Being a Joyful, Intoxicating Wife

"Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always with her love."
Proverbs 5:19

Although written to a man, I thought the above verse to be instructive to us as wives as well.

"Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth..." I am the wife of my Beloved's youth, am I a wife he can rejoice in? According to Webster's 1828 Dictionary, rejoice is "to experience joy and gladness in a high degree, to be exhilarated with lively and pleasurable sensations; to exult." Sounds like something that should be happening in a marriage relationship, doesn't it? ;-) Shamefully, I know there are times that my Beloved doesn't rejoice in me. My behavior toward him or in general creates anything but joy and gladness. However, it is my goal to be the wife that he can rejoice in. I desire for our home to be full of joy and gladness.

"a lovely deer, a graceful doe..." When I think of a deer, I think of slender, quiet grace. Now, obviously, we're not all slender! Some of us are quieter than others, some more graceful. But, think of the overall impression. I *can* be gentle, quiet and graceful; it just might take some effort. My desire is that when people think of me, they aren't thinking of me per se. But they have such an impression of me that they think of my Beloved, and that he is blessed. It is another way of honoring him. I want my attitudes and actions to be complimentary to my Beloved, but more importantly, I want them to reflect my Heavenly Father.

"let her breasts fill you at all times with delight..." 'Nuff said? LOL At our house, this is more instructive to me than my Beloved. *I* need to remember that my body is for his pleasure. For me, as a woman who is often pregnant and/or nursing, it is so easy to be in Mama-mode. Which means that I get "touched out" during the day, and that I view parts of my body in a more, shall we say, utilitarian way than my Beloved does. I need to remind myself often that I am not *just* a Mama, I am a lover as well. I need to allow myself the freedom to let my breasts fill my Beloved with delight.

"be intoxicated always in her love." Do I love my Beloved in such a way that it's intoxicating to him? It seems that recently I have heard and seen a lot about the effects of certain sinful behaviors. Pornography and other sexual sins in particular create a "need" for more. I am *not* suggesting ungodliness in our marriages. However, am I doing my best to satisy him and love him in such a way that he desires more? Am I intoxicating to him? We can't always be in an "emotional high" in our marriages. That just isn't reality. But do I make an effort toward those times? Do I look for opportunities to show him how much I love and admire him? Do I make time to spend with him, to show interest in the things that interest him? Is our love relationship one that even when we're not in a "high" time, we do still "hunger" for each other? It goes back to being best friends.

Father God,
I lift up the woman reading this now. I pray Father, that You would encourage and inspire her toward being the wife You would have her be. I ask that where ever she's at in her marriage today, that You would draw her and her beloved closer to You, and in so doing, draw them closer to each other. I pray that her beloved would, truely rejoice in her and be intoxicated by her love. I ask this in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.

New Look

You may have noticed that my blog has a new look! I really liked the template I started out with, however, I wanted something that looked a little different from everyone else. :-)

My niece has started playing around with her blog templates, and she uses LeeLou Blogs. So, I clicked on through from her blog, and found this beautiful template! The colors are very "me", and I think they look welcoming. The gal over at LeeLou Blogs has lots of fun and funky templates over at her site, they are easy to install, and best of all, they're free!

If you are interested in what she has to offer, you can scroll down and on the left is a button that you can use to click through to her site.

Let me know what you think!

A Romantic Hideaway

I have already shared about making our bedroom a retreat. You can view my post on that here.
When I posted that devotion, I intended on getting some pictures of our bedroom up so that you could see what I was talking about. Well, several months later, I am finally getting around to it! These are pictures taken while we were waiting for labor to begin with Ezra, so there are a few things that are not typical to our bedroom in the pictures.



Here is our bed. While this doesn't show the whole thing, you can get an idea of what it's like. I have a double layered bed skirt on it ~ which does not match the quilt. However, it goes well with the coloring in our bedroom, and it was a bargain! The netting you see is a canopy of mosquito netting that hangs from hooks in the ceiling ~ our ceiling is a bit low for a true 4 poster or canopy bed. Around the top of the canopy, I have the small Christmas tree lights. They are amber colored ~ we found the clear ones were too bright. To the majority of the lights I have added roses and or leaves (the light is the center of the rose or leaf set), so it appears that our bed is garlanded by flowers. The bed is set cross-wise in the corner, and behind the headboard, I have a fairly rough pedestal that Mike made (which I have covered with a floral fabric), and that is what the candelabra is sitting on. I have multiple pillows on the bed, and in the winter there is also a brown plaid blanket that lays across the foot of the bed.

