Something to Ponder

A people who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted because their countercultural lifestyles stick out like a sore thumb. When family patterns are reformed, it is so public that everyone notices. Family, friend, co-worker and church member are easily offended by family reforms. – Scott Brown

My Best Friend

My best friend is having a birthday! Isn’t he a handsome guy? He is the best guy you could EVER meet. There are so many adjectives that I could use to describe him but let me just say…… He is a godly man, my best friend, and I am so glad that I married him!!!!! Happy Birthday my love!!

Celebrating

Hubs and I are celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary today.  We went out to dinner last night and since we are currently remodeling the bathroom we are are spending the day trying to get our new bathtub in!

Husband & Wife

Let a wife make the husband glad to come home, and let the husband make his wife sad to see him leave ~ Martin Luther

Pondering A Portrait of Marriage

Still on the theme of marriage and the church:

Ephesians Chapter 5:

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. [1] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Now that we have read some scripture on the matter, consider the following quote I found over the weekend. I long for your thoughts and discussion afterwards.

It is possible (but not right) for baptized believers to act in their lives as though the gospel were not true. How many conservative husbands are outraged if some liberal preacher says that Jesus did not rise from the dead, when their daily treatment of their wives makes the same statement? At least the liberal only states his heresy occasionally. (Douglas Wilson, Reformed Is Not Enough, p. 168)

Holding Back Tears

There have been several things this week that have caused me to try and hold back tears. Many of them are on a related subject, marriage. I am so thankful and so blessed to have the husband that I do. We have been blessed with a wonderful marriage. It is not one without struggles, every marriage takes work. We have a great God and have been blessed abundantly. It almost brings me to tears of joy to think of the abundance of grace, mercy, strength, and blessings the Lord has provided us in our marriage.   A cousin of mine recently celebrated 23 years of marriage!  In my family that is unbelievable!!!  I know some of the struggles they have gone through and know of the amazing working of God in their lives.  As I think upon this tears of joy begin to well up inside of me!

However, this week I received news of the pending divorce of some dear, dear friends of ours.  You hear of how divorce is just as common in the church; nothing makes that more strikingly evident than to realize that you know those who are going through it.  Tears of brokenheartedness for our friends well up inside. 

Tears for the state of the church are also building.  In the desire to minister to those of divorce, accountability and shame have been removed.  Yes, I said shame.  We are not to be shaming others but sin should carry shame.  Sin is shameful.  We are to hold others accountable.  This (holding others accountable) should be a part of our ministry to those who are struggling.  God desires reconciliation and provides the way and the healing.  It is not an easy road but how great and big is God??? 

In my husband’s line of work, he sees almost on a daily basis marriages falling apart.  It makes us more thankful for our own.   I have been contemplating this week my many tears.  Maybe it is just hormonal (my usual excuse-LOL) but maybe, just maybe, it is as it should be.  We should be in a place where we are brokenhearted and mourn over the sinfulness of this world, we should be brokenhearted and mourn when Christians choose the path of the world rather than God’s plan, and we should well up and cry tears of joy for the great, great God we serve and his many mercies toward us.