The other day I took special notice of their drawings and tears began to well.
Do you see what I see? What could be overlooked as a seemingly unimportant detail?
When the girls picture our family, they picture Joel and I holding hands. Side by side, arms outstretched over children and dogs and everything else. Arms outstretched, hands entwined, he and I, together. This is how I want them to envision us always.
The women at our church our going through a fantastic book, Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney. I had the privilege of walking through it years ago with women in our small group and I am excited to go through it again with all the women in our church. God has me in such a different place now than I was then. The book is based on the mandate in Titus 2 for women:
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
I love unpackaging this passage at different stages of life. Carolyn encourages wives to ask their husbands which of the virtues in Titus 2 they would like to see their wives grow in. If you've never asked your husband how you can love him better or where he thinks you should grow, I encourage you to do so.
Looking back, I can see that years ago, Joel should have answered the question of how his wife needed to grow, 'submission.' I don't remember asking him the question then (maybe that was purposeful?) but I know now that while I appeared on the outside to be submitting to him, my heart was far from it. We were in the midst of planting a church; a calling that Joel felt sure of and for which he had been given vision. Let's just say I wasn't quite there. Planting a church is hard (that is an entirely different series of posts altogether) and in a nutshell, I didn't trust God, I didn't trust Joel and in the depths of my heart I was not a submissive wife and was far from (as John Piper defines it)
meeting my divine calling to honor and affirm my husband's leadership and help carry it through according to my gifts.
God is gracious and my husband is gracious and I am humbled, humbled each time I ponder those first couple years, and my heart aches at how I fell so short in demonstrating, in being meeting my divine calling to honor and affirm.
Now, to be planted on the other side, to see God's plan, have the same vision as my husband and to be in the midst of such a sweet body of believers is truly remarkable. I thank God every day for the conviction Joel had to press on even though his wife was constantly asking "are you sure?" Lives are being transformed and worldviews being shaped by the Gospel and grace and fruit are abounding and I am utterly grateful that despite all my questioning, he was sure of his conviction. And did I mention how very patient he was with me? Not once did he pull any hair out, or even seem that frustrated. With kindness he remained steadfast to the calling God had given him even though my voice resounded "but? but? but? Are you sure?"
Yes, his answer to "virtue in which his wife needed the most growth", should have been submission.
Fast forward a few years to this past week and this time, I asked the question.
Honey, where do I need to grow? (Why, oh why are those words so hard to utter? Like Carolyn, I wish I had Jonathon Edward's resolve to "whenever my feelings begin to appear in the least out of order, when I am conscious of the least uneasiness within, or the least irregularity without, I will then subject myself to the strictest examination." Oh, that I would long to be refined regardless of how painful the process!)
At first it didn't appear that Joel picked his answer from the list (he would be one to deviate) but with deeper reflection what he said was "you could love me better."
Once the twinge of pride and desire to say "but...are you sure?" faded (No matter how gently your husband answers that question, the fact that he has an answer (and he will) will hurt. But that is what being refined, molded, sanctified is all about. And in the knowing and the growing you'll find grace and freedom follow.)
I need to know how to love my husband better so I asked him to elaborate. His solution seemed so simple:
Laugh at all my jokes please, spend time with me, don't be so easily offended, remember I love you.
Seems so simple. Then why am I not doing it?
Carolyn does such a great job of defining how we as wives are called to love our husbands. In the Greek, the word used in this passage for love is phileo. It is the love of close friends. Someone who walks beside, plays beside, laughs with and prays with someone. The love that says
You are my best friend and everything you say is worth listening to.
agape love that woman are specifically exhorted to (although we are called to that as well.) It is easy for us to "sacrifice" by doing things for our husbands. How often I don't have time to just sit and talk to my husband because I am: cooking a gourmet meal when he really just wants Tater Tot casserole, scrubbing the baseboards he doesn't even know get dirty or rearranging the furniture he just wants to sit in with me. To busy doing for him rather than loving him by being with him.
It reminds me of my walk with Lord. How often I am too busy doing to really sit and be with Him.
So often the way I relate to the Lord is the same way I relate to my husband. Some days earnestly seeking, desiring his presence. Just a. few. more. minutes. Please? Other days I try to squeeze time in in a moment or two. I know it is good to connect. I just have to finish this first, and maybe this and oh, there's this... And then there are the days where I seemingly forget He or he is there and I am altogether preoccupied with what is on my own agenda.
My prayer for this study, for this season, and for my life is that as I go about the business and busyness of being a wife and mother that I not only remember to, but desire to, just be. As always, my old friend Charles Spurgeon sums perfectly what we're called to
The choicest fruits are the hardest to rear: the most heavenly graces are the most difficult to cultivate. Beloved, while we don't neglect external things, which are good enough in themselves, we ought also to see to it that we enjoy living, personal fellowship with Jesus. See to it that sitting at the Savior's feet isn't neglected, even though it is under the specious pretext of doing Him service. The first thing for our soul's health, the first thing for His glory, and the first thing for our own usefulness, is to keep ourselves in perpetual communion with the Lord Jesus...First, to sit at my Savior's feet, to draw near to Him, to in all work and play, find Him. And if I'm in communion with Him, I know that naturally I will commune with the man He has given me.
The first thing for my usefulness is to be in perpetual communion with my God--and then my husband. Because when it is all said and done, what I want our children to remember, is that bent at the knee before our Savior, Joel and I were holding hands.
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