This is the corner opposite the bed. Normally next to the rocking chair there is a small black kidney shaped table. On the other side of the little table sits another chair. This gives us an intimate little spot for a quiet cup of tea and conversation. The little shelves you see are a recent addition and are holding layette items. My plan is to paint the shelves black (my "shabby chic" color), and use them in some other way when Ezra's clothing is too large for the little baskets. On the wall, you can see just the lower part of one of our pictures, and then next to that is a 5 arm candelabra ~ for a little added romance!

You can see that I use fairly bold colors in our bedroom, and I do try to accent with plaids because they are more masculine. I decorate our room with things that are meaningful to us. The rocking chair was my great-grandmother's, there are portraits of our children on the walls and dresser tops. I have heard different people recommend not having pictures of your children in your bedroom; after all, it's supposed to be a retreat! However, part of who we are is our children's parents. God has blessed us tremendously with our children ~ why would we want to keep our bedroom devoid of reminders of them? You will also find in our bedroom ~ for the majority of our 19 years of marriage, a bassinet or cradle or a crib. This does not diminish the romance or retreat "feeling" of our room. Rather, for us, it is a reminder of how abundantly blessed we are; and for me, it brings feelings of joy and contentment to see them.

I hope you enjoy the pictures, and perhaps gain some inspiration if you're struggling with infusing your room with romance.

Lost Post

If you'll scroll down a bit ~ 2 posts, you'll find a new one. It's one I started back in June, and so that is where blogger plugged it in. I don't know how to move it! So, if you'll bear with me, I did post this week, it's just a little lost. :-) The title is: Thoughts on Servanthood.

Frustration

These last 3 months or so have been a learning experience ~ and not one that I have been particularly joyful about learning. ;-)

For 2 weeks before Ezra was born, I couldn't do any lifting or anything like vacuuming. He had been breech, and although we had gotten him to turn (thanks to the Webster technique!), my midwife didn't want him to turn breech again, so no lifting. Then we ended up with a c-sec. So, no lifting for 6 weeks ~ in addition, I had lost a lot of blood at delivery, so I tire more easily than normal. While I have older boys who are very capable, and willing, they are not home very much. (NOTE: When you have young men with a good work ethic, they are rarely home because people want them to come work for them!)

So, now I can lift. Now I am feeling up to getting something done ~ and there is plenty to be done! Well, now I have a fussy baby. He loves to sleep on me, and during the day will not sleep much if I am not holding him. While he does have happy times, he fusses more than any of our other children did as babies. And, he will cry and cry and cry ~ he won't cry a little and then sleep. He also gets very wild-eyed when he cries, and I just can't stand to let him for very long. So, now that I feel up to getting something done, I sit and hold a fussy baby, or nurse a toddler.

I know I'm desperate for a feeling of accomplishment when my Beloved comes home and I say, "Look honey, I got that corner straightened up." "Look honey, you can see the top of my desk." LOL Sad, but true!

In the midst of this, what am I learning? First off, I haven't trained my children as well as I should have! They are (apparently) blind to toys left out, garbage that hasn't "found" it's way to the garbage can, clothes not taken to the laundry room, etc. My younger children haven't been trained as well as they should because I have had older children who already did things. That needs to change! My older children are not that far away from being gone from home, and I need to get busy training the younger ones ~ they need to learn how to be responsible too.

Secondly ~ and I am *not*advocating letting everything go! But, in reality the housework will still be there tomorrow, it'll probably be there 15 minutes or so after I get it done. My baby will only be a baby for a short time, and the time I invest in my children is time invested in eternity. I may get frustrated now because it seems that all I do is sit and rock and nurse, but someday, much too soon, I will be missing these times. While I need to get done what I can in the short snippets of time I have, I also need to relax and enjoy my baby ~ and toddler! ~ and the rest of the children, some of which aren't really children any more.

Are you a young mama, in the midst of little children? Enjoy them! Love on them, and don't wish this time to go any faster than it is. Our oldest will be 18 in September, and I can't believe it's been that many years since I was rocking him and nursing him to sleep. The time goes so quickly, and it is all too easy to lose sight of that. We yearn for the next thing, and when it comes, we begin to yearn for the next. When will we learn to be content where God has us now?

So, in the midst of frustration, I am learning, and trying to be content ~ difficult with everything that needs to be done, staring me down. Well, I have a tired, grumpy toddler who needs to nurse, so I'm going to go ~ and enjoy him. ;-)

I'm Still Here!

