I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. John 15:5 KJV
As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord
I wrote this a while back. I wanted to share this because I felt in this situation, God led me to this womans story to teach me to be more appreciative of my husband. At the time I had been taking him for granted and not showing him the love and respect he deserved for all the things he did (and still does!) for me.
Every once in a while I get little reminders of how blessed my life is. Yesterday, I got one of those reminders!
I was looking through a message board that I recently joined. It is a very large board with hundreds of topics and sub-topics, one being marriage. As I looked throught the marriage section, one of the topics caught my eye so I clicked to read. It started out with a post from a woman that was having trouble with her marriage. She explained that her husband was constantly flirting with other women, even when she would catch him and confront him he would deny it, and he apparently even goes so far as to deny her "marrital relations"(for days or even weeks at a time).
As I sat there reading through this womans story, I just couldn't believe all she had put up with and this stuff had apparently been happening over a period of years. Then.....a thought occured to me......I HAVE BEEN SO SELFISH!! This poor woman is being walked all over, used and abused, and I have the nerve to complain about my marriage when I don't get "my way"?!?! Whats that about!!
I came to the realization of just how good I really do have it. My husband tells me he loves me several times a day, he never leaves without a hug and a kiss, he holds me in bed every night, he is very sensitive to my feelings and wants to fix things when something is wrong, he never calls me names, he never withholds affection for any reason, he is a very dilligent hard worker, he takes care of me and the kids, this list could go on for pages!!! My marriage is tough at times but no matter how hard it seems to get it could be so much worse. Instead of complaining I should be thanking God for the gift he gave me and be thankful for the bad times.....those are the times when the strength of our relationship really shows and I should be happy not angry.
My husband treats me with so much respect, love, patience, compassion, and understanding, I guess it is just so easy at times to take that for granted. I have never had to deal with the kind of men that woman was describing. I hope I never forget that story, I never again want to take my husband for granted....I think the next time I am tempted to bad mouth him I will just go looking around on the internet and find out how bad I could really have it, that ought to shame the bad attitude right out of my head!