Have you ever considered that YOU are on an assignment from God? If you chose to accept this assignment, you will be undertaking an assignment of the utmost importance—an assignment of stellar significance and great worth.
Your assignment?
Titus 2:4 “older women are to instruct the younger women to love their husbands”
Take a moment and think back with me. Can you remember the day you first met your husband? Can you recall the place/time? Do you possibly remember what you were wearing? What he was doing or even wearing? If you are like most women, you can easily recall the moment you first laid eyes on your man….You can recall the day, event, location and even possibly the clothes :-) In fact, you can probably even remember the flip flop your heart did!! You can remember your initial “WOW” followed by a sudden appearance of shyness and even awkwardness!
Can you also recall the first few dates as you began to spend time with your future husband? Recall the thrill you felt when he called? Recall the special care you took to get dressed for a date? Do you remember how eager you were to listen to his stories, and to spend time with him doing anything—just as long as you were together?
Ok, all together now…take a big sigh of relief! Although this has been a great exercise in remembering the early thrill of being together, this is not necessarily the love talked about in Titus 2:4.
What does love mean? In this passage, the original language expands on what loving our husband is to look like. The word translated love expresses the idea of being fond of or affectionate to. One of the root words for love has the idea of being content with and having common interests!
Does that describe your relationship with your husband? Are you fond of him? Do you show affection to him? Are you content with him and not seeking to change him? Do you have common interests?
Today, I can answer Yes to each of these questions…but it wasn’t so long ago that I would not have been able to do so. Let’s take a minute and look at each question individually.
Are you fond of your husband?
In the 1828 dictionary, fond is defined as foolishly tender and loving; doting; much pleased.
Are you fond of your husband? Are you “foolishly” tender and loving toward him? Are you much pleased with him?
In my relationship with Manuel, I find that to be “foolishly” tender and loving, I must make a deliberate decision to be attentive to him, and especially to “touch him”. Early in our Christian experience, we did a marriage enrichment class that studied the “Five Love Languages” by Gary Smalley. If you are not familiar with this book, I highly recommend it! Interestingly, Manuel’s main love language is touch. This was very difficult for me, as I am the polar opposite—I don’t like to be touched, hugged, etc. However, I learned in our class, that if I wanted my husband to “feel loved” and respected, it was vital that I speak his (love) language. Although it took much practice and prayer, today, I enjoy holding hands with Manuel at home and in public, enjoy hugging him and even appreciate when he puts his arm around my shoulders when we are out.
Do you show affection to him?
As I shared above, showing affection was something I had to work at in my relationship with my husband. Not all men are like to be “touched” in public, but most will enjoy it in privacy of your own home. I encourage you to take time to ask your husband what shows affection to him. In my previous post, “I shared about how God opened my eyes to the truth that I am called to submit to my husband and not what another man (husband) requires. This principle applies to submission and to affection.
Seek your own husband’s input and if you have not read The Five Love Languages, I greatly encourage you to!
Are you content with him?
Uh-oh! Contentment is most definitely not a favorite word for many of us. But it is included in how we love our husbands! Oh dear sister, are you content with your husband? Are you grateful for him? Are you pleased with him?
As I learned to love my husband according to God’s way, I found that to be truly content with my man I had to make a conscious decision to be thankful and grateful to God for him. Yes, he still does things that make me crazy, and no, he is not perfect. But I am so grateful for him and pleased to call him mine!
Carole Lombard, once said while married to Clark Gable; “Clark Gable is no Clark Gable at our house!” and ladies our husbands will not always be “Clark Gable”, but we can still be content with them and grateful to God for the man He has blessed us with.
Do you have common interests?
For years, I did not feel this was truly important, but the longer I am married, the more I see it as vital to our relationship with our husbands. You see, dear one, in just a few short years (believe it or not!) your children will be grown and possibly out of your home. One day, you will wake up and realize that the only one that is present to share the joys and sorrows of each day is the man you have married. It has broken my heart to see so many homeschool marriages fall apart after the children have grown. Many homeschool moms have placed their children and homeschooling above their husbands and marital relationships. Oh, this must not be. Our children are a tremendous gift from God to us…but our husband is a greater gift. Through our marital bonds, we have become one with our husbands, not our children. Yes, we must love our children and train them up in the ways of the Lord….but we must prioritize our relationship with our husband. As we make our marital relationship a priority, we must seek out common interests. What does your husband enjoy? Go along and do that activity with him. For us, my husband loves to fish…and I have learned to love to fish the past several years. He also greatly enjoys music (playing guitar and learning to play the piano; Christian concerts; listening to music)
And I have chosen to enjoy his musical lifestyle alongside him. Over the years, I have found that not everything he enjoys I share. For instance, Manuel also loves to roller-skate, and if you have ever seen me on skates…you will know recognize that this is not a passion of mine (I tend to like my bones unbroken!) and that is ok…Prioritizing and loving our husbands does not mean we are with them 24/7 and that everything they do, we must also do. It does however, mean that we must actively seek spending time with them—and enjoy them!
As homeschooling Moms, it can be difficult to set aside this type of time to spend with your husbands. However, it is something we must chose to prioritize! IF it means, our children must drop one activity from their overcrowded schedules, or if it means, we must buy a loaf of bread at the store, then so be it. Relationship building takes time and we must invest this time to fulfill our assignment from God.
In his book, A Minute of Margin, Dr. Richard Swenson, states, “Relationships do not just happen. If you go out into a garden and simply throw seeds on the top of the ground—no tilling, no planting of the seeds, no weeding, no watering, no fertilizing, no nurturing—then you will not have a crop to harvest. Relationships are just like a garden. They require nurturing if they are to grow, and this means the investment of time and energy.”
Begin to invest yourself now…nurture your marriage and husband..and see the beautiful relationship God will grow!