Loving Your Husband

I like to sing. If a song is appropriate for the moment then I sing it. My husband thinks it’s kind of annoying (not sure if it’s because perhaps I am a little off tune or he just doesn’t like the singing). I grew up hearing all genres of music so it’s easy for me to pull something from memory and just sing! I was lying in bed the other morning trying to motivate myself to get up but I was so comfy and warm that I was having a hard time. So I started thinking about this topic and what I was going to write about and I immediately thought of the Fiddler on the Roof (Probably because Rhonda mentioned it as well during her teaching). I was singing (in my head) the “Do you love me” song from the movie. Tevye asks Golde if she loves him and her response is this:

Do I love you?
For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked the cow
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?

Tevye goes on to talk about how he felt when they got married and asks her again. Again, her response is this:

Do I love him?
For twenty-five years I've lived with him
Fought him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is?

Sometimes I think that loving my husband is doing the laundry, cooking his meals, ironing,...the list could go on and on. And maybe it is to a certain extent. Those things are definitely important to him. But with that mindset it doesn’t take long for bitterness and resentment to set in.

For me I know that when I am tender toward my husband and caring for him is what blesses him most. Ephesians 5:33 (Amplified Bible) And let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband – that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates and esteems him, and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly. That’s what loving your husband is!

I want to leave you with a quote from our notes on Loving Your Husband:

“Are you in love with your husband? Not, ‘Do you love him?’ I know you do. He has been around a long time, and you’re used to him. He is the father of your children. But are you in love with him? How long has it been since your heart squeezed when you looked at him? Why is it you have forgotten the things that attracted you to him at first...?

“By the grace of God, I want you to start changing your thought pattern. Tomorrow morning, get your eyes off the toaster or the baby bottles long enough to look at him. Don’t you see the way his coat fits his shoulders? Look at his hands. Do you remember when just to look at his strong hands made your heart lift? Well, look at him and remember. Then loose your tongue and tell him you love him. . Will you ask the Lord to give you a sentimental, romantic, physical, in-love kind of love for your husband? He will do this. His love in us can change the actual physical quality of our love for our husbands.” Shirley Rice
~ Sharlyn Eddy