putting food together for a funeral. Feeding people is a means of extending comfort and strength and love. It might be a wedding, and the food is a part of the celebration. What ever the occasion, we don’t want to bring in “Martha” attitudes of fussing over how others are not serving (or not serving our way); and we don’t want to be a “Mary” either, letting the burden fall to others. Don’t let the same two church ladies be overworked. Join in! And just another comment here: don’t dump too much responsibility on your daughters by saddling them with childcare when they would rather be participating in the event. Be wise about how much you expect out of your older daughters.

The dumpster: Finally, let’s just fill the dumpster up with all the unwanted guests: bad attitudes, criticisms, competitions, envy, grumbling, complaining, anger, covetousness, lust, and the rest of those baddies.

Women have always carried a lot of weight in the church, not in leading and preaching, but in a helping role. Romans 16  lists some of the women who were doing some heavy lifting: Phoebe was a helper of many; Priscilla risked her neck  for the church; Mary bestowed much labor. Women keep the place running on all cylinders. At the same time, women can stir up trouble  as well. Trouble making should go in the dumpster. Paul says to “note those who cause division and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them” (Romans 16:17).

What a blessing to have a church body. We should never take it for granted, but be good stewards of the great privilege of corporate worship.

May 22: Do unto Husbands: (Communication part 4)

The golden rule is the cute nickname that we have given Matthew 7:12. “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

A little later in Matthew (22:37), this is brought up again with even stronger language,

“Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Now both of these are great ideas. They are theoretically profound, and we can see an occasional application to our lives. But we like to leave them out there at a little distance. We do not love to bring them all the way into our lives, into our homes, and into our petty little problems.

This series on communication has been an effort to bring these broad, sweeping statements into the places in our lives where we might be tempted to think that Scripture does not directly speak. Today I’d like to bring it into the very big issue of petty domestic strife.

Many of us are homemakers – we have embraced our calling to be wives and mothers who prioritize the home. Now the temptations that we face in our daily lives are sometimes to not value our work, or to wish we were elsewhere. But other times, and far more often for women who are completely sold on their role in the home, our temptations are to value our work too much, and to wish everyone else was elsewhere. Here are a few examples, meant to be extreme, that should communicate what I mean.

Let’s say your husband just cannot remember to use the hamper. You find his socks strewn. You find pants with a belt still in them crumpled on the floor. So you decide that this is just really not responsible behavior. You show him the hamper plan again, with strain in your voice. Then the next day, there it is again. Socks on the floor in the hall. So you feel completely justified in popping off, “How can you not see this? How do you not realize that I am picking up after you? I already am cleaning up after the kids all day long, do I have to follow you around too?” Chances are pretty good that your husband will feel pretty bad. Shoot. He totally spaced that again. You go off on a binge of feeling unloved and under appreciated.

You feel like he is using your time without paying attention. He is simply counting on your efforts, and not even taking the time to notice what it is costing you. Well lets flip this around to a situation where a husband responded in exactly the same kind of way. Let’s look at a place where you might be using his work a little absent mindedly, not noticing what you are doing. Lets look at what it would be like to be treated the way you regularly treat him.

You walk into the kitchen to find your husband pulling outdated food out of the fridge. You know – that end of a block of cheese that turned into an eraser. The wilty lettuce. The bag of leftovers that didn’t get eaten. The sour cream that has a little black spot in the lid. Lets say he is pulling all these out and lining them up on the counter. Every time he finds something else he sighs profusely and looks at you with despair. Then he points at all this waste and says, ” Do you think that this is why I work so hard? So you can waste my paycheck on food that we won’t eat? Do you think I have nothing better to do with this money than sit around and see how you waste it? Try a little harder, honey. I mean, come on! This is probably almost $10 worth of wasted food! Why would you do this to me? What were you thinking when you let this sour cream go bad? huh? Where you just not thinking of me at all? Were you assuming that I just LIKE to go to work so it doesn’t matter what you do with the money?”

