Challenged

     So I am on day 10 of my husband encouragement challenge.  It is a challenge.  Not because my husband is a loser or anything.  Far from it.  It's just that I am just so selfish.  I don't get it sometimes, but it should not be so hard to keep my mouth shut when I should.  It also should be easy then to talk to him when I should, but you know it gets all messed up.
     Yesterday's reading was about how we all should try to listen more and speak less.  "Be swift to hear, slow to speak"...James 1:19b.  The writer joked that there was a reason maybe, why God gave us two ears but only one mouth.  I do think that sometimes we all can be slow to hear, quick to speak.  In a lot of relationships we do this.  Although, I do need tons of work I should say that I have been getting better and learning a lot.  It's not like things are absolutely horrible or that I am an awful shrew.  (Well, hopefully not)  It's just that I want to be better, I want to have an extraordinary marriage rather than ordinary.
     In my women's group that I recently joined we are reading a book called "Capture his heart." It's written by Lisa Terkeurst and it's about how wives can "capture" their husband's heart.  I am excited to read it, and am excited to listen to a few of the women in the group who are very wise.  One lady in the group is a bit older than the rest of us, and she is just full of insight and wisdom.  Not in a know-it-all way, but in a way that shows that she is a woman of God.  She isn't perfect or anything.  She's pretty ordinary and the stories that she tells about her and her husband could be me instead.  It's just that she has grown from these experiences and has learned what God says about marriage.
     I had lunch with one of my friends who is in this group, and we talked about how easy it becomes to be complacent.  How you can fall into some kind of rut with your spouse and some people never get out of it.  Some married couples start making snide remarks about one another and 40 years later it's like that's the only way they can talk to each other.  Or some people act more like roommates instead of people who are sharing a life together.  Listening to the other women in the group made me feel like I wasn't alone in my struggle to be better, that everyone has a hard time in their own way to make it work the way God intended.  It's worth it though, to try and have an extraordinary marriage.  To become a Proverbs 31 woman, and know that it isn't for anyone elses benefit but for the glory of God. I am beginning to see that this is just one more way that God designed to help us see who He is. The love and grace that He has for us.