I’m glad that God is faithful to me. Without fail, he is always there for me, always loving me, always strengthening me. He will never leave me nor forsake me.

Our culture seems to lack faithfulness. In fact, our culture lacks all of the fruit of the Spirit. These fruit, or qualities, are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23), and there is a very good reason that we don’t find these qualities abounding in society. They aren’t human nature.

Culture

I’m expecting that by the time I have teenaged children, the divorce rate in America will be between 60-75%. The signs are everywhere that marriage is failing. Know what I see all the time in movies and other media? Aside from divorce, what I see is people questioning the very idea of marriage. They ask, “How can I really say I’ll love one person for the rest of my life? How can I promise to stay with one person forever?”

The thing is, people are rebelling against marriage because it’s not natural to them. We all need to have human companionship, but this idea of one man and one woman committing to each other for a lifetime and becoming one flesh is a Biblical thing. Maybe it has been a process. Throughout time, ever since the Fall, creation has been constantly degrading, and maybe things like the fruit of the Spirit will become more and more difficult to grasp the further we fall. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I fear for future generations. Christians need to continue to strive to bear good fruit and set examples for their children and friends!

Our Example and Our Reason

Jesus was both fully man and fully God, thus making him literally a perfect example of how to behave as a human being. For one thing, he was human and someone we can emulate. Secondly, he was God, so he did not fall short the way we will. We aren’t divine; none of us is perfect. But we do have a perfect example, and if we strive for perfection, we may achieve excellence.

Jesus was faithful to his family and friends as well as to God the Father. Even unto death.

“Faithfulness matters because it matters to God. Period. The longer I walk with the Lord and the more I fall in love with Him, the more I am convinced that the core characteristic that He is looking for in us is faith(fulness).”
-Why Faithfulness Matters – BeBroken.com

Living Loyally

As much as loyalty is highlighted as a virtue, it’s not always easy to be loyal. Still, it’s my goal to be known as a loyal person, with God’s help. I hope that my friends know that they can always count on me to stick by their sides and love them. I know my husband believes in me to always love and honor him. I pray that God continues to help me continually draw near to him and glorify him with my life.

But on a personal note, what I’m struggling with lately is believing in others’ loyalty to me. Sometimes it feels like friends are only friends as long as it’s convenient. People only seem to check up on you when you give them cause to worry, and people are only there for you if and only if you’re there for them. It’s a hard thing to deal with, but I must remind myself that faithfulness does not come naturally, even to me. I must remember that where humans fail, God never does. And I must continue striving to be faithful to my friends, not to earn their loyalty in return, but because God expects it of me. He expects me not to live a life that comes naturally, but rather to live a supernatural life, one that I can only live with his help.

Previous Fridays

Five reasons I love my Hubby today…

1. I love how insightful you are with music & really all art.

2. I love how observant you are.

3. I love your perseverance.

4. I love how you’re so surprised when I make a joke.

5. I love that you’ll be home before the next FFF.

What do you see when you look at the world? Do you dwell on the most hopeful aspects of life and expect mostly positive outcomes? Do you wake up thinking, “This is going to be a good day!” like many of my friends? Or… do you wake up thinking, “I don’t know about this day. There’s a lot that could go wrong.” Maybe, like me, you tend to have a more gloomy outlook.

In other words, are you an optimist or a pessimist? If you’re one of the latter, don’t be too concerned, because honestly I think I’m the most negative person I know.

Rose-Colored Glasses

When I think of rose-colored glasses, I think of an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch I watched when I was probably in Jr. High. In order to blind someone to the nasty truth, Sabrina cast a spell and put these glasses with pink lenses on someone else who then saw everything in a positive light. That’s a cute way to look at it, but of course it’s not very realistic, seeing as how that kind of magic doesn’t exist.

I don’t know anyone with rose-colored glasses, but I know some people with rose-colored eyes. Or maybe it’s their brains? I’m not sure. The difference is that the optimists I know don’t put on glasses in the morning and choose to only see the positive. They just DO. That’s just how they (and maybe you) think, without trying. And most of us face the same reality, see the same things – but we perceive it in different ways.

Glass Half Empty

A negative person deals with a constant struggle, both within and without. Believe me, I know from experience. This person must carefully balance how much to tell others: tell too much, too often, and not only do the others tire of hearing it, but the person may also feel guilty for pulling others down to his level; tell too little, and the person realizes he’s being dishonest, maybe even shallow, and may feel as if his friends really only like him for the front he puts up.

Those who are positive also face a dilemma. Do you remain friends with someone once you discover a negative or pessimistic attitude? How much time are you willing to spend with this friend, and how much can you listen to before it starts to drag you down?

