Focusing on Our Husbands

It appears that I have broken one of my own rules in the Proverbs 31 Challenge for Life. I mentioned studying one verse per year, but I have already posted about two different verses.

Let's go back to Proverbs 31, verse 11, for a little while. The King James Bible (Cambridge edition) gives that verse as: "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil."

One of the ways to interpret this verse is that the husband does not have to worry for one moment about his wife. He knows that she will manage the household with no waste and raise the children in the most nurturing way. Some interpretations include the idea that he trusts she will follow all the ordinances of his religion and teach them to their children.

A fascinating wife (as depicted in Fascinating Womanhood, by Mrs. Helen Andelin) also has to trust her husband. This can be hard to do when a wife only gives her focus to her husband when there is a problem. Because it is easy to focus on the details of raising children to the exclusion of everything else, we mothers can use many reminders to give our best to our husbands.

One of the ways a wife can proactively focus on her husband in a positive way is to make and study a list of his best qualities. See this post for more.

Praying for a husband is another very effective way of focusing on him.

There are many resources for mothers seeking a spiritual life at a blog I really like called Inspired to Action. One of the resources is a daily prayer calendar for praying for your husband. It is significant that she offers a prayer calendar not only for children but also for husbands.

The Importance of Service

Service takes us outside ourselves so that our lives are not lived inside a very narrow experience. The more engaged we become in service, the more engaged we become with life itself.

Although we do not want to stay completely within our own limited circumstances, one of the best people we can give service to is our beloved. We feel closer to, and more intimate with, those we serve.

A marriage can be like a special plant. If the plant is not watered or cared for on some days, it may not die. It may continue to look like it did before. Though its appearance is the same, it has lost some of its resilience because of the lack of attention. It will not be able to live for long without that attention and it is more vulnerable to storms or drought conditions. If it were cared for each and every day, it would have more strength to deal with challenges ahead. Rather than just appearing the same, it really would be the same healthy, growing plant.

It seems that marriage is perpetually going in one direction or the other: growing, or wilting. Every day that we give it special care, it continues to grow. Every day that we put off giving it attention, it becomes less resistant to troubles and some of the nurtured and beloved feeling slips away.