Devotion is about Going the Distance

Okay, so truth #1: You are a gift to your man. (read the previous posting for full detail)

truth #2: Your man is a gift to you...

Your husband was once your knight. Is he now?

Dust off those fainted pictures of wedding matrimony. Take out the old love notes. Dream of devotion. Dream of him. He is yours.

Long to be with him.

Truth is, you only have him in this life… sometimes I am overjoyed at this fact :) but mostly I am sad. Let a lifetime not be enough to be together. The honeymoon never ends, simply continues

There are some deeds that ignite desires in men-

Great sex begins with an S... for Submission!

Here are a few excerpts out of a novel written by James A Michener, pulitzer prize winning author (out of his book Sayonara). It is not Christian literature. Very well written and very secular yet he drives a very important point across, on the paperback: “the challenging novel which probes unflinchingly into the question of why so many American men prefer the tender and submissive women of the exotic east” (italics added).
Herewith some excepts:

You hear a lot of other guys complain about their women. But not the ones who got hitched in Japan…. “What’s so special about loving a Japanese girl?” He said, “You ever been in the bunks at night? Men with wives back in the States talk about Junior’s braces and country-club dances and what kind of car their wife bought. But men with Japanese wives tell you one thing only. What wonderful wives they have. They’re in love. It’s that simple” (page 13, first published in 1953, Bantam Books)

“They (Japanese girls) all have the same secret.” “What?” “They make their men feel important. I try to build my husband up- as a wife should. But with me it’s a game. With these ugly little round-faced girls it isn’t a game. It’s life.” (pg 45) Italics added

“These damned Japanese girls have a secret.” I had an intimation of their secret: they loved somebody- just simply loved him. They weren’t going to make him a four-star general or they weren’t going to humiliate him over some trivial affair for which he had already apologized. They just got hold of a man and they loved him. I had now seen two American marriages at close hand: my parents’ where people got along together in a respectful truce and the Websters’ where there was an early surrender followed by a peace treaty without vengeance. But I had never witnessed a marriage where two people loved each other on equal basis where the man ran his job on the outside and the woman ran her job at home and where these responsibilities were not permitted to interfere with the fundamental love that existed when such things as outside jobs and inside housekeeping were forgotten.” (page 51)

“… I could immediately visualize fat little Katsumi Kelly the other night, taking her sore and defeated husband into the bath and knocking the back of his neck and getting him his kimono and quietly reassuring him that her love was more important than whatever Lt.Col. Calhoun Craford had done to him, and I saw runty, sawed-off Joe Kelly coming back to life as a complete man and I had a great fear –like Mike Bailey- that Eileen Webster would not be able or willing to do that for her man. Oh, she would be glad to storm in and fight it out with Ltd.Col. Craford, or she would take a job and help me earn enough so that I could tell Lt.Col. Craford to go to hell, or she could do a million other capable things; but I did not think she could take a wounded man and make him whole, for my mother in thirty years of married life had never once, so far I knew, done for my father the simple healing act that Katsumi Kelly had done for her man the other night…”their (Japanese women) view of love suits me fine”. Pg 104, Italics added.

Pretty good read but like I said, don’t expect it to be in “christianese”.

Key themes:
Selflessness- submission
Attractiveness of innocence
Communication

The secret to love is communication. And not necessarily the misconception of referring to verbal cues only.

Chit-chattering till the cows come home will surely deal a severe death blow to desires.

Each couple develops their own way of communicating. Please do not compare your ways with others. Good communication talks on a heart level. Lots of heart. This is true romance

The wife in proverbs 31 oozes with warmth and simple, pure nonchalant femininity and quite frankly, involves lots of hard work... and even more hard work. Willing to put herself last. Yet, she is saturated with zoe life. Satisfied with the status quo: that which God has entrusted and given her. Stewardess par excellence!

Work isn’t bad. Its good. Its healthy. Let your work be like a very expensive fragrance- a trail of sweet perfume. Your work, whether it be cooking, cleaning or accounting is not chores and not charity either for the Word is clear that your works will bring you praise (or not).

As a wife, our first job is to make our men feel important.

I have read a few articles, some advocating the rules for becoming the best homemaker and others emphasizing equality and becoming the best boss- to the point, both are wrong. Both will give you nothing but an empty life as a wife because they both eliminate the very foundation of our faith- Christ came to die so we might live, likewise our most heroic efforts are to die to self and become the servant of all. The issue at hand is not taking on the façade of a servant, but to comprehend the heart: true delight comes from living life to His glory… and a very big part of our lives is lived in the covenantal bond of matrimony. In other words, I serve my husband because I love him (love in Biblical terms- read 1 Cor 13) and want to see good not harm happen to him all the days of my life. It really does put in perspective the trivial things such as picking up his socks for the tenth time. So what?

So what.