Deep Strength wrote a post titled The Headship Conversation. I love everything about this whole post.

“This conversation is not so much as a ‘discussion’ as it will be you telling her your vision for the relationship (in terms of Biblical standards) and finding out if she is on board. The leader of the relationship is the one who defines the vision, sets the tone, and leads by example. That is the calling of the husband.”

I would guess this would weed out a lot of women rather quickly.

Over at Donal Graeme, one of his commenters, Michael Kozaki, has written an excellent guest post titled, Life is Suffering.

Mr. Kozaki starts off writing on a topic that has been presented out here before:

Few Christians embrace suffering nowadays. A thumbs-up, therapeutic Jesus is in vogue. No historic follower of Jesus would have recognized this guy. For good reason. The “therapeutic” or “feminized” Jesus is not the Jesus of the Scriptures nor of the Church. He’s a pagan god, forged in man’s image.

Take a quick trip over there and finish his post. It’s short, yet powerful. I’ve often said that we need to learn to lean into the storms of life rather than fight them, and Mr. Kozaki does a great job articulating just that.

Sometimes I post things on facebook just to see how people will react. About a week ago I did just that when I posted this on facebook:

Wives:
1. Respect your husband.
2. Submit to your husband in everything.
3. Rock his world in the bedroom.

The ONLY responses I received were from our own Amir and Mrs. L. I found it interesting but didn’t linger on it too much … after all, so much stuff hits my timeline, even after intentionally limiting it, I can’t read it all.

Last evening my Step Son went in the hospital (it’s gonna be a journey, for sure, but he’ll be okay), so I asked for prayer, and it lit up with friends. I am not complaining about that; this was legit. And I was surrounded with friends who continued to comment through today, praying for us.

So what I deduct from this is that a lot of my fb friends do at least glance over what I put out there, and they ignored my first post. That bothers me because I think most, if not all, my fb friends proclaim to be Christians and probably most are married. (I’m one of those fb people who only ‘friends’ my friends. I don’t care how many … I care who.)

Praying for each other is very important. Asking for prayer, asking for help, is important. And not that it should be compared, but is praying for another more important than honoring God in our marriages? NOT that this says everyone I know believes that … but … this really caused me to pause.

Being Easter weekend, I’ve been looking online, again, at local churches. We live in an area flooded with churches, so it seems we could possibly find one?

I am honestly surprised at how many churches in our area have women in the senior leadership roles in the church. I’m just not a fan of that. I do not agree with women pastors, women elders, or women deacons. And I do not want a woman youth group leader. A woman Children’s Minister is okay. A woman Women’s Ministry Leader is okay. I could live with those. But I do not want my family in a church led by women … neither does my husband.

Amir’s previous post is poignant.

How does a marriage get to that place? How does a marriage die?

I’m not fond of this season in my life … peri-menopausal/menopausal, hormones on chemically-altered steroids (one does not need to create chemicals for chemical warfare – they only need to figure out how to harvest the hormones from all women of this age and inject them into the population!) … old enough to have a life to look back upon and yet young enough to have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life … close to being an ’empty-nester’ but wondering if/when/to what degree my sped daughter will be able to be independent.

So cleaning out some files and coming across memories is wreaking havoc on me. I kept a lot of our cards. I don’t know where exactly everything is, but I know it’s all in storage somewhere … apparently some were in the files I was cleaning out last night. I want my girls to have the choice to keep them or throw them away someday, so I’ll keep them still.

Here’s what he wrote in my birthday card a few months before we married when I turned 21:

“God has blessed me with you.

Your beauty surpasses that of Bathsheba.

Your love surpasses all understanding.

You are the light of my life and second only to God.

Thank you for being the beautiful you, at 21 until 91.

Love always and forever,”

And a year later on my next birthday:

“I am so glad you are all mine on this birthday. These last 9 1/2 months have been the best of my life, and I want to thank you for being such a wonderful part of my life. The next twenty-two years you will spend with me, and I hope we can grow together in love. Thank you for your heart full of love. With all my love,”

(btw – those first two he hand-made with construction paper! ahhhh!!!!!) In another card from probably the first several years (I didn’t date it):

“I love you for the happiness

You bring to me each day.

I love you for the kindness

Of your always-thoughtful way.

I love you for the tenderness

That lies within your heart.

I love you for the way you say

‘I’ll miss you’ when we part.

I love you for the gentle way

You cheer me when I’m sad.

