Self Love Versus Loving Our Husbands

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Words are hard this week, friends.

I have my outline right here beside me, bullet points ready to be explained but the cursor keeps blinking on my screen. No sooner do I begin to write, the backspace button calls me by name.

The position of my heart is not focused and I'm lacking contentment with the lines moving across the page. I've gone through three drafts of a simple five minute blog post on the topic "sexiness." It's not working out. I'm not writing a dissertation or novel here - graded or edited for maximum perfection. Why are words so gosh darn hard?

This isn't what my readers want. This isn't what needs explained. Gesh Lorraine, pull it together. Are you out of words already? That simply cannot be. See I told you, you weren't cut out for this.

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The atmosphere of this blog post mirrors the atmosphere of my home this past week. Lacking contentment, wishing to delete words thrown across the room, nonsense questioning and believing in the blatant lies the devil hurls into our minds. Explained best as the feeling you get when you finished quarreling with someone and you've moved on but you're not quite sure how to act or what to say next. Simultaneously, feeling blah and awkward, sorry for statements made and you're disrespectful attitude while also hurt by the other party. Eventually, normalcy resumes.Until then, you're walking around on eggshells and replaying the past thirty minutes in your head. It's like a whirlwind state of confusion trying to decipher a path moving forward.

So here I am unpacking the past week with you, so I can get out of the tornado effect and move on. So I can squash the devil's stronghold and reposition my heart. Joshua and I aren't perfect. In fact, I think it's quite clear that we struggle just like anyone else. We each bring past baggage, learned behaviors and big personalities into our home and we aren't always in a position to extend compassion when they collide. It's much easier to respond in self-defense than to listen vulnerably and I'm not so good at the latter.

This past week, I haven't been in my Bible and there is a direct correlation with how well my relationship with God is and how well my relationship with my husband is. If my soul is not fed with the nutrients it needs to thrive and thrive well, the surrounding atmosphere begins to chisel away at its core, causing havoc and destruction. Here I have options, I can either begin to cultivate my soul back to restoration, full well knowing its importance to vitality, or I can choose to hunker down into preservation mode thinking I can handle whatever comes my way, my way. This week, I didn't choose wisely.

The irony here is, my preservative is an attitude of self-righteousness, nagging Joshua with critique after critique. It's a good act, my heart. Outwardly, it's performing mightiness and control but inwardly, it's grasping out of desperation - hangry as all get out.

When I nitpick at the imperfections of my husband, whether that be his behavior or the job he completed, what I'm really insinuating is I could have done it better or I could be a better person. So if that's true, why did I ask him to do that specific job in the first place? And again if that's true, why did I respond the way that I did? Ultimately, I'm trying to fix him or get him to fix something when it's not my job or place to do so.

I read something on Instagram this past week that said, "Do you truly think you're going to shame and belittle your husband into being a better man? It's a simple concept. Love is more effective than nagging."

Ouch. That's convicting.

Looking back at this past week, if I had loved not only God by showing up to work on our relationship, but my husband, this whole blah feeling could have been avoided. Instead, I chose to love myself, which turned into a disaster by the end of the week. How many of us are nagging, discontent with ourselves and in turn hurting those around us? It's harder to love others than it is to love ourselves but isn't that the point? Isn't that our charge? How we respond is how we love our neighbor, friend, family member, husband, wife, child, teacher, elder...

I certainty could have wiped away the spotty windows from power washing myself, held back my critiquing tongue and instead thanked my husband for a job I didn't do nor did I want to do. Again, I could have nicely asked Joshua to not use a specific cleaner on my car that leaves marks, rather than blaming him for washing the car wrong. I mean come on, Lorraine.

How about another one, I could have rewashed the dish that wasn't 100% clean without saying a word because how many dishes do I really have to rewash? Not many. It's a sure fact, if I would have responded in these ways, the outcome of the week would have looked and felt differently. Perhaps I could have written about feeling sexy this week...who knows?

But this is important, the more we nag as wives, the more our husbands become hesitant to do the jobs we ask of them in the first place. The more we try to fix their imperfections, the more we put ourselves on a pedestal that doesn't even exist. Wives, we need our husbands. That's a fact. We cannot do it all and be it all. I'm talking to not only you, but myself here, you are no better than him so instead of believing a devilish lie and a self-love attitude, how can we respond this week with keeping our nagging mouths shut and opening our grateful hearts instead?

Whew, okay - I feel better.

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Proverbs 25: 24-28

It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.

Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. Like a muddled spring or

polluted fountain, is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked. It is not good to eat

too much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one's own glory. A man without self-control is like a

city broken into and left without walls.