Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Patriarch and I were not always this happy together.  There was a time when we used to argue.  A lot.  Or even worse not talk to each other at all beyond the essentials.

I wrote a bit about what brought about the change in our lives here.  So I won’t use up space discussing that here.

I thought I would tell you of a few of the things I have done in the past to bless my husband on Valentine’s Day that does not involve a Hallmark card or a large expenditure of money!  I realize this is far too late for you to use this year, but keep it in mind for next year or any other occasion you would like to use to bless your husband.

Why would it be important to bless our husbands?  God’s word tells us wives that we are to respect our husbands.

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

I Peter 3:1

 

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Titus 2:3-5

It could be our respectful, loving conduct towards our husbands that the Lord uses to bring our unbelieving husbands to Himself.  It could be our example that a struggling wife needs to see (or hear about) for healing & rejuvenation in that marriage to begin to take place. If respect of my husband is not habitual, than comments or phrases could slip out of my mouth that would be less than honoring to him and possibly hinder another wife from giving her husband the respect he is due.

There cannot truly be any love toward a husband without there being respect first.  A good self check is to examine how your children treat their father.  If they are not respectful, is that possibly from your own bad example?  Yes, all children do have their own sin nature, but as their mother you can lead them either toward or away from respecting their father.  I well remember the day I realized that our “Arrow” was treating his father just as I was, only more so.  I was so mortified to realize that I was teaching by my actions and words and tone the very thing I didn’t want my children to do.  It is a lot harder to UN-do wrong teaching than it is to teach the right way from the start.

With the essentials taken care of first we can turn toward some practical things you can do to show your husband you love and respect him.

Are that any things your husband has asked you to do or take care of that you have neglected?  Take care of them today!  And try to make it a point to do what items your husband has requested of you as soon as possible.  You can even schedule in time each day to take care of those things for your husband.  Having a time each day devoted to taking care of any request your husband had made of you would speak volumes of love to him.  V-o-l-u-m-e-s!

Are you good about keeping your husband in clean socks and underwear?  You know, NOT the ones in the piles of clean clothes that can be found on any and all horizontal spaces throughout the house?  No, but ones found folded and put away neatly in his dresser drawers??  I have a whole post about laundry, but I’m still working on that…

Do you try to keep your husband’s favorite snacks in stock?  Even making sure that the children don’t eat them up first?  Do you fix him favorite meals or the meals he has requested lately?  Tonight would be a perfect time to make your dear husband his favorite meal!  Well as long it isn’t past dinner time where you live!  LOL

I have been known to place special treats in my dear husband’s lunch.  One year I found some really cute little ‘love bug’ candies that  put into his lunch.  Not the best tasting candy, but a little surprise anyway!  One year I took strips of different colored paper and wrote something I really appreciated about him on each one.  These I placed in his lunches over a period of weeks.  Truthfully I was quite surprised to find that he had saved these simple paper strips.

What was I able to do for my dear husband this year?  Well, today was his annual truck inventory.  We spent the weekend counting 3 and 8 cent nuts, washers, and bolts,  cleaning out accumulated trash and generally organizing the back of his truck, fondly referred to as his ‘rolling workshop’ or ‘workshop on wheels’.  My “specialty” is to arrange all his open work orders in numeric order and then make a ‘work in progress’ sheet.  I do mine on the computer and not hand written, but either way it is time consuming!  It is also very necessary to pay very close attention to the details.

And you know I can’t go without a special poem now, don’t you??  I was given a gem of an old poetry book yesterday when we visited our friends Mr & Mrs O.  We were able to spend the Lord’s Day together worshiping together and enjoying each others company.  Special friends like these are a rare treasure.

The Bride

by Edgar A. Guest

Little lady at the altar,

Vowing by God’s book and psalter

To be faithful, fond and true

Unto him who stands by you,

Think not that romance is ended,

That youth’s curtain has descended,

And love’s pretty play is done;

For it is only just begun.

Marriage, blushing little lady,

Is love’s sunny path and shady,

Over which two hearts should wander,

Of each other growing fonder.

As you stroll to each to-morrow,

You will come to joy and sorrow,

And as faithful man and wife

Red the troubled book of life.

Bitter cares will some day find you;

Closer, closer they will bind you;

If together you will bear them,

Cares grow sweet when lovers share them.

Love unites two happy mortals,

Brings them here to wedlock’s portals

And the blithely bid them go,

Arm in arm, through weal and woe.

Little lady, just remember

Every year has its December,

Every rising sun its setting,

Every life it time of fretting;

And the honeymoon’s sweet beauty

Finds too soon the clouds of duty;

But keep faith, when trouble-tired,

And in joy you shall abide.

Little lady at the altar,

Never let your courage falter,

Never stoop to unbelieving,

Even when your heart is grieving.

To what comes of wintry weather

Or disaster, stand together;

Through life’s fearful hours of night

Love shall bring you to the light.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Blessings,

~Mrs. R

graphics from the graphics fairy