If you are a wife...

"Father, let the Holy Spirit have full dominion over me, in my home, in my temper, in every word of my tongue, in every thought of my heart, in every feeling toward my [husband]; let the Holy Spirit have entire possession" (adapted from a prayer by Andrew Murray).

Since my last post nearly eight months ago, this has become my prayer, accompanied by thoughts tied to it, such as, "As I have loved you...love one another" (John 3:34). As I pick up blogging again, I invite you into the heart of my home...the kitchen. The coffee's brewing and the muffins are fresh out of the oven. Come in and stay for awhile, or stop by for a few minutes. What you read here will be chatty thoughts, not necessarily organized or polished and they may be misunderstood, so please don't  analyze them. They are just my imperfect thoughts as I "preach to myself" and find strength in the Lord and Spirit encouragement. As I talk about the day to day ups and downs, and hear some of yours, I hope that we can remember together that we are not alone!   We have one another to comfort, laugh with and cry with, and we have God.

If you are a wife reading this, then maybe you can identify with me when I say that loving our husbands in a Christ-centered way requires Holy Spirit power! It does! The fruit of the Spirit is love. And love is merciful, kind, patient, humble, forgiving, forbearing, peace-making...it sounds a lot like the fruit of the Spirit! Yet, above all this fruit, the Word tells us to put on love. The Word says so in Colossians 3:14, and a mere three sentences later this holy conversation addresses wives.

I know that I am not all roses. I have thorns. And those thorns can make it hard for my husband to get close enough to get a whiff of rose! But my husband also has thorns. He is a thorny man who would rather be compared to the Apostle Paul than a rose bush. Fair enough. The great apostle had a thorn. Wisely, scripture doesn't tell us what it was. It could have been the same kind of thorn sticking from my side, or the kind sticking from my husband's side, but whatever it was, don't you know, God's grace was needed for it. I know! So what is there to do but seek His grace? I am finding it as I pray through 1Peter 3 and parts of Ephesians 5 on my own behalf as a wife.I pray for grace to adapt to my husband, respect him, defer to him, enjoy him, openly praise and admire him and to be peaceful and gentle. I found all these descriptions in the Amplified Bible, and they are not easy to practice. I pray to be considered as one of Sarah's "true daughters," fearing nothing. Giving no way to unnerving anxieties. 

If any wife had reason to be unnerved by her husband's behavior, it would be Sarah. Abraham had thorns, too. He did some unnerving things. Nevertheless, Sarah maintained peace and did not loose respect for her husband, not because he earned her respect and not because he was so trustworthy that she had nothing to worry about, but because God is trustworthy and He is forgiveness. There is a strong link between forgiving others the way God forgives us and respecting others the way God respects us. His respect for one person is no more and no less than His respect for another person. His way with me, with my husband, and with us as a united couple is not based on our behavior, but on His character, and I find that wonderfully freeing!

written by: Carolyn Roehrig
Can you identify with some of this? I would love to hear from you! E-mail me at carolyn.roehrig@verizon.net