Dealing With Each Other

How does one deal with negative friends? It requires patience, love, and sometimes gently reminding your friends that they are only looking at the negative side of things. Simpler than you might think, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy.

As far as handling negativity in yourself, I have a few suggestions that I think apply whether you’re negative sometimes, most of the time, or all of the time.

1. Accept your feelings but not your thoughts. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t think it’s healthy to tell yourself not to feel a certain way. It’s okay to feel like there’s no hope. However, it’s not okay to sit there and tell yourself over and over that it’s true. Try to reform your thinking habits. Tell yourself you can’t predict the future, and it could very well turn out better than you thought. If necessary, distract yourself with something else. When trying to break a habit, rather than telling yourself not to do such-and-such, which causes you to constantly think about it, change your focus to something else. Then you’re more likely to forget about whatever it was.

2. Thank others for listening. If you have friends who love you and are kind enough to listen to you rant sometimes, be sure to thank them for listening. It can hurt to open yourself up to someone else’s complaints and receive nothing for your efforts except to be expected to do it again and again. Sometimes we just need people to listen, and if our friends are meeting that need, they deserve gratitude, if not more.

3. Try to see the lighter side. After venting, if your friend tries to tell you how they see it, don’t shut your friend out just because his outlook is different. Try to see it from his eyes. Even if you don’t agree.

4. Recognize and seek out truth. Your thoughts aren’t necessarily reflective of the truth. They are truly your thoughts, but you aren’t omnipotent; no one is. Rather than dwelling on your feelings and thoughts, dwell on what you know to be truth. The best source is, of course, the Bible.

So, Thanks

I want to publically thank all of my friends for dealing with me and listening to me rant as often as they do. I do appreciate it, and I’m grateful to you all. I’ve struggled with negativity, some times more than others, for most of my life, but I’ve also been on the other side of the fence. And I know that it can be hard. Thank you! I love you guys!

Now, quick, what are you thoughts? Which group do you fall into? Do you have any suggestions for how to deal with someone who sees things in a more negative – or more positive – light than you do?

I hope everyone had a good Father’s Day yesterday! I did, actually. I spent it with my step-father and mother, who were in town visiting for a few days. This made the first Father’s Day I’ve actually spent with him since they moved away from Texas.

My Father Figures

My mom remarried when I was thirteen, and in my mind, I was pretty much raised and practically full-grown. For years, John was my mother’s husband, but to me personally he wasn’t really anything. I noticed that Mom seemed to have a lot of time for him and not as much for me, so for some time I resented that. During my more rebellious times, there were decisions made by the two of them that I blamed fully on him rather than equally on him and my mom, and that made me resent him more.

But now I’m just grateful.

There was no one else in my life acting as the sort of father figure and male role model that I needed to see. John was more firm with me than my mother probably would have been, alone, and he had a right to be so! He cared about me from the time they got married, and I know now what I couldn’t always see, then – that he did so many things for me out of love, even though neither of us said “I love you” until sometime within the last few years. And now, as I’ve matured enough that he doesn’t have to try to keep me from hurting myself, I’m learning to enjoy our relationship even more. I’m so glad to have him!

My grandfather is the other father figure in my life. He took me to the parks when I was little and played Pocahontas with my friends and me in the woods. He taught me about birds, trees, and constellations. He was the one to teach me how to whistle through my hands in that way that sounds like a dove call, and he was the one so proud of the pig-latin-type language I made up as a child. My father wasn’t there to do those things with me, but Grampa was.

Now that I’m older, Grampa is still a special person in my life. He helped me get my first car and is always willing to step in at times when I need a father’s reassurance or advice. He was one of the key people whose approval I wanted when I was getting married. My husband and I long to spend more time with him and glean what wisdom we can from him.

My Dad

In many ways, my dad was less of a dad for me than the others. But I still honor him on Father’s Day. He isn’t perfect, but he’s my dad. God knew… everything that would happen in my life, and God still demands that I respect my parents.

When I was three, they divorced, and Dad moved away. But every summer when I was young, he was the one who paid to have me fly out to visit him. He taught me to fish, to bait a hook, to love the ocean. He taught me about a different kind of love between man and wife than I would have learned at home. He has taught me that you must make hard decisions in life and then live with the consequences. He has taught me that faith and perseverance can sustain you through many trials. And though he wasn’t here to get to know me and my husband, his sentiments during a phone call when I told him we were dating, and then engaged, were worth as much to me as my Grampa’s approval and John’s willingness to walk me down the aisle.

My Husband

My husband doesn’t get a father’s day card yet, but I’m so happy that he is the man who will be Dad and Father Figure to our children. From the good examples on his side of the family, Hubby has become someone I deeply respect. I have confidence in him to be a great father, and I’m excitedly anticipating the year that I can also give him a tribute!

