Journey to a Gracious Woman

Do you ever get in one of those “spats” with your husband, when it starts off small but then begins to escalate into something much larger [than it should've been]? Do you sometimes feel like he just doesn’t understand you and may even appear to put your needs “on the shelf”?

I want to give you some tips on how to fight fair when something like this comes up. And it usually does, unless you have a perfect marriage.

1. Don’t allow your emotions to take over.

This is especially hard sometimes. We can tend to burn with emotions that just spill over into anger, hurt, yelling, tears, etc. Try to keep your cool and be civil. When speaking, keep control of your tone. Emotions are known to be impatient and they want answers NOW. They will deceive you. You will get thoughts like, “If he does this (or doesn’t do that), he really doesn’t care. How could he? I would never do….” Do not compare your actions with his. Men and women are such different thinkers, we could both be thinking the opposite thing, but our hearts intention would be equal.

Remember this golden rule for marriage: Never use the words always or never. This is called exaggerating and it can make things go from bad to worse really fast.

2. If it’s getting too heated, step back for a time to cool off and regroup.

Before you step back or step out or hang up, make sure you let your husband know why first. Sometimes when we allow our emotions to rise, we can’t even think rationally anymore and what started out as the disagreement or misunderstanding has now turned into something that is completely irrelevant.  When you do step away, pray. Gather your thoughts and remember this is the man you love. Throw away all the doubts and what you think you see [through emotional goggles].

3. Pray for God to intervene.

This is going to be your most powerful weapon. When you care enough about your marriage that you just want a resolution and to be in unity again, you just give it over to God. Be so bold as to believe YOU could be in the wrong. Just give it to God and ask Him to do His work. Be willing to be obedient to what He asks. Even if it means letting it go.

4. Take every thought captive. Don’t dwell on it (esp. if you can’t finish the “talk” right away because he’s at work).

If you have questions you’d like to ask your husband, write them down so you can remember them. Make sure you word them in a way that does not attack him. When dealing with the issue at hand, do not bring up past issues or things that are just completely irrelevant.

A wonderful way to curb negative thinking is to quote what love is, from 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient, love is kind, etc. Remember, love is an action and we need to show it that way. This speaks volumes friends. Choose to put on love during such a difficult time. Do not quote this verse and think of all the things your husband isn’t doing. This is to show you, what you can be doing.

5. Discuss the messages being sent vs. the messages being received.

Ladies, this is going to require good listening skills. While your husband is talking and sharing his concerns, don’t be thinking about what you’re going to say next. Give your husband excellent eye contact and listen to everything he has to say without interrupting, even if you’re wrongfully accused. If it turns out, when he’s done talking, you believed you were wrongfully accused, find out what was communicated that made him think that way. Work it out. You two are on the same team!

Do not compare what you would do with what he should do. You are two very different people and think on very different levels. Your thoughts and actions may be different, but communicate the same message being sent. What you need to discuss is what is being received. Often these can look completely opposite. For example, say your husband wants to pick up a couple extra hours at work in order to build up a little more savings in the bank account so that the family is comfortable. He is sending the message to you that he’s working hard to take care of his family. However, the message you are receiving is that he doesn’t want to be around you and is doing whatever he can to stay away. He must not care about you or want to spend time with you. This is why there can be many frustrations in marriage ladies.

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What happens in the end is this: You win. Not against your husband, but against the enemy. The enemy wants to destroy marriage. But imagine what can be accomplished when we fight. Not against our husbands, but against the enemy who is out to destroy our marriages with lies and deceit. Lies that make us believe our husbands really don’t care or that all they think about is themselves. Fight against the lies and dig to the core of the issue.

If you believe your husband really does fit the glove of selfishness, there are other approaches that can be taken to win your husbands heart back. We can get this wrong mindset that once we’re married, we’ll always have our husbands heart. That’s where Satan comes in with more ploys. There are other things out there trying to grab your husbands heart and it becomes much stronger if he has a wife who is constantly bitter, complaining  and nagging at him. This is for another post, though!

*Just for the record, I have dealt with this, and in fact did deal with this today. Learn from me the easy way, not the hard way. *

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Lately, I’ve felt like I’ve had lots to blog about yet nothing to blog about at the same time.

Would it be OK if I just shared my heart for a moment? I am going to make myself a little vulnerable by opening up with you on this.

I have some moderate concerns about the direction of our country and what is pointing in the direction of eschatology. What is going on here in America, like the issues with General Motors and what that’s going to mean for people’s jobs. The issues with men losing hope once they are out of a job and turning to homicide and suicide. Crime is going up. Our national security and confidence in our country’s safety is declining. The government is in control of banks and car production for GM. Our national debt is greater than it’s ever been. I mean, I could go on and on with the list. Our freedom of speech is in danger.

