Forever Beloved

Faith, Love & Truth

honoring your husband ❤

just like wives need love, husbands need respect.  God created men with a need to have respect from their mate. husbands desire respect while women desire love.  men need to know that they are adequate, that they are enough and that they are worthy of our respect.  how often do we truly show our husbands the respect they desire?
God’s design for marriage is laid out in Ephesians 5.  i recently read it explained this way… God’s highest purpose in marriage is to showcase the intimate relationship between Christ and His people. we are acting out a living parable where husbands represent Christ and wives represent the church to bring glory to God and to help our children and others around us grasp what God is like in a more concrete way.  does that change the way you look at marriage?  it sure did with me.  God intended marriage to mirror His relationship with the church so that we could basically be a testimony to others and SHOW them what God is like.  
Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. 
Ephesians 5:33

i’ve read this verse over and over again. it doesn’t say respect your husband only when you feel he deserves it, it doesn’t say he has to GIVE respect to GET respect and it’s certainly not up to us to deem when he is worthy of it. God was pretty clear with this verse, the wife MUST respect her husband.

so, i know this girl who has a hot, quick temper and a big, fat mouth and she can cut to the bone with words. and i’m she is pretty good at pointing out her husbands faults and failures. and can pick up on disrespect lickity-split when it’s coming from someone else but can’t see when she is being totally disrespectful to her husband.  if it takes you a while to catch on like me her, sometimes it makes it a little easier when you can read a list.  so i’ve composed a little list of things men see as disrespectful.

  • nagging
  • not spending time with him
  • speaking badly about him infront of others and belittling him
  • yelling at him 
  • undermining his authority
  • withholding sex and using it to manipulate a situation
  • cutting him off mid-sentence
  • shifting blame to him
  • body language – sighing, frowning while you talk and eye rolling
  • criticizing him
  • not giving him the attention he craves
  • putting yourself first rather than him and your family
  • not having confidence in his decision making
every man has his own definition of disrespect and what actions show him that.  there are some things that basically every man would find disrespectful and some things that are just specific to your husband.  what matters the absolute most is what your husband finds disrespectful.  ask your husband what actions these are and make a mental note of them, or write them down in your journal.  ask him what actions really speak respect to him also.  you’ll know which actions to phase out and which ones to increase.  pay attention to all his answers.  
as wives, we have so much power to destroy our husbands or to build them up.  we need to learn to be respectful wives who value our husbands’ leadership.  we need to honor Christ with every word and action!  i would bet if we showed them more respect they would show us more love. when a wife respects her husband it deepens her love for him. so really, it’s a win win situation for everyone 🙂 lots of respect and lots of love, sounds pretty amazing to me.  our men need our encouragement, respect and love. 
out for now
~kisses

a love letter ♥

dear amazing, loving man…

little did i know that first night i met you that you were the one i had been praying for since i was a little girl.  so many nights i spent on my knees, praying.  over the years the prayer changed from asking for prince charming to asking for a man that would simply treat me well.  all those years God knew you were the man for me, my future husband, and was busy preparing your heart for mine.

there are no words to describe how thankful I am that God brought us together.  we were two imperfect sinners that God saw something in.  others around us didn’t understand it, but it didn’t matter.  God knew exactly what He was doing and His plan was perfect.    

