Respect Your Man!
A fellow Bluer ite, Patsy, sent me this in an email this morning...it's a quote from the book, For Women Only, by Shaunti Feldhahn. This was actually found on another blog - Descartes' Bar and Grill ......strangely enough, it's what I've been thinking about a lot lately - not this particular book, but specifically this line from it!:
"the most interesting thing: men would rather feel alone and unloved than inadequate and disrespected... just the opposite of what most women would choose..."
The Lord has been putting this on my heart a lot lately, for some reason...maybe it's the outta control hormones and the way I have been so unkind to my husband lately, but at every turn, He has sent me something via someone with this same message. Yesterday my aunt called me and wanted to talk about honoring your husband, and the lack of honor in our culture today. It was the last thing I wanted to talk about, probably because I have not been honoring my own husband.
A few years ago I did learn this lesson - I must have forgotten it already. I have this need to control (that I'm sure I inherited) that effects different parts of my life negatively. One of the things I unconsciously or consciously try to control is my marriage and my husband...I feel like my way is the only way, and if things are not done my way it's just not worth doing, and if it's not done when I want it done, I just have to do it myself. Sometimes I find myself so self-centered that I pity others who think that their way is better - and then I try to convince them why it's not. WHOA. Maybe I'm being a little bit too honest here...
I keep going back to one of the scriptures read at our wedding - and probably every other wedding - and this is where the Lord has really been gently allowing me to see how my actions can deeply wound my husband....
I Corinthians 13:5 & 7
Love - God's love in us - does not insist on it's own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it, it pays no attention to a suffered wrong. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes; it is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances.
In my efforts to control, I have taken away the honor due my husband, the respect he deserves and needs from me. What God has been showing me is the amazing privelege of a woman to be the SILENT support of her husband, and how humility is when I am happy because my husband is happy - whether it be because of something I've helped him to do or not, I do not need to point this out, throw it in his face or tell everyone else. I have found that I can actually find joy in bringing honor to my husband, in respecting him, wanting his advice, listening to him, giving him the credit he deserves instead of trying to convince him that he's done it all wrong, or complaining to my girlfriends about all of the things that annoy me. These are things that DIS-honor him, and lead him to think I do not respect him, or that I think he is inadequate.
The amazing thing is that I have also found that when I do treat my husband with respect and when I honor him, he is really deeply touched by it. In this way of honoring him, he desires to honor me in return, he desires to make me happy, and he allows me to see into the depths of his soul because he feels safe, feels adequate, and necessary. This is love as I've always imagined it.
This really goes against everything our society would tell us is acceptable or sane, but then again, humility and honor have all but disappeared in the world as we know it today.
God has put on my heart this need that men have for women to be a pillar of silent strength, to be steady, unchanging support. When I tout my abilities over my husband or gripe about everything I think he does wrong just because it's not my way, I no longer exist as a support, but I become a symbol of his "supposed" failure...I am tearing him to shreds and then expecting that to be motivating enough to get him to do what I want him to...yikes.
"the most interesting thing: men would rather feel alone and unloved than inadequate and disrespected... just the opposite of what most women would choose..."
The Lord has been putting this on my heart a lot lately, for some reason...maybe it's the outta control hormones and the way I have been so unkind to my husband lately, but at every turn, He has sent me something via someone with this same message. Yesterday my aunt called me and wanted to talk about honoring your husband, and the lack of honor in our culture today. It was the last thing I wanted to talk about, probably because I have not been honoring my own husband.
A few years ago I did learn this lesson - I must have forgotten it already. I have this need to control (that I'm sure I inherited) that effects different parts of my life negatively. One of the things I unconsciously or consciously try to control is my marriage and my husband...I feel like my way is the only way, and if things are not done my way it's just not worth doing, and if it's not done when I want it done, I just have to do it myself. Sometimes I find myself so self-centered that I pity others who think that their way is better - and then I try to convince them why it's not. WHOA. Maybe I'm being a little bit too honest here...
I keep going back to one of the scriptures read at our wedding - and probably every other wedding - and this is where the Lord has really been gently allowing me to see how my actions can deeply wound my husband....
I Corinthians 13:5 & 7
Love - God's love in us - does not insist on it's own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it, it pays no attention to a suffered wrong. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes; it is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances.
In my efforts to control, I have taken away the honor due my husband, the respect he deserves and needs from me. What God has been showing me is the amazing privelege of a woman to be the SILENT support of her husband, and how humility is when I am happy because my husband is happy - whether it be because of something I've helped him to do or not, I do not need to point this out, throw it in his face or tell everyone else. I have found that I can actually find joy in bringing honor to my husband, in respecting him, wanting his advice, listening to him, giving him the credit he deserves instead of trying to convince him that he's done it all wrong, or complaining to my girlfriends about all of the things that annoy me. These are things that DIS-honor him, and lead him to think I do not respect him, or that I think he is inadequate.
The amazing thing is that I have also found that when I do treat my husband with respect and when I honor him, he is really deeply touched by it. In this way of honoring him, he desires to honor me in return, he desires to make me happy, and he allows me to see into the depths of his soul because he feels safe, feels adequate, and necessary. This is love as I've always imagined it.
This really goes against everything our society would tell us is acceptable or sane, but then again, humility and honor have all but disappeared in the world as we know it today.
God has put on my heart this need that men have for women to be a pillar of silent strength, to be steady, unchanging support. When I tout my abilities over my husband or gripe about everything I think he does wrong just because it's not my way, I no longer exist as a support, but I become a symbol of his "supposed" failure...I am tearing him to shreds and then expecting that to be motivating enough to get him to do what I want him to...yikes.
posted by KariBryant @ 3:24 PM
6 Comments:
At 8:55 PM,
Julie said…
That's an awesome book. :-)
Shaunti is my mentor and big sister in the Lord, and when my own marriage was falling apart, I was blessed enough to hear the contents of that book before it was ever written. Got to read it as it was written, too. It's helping A LOT of couples. Praise God!
At 8:56 PM,
Julie said…
She wrote the foreword to my book, too. :-)
At 3:33 AM,
Brad said…
Take a peek at Charlie Peacock's New Way to Be Human (John Musick might have more to say on this book in person if you want a more "legit" endorsement other than mine).
Further, I wonder how one can fulfill the call of Proverbs 31 silently.
At 2:15 PM,
Julie said…
I don't think that was the idea -- to fulfill Proverbs 31 silently. Methinks you misinterpreted.
At 4:34 PM,
KariBryant said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
At 5:34 PM,
KariBryant said…
Support and honor may have a lot more to do with what is in your heart than what you speak. I feel like that is the place that must change before your actions ever will. And, I am not at all sure that anyone can fulfill the call of a "Proverbs 31 Woman" silently, but that is not what I was thinking about when I wrote this... These are just some things that the Lord has been speaking to me recently about my own life. I am glad that someone is finding it all interesting :)
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