Ramblings of a Christian Wife

A few years back there was a series of commercials for chewy granola bars that put children in situations where they repeated things there parents said, thing there parents did not want repeated.  As a parent of three boys, I can sympathize (as I am sure all parents can).  I learned to watch very closely the things I said in front of my kids when they were very little but as they grew older I became a little less guarded (a big mistake) or would only say things when I thought they were out of ear shot (another mistake).  Recently my middle son seems to have developed supersonic selective hearing as he can hear me say cookies in the quietest of voices but if I yell his name for five minutes, he will claim he didn't hear.  Another thing I learned early in my years as a parent is the extent to which children will mimic adult behaviors, behaviors I wasn't even aware that I was demonstrating until my children did them.  One such behavior is the habit of telling mysel...

To most people, June 1998 was like any other June since man started using the Roman calendar but for Jene, myself, and our families (both biological and in Christ), June 1998 would be a month filled with mixed emotions.  Many of the kids from our church's youth group were graduating and starting out on the adventure we call adulthood.  The youth group was also getting ready for a missions trip and busy being kids in general.  Meanwhile, Jene and I were preparing our hearts for the most heartbreaking moment we would ever experience, though we were not expecting the moment to happen for nearly another month. To explain what was about to happen, I must first go back almost 4 four months to February 1998.  Jene and I had only been married two months and were expecting our first child to be born in July.  Jene and I were both excited but a dread was growing inside my heart that I could not shake.  At first everyone I mentioned this dread to thought I was suffe...

 I know I have been making a lot of posts lately but for me it is a type of therapy.  Anyway, I have talked a lot about depression in my last several posts but many of you may not know that this journey began nearly 17 years as I was about to reach 22 years of age.  I was going along in life pretty much like any 21 year old (minus the alcohol) and thought my life was going well.  I had a full-time job, good friends, and a cute boyfriend.  Then I got sick.  I started having mysterious stomach symptoms, nausea, cramps, and mild acid reflux.  I went through medical test after medical test and at one point dropped down to 95 lbs.  The doctors did not seem to have an answer except that I needed to change my diet.  Even after that the symptoms did not improve.  At the same time that this illness struck, my boyfriend decided that I was a piece of property and began trying to control my life.  He was telling me how to dress, what I could ...

A few days ago I wrote a blog post concerning the need for me to change from a selfish wife to a serving wife and I promised to get back to the subject of women's incorrect views of submission.  Since I am feeling the almost obsessive need (driven by anxiety and depression) to write down (or type) my thoughts, I figured now is a good time to address this issue.  Though I am by no means an expert on marriage or the concept of submission I would like to share what the Bible says about submission in more depth than my last post.   First, lets look at Ephesians 5:22-24 22  Wives,  be subject  to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23  For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself  being  the Savior of the body. 24  But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives  ought to be  to their husbands in everything. The verse above is taken from the KJV and uses the word subject...

Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the  Lord  shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.  If I am anything it is impatient.  Much like my children when they were two, I want what I want when I want it.  That is especially true when it comes to dealing with depression.  I want the problem dealt with and gone so I can move on with my life.  I want God to take it away.....NOW!  But I am learning (as I should have learned 16 years ago) that God does not always answer my prayers when and how I want Him too, especially when I walk around stomping my feet and insisting that things get done my way.  Can you see the rationale going through my head?  Can you see the problem?  If you are thinking the problem is I keep talking about I and me, you would be correct.  As with other p...

As many of those closest to me can attest; I am a moody person.  Add to that the fact that I suffer from anxiety and depression and its not hard to imagine that I am not always the most cheerful person in the world.  Though depression and anxiety are something that are not within my control I am very quickly learning that having these illnesses is NO excuse to not serve my husband or to neglect the needs of my marriage.  Before I begin discussing what I believe becoming a serving wife is, I would like to be quite honest.  I am not an expert at serving my husband, in fact I can name at least a hundred instances where I have failed to serve my husband in the last two weeks!! The idea of serving my husband was a rather foreign concept to me and frankly many women in our world (but that is a subject for a different post).  I have at times been down right mean, distant, and cold to my husband.  All marriage killers!  So how has my marriage survived all this...

Luke 6:42   Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye. As a Christian I try to follow Christ's Word as all believers should but when it comes to judging others I find myself as guilty as, if not more so, than any non-believer, a fact that I was convicted about during a conversation with my Mother today.  She and I were discussing an old friend of mine from school, a girl who by all accounts was rather promiscuous both as a young woman as well as into her early adult life.  It has been many years since last I saw this woman and I have not followed her life as we went very separate ways after I got married.  So I had no reason other than old information to doubt her character.  Yet when my Mother inf...