I love you for the little things

You do to make me glad.

I love you for your love for me,

So constant and so true –

But most of all I love you

Just because you’re you!”

“This card says it all. I love you,”

How does a marriage go from that to a hate that seethes from his soul, through his pours, shooting poisonous daggers from his eyes?

There are no simple answers here. And as I’ve often said, I am not sin-free. I was not a perfect wife.

Amir got it right when he wrote:

(1) He or she has capitulated to a longstanding wave of lust. That may or may not include porn, but that doesn’t matter. That lust has driven such a one to flip that switch. If someone tells you “it just happened”, there is a eight-letter word for that which is deeply-rooted in our agricultural heritage.

It’s been ten years since the divorce, two years since he died. Yet the consequences of crossing that line from his imagination to the flesh live on. Again, as Amir so aptly stated:

(2) He or she has overridden every Biblical warning against adultery. Perhaps they rationalize it in terms of, “God will forgive me…just look at what He did for King David!”. They aren’t thinking straight, as they are ignoring the warnings of Solomon in Proverbs. You might note that Solomon was born to Bathsheba whom, you guessed it, David had taken as his wife after killing her husband to cover up the affair. And if you are familiar with the story, David’s life was just short of Hell on earth for the rest of his life: the first child with Bathsheba died, his family was hit with rape and murder scandals, one of his sons would mount an insurrection and publicly have sex with all of David’s wives, even his successor–Solomon–would indulge in sexual license beyond all recognition by marrying hundreds of foreign women, and this would lead to the civil war that led to a divided kingdom that would ultimately lead Israel to ruin.

To make a long story short, sin has consequences. And it isn’t simply David. Every time a car bomb goes off in Israel, just remember that all of that started when Abram took Hagar as his “wife”.

(I’m sure I’ll write more on this later as it seems this mid-life season refuses to leave in just a day!)

Elspeth at Breathing Grace has written a post about her Daddy: A Man Who Was Forgiven Much Loved Much. When she writes about her Daddy, my heart craves, longs, cries, for a Daddy like him … which is why Repentance is so powerful. If my dad would ever truly be sorry and repent, he could become a man among men. But men like that, men like her Daddy, are truly rare, indeed.

This generation talks too much about what we’re gong to do precisely because we don’t live lives that eliminate the need for excess words.

LeeLee in Babylon wrote an insightful post: The Parallel Between Male Supplication & Female Disrespect. I have often thought of this paradigm in various types of relationships, including marriage, but could not have articulated it as well as Lee Lee. I would love your thoughts, especially from the men.

Just like disrespectful behavior from women drives away men, submissive behavior from men drives away women.

Just like disrespectful behavior from women damages male gender identity, submissive behavior from men damages female gender identity.

Elspeth wrote a post she titled “Daddy-isms #1: On Marriage.” This man got it right.

“That’s my daughter, but she’s your wife, and that is your house. You ain’t gotta worry about me sticking my noise over there. I live over here.”

Take a moment to read the whole post … it’s not long, but it’s packed with truth.

Dark Brightness definitely got it right here.

I tell people … you have no idea the hell from divorce because you have yet to eat that fruit from that forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All you can see now is the good, but once done, the evil will sprout endlessly … even if it was not your fault … even if you did not/do not want it! It won’t matter.

 

 

Donal Graeme wrote this post directed to *men only,* but it’s applicable to everyone.

Being a Momma, the infinite numbers of excuses I’ve heard seems limitless. Sometimes, with little ones, they truly are adorable, creative, and so darned cute that you want to give them credit for such brilliant imaginations. But, alas, one cannot.

Telling the truth became a concrete theme in our home. Just tell the truth. I don’t want excuses, I just want the straight-up truth. Of course, I had to model it, too. Lies were woven into every fabric of the family I grew up in. They were woven into my first marriage. It had to end. It’s not always easy. I know my girls learned to lie to their dad to avoid his violence. It’s a hard habit to break.

Women encourage each other on ways to navigate around the truth. I remember a woman telling me that I should charge up a bunch of returnable items before my divorce was final and then return them for store credit. That way I’d have money neither he nor the attorneys would know about. I couldn’t do it.

One thing I truly admire about my husband is that he tells the truth whether I want to hear it or not. I love to ask him what he’s thinking sometimes because he always tells me. (Although … that one time he told me he noticed more gray in my hair was one time he could have punted 😉 ).