Husbands, Love your Wives

[Scarlett O.]

Oh yeah, and he changes the diapers on our 22 year old retarded son and that, my friends, is true love.

Helen, you have always spoken so highly of Barry and I consider that one of your better traits....and you have many.

When you post of his affections for you, I have always thought, "Well, isn't that a blessing."

But to know that his man will change the diapers of a 22-year-old retarded son that is not his own flesh is causing me to sit here and cry like an idiot. God saw your being alone and saw your faithfulness and rewarded you mightily.

 

[TaterTot]

I was also very moved. I am so glad that you two have each other, Helen.

 

[tinytim]

Thank you all for your stories..

Why, isn't it wonderful how this thread has turned out...
Love has that effect on things.

 

[Jeep Dragon]

But to know that his man will change the diapers of a 22-year-old retarded son that is not his own flesh is causing me to sit here and cry like an idiot. God saw your being alone and saw your faithfulness and rewarded you mightily.

This is a man! Some hyper-fundie cheuvinist types here would probably say that this is strictly the woman's job. Sit up straight some of you legalists and maybe you can learn something.

 

[PastorSBC1303]

Helen, very touching testimony. Thanks for sharing. May God bless more men in this fashion!

 

[Helen]

I've gotten a couple of PM's about Barry.

The secret to his life is that he references every moment of it to Christ. If he is having a problem with something in his science, he gets down in his knees, literally, here in the den, and prays. If we have a decision to make, he prays (we pray, actually...). If we have a difficult person in our lives, he prays about how to deal with the situation.

And he listens. He listens to what the Lord is putting in his heart. He also listens to me, as sometimes I will have an idea which we had not thought of before (guess where it came from...). He is an incredibly humble man and I have seen him admit when someone is right about something in his work that he had not considered. His entire life reputation is based on his speed of light work and his physics, but when he was very harshly corrected by a physicist in Spain he looked at it and said, "He's right. I hadn't though of that." And he corrected his own work accordingly.

In Australia it is illegal to sell day-old bread, so enormous amounts of baked goods are thrown into locked dumpsters every night. Barry had a hard time with this. He couldn't change the law, so, for years before we were married, he would go to several bakeries at the close of their day, several times a week, and collect everything his car would hold (which they were glad to donate, by the way) and take it to families in need.

I think every one of those families was at our wedding, and every one of the adults were Christians by then, too. What is fun is that so many of them had no idea about his science. He was simply "Barry the bread man" until, years later, they found out more about him.

That's Barry. Sometimes when I wake up before he does in the morning, I look over at him sleeping and wonder why I, out of all the women in the world, was blessed enough to be allowed to be his wife.

There are many who disagree with his work but I have never met anyone who had met him, the person, who did not like him.

Because He tries to be, as a poem he heard once stated, the 'suit of clothes that Jesus wears.' This, men, is probably the biggest secret to loving your wife.

 

[donnA]

I've enver met Barry, but I have spoken with him on the phone when my son was in prison, and I liked him. He was compassionate, he listened, he prayed with me.

 

[Predestined]

Helen - God has blessed you with a man among men........they're not as plentiful these days. God bless you both.

 

[Aaron]

Helen said:
Guys, if your wife is a problem child in any way, love her. Loving is the most healing thing in the world. It kills defensiveness and fear. It makes any kind of untruthfulness unwanted and out the window. It makes her feel beautiful. It makes her more responsive and eager to please you and, yes, to submit and obey.

TaterTot said:
Helen is right. We all long for that.

In response, I want to say somewhat about Hannah Hurnard's Hind's Feet on High Places. It "is the story of How Much-Afraid escaped from her Fearing relatives and went with the Shepherd to the High Places where 'perfect love casteth out fear.'" Much-Afraid's great desire was to love and be loved in return. In one of her rendezvous with the Shepherd, He asked her, "Has Love been planted in your heart, Much-Afraid?"

...she answered, "I think that what is growing there is a great longing to experience the joy of natural, human love and to learn to love supremely one person who will love me in return. But perhaps that is not the Love of which you are speaking?" She paused and then added honestly and almost tremblingly, "I see the longing to be loved and admired growing in my heart, Shepherd, but I don't think I see the kind of Love that you are talking about, at least, nothing like the love which I see in you."
"Then will you let me plant the seed of true Love there now?" asked the Shepherd. "It will take you some time to develop hind's feet and to climb to the High Places, and if I put the seed in your heart now it will be ready to bloom by the time you get there."
Much-Afraid shrank back. "I am afraid," she said. "I have been told that if you really love someone you give that loved one the power to hurt and pain you in a way nothing else can."
"That is true," agreed the Shepherd. "To love does mean to put yourself into the power of the loved one and to become very vulnerable to pain, and you are very Much-Afraid of pain, are you not?"
She nodded miserably and then said shamefacedly, "Yes, very much afraid of it."

