Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Pleasing Our Husbands & Wednesday's LinkUp Party!


I remember years ago getting to hear Bible teacher Jill Briscoe speak in her beautiful British accent. She was speaking out of Romans Chapter 12, about offering your body as a living sacrifice. She spoke about doing all we do as an offering to God. 

She then told a story. Her husband, Stuart, had asked her to order ready mix concrete for a building they were renovating for their ministry. Her husband is a pastor.

The delivery truck arrived and began unloading the concrete where they were told to place it. There seemed to be a big problem. Something just didn't seem quite right. Concrete was being poured out everywhere! Jill was supposed to be handling this, but she quickly was in over her head.

Jill sent someone to another building to get her husband immediately who was on the pulpit preaching at the time! He departed at once to find out that Jill had ordered "ready-mixed" concrete instead of "ready mix" concrete and they were pouring out the concrete instead of leaving bags for later use! Jill told all the women gathered that anything worth doing is worth doing badly. 

Oh, my! I had never heard that! I had always heard another side to it. For instance, listen what Elisabeth Elliot often recited and I taught my children:

If a job is once begun,
Never leave it til it's done.
Be the labor great or small,
Do it well, or not at all.

Anyone who reads my writings or hears me speak knows that I can't go a week without mentioning something that Elisabeth Elliot wrote or said because she has had a great influence in my life.


So you can imagine, my surprise at hearing Jill say any job worth doing is worth doing badly.

Then this past weekend, Jill's concrete story popped back inside my head, as I totally identified with Jill's dilemma!

First I need to back up a bit. You need to know that I had just tweeted and facebooked last week, the following reminders to wives that I wrote in first person:

-I will not bring up my husband's past failures today

-I will put from my mind my husband's weak points which I cannot change
-I will concentrate on my husband's good points
-I will do something kind for my husband today that I know will please him. 

I asked the readers if they wanted to join me in doing something kind for our husbands...

Later, I decided to surprise my husband and have a fire going. Oh, I surprised him, all right.

I forgot to open the flue and smoke was billowing out of the chimney and pouring into the den. I yelled for my son to help. He grabbed the leaf blower, and opened the doors and tried to blow the smoke outside. It was freezing outside and all the cold air was rushing in.

My youngest, Mary, became truly frightened when she heard all the commotion and smelled the smoke. She hollered out, "can we die from this?" Only the dog seemed to not mind all the pell-mell in every direction! He was calm as a cucumber as John and I rushed around trying to open more doors to the outside.  So much for pleasing my husband!

I love what my friend Linda Hamilton posted to this debacle on my facebook page (Linda is a wonderful wife who prayed for her husband to come to Christ for years, and he did!).

She said, "in spite if the total mess~it was the thought that was in your heart that counted!"

There's the heart of Jill's message!

{Note to self: Funny thing as I think about it now, making a fire was not really a thing that typically would even please my husband. Making fires is something I like to do for me! So really if I truly wanted to do something kind to please him, I could have easily picked cleaning my car out, or cleaning out the refrigerator! He loves those things! And ahem... there is one thing that we all know will please our husbands... so that would be their top choice over anything! Making a fire for my husband? That's not the fire he would have wanted started!}

No matter what, let's pray that we can honor our husbands by doing something kind for them that we know will please them. Then, let's leave the results with God! Do you have a crazy or funny story when you tried to help your husband and it backfired? Or what's something you can do to help your husband?
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Now it's time for 
Wednesday's Prayer Girls & Link-Up Party!

Each Wednesday I like to offer to pray for your non-confidential prayer request or praise in the comment section below. Please enter a prayer if you would like me to pray for you (and pray for one another!) and I will reply to your prayer there or if you just have a comment (click the word "COMMENT" located below my signature below, under the colorful social media 
sharing squares:-)


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If you're a Christian blogger, we all would love to see what you've been writing! Enter your blog link below to join the party! For readers, enjoy the blog party below!
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Walk by Faith,

7 comments:

  1. Excellent post! I'm going to share a part of it on my blog today and point my readers your way! Thanks for the email reminders each week for your Link-Up. I need the reminders!

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    1. What an encourgement you are, Bonni! Thank you so so much!

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  2. Prayer for my marriage & challenges of being a working Mom &caretaker of spouse with MS and 3 kids.

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    1. Oh, Nicole, let's pray right now. Heavenly Father, I want to lift up Nicole to you, Lord. You know her responsibilities. You are not the author of confusion Lord, and you do not give us conflicting responsibilites. Help Nicole to do the next thing she needs to do for her husband, her children, and her work. May you help her each hour, and fill her with your grace to do the work You've given her to do with joy and with love for you and her family. Amen.

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  3. Praises that Mary and her boys will be moving into their own place on Friday. Prayers that ALL the details will be worked out and there will be no drama. Also praises for a better than expected report from Wayne's scan. He will be having surgery to remove the right lobe of his liver on 1/14.

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    1. Lord, we praise you that you have provided the next step for Mary. We ask that all go smooth this Friday, and that the Hagans can do the next thing to readjust to it just being their family Lord. Give them added grace this week, Lord. We praise you Wayne's report went better than expected! Help him prepare for the upcoming surgery. Amen.

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