Well, it's been a while since I posted, and I apologize. The last months of this pregnancy, and the first weeks of our new son's life, have proven to be challenging for me. I find that as I get older, and have more things going on, I have a harder time collecting my thoughts coherently. In fact, I started a different post for today, but there are so many directions that my mind is going on the topic I've chosen, that I decided I better think on it a bit more. It will probably end up being at least two posts, maybe more.

I am going to try and be more consistent with posting here, but quite honestly, it is difficult with a toddler who is having a bit of a hard time adjusting to not being the baby anymore, and a newborn who needs to eat often. I'm not particularly good at typing one-handed :-), so many times when I would sit down to post, I'm handicapped, so to speak. Even now, Josiah is trying to demand my attention. If you think of it, prayers for him would be appreciated. He adores his new little brother, but with this being a surgical birth, and the added complications that has given this first 6 weeks, this has been a difficult adjustment for him (he's just 2), and he is still working on that adjustment. I am trying to give him *some* leaway, recognizing that he is in transition, while not allowing him to get away with murder ~ which can be a very fine line! But I want to give him room to adjust while not throwing all our training out the window.

I want to thank those of you who have stuck with me, even through this long dry spell. As I said, there are many things I want to talk about and share, but putting the thoughts together through the muddle that is my mind lately has been more than challenging!

May God bless your day.

Thoughts on servanthood

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." Philippians 2:5-7

"When He washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed His place, He said to them, "Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also outght to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you." John 13: 12-15


This past week, in Sunday School,(several weeks ago, now) we were studying the passage in Philippians that I have just referenced. I thought it an interesting tie-in with what I had been hearing on the radio, on Family Life Today. They were talking with Nancy Leigh DeMoss about Biblical womanhood. And they also talked about being a servant. One of the terms they talked about was "doormat". In our culture being a "doormat" has very negative connotations. But what is a doormat? On the program they pointed out that a doormat has a good and specific purpose. What does it do? It wipes the feet. What did Jesus do? John 13 tells us that He washed the feet of His disciples. You can read some thoughts I had a few months ago on being a doormat here .

God created woman to be a servant. "...But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Genesis 2:20b-23

So, what does this look like? Well, a lot of what it looks like depends upon your beloved. The things I do that make me an ideal helpmeet for my Beloved, may be totally different than what your beloved needs. In general, we serve them within the home. We cook, clean, and care for the children ~ which may include homeschooling. Some of us take care of the finances. Some of us take care of the yard, or animals.

The first thing we should do, is to cultivate our relationship with the Lord. If I am going to be servant-hearted, and be willing to put others needs before my own, I need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit! I don't know about you, but I tend to be pretty selfish, and that can make things fairly unpleasant around our house. :-( My desire is to joyfully serve my husband and children, and I can only do that when I am steeped in the Word of God.

Second, we need to be students of our husbands. I need to know him ~ perhaps even better than he knows himself. I want to be able to not just respond to his needs, but to anticipate them. But, to be able to anticipate, I need to know. Otherwise, I'm just guessing. I can read about things that other wives do, but that should just be a starting place for me ~ if I'm struggling. What one man needs, is not necessarily what another man needs. So, I can talk to other wives, or read, or whatever, but I need to know my husband and what his needs are to truely be a helpmeet to him. For example, some men are highly organized and detail oriented, others need their wives to come alongside them and help them plan things out so that they can attain the goals they have. Some men are financial wizards, others are terrible at handling money and need their wives to take care of paying the bills, some may want you to sit down with them and do it together.

Third, I believe we need to extend the grace and freedom to our beloved to let him be who he is. We need to recognize that he is not our Daddy, nor is he our ex, or any other man who influenced our ideas on what men are. This can be difficult! I grew up in a household where we got our own hay in, we went out during the summer and cut wood, etc. My husband often just buys our wood. This drove me batty for a long time ~ we should be doing this ourselves! However, my Beloved has worked 2 and 3 jobs for the majority of our married life. He just does not have the time to go out and scout for wood, get it cut, brought home, stacked, etc. It took me a long time, but I finally learned that he was providing for us just as well as my Dad did, just in a different way. It can be difficult too, if we have had damaging relationships with men. Sometimes we will attribute those negative qualities of an ex or bad Dad to our beloved, always expecting the worst from him.

And finally, one of the most important ways we can serve our husband is to daily lift him before the Throne of Grace. What greater way to look after his needs, than to petition Almighty God on his behalf? As we daily lift our beloved before the Lord, I believe that He will also give us wisdom in how best to meet his needs, and we too, will benefit in our role as helpmeet to our husband.