I’m so thankful that I don’t have anyone’s grave to visit on Memorial Day. Being involved with the military has made me more aware of the meaning behind the federal holiday, but it doesn’t hit me on a personal level, and for that I’m grateful. One day, it probably will. One day I’ll probably know people who have given their lives for our country – people I’ll think of especially on Memorial Day. But not yet.

What is it to me? Growing up in a very military-lacking family, Memorial Day never really had any special meaning to me. I’d heard what it was about, but that was all. For the most part, it was a day for family picnics at Kidsville or someplace like that. It’s beginning to change now that I know people in the military, and now that I’m married to a soldier. Now I think about it a little more. I think about all we have to be thankful for, I think about what it would mean if Hubby did give his life…

But I find it a little funny that we don’t use the day so much for remembering those gone as much as we spend it enjoying life and loved ones. Yes, even Hubby.

Two-Thousand Nine

Last year, over the Memorial Day Weekend, we were down in the Rio Grande valley, visiting Hubby’s family.

We made sad little sand castles. We tried so hard, but we just couldn’t get that moat deep enough or the support wall high enough to protect it! 

We tried boogie boarding in the surf… Some of us succeeded more than others. (Hubby caught on. I didn’t do as well.)

We also collected shells, laid out in the sun, and ate hotdogs. It was all-around a lovely weekend. Especially for me. I love the beach. But the best part came on the last day there, up on a sand dune…

He had me looking for non-existent boats on the bay, and when I turned to tell him there were no boats, he was on one knee, covered in sand, but holding out a ring box and asking me to marry him.

This was on my brainstorming list of blog post ideas. Today, for some reason, it stood out to me. Maybe because it’s an area in my own life in which I’ve been trying to improve. What does my husband need of me, and what are my wifely responsibilities? I don’t think that wives are only around to serve their husbands, but I do believe God calls us to have a servant’s heart, whether or not one is a housewife.

Wives, Submit to Your Husbands

“Submitting to your husband doesn’t mean becoming his slave. It means recognizing his role and putting him first. After all, I believe this is the example Christ has set forth for us…”
–Melissa J. on Families.com

The biggest difference between a Christian marriage and a non-Christian marriage is whether or not the wife submits to her husband. God provides an umbrella of protection by putting the husband under himself, the wife under the husband, and the children under the wife. By living with that family structure in mind, I think that we will find ourselves living the happy, fulfilling lives God intends for us. But the wife-to-husband submission is very different from the child-to-parent submission. Notice in the Bible that children are told to obey, while wives are told to submit. (Ephesians 5-6)

1. Respecting

• The quote above touches on this, but I will re-iterate: I think that wives submit to their husbands through respect. After my husband so lovingly listens to my thoughts and suggestions, I should then strive to respectfully accept his decision as final. God has put that responsibility into my husband’s hands, and out of respect for that position, I defer to him. If a mistake is made, I should not criticize or ridicule him. I should continue treating him with the respect he deserves.
• I should not only respect his decisions, though. I also respect his goals and dreams, his space, his person. This includes holding back sometimes on snide and sarcastic remarks! (This is something Hubby and I are BOTH working on. We recognize that sometimes taking sarcasm too far makes one or the other of us start to feel unloved.)
• Avoiding nagging is, I think, a very big step in learning to respect your husband. Many women, including myself, have an almost uncontrollable urge to nag. (Only a slight exaggeration!) But when we nag our husbands, we end up feeling like their mothers, and they end up feeling like children. That is not respect, and, of course, we know this. It’s just hard to overcome sometimes! My friend recently suggested putting myself into the mindset of a personal secretary rather than a mom. It’s not a perfect analogy, but thinking this way helps me sometimes to remember that I should respectfully remind him of things and then trust his judgment about which to do and when to do them, rather than nagging him.
• Also like a secretary, I should take things into my own hands when possible. For instance, at my former job, I wouldn’t have asked my boss to do much of anything I could do myself. That’s not to say that wives should slave all week while husbands become couch potatoes, but I think you get the idea.

2. Praising

• I can no longer even count the number of sources that have told me about praising my husband. I hear it everywhere. Men respond positively to praise, and husbands respond very positively to praise from their wives in particular! It’s good to try not to criticize or nag, but it’s better to take it a step further and look for things your husband is doing that you can praise.
• Praise and support go hand in hand. As I praise Hubby’s accomplishments, I show appreciation for what he’s done, but I can also praise his efforts to let him know I support everything he’s trying to do, whether or not things go as planned.
• I try to put my admiration into words, so that my husband knows I see his hard work that sometimes seems unseen by everyone else. I want him to know that I notice how much hard work he puts into his job, even if he doesn’t feel he gets recognition for it at work.

