The Good Wife

There is a girl on Facebook that I am "friends" with. We went to college together and had mutual friends. I think her then boyfriend and now husband and my then boyfriend now husband were in the same dorm. I remember having one conversation with her. She's from California and uber cool. She's a photographer and a mom and a wife and a lot of other fab things. I guess I'm a bit obsessed with her. I don't mean to be but she is very real and I just love real.

I don't feel like I get much real in my life. I try to be real but my real isn't uber cool like hers.

She's been reading and quoting a lot of this book Created To Be His Help Meet: Discover how God can make your marriage glorious by Debi Pearl. So of course I bought it on my Kindle because she's so uber cool.

Let's just say it's been rocking my world. Seriously. I don't realize how much false teaching has crept into my heart lately. I know that's how it starts, false teaching, creeping in and slowly taking over like an ink stain on a piece of paper.

In 2 Timothy, Paul warns Timothy that in the last days, people "will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power." He says to, "avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth."

I like to think I am all strong and mighty but Paul (through the Holy Spirit) knows the woman's heart. It is easily strayed.

Back to this book. I'm in the middle of the second chapter, there are twenty-four and folks, it is practical! I tried something I read yesterday but let me give you a background first ::

Martin's car broke down and we had it towed to the closet Jeep dealership. We don't know this dealership and the estimate was $500. I hate feeling at the mercy of someone you don't trust. Days went by and we got the run-around - parts backordered, maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, we'll call you. You all know the drill. During all of this we both had to go to work and Marin's job is, let's call it mobile. He has to travel a bit and he's generally gone from 6:30 AM to 7:00 PM. And I have one of those cushy jobs that goes from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM with an hour break for lunch. Guess who was in control of the car? Yup, my mobile husband.

We both compromised our schedules. I went in super early. He went in a little late. He left super early. I left a little late. The weekend was hard too. But Tuesday came and it was a glorious day, the Jeep was ready!

But there was a catch, Martin was working 2 hours away from my place of employment and the Jeep was 45 minutes away from there. After being in my office from 7:15 AM to 5:45 PM yesterday I decided to go downstairs to relax on one of our stiff 1980's lobby couches. I got a snack and Sprite out of the vending machine, propped my feet up on the 1980's coffee table, and got my Kindle out. Now, I knew Martin would be there in less than an hour and would probably be hungry but honestly, I didn't want to get him anything. Somehow in my mind, since it was his Jeep, it was his fault. So no, I wasn't going to get him anything.

But let me tell ya'll, this book has put so much into perspective. I am his help meet. And one practical thing I got out the chapter or so of reading was that I needed to be a happy wife. One who smiles and laughs in front of my husband. We are in a competition with the world and people in it and I need to be a place of relief for him. I immediately purposed in my heart right there to make our 45 minute trek down to the dealership a happy time. I went and bought him peanut M&Ms and saved half my Sprite. And ya'll, we had the best trip down. While there we looked at cars in the showroom and agreed we hated the new Jeeps (they were much too pretty for our taste) and went looking at some minivans. I am anti-minivans but only because my heart is so full of pride and yuckiness. We went to dinner and I let him sit facing the Flyers game (that's hockey, mom). It was the best night.

And the weirdest thing happened, I went to bed with a happy heart. Funny how we let the lies creep in to our lives - that if we make our husbands [insert coworkers, friends, parents, children] pay for our discontentment that will make life better.

I guess the old saying "A happy wife, a happy life" is true. It's just all about how you look at it.