Thankfulness...

Here are a few pictures I took yesterday of the kids and Sonny. We are loving the great weather!


I am reading this wonderful book about wifehood called "The Fruit of Her Hands" by Nancy Wilson and my reading today was so encouraging. Almost everything Mrs. Wilson says I have been taught already but it is so refreshing to be reminded about the great call of being a wife and the biggest encourager of your husband. I was just so encouraged today to remember the great things about my husband. I have often told the girls in our student ministry and other engaged girls that it is easy for satan to tempt wives to focus on the negative things in our husbands. I believe that it is so easy to do this because it can start so small and seemingly insignificant (like a woman getting irritated that her husband forgets to take out the trash) and then it will escalate to where she gets annoyed at every little thing he does. I have heard wives talk about their husbands in such negative ways that it seems like these women are in a constant state of agitation by the men that are supposed to be their best friends. I really do not think that one day these women just started to feel completely annoyed. I think it started small and escalated to where these women cannot see anything good in the men they once adored. If you remember a scene from and old movie called Dante's Peak (with Pierce Brosnan). It is a movie about this active volcano and how the locals refuse to leave because they do not think it will really erupt. The main character has this dialogue where he says that if you put a frog in boiling water it will immediately jump out but if you put a frog in lukewarm water and slowly heat it up, it will stay in the water until it dies. I think this has happened with so many wives. One irritation... then another.... then another- until they do not even realize that they have killed the respect that they are supposed to have for their husbands. My hope is that we woman can realize what a wonderful gift wifehood is and see that God has called us to see the good in our husbands and be their continual encouragement. Yes, they are sinners (just as we are), but we are called to honor them and continually build them up. The more we do this, the more we will enjoy being married. I truly believe that. If we will spend our energy focusing on the good instead of the bad in our husbands- we will find marriage more and more wonderful. I am so much more in love with my husband now than I was when we got married. I believe that this has a lot to do with Sonny and I working to love one another more than we love ourselves and on us always trying to focus on the good in one another (and this only happened by God's grace... in the beginning we fought a lot because we were both very good at loving ourselves and pointing out the faults in the other). I feel like my thoughts are a little scattered tonight but I just wanted to share this reminder that I was given today. I am so thankful for Sonny and I love being his bride. It is my joy and honor.

"An excellent wife is the crown of her husband but she who causes shames is like rottenness in his bones." Proverbs 12:4