"...And the teaching of Kindness is on her Tongue" ( Part 3)

It has been a while. Some may have wondered where I went. Others who follow my personal day to day blog know for the most part what I have been up to. But this blog has not been neglected.  This one takes time.  Much writing, more praying and more refining that just prancing out of my head onto a screen and pushing send.  (Which is much how I write my personal blog)

God has pressed on my heart to ask the question. One simple question. Here it is. 
Is it really that hard to be nice to our husbands?
Proverbs 31:26
“ She opens her mouth in wisdom, And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”

SCENE ONE-A
Driving for the afternoon, the sun shining the air feeling warm on your cheeks and Mr. Handsome looks over and asks for your sunglasses.  Or should I say my Mr. Handsome asks for my sunglasses and in the same breath says can you pass me some water.  Wait…. Hold up here. I remember to bring my sunglasses and grab some water. You did neither so now I must have an uncomfortable afternoon drive. I get headaches with a beating sun through the windshield and I get heartburn when my stomach lacks hydration.  The simple answer to this question is YES. It is hard to be kind with a headache and lack of hydration.

SCENE ONE-B
Driving for the afternoon, the sun shining the air feeling warm on your cheeks and Mr. Handsome looks over and asks for your sunglasses.  Or should I say my Mr. Handsome asks for my sunglasses and in the same breath says can you pass me some water.  Down under the seat I pull out a bag.  There neatly in their case are the spare glasses I carry just for him, and extra bottled water. I take the glasses out and dust them off, and then unscrew the water cap and hand both to him. He squeezes my hand.

SCENE TWO-A
He is really trying to help me out here. I know he is trying but really can’t he just ask some questions to really understand what would help. It is not helpful at all to just run the laundry whenever it piles up and then dump on the sofa. My day is busy and so is the next one and then company is coming and there is no time to fold the laundry, and then it wrinkles.  What an A$k my mom for help moment. (Nice save Elizabeth).
SCENE TWO-B
Mr. Tall and Handsome we have been married now for over a year and I see that you see that the laundry piles up. I like it to pile up, so I can spend one long evening folding laundry. So if you fancy running it through the machines on lets say Sundays. I will fancy folding it all Sunday evenings when the kids are all tucked in bed.  Man you are hot and I love you.  (Pretty much to this day this is our life of laundry)

Here is the reality of being kind to our husbands. It takes planning and it takes communication. 

I already know that my husband is not always thinking of the same things I am thinking of when we pull out of the driveway for a road trip.  Sure we check in with each other about the various details.  I am not going to beat my head against a wall to get him to start thinking like me. But I can plan better, prepare better and show kindness for the ways I can think through differently and share my thoughts and resources.  It’s an act of kindness that goes a long way.  Bringing the kind of gum he likes to chew, the baseball hat he likes to wear and even asking if it’s going to be cold, because I know he may want to bring his insert to his jacket. He may not know it at the time the special planning for just him. Making sure I have the extra H2O, glasses, and snacks to share. Does it make him a thug because he did not think of it? Absolutely not.  And it never should. Ever.

Communicating gently what he does not know will travel for years and years. And I do mean years. We are a well-rehearsed laundry team.   In this household we have to be.  He runs it all over the weekend and I fold it all Sunday evenings, and if Sunday evening was busy it spills into Monday mornings.  I use to get so frustrated our first year of marriage. Why?  He was trying to help do laundry on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday and I was not in the mood to fold on those nights.  I could have got frustrated or angry. Actually I think I did a few times, but realized it just meant some simple laying out the understandability of how it might work for us and it did and it has now for over eight years. Man we are sure creatures of habit. I love him more for it.

All to often I see fits of unkindness because there is this unspoken rule that He should get you in all ways.  Really?  Fairy Tales and Romance Novels maybe, but not in real life. He learns to get you, when you tell him how.  Even if it’s how to help with laundry.  He begins to see your heart when you show kindness in the smallest of ways, a simple road trip, handing him water and smiling.  Is it really that hard to be so kind?

