Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 251

5 Dangers of Saying No to Sex

It’s Wednesday, the day when we talk marriage! I introduce a post, and then you all can comment or link up your own marriage post in the Linky below!

Today’s post is a guest post from Julie Sibert who writes at the excellent blog Intimacy in Marriage.

Is it dangerous to deny your husband sex? I personally believe it can be…

Here are 5 Dangers of Regularly Saying “No” to Sex:

1. You compromise your marriage vows — and possibly your marriage itself.

Long ago, in my first marriage, as my husband was walking out on our life, I was somewhat shocked to discover that he had been drawn to another woman. But as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20.

I see clearer now what I did not comprehend then.

If the raw pain of my divorce taught me anything it’s that sex cannot be taken for granted in a marriage. A thousand “could-haves, should-haves, would-haves” cannot begin to express the regret I have that we did not address the sexual struggles in our marriage.

I know what some of you are thinking. ”Well, my husband would never cheat. He would never leave.” That may be true.

But the flip side is he may hate staying.

Though his heart, hands and feet may not wander to other beds, his eyes and thoughts easily could. I hear from husbands all the time who…

…hate the situation they are in.

…hate the desperate loneliness of constant sexual rejection.

…hate feeling trapped by Christian morals they have grown to resent.

I’m not saying there is justification in adultery or walking out the door because of sexual apathy. What I’m saying is that if you regularly deny sex to your husband, you are indeed compromising your marriage vows and making your marriage more vulnerable to attack.

I should know. I have been there. And I have done that.

2. You buddy-up to Satan.

Satan’s go-to method is division. He knows that sexual intimacy is an incredibly bonding force created by the Lord to strengthen married couples and endear them to one another.

Obviously, Satan doesn’t want you endeared or strengthened or bonded to the very person with whom you have a covenant relationship.

When you disregard sex, you give Satan one more firm foothold on which to stand as he relentlessly seeks to cause division in your marriage. Seriously. That’s what is going on. If this is news to you, I pray that big red “Danger” signs are flashing in your mind right now.

I pray too that the harshness of those realities does not shame you or guilt you to your knees, but humbly brings you surrendered to your knees.

Ask the Lord to help you reclaim the ground in your marriage that has been given to Satan… especially any ground that you gave to him.

3. You hurt the person you love.

You do love him, right?

Well, if he is like most husbands, one of the ways he best receives that love is when you regularly enjoy sex with him. It’s not the only way he receives love, but if you were to ask him, “Do you feel loved by me when I’m enthusiastic about sex? What does it mean to you when I make sex a priority?” — what would he say?

Be brave. Go ask him. Doing so may stop you from the danger of hurting the person you love.

4. You ignore time-tested wisdom of nearly every marriage counselor.

The very people who make their living from listening to distraught couples in desperately broken places would tell you that when sex is ignored in a marriage, danger is lurking just around the corner.

Counselors become intimately aware of the costs that are paid when a husband or wife has forsaken their marriage bed, whether it be to another lover or simply to selfish or careless neglect.

5. You tell God that He must be wrong.

At its core, this is possibly the most devastating danger of regularly saying “no” to sex. It grieves God’s heart.

Dig deep into God’s Word and it becomes abundantly clear the precious value He puts on sex in marriage, as well as the agonizing consequences when a married couple mishandles or ignores it. Whenever he speaks of marriage, including sexual intimacy, He longs for us to understand its significance.

Through a lot of soul searching and humble reflection, I know that long ago I had a hand in putting my first marriage in danger. While sex was not the only contributing factor, I’d be foolish to not recognize the role it played.

My heart is that you see the dangers of regularly saying “no” to sex before you find yourself looking back on similar regrets.

Julie Sibert writes and speaks about sexual intimacy in marriage. You can follow her blog at www.IntimacyInMarriage.com. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, their two sons and one rambunctious German Shorthair Pointer dog who refuses to stay in the fence.

Now, what marriage thoughts do you have to share today? Link up a marriage post in the Linky below!

