Life Lessons

I haven't written a "life lesson" entry in a while, although I am learning things everyday. I am reading a new book called Love and Respect by Dr. Eggerichs. It is one of those books where the concept is SO simple, yet hard to implement. Or even more than that....we forget to implement. The book is based on the passage in Ephesians 5:33 where Paul writes, "Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Women are natural at loving unconditionally. We are built to love. But the scripture doesn't command us to love...it commands us to respect our husbands. The idea of unconditional respect is what is tough, but we are called to do. He talks about how most conflicts can be boiled down to the wife feeling unloved and the husband feeling less respect. The author makes you think about what approach you take when responding to your spouse. I had to chuckle when I came to the chapter of the book that was titled, "And Then I Forgot Her Birthday." The author had my attention, or should I say that God did. The author talked about how he forgot his wife's birthday. That happened to me for the first time in our 7 year marriage (FYI: Dan read this entry before I posted it and gave me permission to share this story). I woke up on my birthday morning to find that it was just an ordinary day. I waited for Dan to say something to me and when he didn't I responded with hurt and frustration. I was devastated. I felt unloved. But after talking to Dan throughout that day I realized how devastated he was for hurting me. He loved me just the same. He was so sorry. I guarantee he won't forget again! But I had to pick myself up, stop misinterpreting his love for me, and show respect to him. We recovered just fine and he worked very hard to make it up to me. Bottom line.....we are always learning new things about each other. But this book helped give me the terminology for what goes on in a Christian marriage. The more I show respect to Dan, the more he shows me love and meets my desires. I just love when he makes me feel like a princess. But that doesn't just happen in a marriage. We have to both work at it...him showing love and me showing respect. I have witnessed how showing respect for Dan has made a great marriage even better. Just the other day we were running errands around town. In between errands we were tending to the laundry at the laundromat. Dan was in the car with the kids while I was switching the laundry from the washer to the dryer. When I came back to the car, he just looked at me and grinned real big. He said, "You are just beautiful! You are so cute and I am so thankful that you would do this traveling thing with me. That you have such a good attitude about it. You have been wonderful to us." WOW! Do you know what those words did to my heart? They certainly communicated love from him. But as I try to work on things I know that he is feeling respect from me. He has also started calling me, "My love" when speaking to me in front of the girls. I love that! When the respect and love cycle are working well it is so amazing to see what God can do in a marriage!