As we walk this life as a Christ Follower, the Bible speaks of our actions towards others and the ability to call on the Holy Spirit to give us that measure of Jesus in each one of us. Does your husband see Jesus in you?  Or does he only see Jesus in you serving kindness out to others?  Think about what I just asked?  I ask myself this question every day, making sure that I am showing him that kindness that God calls me to daily with him, that man that deserves that unexpected French Kiss. Now go serve up some kindness and a French Kiss.

Kindness (Part Two)

When we begin to change our behaviors towards our husband, do our “motives” change too?  I just finished reading “How To Act Right When our Spouse Acts Wrong” by Leslie Vernick.   I highlighted a statement by the author early on, as early as page 13.  I typically don’t mark up my books, but rather takes notes and then go into a deeper study of those things that move my heart.  This blog is about changing ourselves and really has nothing to do of the changes our husband may or may not make. Our change is because we desire to walk like Christ and in so doing we respond as we are called through the guidance of God’s Word.

“We might fool others with the kind of outward change, but we never fool our spouse.”

I am glad that I read this.  I had to pause and sit quietly before God. I had to ask myself of the changes I am making, even this past week.  I have a confession.  I know my husband would like the dishes to be loaded a certain way.  So my act of KINDESS was to do just that.  Nine times out of ten he is loading up the final dinner dishes and getting the machine going.  He has a kind-hearted grumble over how I load the dishes through out the day, because often he has to rearrange them to maximize the space.  Why did I choose this specific act of kindness?  What was my hearts true motivations?  Questions we all need to ask ourselves.

I realized in this act of KINDNESS that I desired to have my husband’s approval on just how dishes were loaded to his standard. Not once did I get that this week.  I did not even realize that was what I was expecting until pondering and praying over this statement of motives.  Who am I fooling anyway?  I want to change the motives of my heart towards Christ and not for approval, not for more love actions towards me.  I want to be kind because it’s what I am called to do and who I am to be.

If you read last week on being kind I ask that this week you continue in that act of Kindness.   Only now ask yourself what your motives might be for the specific act of kindness you chose. Sit still before God and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any motives that you may not even be aware of.  After I realized what my hidden motives were I was actually able to change my attitudes towards such a simple act of dishwasher loading.  This morning I felt a deep sense of joy because I was doing something that my heart was clear on. I just want to love David.  I can show love and kindness in small ways regardless of whether he notices or not. 

A few pages over I loved this:
“When we allow God to define our needs, we can trust him.  God uses something about our experiences to bring us into a closer relationship with him and greater maturity in our lives.”  My need was to be valued by David for something that he missed.  He missed the fact that I was making his loading easier and underneath, deeper than layers had I looked at earlier, I had this need. “We must see our marriage as an opportunity to depend on God to meet our real needs.”

Psalms 19:12-14
“Who can understand his errors?  Cleanse me from secret faults.  Keep back your servant from presumptuous sins.  Let them not have dominion over me.  Then I shall be blameless.  And I shall be innocent of great transgressions.  Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Your sight.  O Lord my strength and my Redeemer.”

Dear Lord Jesus,
It is only through You and only you that we can be redeemed of those secret sins and faults.  I ask that we as married women can sit before you, and ask that those be exposed.   That truly the meditations of our hearts would be acceptable and that what we speak from our mouths to our husband would be pure.  You are our strength.  Amen.

Kindness ( Part One)

"Done and made $19.00 doing it"
“How did you do that?"
"Well you kind of hug him reaching low, pick his pockets, swish-swash pockets picked"

For one week we committed to French kissing our husbands as they walked in the door from work.  We committed to text each other "done" each time this was completed.  And for seven straight days we did just that.  We met yesterday to discuss this agreement and both came to realize that something dramatically had changed.  There is a connection, a quiet, unspoken, sometimes spoken connection.  We decided that it did not matter how we were treated, how they would respond.  We would simply do this in honor and love for our husbands.