It has been said here, and I agree with it, that fear is the biggest obstacle for many women in loving and submitting to their husbands. But it isn't just the women who fear negative consequences in their duties. Men have much to fear themselves. The nature and manifestations of the fears of those in authority are often different than the ones for those under authority, but it is fear nonetheless that binds them to a life of misery, and to at times illtreat those they love imperfectly. Why wouldn't the parent's of the man born blind in John 9 defend their son during his interrogation? They feared being excommunicated from the synagogue.
The description of the problem is right on. This isn't to say that some people aren't simply obstinate and self-willed, but for many fear is the real problem. The suggested solution, however, is not the solution that will bring relief to those who find themselves in unhappy and hard situations. What is suggested, despite the denials of those making the suggestions, is to coddle the fear, and treat it as something good and natural, and to demand perfect love of one who cannot give it before you put yourself under another's authority. And where one isn't perfectly loving, you can find justification for fippancy, or some other token of disrespect.

"I'm sorry, hon, I didn't know that you don't want a hamburger. I'm sorry that you've had a bad day and I'm sorry that you aren't in the mood for hamburgers."
He settled down and then she added....."Feel free to get up and cook yourself whatever you would like."

(A mild example, but an example nonetheless that was, strangly enough, presented in this thread as an appropriate response.)
The real solution is to have love in your own heart, first for the One who is Love and who commanded love and submission, and second for the one to whom you should submit. Imperfect love does not cast out fear. Therefore, it cannot be the love of any man who is in authority that you must look to to be delievered from fear. Men are sinners, and are prone to stumble. I know more than one "good" man who took a tumble for the worst. Trusts were betrayed, hearts were deeply wounded. What then?
Perfect love casteth out fear, and there is only one source of perfect love. If you find yourself in difficult—or even somewhat oppressive—circumstances, and wonder how Christ could love you and at the same time expect you to abide therein, I strongly recommend Hannah Hurnard's work. In it, you will find a truly spiritual application of the Song of Solomon, which is an allegory of Christ's love for His church. And after Hind's Feet on High Places, read Mountains of Spices. As you apply the lessons, you will find that perfect love does indeed cast out fear.

 

[Scarlett O.]

Aaron, you still don't get what some of us are trying to say. And I was going to let this last post of yours go....and let you have the last word....

...until you insulted my parents.

Are you saying that my mother was "flippant" and "disrespectful"? You don't know my mother!! I consider those words you used fightin' word, Aaron. :flower:

She isn't flippant and disrespectful! And don't try to tell me that you weren't talking about her nor my description of that evening so long ago, because you were.


My father, the greatest man I know, was in a foul temper that day. He wouldn't have liked nor appreciated ANYTHING she put on the table.

He was frustrated over stupid things happening on his job that he was having to take care of for other people who didn't have enough sense to get in our of the rain and he had had enough.

And instead of finding a proper outlet for his frustration, he took it out on my mother. He griped, rather rudely, about her hamburgers. He LOVES hamburgers. But with the temper he was in, he was not going to like anything she presented. I didn't get angry at him for being so grouchy and hot-headed that night and neither did my mother.

Are you saying when he, out of sin, made rude comments about what my mother prepared that she should have gotten up, cleared the table, tken his personal order and set about fixing something else like she was some sort of waitress or short-order cook?

My father doesn't treat my mother like that. And she doesn't allow herself to be treated that way.

She soothed him. She soothed him, Aaron, by acknowledging that his day was crappy and that she understood his frustrations. She apologized for cooking the hamburgers when there was no need for an apology. She spoke in a courteous tone of voice, unlike him.

Her words of apologies and sympathies for his frustrations calmed him down. That's submission. She hadn't caused his bad day and bad week. Some stupid idiots at work had. She hadn't contributed to his feeling low and frustrated. Outside circumstances had.

But she took his burden on herself. That's submission!! Not clearing the table and starting supper over from scratch, when he wouldn't have been able to stomach the next meal she cooked either.


When she told him that he could feel free to fix whatever he wanted to eat for himself, she continued speaking in a very courteous tone. Her suggestion, which everyone at the table knew was hypothetical, was a gentle reminder that she was not responsible for his bad day and that she had cooked this supper not out of the role of chief-cook and bottle washer, but out of the role of being one flesh with him and loving him.

My dad appreciated that gentle reminder. He appreciated it. He took it as a token of her affection for him that she would care enough about him to be a sympathizer and accept the of responsibility for his burden. And he appreciated the fact that she cared enough about herself not to allow him to verbal berate her.

My mother is submissive to my father. My father appreciates that.

But my mother is not his maid nor his mother nor his doormat.

 

[Scarlett O.]

And while I am at it, let me give you a example of when my mother was disrespectful to my dad and how he handled it.

I have posted this on the BB before, but I will tell it again.

Once, during Sunday dinner, my dad asked my mother where the chocolate cake was. My dad can't eat chocolate cake because of the sugar, but he teased her nonetheless.

Well, it didn't go over well with her. She was tired and had had a very busy week and a trying weekend. She was exhausted and wasn't in the mood to play.

So she got mad and smarted off and said, "Well, I didn't bake a cake and we all know that you didn't bake one either.....unless you baked it from a chair. All weekend long when I have needed help around here you have been sitting in a chair....the lazy-boy chair, the computer chair, or the living room chair. So unless you baked a cake from one of the chairs around here, there is no cake!"