Related posts:

Do Not Deprive Each Other Part II: What is Regular Sex?
Wifey Wednesday: The Building Blocks
Wifey Wednesday: “Do Not Deprive” Roundup

Our Quick Fix Society

E very Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario and Saskatchewan. Earlier this month I wrote a column about how we look for fast ways to meeting our wants and forego good stewardship in the process. I didn’t get a chance to put it up on the blog at the time, so I thought I’d put it up now to chew on over the holidays!

I’m addicted to Diet Pepsi. I don’t drink a lot of it: usually only a can a day, and I make myself wait until 11:30 before popping it open. But that urge hits me by 10:45.

I turn to Diet Pepsi because I’m not a coffee person. Nevertheless, I’m a big fan of caffeine. And so I drink Diet Pepsi, knowing that caffeine and aspartame are bad for me, because I figure the pick me up outweighs the potential dangers.

I know what I need to do: I need to sleep more so I don’t need the caffeine. That, however, requires effort. And so I turn to the quick fix.

We live in a quick fix society. We spend money on lottery tickets rather than investing in our RRSPs on the hope that we can turn ten dollars into one million. Sexually we turn to pornography and erotica for instant gratification, rather than doing the hard work of communication, commitment, and vulnerability that relationships entail.

We buy freezer meals rather than cooking. We pull into the Tim Horton’s drive thru rather than brewing our own coffee. We click the “Like” button on Facebook to show our solidarity rather than picking up the phone and calling a friend.

Perhaps the reason we chase after leisure and ease so much is because it seems attainable. Take, for instance, the food we eat. Today we choose food based on “what do I feel like eating?”, rather than “what is left in the pantry?” We have it easy. When your family had to raise everything that you ate, you couldn’t afford to waste anything.

That’s why unlike the prevailing opinion that most of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare, I think most of it was based on necessity. “Hmmm, we have nothing left except the sheep intestines and bladder. Wonder what we could do with those?” This quest to eat stuff up explains fruitcake, too. Our ancestors had all this dried fruit they had to do something with, so they put it in a cake to make it slightly more palatable. Now that we have chocolate cheesecake, though, fruitcake no longer serves any useful purpose.

While we may gladly bid adieu to fruitcake, though, I fear we are guilty of tossing aside some of the good things that our culture used to understand. We believe, for instance, that hard work was once a means to success and leisure. Now that success and leisure may be garnered without as much hard work, then hard work is no longer necessary.

Yet what if hard work was not just a means to an end, but was actually an end in and of itself? After all, look at the people who have achieved mega success in our culture with very little work. How many of the reality TV stars who grace our magazine covers are content with their lives? After reading of detox centres and breakups and affairs, it’s hard to believe that they have achieved real joy.

Hard work, on the other hand, gave people purpose, satisfaction, and a sense of empowerment. It may be the antithesis of our quick fix society, but it should not be abandoned. The character that was built by working hard and then reaping the reward built the very culture that our quick fixes are now tearing down.

I know we can’t go backwards, and I’m too rooted in this culture to do so anyway. As soon as I’m finished this column, I’ll reach into the fridge and pull out another Diet Pepsi. But there’s still a part of me that says, “there is a better way”. I hope we never stop hearing that little voice urging us to higher things.

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Related posts:

Stepping Outside My Bubble and Telling the World About Marriage
Are You Worried?
Heading in the Right Direction

2012 in Review

Happy New Year, everyone! I’m spending the day relaxing with some friends and playing games and then welcoming in the new year.

So I thought it was a good opportunity to look back over 2012.

2012 was a huge year for this blog! I had over 7,000,000 page views, which is astonishing. Last February I launched the 29 Days to Great Sex and pretty much my top 29 posts for the year were all from that series. I am so, so amazed that it helped so many people. I just love getting emails from people working through it, and I will keep it up in perpetuity in prayers that it continues to help couples.

Still 30% off at Amazon!

Then in March The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex was finally published. I am so happy with that book. It’s what I wish someone had given me when I was first married, and I’m so happy that it’s becoming a resource of choice for so many churches when couples get married. If we could start off our marriage together on the right foot, we’d avoid so many other marriage problems!

My traffic continued to grow throughout the year, leading up to November when I published the 31 Days to Great Sex, an ebook based on my blog series (though much more in-depth).