3. Helping

“The Purpose of A Woman: God said, ‘I will make him a(n) ezer’ (Genesis 2:18).”
– Hem of His Garment Bible Study

• Many Christian wives work hard at doing things like cooking, housekeeping, parenting, and organizing in an effort to be a help-meet for their husbands, and I think that many non-Christians look at those women and think “servant” or, worse, “slave.” But that’s not it at all! Helping is not the same as serving, despite how it may appear from the outside. When God created Eve and said she was to be a helper, the Hebrew word used (ezer) is the same word as is found in the following verse:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
- Psalm 121:1-2

• I can help my husband by keeping the house managed for him, so that he doesn’t have to. I can learn what his life goals are and help him to meet them. I can help by praying for him. I can help in little things, like doing a chore I know he’s dreading. I can help him relax using, among other things, this list. And I can also help him by encouraging him to be a spiritual leader.
• The help I give my husband is something God designed me for, and it should be thought of in the same way as God’s help for us. In other words, it’s the power and strength of God working through us so we can do what he designed us to do – help our husbands. It’s not good for man to be alone! In other words, we wives are needed. It’s good to be needed.

In the Army

One other thing I was thinking about is how being a Christian wife might look different for those of us in the Army. I will probably have even more thoughts on this after we’ve gone through a deployment together.

For those of you readers who may already have a greater understanding of this, let me ask you: How is your relationship with your husband affected by deployments and long periods of “independence” followed by times of getting back into the groove of marriage? How do you respect your husband when there is so much distance between the two of you? Do you find it difficult?

Two P’s

Above all, I think that the best way to learn how to be a Christian wife is through prayer and practice. I’ve been praying for God to help me learn to be the wife he wants me to be since about a year before Hubby and I started dating, and I’ve been practicing for about a year now. I have not arrived by any means; I still struggle, but I’m still trying. My husband and my God are kind enough to lovingly forgive my shortcomings. I’m so grateful for their patience with me.

I would encourage any and all of you to begin praying now if you never have before, whether you’re single or have been married for years. God will always answer prayers that are in line with his will for your life, so if you’re asking for him to help you become the Christian wife he wants for you to be, he will definitely help you!

This post may take the place of my regular Monday post!

I just wanted to take a moment to say Happy Mother’s Day to all of you moms out there. I am not yet a mother, though I intend to be one some day! I do, however, have great respect for mothers of all ages, from the young military wives to those of you who have been mothering for 40+ years. I especially want to make sure my own mother knows how much she is appreciated today!

Who She Is

Without giving away personal information, I want to tell you a bit about my mom. She got married as a young Christian woman, and she and my dad became missionaries very shortly afterwards. She gave birth to my sisters and me while living in Suriname, South America, and she raised all of us there, including my brother, who was born in the states. When I was three, our family moved to Texas, and my mother had to go through a painful divorce. All of us children stayed with Mom, and she managed to keep going through such a hard time. My eldest sister married, the next oldest went away to college in another state, and my brother soon left to live with Dad, leaving just Mom and me for most of my childhood.

As a single parent, she managed to keep me in a a home that was never lacking in, well, anything. We never ran short of anything or ran out of any essentials. In fact, the idea that such a thing could happen never crossed my mind, as our home was so stable to me. She went back to school and completed her nursing degree while working another job, and when she finished she found a steady job that, while not the most enjoyable, allowed us to have that stability we needed. She even managed to get me a good education, despite my problems with depression and my constant refusals to go to school.

Throughout it all, most importantly, she taught me about God. She talked about Him as a real person, and her faith always seemed unwavering. She had me in church and read me Bible stories, prayed with me every night, and answered my questions to the best of her knowledge. When I hit my rebellious years, she let me choose to stop attending church as long as I went with her every other week, which I consider to be a big part of the reason I started seeking again, looking for answers. She was, of course, very happy to find out that I’d accepted Christ as my savior and wanted to start going to church more often (which turned out to be Sunday morning and evening, Tuesday night youth Bible study, and Wednesday night prayer meeting).

Beyond that, she has always given me sound advice, though it has at times been hard to hear. She keeps an open mind and allows me to form my own opinions about things, even when she thinks my opinions are misguided.

Once I reached adulthood, she helped me financially when I got into trouble until I eventually matured enough to manage my life better. She stuck with me through my wandering years, brought me back home when I hit rock bottom, put up with my attitudes, helped me job hunt, and is basically one of my heroes.

I look up to her so much.

I love you, Mom! I’m so glad I had you, growing up, and that I still have you now. I’m so glad you found such a great man who loves you like you deserve to be loved! Looking forward to seeing you soon!