Now I hope that this is appalling to you. Because you know as well as I do that there are 400 million reasons that you could have forgotten about the existence of the sour cream, and none of them were malicious. Sometimes thing like this happens. Sometimes we miss stuff. Sometimes you were so busy taking care of children that you completely missed the fact that you meant to make a salad. This is the kind of  normal waste that has to happen around life, just the like the socks on the floor are the normal kinds of small mistakes that go down where people live.

Lets say you finally got the house together – and it took a lot of work. And you might be sore tomorrow. Then your husband doesn’t notice anything. And you feel all upset that he doesn’t care. Or even worse, he notices the few things that you did not get to. Well – how do you respond when he brings home a paycheck? Do you immediately talk about what you can’t afford? Do you ignore it totally and just press on with your life? Or do you thank him for his hard work? Do you encourage him? Do you look for the little things that he does for you and enjoy them? Or are you always pointing at what hasn’t been done? When he gets paid do you say, rather stinkily, “finally.”?

Now of course we could go on all day about this kind of thing. For every common annoyance there is a flip side. There is a way in which you are probably doing the exact same thing. Find the way in which you are doing it, and correct that. Take the beam out of your own eye before you bring up the socks in his. Look hard for the ways in which you expect him to value your time in a way that you do not value his. And then let go of it. Let go of your time, your work, your priorities.

The happiest marriage in the world is not happy because there was nothing to resent. It is happy because the giving,  forgiveness, love, and respect  that are cultivated are like citronella plants to the mosquitos of  bitterness and resentment. When you are loving the Lord God with all your heart, and soul, and mind, loving your neighbor as yourself just rolls out naturally. We are all fallen. We all fall short. We will never run out of things to resent each other for, just as God will never run out of things to forgive us for. So love God with everything, and see your neighbor as exactly what he is – just like you.

May 21: The Gates of Zion

The Sanctuary

“The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob” (Psalm 87:2).

God loves our homes (the dwellings of Jacob), but He loves our corporate worship (the gates of Zion) more. As we come to worship Him on Sunday, our demeanor should be one of reverence for God, love for His Word, and a holy desire to worship Him corporately with His people. This is the high point of the week, the most important thing we do. We are created to worship our Creator, and this is when we are most like what we are created to be.

Sometimes moms can create competition between the “dwellings of Jacob” and the “gates of Zion.” Perhaps your husband is serving on a committee that conflicts with family night, or you think your family worship at home is more important than Sunday morning. If that is the case, you are more likely to let things interfere with Sunday than with weekly family activities. Don’t be territorial about your family or jealous of time given to the church. Those are definitely unwanted guests. Yes, we are to gather as families around God’s Word during the week. These are what my husband likes to compare to football practices during the week. However, Sunday morning is game day. It would be foolish to skip the game because your practices were so good! God loves it when we gather together to worship Him.

When we come to the sanctuary, we don’t want to let our opinions outrank God’s. Does He like the music? Did He like the sermon? That is far more important than whether we liked it. Put distraction and petty criticism on the unwanted guest list, and worship the Lord with your whole heart.

The Offering Bucket

“Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples, give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts. Oh worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth” (Psalm 96:7-9).

When it comes to the tithe, the unwanted guest would be miserliness. I’ve heard some people say they don’t make enough money to tithe, and I’ve heard others say they make too much to tithe. Remember that he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Your tithe part of your worship. Bring an offering! Galatians 6:6 says, “Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches.” This is God’s financial program for the church. The tithe is for the church, and though it is good to support missionary friends and family, save some for the offering, even if it is a widow’s mite.

May 20: A Walk Through the Church

I recently gave a little talk to a ladies’ group who had just read My Life for Yours which is a walk through the rooms in the home. They asked for a talk that would relate to the book, so I did a walk through the church. I will break it up into a few short posts.

“Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand”  (Psalm 95:6).

As we walk through the rooms in the church, let’s consider our duties in each room as well as the unwanted guests who may sometimes barge in. First before we get into the church proper, we have to park the car. So let’s start in the parking lot. Even here we have to compose our hearts and not get annoyed that someone took our favorite spot. Envy, competition, and criticism are the unwanted guests in every room, but they can even show up here in the parking lot as you see who’s late, who’s early, or whose family is in or out of order. Leave those unwanted guests outside.