at that point in my life i needed to feel worthy, loved and protected.  you rescued me from all the past pain, struggles and hurt.  you showed me i didn’t need to be weary, always questioning, afraid and on alert.  in your arms i felt safe and protected.  you showed me that God did answer that little girls prayer for a prince charming.
you knew you were getting a broken girl, yet you grabbed my hand, looked me in the eye and stepped forward with me.  with you by my side, everything else seemed to melt away.  you put up with so much in those first days; tears that came from nowhere, fear that wasn’t understood and anger that was unfounded.  yet by my side you stood.
and your voice, oh that voice, i’m not sure you ever truly understood how much it meant to me.  when you sang to me, i believed every single word.  your voice mended my broken heart.  it sewed the pieces back together.  your voice lifted me up, making me feel as if i was the only beautiful girl in the entire world.  you didn’t just sing to me with your voice, you sang to me with your heart.
thank you for seeing something in me that i didn’t even see in myself.  it wasn’t until i was encompassed by your love that i could open my eyes and see the beautiful, worthy girl.  i’m so sorry that 17 years later you still have to remind me to open my eyes and see her.  
i wish you could see yourself through my eyes.  such an amazing man i’ve been blessed with.  you wonderfully lead our home.  you are so patient with me (which is no easy task, sir).  you bear with me, gently correcting me.  i absolutely admit, i’m not always joyful.  yet here you are, still by my side.
a million thank yous.
i love you so very much, mr. cutler.
xoxo
amy

hope for the hopeless marriage

this morning i woke up with a song in my heart and my head.  it’s one from my childhood and one that i just super love.  i love when God puts a song in my heart before i even wake up and i always pay special attention to those ones.  this mornings song was He’s able.  i know, it’s a great one, right?  as i was doing my morning devotion, i just kept singing and humming this song.  as i was really focusing on the words, today’s blog post became apparent.   

He’s able, He’s able, I know He’s able;
I know my Lord is able to carry me through.

He healed the broken-hearted
and set the captive free;
He made the lame to walk again
and caused the blind to see.

there was a day not too many years ago when i would have told you my marriage was hopeless.  joe had left and we were separated for a few months.  suddenly i felt so alone, with two kids to tend to daily, a house to take care of and working full time, i was stressed beyond stressed. some days i felt so low, not even quite sure how i was functioning.

at first, i spent time being angry. and i sure felt justified in that anger. i wanted God to heal my marriage now. i prayed every day, spent time reading my Bible and felt i was entitled to a miracle that didn’t seem to be coming my way. anger, hopelessness and fantasies of divorce consumed my days. i was angry. so angry.

there was one certain night when i was really down, almost at my breaking point. i went up on a hill in the middle of the woods, the sky was covered with stars and i could see for miles around. i popped in a cd of hymns, sang along, cried my eyes out and talked to God for hours on end. when i left the hill that night i had something new, HOPE!  hope in the Lord restoring my marriage in HIS time.

hope is so important, and realizing that was a pivotal turning point in my life and essentially my marriage.  hope motivates us to make positive choices in life and marriage and to get our relationship with Christ right.  the Lord knew i had a few “life lessons” to learn along the way, like patience and perseverance.  having hope gave me the desire to search MY heart and have Him reveal the parts of my heart that broke His heart.

He can see into the deepest depths of your heart and He knows exactly what it will take to restore Hope into your heart, into your life and into your marriage.  He doesn’t wait for us to “clean up our act”.  He meets us where we are and loves us just as we are, sinners.  He showers us with his amazing grace.  we have a God who knows how we feel, and really cares. He knows our doubts and hopelessness. He can help when we’re willing to bring those things to him. nothing is impossible for God!

your past might have shaped you but it doesn’t have to define you and hold you captive.  don’t allow who you were to keep your marriage from being what it is meant to be.  
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure
Hebrews 6:19
Dear Heavenly Father,
i come to you today to pray for the hopeless, the hurting, the broken, the overwhelmed, the insecure, the sad, the fearful and the angry.  i pray for the spouses who can’t find the strength to pick their head up.  i pray that you reveal in their hearts what they need cleansed of Lord.  so many of us hold onto bitterness, discontentment, selfishness, and revenge.  Lord, i pray you will fill the husbands and wives up and overflowing with the ability to love, to forgive, to be joyful and to understand.  i pray you will wrap your loving arms around them, as only you can, and protect them against the threats of the enemy.  i ask for hope, perseverance, patience, love, restoration and healing.  Lord, the world is so hard on marriages but i pray you will prevail.  in your precious Heavenly name i pray…amen!

out for now

~kisses