So, what’s your marriage like? How do you feel about your relationship with your husband? 

Do you feel as though you’re struggling to even like the guy you married? Do you love your husband deeply, yet long for him to grow into more of the godly man you desire? Do you crave more joy in your marriage, more peace, more contentment?

Or are you feeling pretty satisfied with your married life? Are you feeling like your marriage couldn’t possibly get any better? Are you overjoyed with your husband and love every minute you spend with him?

No matter what season you are in with your spouse and in your married life, there is one thing that is crucial for your marriage to thrive, grow and blossom:

Your personal relationship with God needs to be your top priority.

If your relationship with God is strong and growing, you will be bringing more joy into your marriage.

Why? Because having a dedicated relationship with God will bring your heart peace and joy…making you a better person, a better friend, a better wife, a better help meet .

That’s the result of choosing to put God first in your life. Peace. Joy. Contentment. 

Will you always be happy? Will things always go your way? Nope. Will you be able to change anything about your husband? Maybe. Maybe not. 

But if your relationship with God is what it should be…you will have joy in your life. You’ll have peace in your life that passes all understanding. You’ll be content knowing that you’re doing just what God wants you to do.

Don’t you want that kind of wife for your husband?  Doesn’t it give you a little thrill thinking about the kind of wife you can be to your man, just by learning more about God and His desires for you?

Let God teach you and transform you into the wife you need to be.

Spend time daily (constantly) with God, reading His word, meditating on what He’s trying to tell you, talking to Him about what He needs you to do, listening to Him, praising Him. 

I know many of us struggle with spending special time with God each day (and we have all kinds of excuses). It takes effort. It takes discipline. It takes desire. 

Be intentional. Your marriage depends on it.

Share with us:  What are you doing each day to spend time with God? What are some of the tricks you have discovered for carving out time for God in the midst of your busy days? What works for you as you juggle day to day tasks with building a stronger relationship with God? Please share with us so that we can all learn new ideas!

Challenge yourself:  Is your relationship with God what it should be? In what ways do you need to grow in your relationship with God? Are you spending time with God each day as you should be? Where is your heart? Are you making God your number one priority?

You know how the husband of the Proverbs 31 Woman is “respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land”?

Why do you suppose he was so highly respected? Because he’s just that cool? Yeah maybe. I’m sure he was a pretty neat guy.

But here’s what I think:

I think he was respected by others because he was first respected by his wife.

If his wife didn’t respect him…didn’t talk respectfully to him…didn’t talk respectfully to others about him…why in the world would others respect him?

I am not an expert. Nor do I think that the following statement is absolute across the board without exception.

But.

I believe we as women have the power to make or break our man. 

Without a doubt, a big part of who a man becomes is completely up to him. You can not change your husband because ultimately he must make his own choices and decide who his God is.

But.

I believe that the way I treat my husband; the way I respect him, talk to him, listen to him and talk to others about him can have a huge impact on the choices he makes and the man he becomes.

If I am constantly being sarcastic and negative to him…putting down the things he does…rolling my eyes at him…doing things opposite of what he asks of me…questioning everything he says and does…letting him know that he is annoying me…ignoring his needs…

If I am griping to others about him…laughing and joking to my friends about the ridiculous things he does…whining about all the ways he just doesn’t measure up…making fun of him in front of his friends…

I think I could slowly but surely break my man.

But.

If I show respect in the way I talk to him and listen to him…in the way I talk to others about him…and in the way I talk to him when we’re with others…

I can build him up and make him into more of the man and husband God wants him to be.

These are the some of the things I try to consider about how I talk to my husband or talk to others about my husband:

• Would I want him to talk to me like this?
• Would I want him to look at me this way when he’s talking to me?
• Would I want him to talk to his friends about me like this?
• Would I want him to talk to me in front of other people this way?

Hey…I don’t want Matt to talk to the guys about what a dork I was when I forgot to pick up the stuff he asked me to pick up at the store yesterday. I don’t want him to gripe to his buddies about how annoying I am when I leave cabinet doors open time after time. Why in the world would I think it would be okay for me to whine and gripe about him to my friends?