The point is, these issues have been heavy on my heart. I think often about the future and wonder what will become of us as a nation. I wonder what will become of us as Christians. I think the worst, but hope for the best. However, I cannot ignore the facts that the Bible points out about the end days. We don’t know the exact hour, but we must always be prepared.

I’ve wanted to present these issues in a way that would challenge Christians to dig deep into the Word and be on our knees. But I haven’t been able to pull it together in a very organized and presentable way. So, here it is, my thoughts a bit jumbled, but desperately needing release.

I am constantly checking my own heart to make sure when it’s time, I will not disappoint God. That, my friends, is my biggest fear. I wonder if I’m in the right spot.  Am I doing the right things? Do I know all there is to know about salvation or am I missing something?  If the worst were to happen, would I have the courage to stand up for the Truth, no matter what the cost?That is my second, biggest fear.

I find myself praying often for the protection of my children and embracing them more than I used to.  I wonder, will it be legal to homeschool this time next year? The questions could go on and on my friends.

When I first was hit with it all, it was most definitately fear. I have been praying daily for God to give me peace, joy, courage, and strength and He continues to supply me with these things. There are still days I fear the future with it being so full of uncertainty.

I look at the things we have around the house. All the new books we just bought for homeschooling, and realize how meaningless they are compared with those eternal things that seem to be right on our doorstep. I am seeing through a different lens then I did a year ago.

Some days I just feel so paralyzed. Like I don’t know what I should be doing. What is going to matter the most right now? Is it worth doing this or that? Should we be focusing on more important things? More eternal things? Yes, I suppose we should. I’ve been in a mode of reevaluating and weighing so many things we do.

This, my friends, is what’s been on my heart. I promise I am not a Christian loon (or maybe I am!). I’m just being real here.  I’m sharing my doubts and fears, and of course my own opinion on the days we’re living in. I would rather live a life thinking the end could be tomorrow and living accordingly, rather then being oblivious, or in denial of what God said was going to happen at a time we don’t know about.

I thank you for sticking with my thoughts this long. I need good friends to talk to and thank you kindly for reading what’s heavy on my heart these days.

I haven’t done this in a while, so I thought I’d kind of get back into it, just to share what I’m reading and see what other’s are reading. Check out 5 Minutes for Books to see more.

The books I am currently reading (that are not on a list waiting to be read) are:

This has been an awesome book by John Piper displaying how the earthly marriage exists to showcase Christ and His bridegroom. It is not a “how to” marriage book, but a “why to”.  Piper beautifully portrays why marriage is sacred and what marriage is and what it is not. I definitately recommend it for everyone.

The other book I am reading is called Persuasion by Jane Austen

I admit, I took one of those “Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You?” tests and it labeled me as “Anne Elliot”. Wanting to know her and her character, I picked up the book to see for myself! No, sadly, I have not read all the Jane Austen books. I give up too easily when I do not read at a steady pace.

I haven’t read too much of it yet, but thus far, I’m not sure that test was accurate (big surprise). However, I will continue to read it as the story is very interesting. I recommend any of Jane Austen’s work, my favorite being Pride and Prejudice.

Last week I resolved to work on having an attitude of joy. It really took some work until midweek, when I noticed I wasn’t so focused on things that “bothered” me but I was more living in the moments of life. I was enjoying life more than trying to fix it. This week I will continue to work on having and keeping this attitude of joy. It is not something that will be that easy to just keep. It’s going to take some work!

So on top of keeping a good attitude, this week we are going to work on making the outside of our house sing! We are going to prepare and plant our gardens! The backyard will be primarily vegetables with a back border of sunflowers. The corner also has a butterfly bush that blooms in late summer/early fall.

We tilled the area and the weeding is just about complete, so we should be able to plant our seeds beginning tomorrow.

I admit, I am very new at gardening. My 6 (almost 7) year old has been busy reading everything she can on gardening and has given me all the tips I will need to help her out. I love that she is so into learning this all on her own! I’m going to let her teach me. You may end up seeing some of this over on my homeschool blog, along with pictures, throughout the season.

How are you making your home sing this week? Visit Moms The Word to share with us and see what others are doing!

I know many of us have written and read a lot about time management, especially when it comes to being on the internet. I thought of something rather clever this afternoon while I was getting my dinner prepped to bake this evening. I was thinking,

“Wow, this is a real productive thing to do. Getting part of dinner prepped before the chaos sets in at 4:00pm.”

It got me thinking, that there are plenty of productive things I could be doing around the house to make life run smoothly and kind of cut my time off the internet.