K.I.N.D.N.E.S.S. 
Ephesians 4:32
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

The first time I ever visited David’s home I was mortified to see that every sink in his house was D.I.R.T.Y.  Being somewhat of a recovering germ-a-phoebe I truly was over the top mortified.  I knew that if we were to progress in this relationship things would need to change and habits of sink hygiene would be the first.

The first week of our marriage I was M.O.R.T.I.F.I.E.D.  The sinks, all three of them, were always dirty. No amount of cleaners and clothes in plain sight could get this man to wipe down a sink.  Did he really even love me?  This is important to me. If he loved me it would be important to him.  God, help me to show David how to clean sinks. Please.  I have issues and they are issues of spotless sinks.

This afternoon I asked David if I could share my “sink” story on this blog and he said sure.  You see God did help me.  God began to show me what kindness would look like in my young marriage.  At first I thought it was to kindly show David how to clean a sink. To kindly express to David why I wanted to have clean sinks.  Well he kindly told me that his height proved a challenge for cleaner sinks, and with out his contacts or glasses those microscopic spots became impossible to see with a naked eye.  That was not really what God had in mind when the “kindness” began pressing on my heart.

For the next week God showed me passage after passage of what kindness looked like as a Christ follower.  Not once, in all of my reading of the Bible did I see a D.I.S.C.L.A.I.M.E.R.  I wanted to find one. One that would read something like.”be yea kind one to another tenderhearted, forgiving each other, but know that he who keeps a dirty sink will not be worthy of the kindness Elizabeth has to offer.” Good thing God did inspire me to write the Words of scripture. 

I started to pray and ask God to give me a pure spirit in serving up some kindness to David.  I am strong willed and like things to be in order, tidy, and sparkling, like a sink.  I was reminded in God’s word of His love for me.  My imperfections are far worse than David’s inability to spray cleaner and dry towel a sink after each use.  Yet my will allowed this one thing to consume me, and kindness was far from my heart.

What consumes you?  It’s quite embarrassing to admit that a dirty sink caused so many disturbances in my heart towards David.  Ask yourself what might you want to control over your husband?

Guess what?  I have been cleaning the sinks for our entire marriage.  I do this quietly and without his notice.  David has his own sink in our master bath. I will go in with my cleaners and spray it down so it sparkles and leave a nice clean towel.

I want you to prayerfully ask God to show you something your heart prevents you from being kind to your husband.  Something that must be rendered to Him.   You know what that “something” is. God knows it, yet with those delicate hands you hang onto it.  Open up those hands and ask God to hold your hand and take it from you.  Do not go to your husband and parade around how great you are for giving this one thing up.  Rather in a quiet way, a loving way, a kind hearted way serve your husband in this area.  Pray before and after.  It’s okay to grumble a little, but to yourself, to God and not to your girlfriends.  Grumbling about your husband is dishonoring to him.  As you begin to serve and honor your husband with kindness in this one thing, you we see the Divine interventions of the Holy Spirit pour through you kindness you did not even know you were capable of. 

And then as you make this new act of kindness a habit I ask that you go and French Kiss your husband.  Have cell phone in hand, because you might just need to call a medic when you lay one of those on your man.

Please share in the comment below how God is working in your heart on this one act of kindness to be doing daily, followed by a French Kiss.  It’s about your heart, your change, and your willingness to be obedient to the Word of God. 

I have a challenge ahead in this act of kindness. I know I have a bad habit that annoys David. Starting today I am going to change this habit, and when I do, I will give that man a French Kiss. I will update later this week what that habit is/was.

“Dear Lord Jesus I pray over the wives who long to love and honor their husbands unconditionally.  We put conditions on so many things, things we are so unaware of that they become bad habits. May the habits of our hearts be ones that start with kindness, not because of anything special these men have done, but because we are called to love as you love.  Thank you for such a tiny verse in a big Bible for such clear instructions. Blessings and Joy, Elizabeth