I know, therefore, that many of my readers haven’t been around for the whole year. You’ve stumbled onto the blog at various times, and many of you are new to me. So I thought it may be a good time to do a year in review, introduce myself again, and give you my top 10 posts!

Top 10 Posts of 2012

Here are the top 10 posts that were written in 2012. I had other posts that were just as popular but older (like this one about the 50 best Bible verses to memorize), but here are the posts written this year that had the most readers.

1. 29 Days to Great Sex

All of them. They beat out every single other post this year. If I were to post an actual “top 10″ list it would be all posts from this series, but instead I’ll just lump them in as the top post. Go check it out–or pick up the ebook!

2. How to Deal with a Husband’s Pornography Use: A Man’s Perspective

This post took on a life of its own. It was actually based on a comment that an anonymous man made on a previous post asking Is Porn Cheating (which also made the top 10, but I’m going to combine it here since it was a series)? I thought the comment was so insightful that it warranted its own post. And so many women show up on that post after searching in Google for what to do if their husbands use pornography. My hearts go out to women in that situation, and I hope that post, along with some others I’ve written this year, help.

3. The 50 Best Marriage Quotes of 2011

I forgot how popular this post was! Last year I pulled 50 quotes from different marriage bloggers and put them together in one post. I think I may do that again next week!

4. Why 50 Shades of Grey is Bad for Your Marriage

Here’s the post that first landed me on the Huffington Post webinar! I started writing about why this whole trend towards women’s erotica can be very damaging to marriages. It isn’t harmless. Here’s why.

5. Stocking Stuffers for Your Husband

I put this post together last month, and I’m so thankful so many of you passed it around! I’ll have to put it up again next December.

6. Why Doesn’t My Husband Want to Make Love?

It’s the most common question I get. We tend to think that it’s the man in the marriage who has the higher sex drive, but in between 25%-30% of marriages it’s actually the woman. And many of these women are quite desperate, because their husbands have shut them out sexually entirely. I wrote a series on how to deal with this last March, and here’s the first post, with links to the others.

7. Why Kindles Can Wreck Your Marriage

Another look at the problems with women’s erotica.

8. What To Do When You Discover Your Husband’s Having an Affair

This post was actually a Reader Question of the Week, and so many of you chimed in and gave some great thoughts! I started the Reader Question feature earlier this year, and I’ve really enjoyed it. Often the wisdom that’s in a group of people is much better than just my thoughts.

9. Men: Here’s What I Wish I Could Say to You About Sex

I went on a bit of a rant in this one. I get so many emails from women who are just at their wits’ end, and I guess I was in a bit of a snit when I typed this post. But boy did it get shared! I think I hit some nerves, as you will see if you read the comments.

10. Why Your Husband Won’t Meet Your Needs

So #9 was a rant to guys. #10 is my rant to women. I like to be an equal opportunity ranter. So if you’re feeling distant in your marriage, you may want to read this. I’ll duck if afterwards you want to throw tomatoes at me.

Posts That I Loved

Those were the ones that had the most readers–often because they were shared on Pinterest or Facebook, or they had high Google rankings. But here are some that I wrote that I really like.

God Is Not Your Red Bull.

Short but sweet.

What Does Submission in Marriage Mean?

I take on a common thread I see in a lot of Christian books: that if wives are suffering, we’re closer to God. Nope. Bad theology. Here’s why.

My 7 Pet Peeves about Worship Music in Church

Sometimes I just have to rant about something other than marriage!

Insights Into My Life

T-Shirts vs. Sheets: The Control Freak Rises Again

Here’s a look inside my linen closet. My oldest daughter comes along!

Sex Is Emotional, Whether We Admit it Or Not

My reflections after a Huffington Post webinar. If you want to know what it’s like always blogging about marriage & sex in a rather pornographic culture, here are some of  my struggles.

Be Great Parents. Gross Out Your Kids.

I shared this photo on Facebook and it was shared about 20,000 times to date. I love it! So here’s Keith and me, as we’re scarring our youngest daughter for life (she had to take the photo).