So this is what I did:

I got out a sticky note and wrote on the top:

5 Other Things I Could Be Doing

and underneath that I wrote my list of 5 things:

1. decluttering something
2. reading to my kids
3. reading my Bible
4. planning (lessons, menu, days)
5. baking (with or without the kids)

That way when I come to sit down and browse blogs at the computer for an unlimited amount of time, I will see this sticky note stuck to my monitor and remember, “Oh look I could be doing one (or all!) of these things. If I get to a point where I master getting all of these done, I am taking time away from the internet to be more productive. Then I may have to come up with another five things!!!!

I know, some people will just be able to ignore a sticky note while they browse, but for me, it’s rather annoying sitting up there hanging in front of part of my monitor! LOL I am going to experiment with doing it and see how it goes! You should try it!

Ashley of Putting God First Place. She was so gracious as to put me in her Saturday Spotlight today and I want to encourage you to head on over there and check out her beautiful blog!

She chose a past post of mine that even I was intrigued to read, and I think you will be, too!!

A wonderful gal who runs an awesome blog called Heart(h) Management brought to my attention the very cool iGoogle. Like Brianna, I didn’t know about this site until someone told me (Brianna) so I would like to pass along the info!

This little feature by Google allows you to keep all your important stuff on one page so you aren’t navigating all over the internet. It’s all right there in front of you! What is really neat about it? I am an avid blog reader. I can have all my feeds on this one page in it’s own little space. In addition, once I’ve read all the entries I possibly can, they get marked as “read” and disappear. The ones I “star” I can save for a later time as to clean up the reader. Once I’ve read them all, it’s nice and clean and I don’t have to wonder if I remembered to visit so and so’s blog, because if my reader is clean, I have!!! Yay! What a time saver, I tell you!

It also has gadgets for Twitter feed and Facebook feed. Can’t beat that! I higly recommend it. I mean HIGHLY!!! It’s a TIME SAVER!

*UPDATE*: I thought, just for FUN, I’d see if I could get my internet radio that I love on my iGoogle, so I did a search on their gadgets, and sure enough! Pandora radio is right there! Now it’s added to my page so I don’t have to load another page! Pandora radio is an internet radio station that you create your own stations with based on your music preference. I love it! I listen to upbeat praise music during chore time and worship music while reading God’s word, praying, or writing devotionals. I LOVE IT!!!

Check out  5 Minutes for Mom to see all the sweet giveaways they are having for Mother’s Day! You don’t want to miss this!

We are still working hard at it. He can make it to the potty to go #2, but does not like to do #1 on the potty. Here’s why:

Yesterday he put himself on the potty and before I could get in there to make sure he was well situated, he unconsciously sprayed our shower curtain and everything in it’s path. Poor lil guy! He was crying and just did not like that he couldn’t control what was happening (or so he thought).

I of course gently and calmly explained to him it was no big deal and mama could easily wash the (cloth) curtain (and I did).

However, since that episode, he’s been fearful of going pee pee on the potty because it might happen again. I assured him I’d rather him make it to the potty and miss then to not try altogether.

So we are making some headway! I’m hoping in a week this will all be behind us! Potty training is draining on everyone! My daughter was trained in a day, and before she was even 3!

My joy should not be found (or based in) my circumstances. It should be found in my God.

As I was drifting off to sleep one night, I heard this whispered to me. I was surprised I remembered it come morning. I know it was the voice of God. My circumstances go up and down all the time…unfortunately, so does my joy — outward and inward.

I struggle with this so bad. I wish I knew why! I want joy but have such a hard time practicing outwardly. I want my home to sing with it! But how do I obtain this special gift?

Elisa Morgan said this in her book Naked Fruit

The fruit of joy is confidence in God. Joy is confidence in God’s grace, despite circumstances–despite what happens. Joy is the ability to hold up becuase we know we are being held up. Joy is the conviction that God is in control of every detail of our lives even when those details appear to be out of control.

Wow, does that ever make a lot of sense. Joy, unlike happiness, is not rooted in our circumstances, but our confidence in God. People, life is HARD. We definitely have our good days, but I think there are many more days that just don’t go our way than not. If we were to have joy only in our life’s circumstances, we’d all be miserable people (which is where I often stand!) This is certainly no way to live!

I want this joy. I want this confidence in God. I admit, there are times I often wonder what God has in store for us. There is a false gospel being preached that God “has a good plan for your life.” Good according to whom? God’s view on “good” and our view are very different. If it were true that God has a “good” (our version) plan for our lives, why do so many missionaries die preaching Christ? Why do so many tragedies happen?

I am not saying God has a “bad” plan for our lives. I’m simply stating that God never promised us physcial protection here on earth. If He had, he sure broke a lot of promises, and of course we know God cannot do that.

So how do I find joy through all of this? By having that confidence in God for the eternal things.

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