Are You A Good Thing For Your Husband?

In the book of Proverbs, it says that whoever finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favour of the Lord. I find as I read the scriptures, that the calling of being a wife is always held in esteem- and here we find a wife being called good and that her husband is actually blessed and obtains the Lord’s favour by finding her.

It never ceases to thrill me, being a wife. I love having a husband to look after and a home to keep. I cannot tell you how lonely and lost I felt in the four years between my sad divorce and subsequent remarriage. I would cry to the LORD and pray that He would bless me with a loving husband.

When finally He did bless me with Chris, I was delighted to return to wifely things. I learnt how wonderful it is to be married to someone who treated me as he himself would like to be treated. So I believe, whoever finds a husband finds a good thing, too- and obtains favour of the Lord.

To be a good thing that blesses your husband means in this context, to be a godly, loving wife. Someone whom your husband can trust implicitly with his inner secrets, doubts and ideas and dreams- to the keeping of the home, the help with budgeting and the companionship. But most importantly with the upbringing of his children.

Any woman can be a wife- it takes a woman who sees the beauty of that calling to be a good one. If she is- she has God’s promise that her husband will be blessed and will obtain favour of the LORD

Are you a good thing for your husband?

Blessings,

Glenys

” Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.” Proverbs 18:22

Pass me a cinnamon bun and a tissue

Just recently I have been going through some difficult and emotional times! Not only has my fibromyalgia flared, causing me pain and fatigue through not sleeping soundly, but I have had to contend with hot flashes and the roller coaster of feminine hormones both rising and waning- mostly waning I suspect!

I know I am not the only woman on earth to go through this stage of life- but I can only write about how it has effected me- anything else is hearsay and observation! The curious thing is that I thought I left Menopause City behind, but as I walk through the Path of Life, I have been confronted with another sign post that tells me I am still in the boundaries of the City.

Today, for example, Chris and I were having a coffee and cinnamon bun at our shopping Centre…apart from tiredness, I was feeling OK emotionally. A darling little baby girl was in her stroller eating some of her mother’s cinnamon roll and she was making quite a mess of herself. I was captivated by her- she was so cute! As I turned smiling to mention her to Chris, a very pregnant lady walked past me and my mood suddenly spiralled downwards to regret.

With intense sadness, the knowledge that pregnancy and motherhood were no longer things which I would enjoy personally, hit me like a blow across the mouth. The realisation that I was not only getting old- but WAS old, took me by surprise and I tried to counteract it’s horrible gripping effect on me by mentioning the delightful baby girl drooling cinnamon icing, to Chris, who was happily sipping his cappacino.

To my utter horror, my eyes started to fill up and I could not control the feelings of despair and sadness that threatened to overtake me! As I grabbed a serviette to dab my eyes, and to both of our embarrassment, I started crying into my cinnamon bun! Chris was taken unawares as well and just rubbed my hand.

I ran to the ladies restrooms, where I cried for the years of childbearing and mothering that flew by too, too fast!…I cried for the hunger to feel a baby kicking inside me, and to smell that irresistable smell of a new-born baby and to feel the velvet skin of a new blessing against me as it nursed!

Blowing my nose, I battled the jealousy I felt seeing women carrying babies in their wombs and in their baby slings. I battled the feelings of fear of old age and disappearing waist line and loss of my youthful vigour and health. I panicked momentarily as I realised that I was probably 2 thirds through my life already- and I still felt at times like a girl!

I flushed the toilet as I waited until the tears abated, hoping to drown them out from the ears of other people. It was a frightening and embarrassing moment! And a puzzling one too! For I “know” I am too old to be a mother..too many health issues too..too fatigued to take on a child 24/7 for the rest of my life…too selfish in a lot of ways now…YET the desires and maternal feelings haven’t died!

And now that I have had a cry, thought through the whole thing and had time with the LORD, I feel silly. I suppose I shouldn’t really feel silly…the maternal hormones are a God-given part of being feminine and so too is this season of my life. I just find that sometimes the maternal hormones go on hyperdrive as the childbearing ones wane.

How grateful I am that God has given me an understanding husband…one who says he understands even when I don’t. One who passes me a cinnamon bun and a tissue without too many questions….and rubs my hand…it all helps.

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

Where The Rubber Meets The Road

Have you ever stopped to think about how most of us prepare for marriage and childbirth and then once that is accomplished, we fall by the roadside? How many websites, magazines, articles, CD’s etc are there dedicated to these subjects? We are prepared for the BIG DAY: the wedding day, the delivery day- yet how many of us find a sense of disillusionment in life after the BIG DAY has been? We are simply- unprepared!