Why I Blog. And Why I’m Done with Marketing

I had a mini-meltdown online in October. I just couldn’t take the negative comments anymore. It ended up being one of the best things, though, because I really wrestled it out with God about what I should be doing. And God showed up.

How God Used Poison Ivy

I tell a story of a friend of mine, and weave it into what I’ve learned from my son’s death and some of the harder things in my life.

Turning Junk Into Something Beautiful

Want to see something I knit? Here’s a blanket–with a story.

An Outhouse, -20, and a Ton of Fun!

What my family did on a very weird winter vacation. With pictures!

Other Insights Into My Life

If you really want to see funny things about my life, though, do join my Facebook Page! I post shorter things there, along with more pictures! And don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest, too.

Related posts:

Top Ten Posts for July
Top Posts for October–And a Giveaway!
Top Posts for September–and a Giveaway!

Reader Question of the Week: Help, My Husband Can Be Gross!

Every weekend I like to post a question someone sends in and let you readers have a go at it. This week’s question is one probably all women have some thoughts about. A woman says she has no problem loving her husband unconditionally, BUT (there’s always a but):

How do I feel turned on when he does the not so attractive things like tonight coming out after his shower with tissue stuck up his nose from a bleed or when he doesn’t keep himself groomed(hair cut, clean shaven, teeth brushed twice a day)….help!

What do you think? Let’s help her in the comments!

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A Winner, Vacations, and Announcements!
I Got Stitches!

Important But Not Urgent

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario and Saskatchewan. Here’s my New Year’s one!

My favourite time of year is the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Everything shuts down, and our family cocoons together. Before Christmas is a huge rush, but after Christmas we lounge around, sleep in, and, my absolute favourite—play board games together.

It’s become a family tradition. Every year sees a new game under the Christmas tree, and then that game gets played, along with an assortment of other ones, over the next week or so. Sometimes friends join us, and sometimes it’s just the four of us, but it’s always a ton of fun.

What I will never understand, though, is why we don’t continue that fun into the year. We all love the games. We laugh, and create family memories, and make fun of certain family members who always get lucky—or never do. Yet once “real life” starts new, the games get stashed away into the cupboard, often to remain there for another year. Why?

About sixteen years ago I read a book that changed my life: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. One of the most important insights that he had was the idea of dividing everything we do into four categories, based on whether those things were important and urgent. So you could have urgent but not important (the phone’s ringing, and it’s a telemarketer), or you could have important but not urgent (spending time doing nothing with your teenage son). Then there are the “fires” in your life, those things that are both important and urgent, like dealing with a child’s suspension from school, or dealing with a spouse who just revealed they’re having an affair, or handling a family funeral.

Some fires can’t be avoided—the funeral, for instance—but others could likely have been prevented. And the way to prevent them is to spend more time doing things that are important but not urgent: those things that feed your soul and that feed your relationships. Read to your children. Start a hobby with your spouse. Talk to God. The more we centre ourselves, finding spiritual peace, and build into relationships, the fewer crises we will have in our lives.

But there’s a problem with these important but not urgent things, and it’s in the very definition of them: they aren’t urgent. There isn’t anyone forcing you to do them. And it’s so easy for the urgent-but-not-important things, like checking your Facebook notifications, or replying to tweets, or checking your texts, to get in the way of the important things—the people standing right in front of us.

The key thread throughout Covey’s book, in all seven habits, is the idea of intentionality. Nothing will get done just because we value it, or because we dream of it, or because we make Pinterest boards of it. It only gets done because we do it. After reading that book I did quit TV, but despite that as my teenagers have grown I’ve found it a challenge to prioritize those family times.

Why don’t we play family games during the year as much? Because nothing is forcing us to do it. And so when work and school schedules get busy, when friends want to talk on Facebook, when I have one more article to write, we tend to retreat to our own little worlds. And so often those, “I just need twenty minutes to finish this,” become two hours, and the night has evaporated.

That’s not who I want to be. I want to be the Sheila that lives from Christmas to New Year’s, hanging out in fuzzy pyjamas with cups of hot chocolate and board games on the table. This year, I hope, I will be intentional enough not to neglect the important in favour of the urgent.

