The Privilege of a Wife: Orienting My Life, pt.2

(Since it's 29 degrees here today, I thought a little warm photo might cheer me up!)

It's been a while. But...back in this post, I talked about how the Lord started showing me that I wasn't seeking to be the wife that He's called me to be. I was living for myself and my plans and my agenda. My life was oriented around myself.

As I was thinking about posting more on this, I realized that I was skipping the Gospel. Before talking about ordering priorities to prioritize our husbands, we need to first remember the Gospel. Whether you're married or single, a woman or a man, our lives should be centered on the Gospel. I'm so grateful that our church reiterates this again and again; we never move on from the Gospel. We don't become Christians and then "move on" to other things like prayer, evangelism, bible study, etc. and forget the cross. The cross is the whole point of our lives! Without the cross, we would still be left in our sin! Without the cross, we would have no hope in this life. Without the cross, we would have no power to change. As CJ puts it, we need to "keep the main thing the main thing." Are you keeping the main thing the main thing?

As we start to consider how we, as wives, are called to orient our lives, let's remember that the Gospel always comes first. But, what comes second? For this lady, what came next was none other than...me, myself, and I. :) (Not quite what the Lord had in mind.)

I'm so grateful for the wonderful ladies in my small group who so helpfully shared thoughts with me about growing in loving my husband. One of those ladies, Jodi, pointed me to a book by Elyse Fitzpatrick that she said had really helped her in this area. Jodi is a wife who puts Christ first and then faithfully puts her husband second. She exemplifies in her marriage Philippians 2:3-4: "in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." She has been such a wonderful example to me of a wife who orients her life around her husband and I've seen the beautiful fruit of it in her marriage. I was eager to check out a book that had helped her. Let's just say, I didn't know quite what I was getting myself into...