Now…is it ever okay to vent to a friend and share concerns in your marriage? Absolutely. I think women sharing with women can be healthy and helpful. But I think it is VERY important to pray about it first and consider the outcome of the conversation. You want your friends (and family) to still have respect for your husband after your conversation. Speak wisely.

Share with us:  Not only is it a good idea to NOT SAY negative things to others about your husband, it’s also a great idea to say lots of positive things about him to others! Please take some time to share with us some of the great things your husband does for you and your family. Go ahead…start bragging! If you aren’t in the habit of sharing great things about your husband…this is a great place to start!

Challenge Yourself:  What are some ways you might need to improve when it comes to talking respectfully to or about your husband? Would your husband “be respected at the city gate” (Prov. 31:23)? (You’re welcome to share your thoughts on this too…but please don’t feel like you have to. This is more for your reflection and prayer.)
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This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday.

I loved all of your responses about how you are a helper to your husband. It was wonderful to establish that our role as wives is simply to be our husband’s helper. Thank you. I think we can all be encouraged to read how each of us work to meet our husband’s individual needs.

I’ve read a quite few marriage books, both from Christian and secular perspectives. 

They were all pretty good books…but after reading them and trying to apply them…I often felt guilt and frustration. Guilt because after studying and learning about how to be a great help meet…I STILL fall way short of perfection. Frustration because there were still parts about being a help meet described in the books that I just didn’t get. How do I do this again? Why can’t I do a better job of this? What is the matter with me?

Why can’t I smile at my husband adoringly every time he’s in the room? Why can’t I always meet him at the door when he gets home from work, throw my arms around him and give him a big affectionate kiss, hand him his slippers and the newspaper and massage his shoulders for thirty minutes on the sofa? Why do I STILL sometimes act irrationally about some of the  things he does that frustrate me? For that matter, why…when I’m trying to do all these wonderful things to be a good help meet to him does he still do some of the same things that frustrate me? Shouldn’t the way I’m being such a good help-meet make him change all his frustrating ways?

After much prayer and reflection sprinkled in with strong urges to kick, scream or break something, it has finally occurred to me that while I’m still striving toward being a perfect help-meet, I am never going to be perfect. My husband is never going to be perfect. Our marriage is never going to be perfect. We are two imperfect individuals, designed by God to be and to think very differently. 

Wives, some days we’re going to have sad hearts. Some days our husbands are really going to make us mad. Sometimes they will say something that hurts our feelings. Some days we will have given so much of ourselves to our home, work and children, we will feel like we have nothing to give to our husbands at the end of the day. 

The problem then is not in our emotions and feelings.  We will all continue to occasionally feel sad, tired, mad, hurt, frustrated, over-worked, annoyed, some of the above, all of the above. None of those feelings are wrong or sinful. They’re normal, because life and marriage are full of real moments and real hard work. 

The problem and sin comes in how we respond to those feelings and emotions.  We can say something ugly to our husbands. We can have a pity party for ourselves all day and sulk and pout. We can be short with our children. We can ignore our husbands or try to “punish” them. We can whine to a bunch of our friends about “men” and “just wait till I tell you what he did this time”. All of these responses are wrong and sinful. They may tend to be our natural responses…the easier responses…but, they are sinful.

Instead, get on your knees and beg God to show you how you can respond to your feelings with grace and mercy. Anything less will just throw us into a well of self-righteous pity. I’ve been there and done that. While choosing to be merciful is A MUCH HARDER DECISION, in the long run (and because we’re trying to let God help us do things His way) our marriages will be so much more peaceful when we choose what is right.

Share With Us:  Just like we did in this Real Mom post, let’s all reassure each other that none of us is perfect, nor do we have perfect husbands or perfect marriages. Leave a comment to let us know that you, your husband and your marriage are all real…with bumps and road blocks (and times of bliss and merriment too). This is NOT A MEN BASHING OPPORTUNITY.  This is a time to encourage each other and to let each other know that as Christian women, we are all in this together.

Challenge Yourself:  Think of some of the ways you respond to your husband when you are frustrated about something he’s done. Pray! – and start planning  NOW for how you can handle that these situations with mercy and grace. 

We’ll talk more soon about some specifics and “how-tos” of choosing mercy and peace in our moments of frustration. In the meantime…let’s all take a quick moment to share that we are all real so that none of us feels like we are the only ones in a real marriage.

I’m so excited to share a WONDERFUL resource with you called Empower Christian Wives.

The site and all the material is written by Paul Moses, a Christian man, minister and counsellor. I know Paul personally and completely trust that he is driven by the Spirit to help empower Christian women to improve their marriages. He has helped save many marriages that were on the brink of divorce, and has improved the quality of many marriages that didn’t even know they needed improving!

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of interviewing Paul and his wife Helen. It was an amazing experience for me and I know that listening to what Paul has to say will bring you encouragement. 

 Ick, I don’t like listening to my own voice in a recording! Thankfully, all I do is ask the questions, so you’ll mostly hear what Paul has to say!

It’s simply audio (because hello, I would have had to do something with my hair otherwise). The recording is set to be on a Christian radio show in Kansas sometime soon…but we’re giving you a sneak peek listen at it! It’s about 27 minutes long, so I’d say grab some laundry to fold or get a cup of tea and put your feet up for a well deserved rest. 

Click here to listen!

To kick off this series…let’s talk about why in the world we need to be a help meet. And…what is a help meet anyway?

I know for sure that I don’t have all the answers to these questions. The mystery of  “what is a help meet?” can seem deep, heavy and complicated. After much prayer, I found it very helpful and refreshing to just cut out all of the difficult and specific questions in my mind about being a perfect help meet and just look at the simple basics. 

Read chapter two of Genesis. God had created the earth and everything in the earth. He made this man named Adam…and he put Adam in a beautiful garden.

Then God said of Adam, “Aw, he’s all alone with no one to share this beauty with. He needs a helper.” (Genesis 2:20 – LV – Laura’s version, adapted from NIV – New International Version)

So…God brought the entire zoo of animals and birds and fish before Adam. Adam had a nice time naming them all. ( “You are a goat”… “You are a zebra”… “You are a gnu with a silent “g” just for the fun of it and because I said so.”)  But after a while, the chickens were just not cutting it. Adam needed encouragement, he needed someone to help him remember where he put his hatchet, and he was lonely. Adam needed a helper.

So, God put Adam to sleep, took out a rib, and made a lovely person similar to Adam…yet oh so different in many ways.

God brought the lovely person to Adam. Adam, of course, smiled with delight and said (something like), “Aha! This is exactly what I’ve been needing. She’s a knock out!! Thank you God!! She is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Because she is a part of me, I’ll call her, Woman.” ( LV)

Now God, of course, does not make any mistakes. He knew exactly what he was doing when he made the lovely woman to be the man’s helper. He knew what he was doing when he made the man and the woman alike…and yet so different. He created the perfect combination. He made husband…and wife. God made BOTH man and woman in His image.

And He made the woman to help the man.

Well, I for one feel highly honored. 

God made me, Laura, to be a helper for Matt.  That makes me smile. 

This guy I love like crazy and think is really, really neat? He loves me and asked me to marry him and I get to be the one to help him in this life.

Is that not one of the biggest honors God could have given me?

Ladies, I do believe we have been given the best job in the world! 

***After each post in this series, I plan to ask some questions and pose some challenges to help all of us reflect on our role as a help meet to our husband. I hope you will feel comfortable to leave a comment in answer to the “Share with Us” questions so that we can all be inspired and encouraged by one another. You are also welcome to share your challenges in answering the “Challenge Yourself” questions publicly…however if those reflections are private, please ponder them in your heart or write them in a journal and pray for God to lead you in the way He needs to toward being a better help meet.***

Share with us:  What are some of the basic, everyday things you do for your husband that make his life and his work easier? I know for sure that you do A LOT to help your husbands everyday, so I can’t wait to be encouraged by your comments!! I bet you’ll be encouraged too when you think about all the ways you are a great helper to your husband!

Challenge yourself:  Are there ways you can improve as a helper? What small (or big) things can you do that will help your husband get through each day?  – Don’t beat yourself up about it…just challenge yourself and pray about ways you can be a better helper. 

Yay! God chose YOU to be the best helper for YOUR husband! You make his life better, richer, more fulfilled and more full of joy! As you go about your work today, do it with peace, knowing that you are doing just what God called you to do!