Related posts:

When We Forget What’s Really Important…
Getting Rid of the Television
Creating Family Fun at Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

I’m taking a few days off of blogging to enjoy my family. And we’re doing a mime tonight at church, and I’m on the praise team, so it’s a busy day for me! But one of the lovely things about being involved in the Christmas Eve performance is that it makes you think of the message that much more.

And I’m so looking forward to playing some board games all day, for a few days, with the ones I love.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas. May we all remember that He came to bring us peace, and may peace rule in your families this week.

Related posts:

Enjoying My Vacation…
Kids Pick Up Our Attitudes About Sex
Wifey Wednesday: Losing the Control Freak Inside You

Seeking Peace on Earth

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario and Saskatchewan. This week’s column addresses the home in light of the horrific events of last week in Connecticut.

I’m not really happy with it. I was upset when I wrote it, which may explain part of it. But I think my answer is inadequate. The fact is this world is filled with brokenness. And I believe it’s getting worse. For years we lived on the residual benefits of our Christian heritage, but now we’ve got barely fumes of it. That’s not enough.

And the problem is that I don’t think you can have true healing from brokenness or pain apart from God. I can’t say that in a secular column, but that’s what’s missing here. There are no answers to the pain in this world except for people coming back to God and letting Him heal the brokenness. We need to pray harder and maybe we will see God work!

The message of the Christmas season is supposed to be “Peace on Earth”, yet there are years when that message seems especially anachronistic. This would be one such year. How can we reconcile the Christmas spirit with the abject horror of a gunman shooting up a class of six and seven-year-olds?

My daughter said to me, “at least shootings don’t happen here,” referring to small town Canada. But shootings like this do happen in small towns because they have nothing to do with the crime rate of big cities and much to do with the pain inside the home. This week has brought renewed calls for gun control and increased security, and there very well may be merit in these proposals. But the problem is not primarily a safety one; it’s a heart one. We are creating a society of hurt, angry, warped individuals.

We don’t know all the details about the shooter, but I have yet to hear of a mass murderer who came from an intact, functional family. Even those who are mentally ill rarely act out unless it is combined with deep wounds at home. That does not mean that all people from broken or dysfunctional homes will turn out badly; I’m a child of divorce, and I like to think that I’m quite emotionally well-adjusted, thank you very much. But there is no denying that family instability is the root cause of much childhood emotional trauma. The Longevity Project, which followed thousands of people for decades, found that divorce of parents is harder on a child than the death of a parent.

That’s not polite to say, because we don’t want to make people feel badly. But I am sick of tiptoeing around certain unpleasant realities. Some marriages, of course, can’t be saved. Abusive homes are more damaging than divorced ones. But if a split has happened, let’s work even harder at helping our kids feel cherished and whole. Whether divorced or married, let’s focus on their needs, not our wants.

We are raising a generation of kids who are lost. So many are missing a parent. They spend more time on video games than they do with responsible adults. They live solitary lives on the internet. They’re looking for an outlet for the pain.

But once we’ve caused that pain, it’s either going to be dealt with in a healthy manner or it’s going to be turned inward or outward. When it’s turned outward, no amount of locks or gun control is going to rescue us.

There is no other solution than to start loving each other. Honour your commitments. Think of others first. Be nice.

Above all, do not get so caught up in your own angst that you ignore your kids’ needs. And if your relationship with your children’s other parent is already disrupted, do what you can to live in peace with your ex anyway. Let peace reign.

Peace isn’t something that you can magically find by putting up the right Christmas lights or cooking a great turkey or watching a Christmas special. It’s a matter of the heart. It’s a feeling that you have done the right thing. It’s the relief of making peace with your past. It’s not shoving problems under the rug; it’s acknowledging them, confronting the pain, and then deciding to move forward together.

And so, my readers, I wish you Peace on Earth, and Goodwill to all, in whatever tradition you celebrate. Hug those you love even harder this year. Do the right thing, and love one another, and we, too, can create peace in our homes. Indeed, that is the only way we will ever have peace outside of them.