Most churches have a foyer, and if you are a church member, you share “ownership” which means you share in the hostess duties at church.  Even if you are not the official “greeter,” you can still welcome people and introduce yourself to the visitors. The unwanted guests her are shyness, rudeness, or thinking someone else will do it. If we are going to live for others, that means pushing through, especially if it gets us out of our “comfort zone.” Extend yourself to others. It’s much better for you to feel awkward than for the visitors feel awkward. Make it your mission to put them at ease.

The pastor’s office/study is probably not on your route Sunday morning, but let’s just visit it briefly here. Consider your pastor. Have you prayed for him this week? Are you praying regularly for his sermon preparation and delivery? If not, consider adding him to your prayers. He needs it! Then when you arrive Sunday morning, you will get the sermon you have been praying for all week. Unwanted guests here would be prayerlessness and inattentiveness. Every preacher likes a congregation full of people who are engaged and listening, asking questions and reading their Bibles. Don’t be the complainer who says you just aren’t being fed. As my daughter so aptly put it, there is a difference between not being fed and being on a hunger strike.

May 15: Communication Part 3

Isn’t it brilliant that I got behind on devotionals during a series on communication? The irony of it all…. just didn’t want you to miss that!

So now that we have talked about taking responsibility for your half of the communicating, even when you are the needy one, I’d like to address this whole topic of being the needy one.

Sometimes we really have a reason to be down. Sometimes we are struggling through some hard providences, or some difficult people, or we haven’t talked to an adult in 12 days (or just since 7 a.m. which can feel the same). Sometimes we are pregnant and exhausted, or  stretched thin and feeling like quitting. Sometimes you have needs. No wait. Always you have needs. Everyone. All of us. All the time. Your husband too.

As women we like to talk about our feelings – sometimes maybe we feel them more, but often times just because talking about the way we feel is vulnerable, and being vulnerable is intimate. So talking through the problems that you are having is a way to get your husband’s attention. If he engages in the conversation with you about your feelings, you will feel valued. You will feel loved, and that is all as it should be. Talking about how you are feeling and the many nuances thereof can be very encouraging, and it can also be a trap.

Sometimes, possibly when the discussion of how you are feeling has just gone on too long, (or possibly when your husband is himself tired and had a day and the co-workers may have been adults but they acted like children),  your husband might move to action. He might say something like, “OK then, if that is how you feel, let’s get a housecleaner.” And you feel tempted to say, “You don’t love me anymore! You would never imply that I don’t keep the house clean if you knew how hard I was working!” or something equally stupid and unjustified.

Let’s break this down a little. Vulnerability is an important part of marriage. It is a good thing. But it is not the whole thing. Intimacy is not the whole of marriage. Whether that intimacy is physical (like many men default to), or emotional like many women default to, it is not the whole picture. God made us to be companions. There are two parts of marriage – the parts where you face each other, and the parts where you together turn, shoulder to shoulder, and  face the world. There are tasks. There are problems. There are things to do – and doing them alongside each other is the whole point. Being his helper is what you were made for. Those phases of looking into each other’s eyes are wonderful – but they are incomplete without moving on from them.

This is important. It may not seem so terribly important, but it is. When your husband is done talking to you about how you feel, and is instead turning to action, follow him. Be done. Move on. We know how to throw an emotional temper tantrum that can make you both believe that he is not being a good husband. But what about you?  What happened to his companion? Did she get so caught up in herself that she was unable to help him? Did she turn into an accuser? Was she trying to oppress him back into yet another fireside heart to heart?

As women we need to see that when our husbands turn away from diagramming emotional sentences, asking you to come write a story with him, that it is a different kind of intimacy. It is the intimacy of moving on together. The intimacy of being done talking about it, and on to doing it.

I’m certainly not saying that men never sin or fall short in talking with their wives. But the truth is that we do just as often. We fail to follow through on the other half of what we are doing together. We fail to grow in learning how to speak his language – how to befriend him in what he needs.

What Every Grandma Loves

My granddaughter Lina whipped up this little bouquet for me yesterday while playing in my yard. I love the grass tied in a knot around the little flowers. And I love the little hands that brought it.