My dad, like some men, could have slapped her or got up from the table and cursed, or shouted, "Woman, don't you talk to me that way!"

But my dad doesn't exercise his authority over my mother like that.

He simple looked at her as if she was the most beautiful creature in the heavens and as if he was the most luckiest man alive and said very gently and very soothingly to her ....

..."Well, I guess I need to take a look at your chair that you are sitting in because apparently it has a tack in it."

He very wisely brought some humor into the situation because she was very mad and he very graciously reminded her that she was being disrespectful to him but without making her feel bad about it.

My father is in loving, Christ-like authority over my mother. My mother appreciates that.

But my father isn't her supervisor nor her little baby boy who constantly cries for attention nor her overseer.

 

[Aaron]

Aaron, you still don't get what some of us are trying to say. And I was going to let this last post of yours go....and let you have the last word....

...until you insulted my parents.

Are you saying that my mother was "flippant" and "disrespectful"? You don't know my mother!! I consider those words you used fightin' word, Aaron. :flower:

She isn't flippant and disrespectful! And don't try to tell me that you weren't talking about her nor my description of that evening so long ago, because you were.

You submitted her words as evidence in a debate. They were fair game.

Are you saying when he, out of sin, made rude comments about what my mother prepared that she should have gotten up, cleared the table, tken his personal order and set about fixing something else like she was some sort of waitress or short-order cook?

Of course not, but it's interesting you would jump to that conclusion simply because I identified disrespect in her response. You're illustrating the point I was making. The fear of what could happen when you put yourself under the power of someone else causes you to justify disrespect when the one of whom you demand perfect love cannot give it.

Now, when I say "of course not," I'm not saying that your father's sin is the reason your mother should disobey anything. Neither am I saying that wives must labor to satisfy every irrational whim of their husbands. What they should do is discern their husbands' basic purposes and goals and work toward them. Your mother fixed the meal for the family. Most husbands require that of their wives. It's the duty of a Proverbs-31 woman. Hamburgers is a meal. Your mother obeyed, and did so out of love. Your father should have been grateful. That's true. His ill response to his frustrations provoked your mother to respond in a flippant manner. That's quite understandable. But it's not an example of a righteous response, and you're making one. Now, you're not doing something that 99% of woman don't do, and I have often advised husbands that a wife's biting response is usually a reaction to something that they are doing to make their wives feel insecure. (It doesn't have to be fear. Often it is just obstinance, and then my advice to husbands is to simply bear it patiently, be forgiving, and take their difficulties about the matter to the Lord.) But you and Helen are clear about your feelings. In your cases you have stated that it's fear that hinders your submission.

But other than debate the issue ad nauseum, I'll just refer you to Hurnard for a description of perfect love, and how to respond to fear.

 

[Aaron]

And while I am at it, let me give you a example of when my mother was disrespectful to my dad and how he handled it.

I have posted this on the BB before, but I will tell it again.

Once, during Sunday dinner, my dad asked my mother where the chocolate cake was. My dad can't eat chocolate cake because of the sugar, but he teased her nonetheless.

Well, it didn't go over well with her. She was tired and had had a very busy week and a trying weekend. She was exhausted and wasn't in the mood to play.

So she got mad and smarted off and said, "Well, I didn't bake a cake and we all know that you didn't bake one either.....unless you baked it from a chair. All weekend long when I have needed help around here you have been sitting in a chair....the lazy-boy chair, the computer chair, or the living room chair. So unless you baked a cake from one of the chairs around here, there is no cake!"

My dad, like some men, could have slapped her or got up from the table and cursed, or shouted, "Woman, don't you talk to me that way!"

But my dad doesn't exercise his authority over my mother like that.

He simple looked at her as if she was the most beautiful creature in the heavens and as if he was the most luckiest man alive and said very gently and very soothingly to her ....

..."Well, I guess I need to take a look at your chair that you are sitting in because apparently it has a tack in it."

He very wisely brought some humor into the situation because she was very mad and he very graciously reminded her that she was being disrespectful to him but without making her feel bad about it.

My father is in loving, Christ-like authority over my mother. My mother appreciates that.

But my father isn't her supervisor nor her little baby boy who constantly cries for attention nor her overseer.

Boy, I hate to say it, but your father's response wasn't ...oh nevermind!

My point is this. Wives must submit. Husbands must love. And the failures of one doesn't absolve the other.

 

[tinytim]

Scarlett, don't let Aaron get to you... walk away with dignity...
In Heaven he will understand, if not before then.

 

[Scarlett O.]

Scarlett, don't let Aaron get to you... walk away with dignity...
In Heaven he will understand, if not before then.

Thank you for your wise counsel.....I am sensitive about my parents.

Consider me now officially walked away from this thread. :wavey:

 

[tinytim]

Thank you for your wise counsel.....I am sensitive about my parents.

Consider me now officially walked away from this thread. :wavey:

As am I... Buh bye... Aaron, you can have the last word... that should make you very happy.:wavey: :thumbs: