Tag Archives: Faith

Using Your Martha to Be a Mary for Your Husband

Husbands oftentimes get sorely neglected by their wives, and not through anyone’s fault. Life happens, demands need to be met, and husbands are overlooked by us, only to get the ugly that’s left over after kids, homes, and jobs. What if there was a way to keep up with all those other things you have to do, and somehow use them to bless your husband? How to Use Your Martha to Be a Mary for Your Husband @jessicaMWhite.com

There is.

Look at what you do as a wife, make up an entire list, even those things that cause you to get completely angry at your husband because you feel he should do them, but doesn’t. Now, go through that list, line by line, looking at each and every item. Every single thing on that list can be used to bless your husband, even if it is as simple as your doing it with a joyful heart.

“Rejoice always…”1  Thessalonians 5:16

Yea, I know scrubbing the toilet with a joyful heart is a bit of a stretch. Joyful doesn’t mean you suddenly love doing it, it means doing it without grumbling. Doing it because you know, even if it goes completely unnoticed by your husband, that it is done and the home he lives in is that little bit cleaner.

As wives it is our “duty” to go out of our ways for our husbands, to love on them and seek to bless them in their lives. We all know of the Proverbs 31 wife, and all of us know how desperately short of that we fall. Some of the things for which she is heralded are well out of our {modern} reach, but we can still take their meaning and seek to be a blessing to our husbands.

This week’s challenge: What is one thing you can do around the home or for your husband that will bless him?

Comment 31 Days, Marriage

Fighting Against Satan’s Efforts to Keep Us Lonely: Countering the Devil’s Plot

Fighting Against Satan's Efforts to Keep Us Lonely

Fighting against Satan’s efforts to keep us lonely is no small undertaking. In my last post, I gave some ideas of how we can show grace to others and extend the hand of friendship to them. But what do we do once that’s been done; once the other person has reached for your hand too. Oh boy.Fighting Against Satan's efforts to keep us lonely: Countering the Devil's Plot @JessicAMWhite.com That’s when it can get so much scarier {bet you didn’t think that was possible!}. It’s not just casual and smiling and being nice anymore, it’s being real, and that can be so impossibly hard. It’s one thing to be “Fine” with each other, it’s another thing to allow someone into those parts of ourselves that we are too afraid to share.

I’ve realized that my interests and skills, can have a God glorifying purpose.

I love planning things…anything: So often though I’ve had no one to plan things with or for. I decided to take a leap, to invite a few ladies that I feel as though I have a budding relationship with and ask them if they would like to do things together, without our lovable littles. OK, but why? Why put all this effort in to trying to spend time with other women? Women who you may or may not actually “click” with.
I found this great post last week.  I could not have said it better. We were created for community. Not only because we were made to spend our time in the company of others for our own pleasures, but because we need the accountability. We need others who can lift us up when we’re struggling, congratulate us when we’ve done well, and call us out on it when we’ve made some bad choices, and through it all, love us anyways.

We were not meant to stumble through this life trying to do it on our own. We will fail. We need God. We need Jesus. We need each other. Having each of these will make this life a little more meaningful, a little more bearable, a little more worthwhile, and a lot less lonely. By leaning in to other women in our lives, we are leaning in to Christ and what He desires for us.

“Though one may be overpowered,  two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Ecclesiastes 4:12

If we don’t make the effort, take the chance, we don’t know who we could be finding.

And you know what, even if you don’t find that kindred spirit of Anne & Diana legend, you’ll find someone. It may be the next person that we need in our lives, or just maybe someone who needs us in their’s. If we don’t take that first step bravely in truth, we are turning away from God’s glorious plan for us and His Kingdom.

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think.
It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
Anne Shirley – Anne of Green Gables

If you haven’t already, I challenge you to seek out one or two people in your own life and pursue them: You might be pleasantly surprised. If you have, I’d love to hear how it turned out.
Comment Losing Loneliness