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Related posts:

The Root of Too Much Evil
Quick Question: Does Your Husband Bring You Peace?
Wifey Wednesday: Seeking a Wise Man

A Witness to Our Lives: Why People Get Married

Tomorrow will be my 21st anniversary. I married at 21, so we’ve been married for half of our lives!

And as I was thinking about marriage, I was reminded of one of my favourite movie clips:

God is always a witness to our lives, but it is such a blessing to have a human witness as well.

So looking forward to celebrating with my hubby!

Related posts:

How Do People Get Here?
When I’ve Been Married for 62 Years, I Want to Be Like This…
Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight Interview

Torn Between Two Lovers

Welcome Military Wives, sent over from My Military Savings! I’m so glad you’re here. You’re probably wondering what I write about, but I can tell you the best place to start with the serious posts is to check out my round-up post of links to all kinds of marriage questions I get. And if you want an insight into my life, just check out yesterday’s post about how I fold T-shirts. Want a Christmas gift your husband will love? Check out the 31 Days to Great Sex ebook! And then just have fun looking around!

It’s Wednesday, the day when we talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and then you all can link up your own marriage posts in the Linky below!

Today I’m going to turn Wifey Wednesday over to Kimberly Wagner, author of Fierce Women: The Power of a Soft Warrior. Kim writes:

Do you ever feel like you’re torn between two lovers? You fiercely love Christ and desire to grow in your relationship with Him, but you experience heart conflict and perhaps a bit of confusion when you feel forced to choose between what you think God wants and what your husband wants.

The two seem to be pulling you in opposite directions!

Rather than your marriage being an intimate waltz where the two of you are moving as one through the orchestra’s melody, with God as the conductor, it feels more like you’re caught in a tug-of-war between God and your husband, and you’re the rope—stretched and ready to snap!

You may feel like you’re torn between competing lovers, but actually there is only one heart decision to make and Jesus provides the answer. At first glance you may think it’s too simplistic, but this simple truth is rich with meaning:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37–39)

Loving God and following His course of direction will always include loving your husband—there’s no competition there. God will never lead you down a self-centered path that disregards the welfare or concern of another. That’s a given.

We hear a lot of zany things called love, but 1 John 3:16 provides us with the definition for true love:

“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

If your husband is pressuring you to violate Scripture, you have recourse (obedience to God outranks obedience to anyone lesser every time), but typically the “torn between two lovers” conflict revolves around preference issues rather than moral absolutes.

We must always view marital conflict through the “Big Picture Lens” or we’ll lose perspective and cave to the pressure of our emotions.

The “Big Picture” is this: When you enter the marriage relationship, you are entering the sacred metaphor God designed to explain Himself to a watching world.

Marriage is the great mystery, the glorious platform God created to display His love relationship with His bride (Ephesians 5:22–33). Of all the metaphors God uses to describe His love relationship with us, the marriage metaphor seems to be His favorite; it flows freely throughout Scripture. The fact that marital love is the narrative arc of three Old Testament books (Ruth, The Song of Songs, and Hosea) indicates its significance. In each of these beautiful portrayals, the picture of God’s devoted and redemptive love is seen.

The primary characteristic of redemptive love is unity through reconciling grace.

We’ve got to keep reminding ourselves that God doesn’t want us to live in a divided relationship with our husbands. That totally defeats His purpose for marriage (and it totally sucks out all the joy He desires for us to experience!).

You may be married to an unbeliever and in that case you have a greater challenge. Without the common bond of Christ, it will be impossible for you to experience spiritual intimacy in your relationship. Loving him includes showing lots of patience—because according to 1 Corinthians 2:14—spiritual stuff just sounds foolish to him. Knowing this, proceed carefully, humbly, and graciously—you are your husband’s nearest reflection of Christ. If you apply pressure to him using the argument “God wants you to . . .” it can trigger a defensive mechanism in his heart against God.

Your husband may ask you to spend Sundays with him or feel like he’s in competition with your church. One husband told me his wife was so busy doing Bible study that she never cooked a hot meal or even had time for him!