It is not that preparing for one’s wedding day or impending birth of a child is wrong in itself, but to focus all one’s attention on the BIG DAY and lose focus on the YEARS thereafter is foolhardy. After all, a marriage comes after a wedding and a lifetime of parenting comes after a birth. The years after the BIG DAY is where the rubber meets the road..

So many women put all their attention on their wedding- the preparations, the drama, the dreaming, the romance and the culmination of years of planning and rehearsing in her head. But once married, how many are prepared for the hard work of tending and nurturing that marriage. For marriage is hard work at times and we would be foolish to think otherwise.

Let’s be honest: how many of us have taken the time to study about marriage as the institution it is- not the romanticised notion but the reality? Often if we have not prepared and studied not only the scriptures on marriage but studied and observed our husbands- we will find ourselves being bogged down by feelings of disillusionment and disenchantment.

Likewise, how many of us expectant mothers haven’t bothered to read up on childbirth, practised all the exercises and relaxation tips for labour, eaten well and obsessed about ours and our child’s health? But how many of us have read up on childraising, education, and marital adjustment and so forth for the years of parenting ahead? It is very short-sighted to place all one’s attention on the delivery of a child to the neglect of acquiring knowledge about the raising of that child. After all, childbirth is a day, parenthood is for life!

We must equip ourselves and our daughters to be the best wives (not brides), the best mothers (not labouring women), so that they will be well prepared to cope with the reality of life. When the rubber meets the road and they find that their BIG DAYS are followed by years of hard work and effort, they will be women of strength, fortitude and confidence- and they will be wonderful wives and mothers.

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

You Are So Much More Than A Housekeeper

Creating a happy marriage and home starts with the wife and mother. Because we are the ones who set the temper of the home! We are the keepers of the home in more than the mundane domestic dailies of life! I think a bad attitude like when our husbands are like grizzly bears is definitely contagious- it is a thing of spirit and spirit pervades. You know, the whole house can be full of tension and NOTHING has even been said- it’s just there, like you can cut it with a knife! And soon after the children will begin to fight and shout and very soon tension is in the home. This promotes sniping at each other and other peace destroying behaviours….Lack of reverence and respect for your husband can turn many a teddy bear into a grizzly bear. Maybe if life has become unbearable with your husband, you should do a quick check on these things and if lacking, and attend to them. That is where a personal quiet time, soaking in the Word and developing a quiet gentle spirit and gaining strength comes in. Girding our loins and strengthening ourselves in the Word can create such a sweetness and peace in us, that it overflows to our husbands and to our children. It fills the house with its sweet perfume and dissipates the tension. It starts with us doing the tending and setting the temper. The rewards of doing this will be worth any challenge or changing we must do. Apart from pleasing God, it is better to hug a teddy bear anyday than wrestle with a grizzly bear.
© Glenys Robyn Hicks

‘Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.” Psalm 141:3

Making Your Husband Chief Amongst Ten Thousand

It is a medical fact that our brain is our greatest sexual organ. Desire starts there. When the body is tired and intimacy seems like one more ‘chore’ before blessed sleep, I have found that it helps to dwell on what made you fall in love with your husband in the first place. Bring to mind all the little things he said or did that spoke to you in your early days together. Remember how he looked, how he smelt..his aftershave, even his sweat and the smoothness of his skin, his eyes, his voice. Remember too the intimate moments you shared in the past and let them intoxicate you again with rekindled love for your man. Cultivate a thankful heart for being his wife and look forward to celebrating that oneness in the beauty of the marital bed. True intimacy is not what is shown in pornography. Under no circumstances focus on other people’s intimacy…you want to foster desire for your own husband’s embrace. As you dwell on your husband’s desirability, more often than not, your mind will start pining for his embrace. This god-given desire usually is stronger than tiredness. The Shulamite in the Song of Songs fantasized about her husband’s body and eagerly looked forward to his lovemaking..there certainly is a place for fantasizing about intimacy with your husband. I find that by thinking of all the wonderful things about my spouse, and dwelling on them, that I can overcome chronic fatigue (through illness) and eagerly await intimacy with him. I believe that this is a great way to help overcome fatigue and lack of desire without sinning.. Take a look at the Song of Solomon and rekindle the flame

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

‘My beloved is white and ruddy, Chief among ten thousand.’ Song of Solomon 5:10