If your husband wants you to skip church one Sunday to spend the day with him—God may very well be pleased for you to do that, if you’re graciously showing him the 1 John 3:16 type of love. That doesn’t mean becoming a stay-at-home-martyr on Sundays where you’re “dying to self for him!”

Demonstrate appreciation and show genuine kindness to your husband and through that build a platform of influence.

Remove the potential for him to view himself in competition with God for your affection. At appropriate times share why your relationship with God is important and ask God to use you to whet your husband’s appetite for God.

You may be married to a man who claims to be a Christian, but has very little interest in spiritual things. Sadly, I think that may be the case in many marriages, but part of your God-given assignment is to serve as “iron sharpening iron” by inspiring your husband to be the man God created him to be. Part of that assignment includes what I call “salty grace talks” where you graciously share truth and at times even humbly confront your husband’s sin, as a demonstration of true love.

In Fierce Women: The Power of a Soft Warrior I include a chapter on building a platform of influence to help wives develop an appealing voice rather than one husbands tune out. You can also check out: “Challenging Your Man to Robust Christianity” at kimberlywagner.org where I share practical suggestions for stirring a husband’s spiritual interest.

God designed the most intimate of all earthly relationships to serve as a real-life parable depicting His commitment to His bride. Marriage is God’s personal symbol and signature. It’s His platform to display to the watching world a physical picture of a spiritual reality.

A strife-filled, divided relationship doesn’t do God’s beautiful love relationship justice. Don’t be torn between two lovers—fully love God, and from that love, fully love your man!

Portions of this post are excerpts from Fierce Women: The Power of a Soft Warrior © 2012• Kimberly Wagner • Moody Publishers

Kimberly Wagner is the author of Fierce Women: The Power of a Soft Warrior. Her passion is Christ, and she desires to ignite women’s pursuit of God’s glory. Kim is a frequent guest on the Revive Our Hearts radio program, as well as a regular contributor to the True Woman blog. You can connect with her through her website: http://www.kimberlywagner.org/ where she transparently shares the lessons God is teaching her.

 Now, what do you have to share with us today? Leave a link to your marriage post below! And be sure to visit the people who link up–so many of them are filled with deep wisdom. And that’s how you discover other great bloggers!

Related posts:

Wifey Wednesday: When He Wants You to Do Something You Don’t Like…
Wifey Wednesday: The Building Blocks
Wifey Wednesday: What Does Submission in Marriage Mean?

T-shirts vs. Sheets: The Control Freak Rises Again

Are you a control freak?

I certainly have those tendencies.

A few weeks ago I posted a review of Karen Ehman’s Let.It.Go book, helping us to let go of that need to control and learn to trust God.

Recently, when doing laundry, I had a vivid reminder of how dysfunctional being a control freak is. You see, it really bugs me to no end how my oldest daughter folds T-shirts. She kind of just balls them up. I know they have to be straight and even so they don’t have wrinkles, and so they fit so nicely on shelves once they’re folded. And they look so pretty that way!

Here are T-shirts that we both folded: hers on the left, mine on the right:

At times I really get on her case about this. “Why can’t you just learn to fold T-shirts right?” She rolls her eyes and sighs and tries again.

But below allow me to show you two sheets, one folded by me, and one folded by her:

Guess which one is hers?

Yep. The perfectly flat one.

See, I don’t really care about how sheets are folded. It’s not my thing. So I don’t even notice that my sheets are all balled up, and her sheets are pristine. But she doesn’t care about T-shirts.

Often when we are control freaks that’s what happens. We freak out about the things that matter to us, and fail to notice that we may be less than perfect in ways that matter to other members of the family. We’re so sure that our priorities are the right ones, and theirs are not.

When I was putting sheets away the other day, after feeling annoyed at Becca for the T-shirts, I glanced her folded ones in the linen closet. And it was definitely one of those “a-ha” moments.

What are you not seeing? Maybe it’s time to give our family a break and agree that everyone’s priorities should be valued, not just our own.

I wrote a column on a similar theme a while ago–Do I See What You See?

Related posts:

Let It Go: Losing the Control Freak Inside You
Works for Me Wednesday: Getting Laundry Under Control
4 Ways to Make the New Year Awesome