Letter To The Future Bride

(Picture was taken by Becca Davis Photography.)

It is a special privilege to be able to write a letter to you in reference to, Lord-willing, your future role as a wife!

I have enjoyed almost 10 1/2 years of married life presently.  I hope this is just the first of many decades that I have to spend with my husband!

Per your request, I will share some of the lessons I have learned in a decade of married life:

Be ready to forgive 70 X 7 + more.  Don’t keep a record of wrongs.  “Don’t let the sun go down upon your wrath.”

Always honor your husband before others by how you speak of him, how you speak to him, and when you speak.

Practice the art of listening.

Respond with humor whenever appropriate.

Be willing to say “I am sorry,” without casting blame.

Avoid complaining.  Seek to edify and encourage.

Make your home an environment of rest both in body, mind, and soul.

Make your husband happy to come home.

Honor your husband by how you take care of yourself.  (You represent your husband.)  A wife who neglects herself may speak of disrespect towards her husband or inattention on his part towards herself.

Honor your husband before any children God gives you.  Show a unified front to your children.

Pray for and with your husband on a daily basis.

Frequently write your husband special notes of encouragement, putting them in his lunch or special places in your home.

Meet the physical needs of your husband.  Don’t view them as an obligatory burden but as a way to minister to his needs.

Be grateful and express it.

Have devotions as a couple and eventually as a family.

Discuss Scriptural questions with your husband.

Be loyal to your husband above any other relationship outside of God.

Be willing to seek Godly counsel, if your husband is truly living in a seriously un-Biblical way.

Gain your husband’s consent before making plans that affect him or the function of the family.

Be content.

Don’t be wasteful in your spending.  Stick to agreed upon budgets.

Don’t compare your husband to other men.

Avoid any inappropriate interactions with anyone of the opposite gender.

Be transparent and accountable to your husband with any male friendships/acquaintances that you might have had prior to marriage.  He should have full access to any communication.  Make sure your husband approves of any and all communication.

Avoid any appearance of evil (e.g. flirting with others, lunches with a coworker of the opposite sex.  Group situations are okay).

Dress modestly so you preserve your body as a gift for his eyes alone.

Avoid habits that are irritating to him.

Make dates a priority.

Share a mutual hobby.

Try to make meals that he finds palatable.

Create your own holiday traditions together.

Dress to please him.

Greet him with affection when he comes home from work or when he calls.

Don’t “dump” on him all the negative occurrences from your day.  Wait to share until later in the evening.

Keep his tastes in mind when decorating your home – make it mutually pleasing to both of you.

Take turns picking a movie to watch together.

Play games together, but don’t be a sore loser or an arrogant winner.

Joke with your husband.

Laugh together a lot.

Flirt with your husband – especially within the privacy of your home and room.

Dress sexy when in the privacy of your room.

Don’t be overly conscious of your body when sharing it with him.

View and treat sex with honor and as a gift.

Let him comfort you during child-bearing.  Don’t blame him for your pain.

Don’t use tears as a form of manipulation.

Try to avoid emotional tirades.  A man doesn’t know what to do with those.

If you need your husband to be more sensitive to you, gently tell him what would mean a lot (e.g. “Right now, I just need a hug from you, honey.”)

Take off the “rose-colored glasses” before marriage.  Put them on afterwards.

Only marry a man who will be compatible with these points.

Be flexible.  He might want to do something different than you had planned for the day or evening.

Keep yourself pure prior to marriage.  Present yourself as a gift to him on your wedding night.

Get your parents’ advice on the man you wish to marry.

Seriously consider any warnings your godly friends and family members may give.

Heed any inner cautions you have regarding a potential spouse.  It is better to end a courtship or engagement then a marriage!

Before marrying, pray if this is not just the right one but the right timing.  Some headaches in marriages could have been avoided if more time for maturation had been allowed.

Don’t haste to be wed.  The dating/courtship time is to be savored.

Keep an engagement as short as reasonably possible to avoid undue temptation.

Make sure you have had time to pursue any ministry opportunities God has called you to prior to marriage.  Once you are married, your focus will be on serving your husband rather than others.  (You can serve others together, but the opportunities are different.)

Get as much applicable training as possible before marriage so that you can bring those life skills and lessons into better serving your family.  Time and resources will probably be more limited once you are a new couple starting out.

Be resourceful in meeting your family’s needs.

Don’t be selfish with your time and attention in serving your family.

Serve with a cheerful attitude.

I may think of more, but this is the list I have for now.  This is an impossible list in and of yourself.  You and I both need the Lord’s grace and Spirit to help us actually live this in our daily lives.  We will sin at times and not fulfill these guidelines.  When we do, we need to humbly ask for forgiveness and then start again.

Let me leave you with this quote:

“If the manner of life under grace is superhuman, so, also, the provided enablement is supernatural, and is limitless as the infinite power of God …. Too much emphasis cannot be placed on the fact that, since God has proposed the impossible rule of life and provided the sufficient Spirit, the believer’s responsibility is thereby changed from being a struggle of the flesh to being a reliance on the Spirit. Grace thus introduces a new problem for the believer’s life which is wholly foreign to every aspect of the law. It is the problem of the adjustment of the heart to the holy presence of the Spirit, and of maintaining the unbroken attitude of dependence on Him.” ~ Lewis Sperry Chafer

How Pro-Life Am I Really?

What does it mean to be “pro-life”?  How pro-life am I really?

Being pro-life to me means that I view all life as valuable.  I believe human life as holding the most value of all living organisms.  I believe this because God established man’s dominion over all creatures in the Garden of Eden and because God said that man was made in the image of God.  No other creature has been given that honor.

Since we have dominion over the rest of creation, what does that mean?  Strength and power do not mean abuse.  They mean authority and responsibility.  We are accountable to God to deal responsibly with the rest of life, to not abuse that which He has placed under our care.  We are caretakers.  We use responsibly — not abuse negligently.  God created the rest of Creation for our enjoyment.  Therefore, we need to cultivate, preserve, protect, use where needed, and enjoy.  We are to be wise stewards.

What do I view life as?  What does it mean to have life? 

Webster-Merriam Dictionary defines life as this:

“: livelihood 8 : a vital or living being; specifically : person <many lives were lost in the disaster>

9 : an animating and shaping force or principle 10 : spirit, animation <saw no life in her dancing> 11

: the form or pattern of something existing in reality <painted from : the period of existence (as of a subatomic particle) — compare half-life 14: a property (as resilience or elasticity) of an inanimate substance or object resembling the animate quality of a living being 15: living beings (as of a particular kind or environment) <forest life>”Life therefore is when something/an organism came into being — began to function with life.  Life begins at the beginning of that thing or organism.  The beginning is the beginning.

What does that mean then when it comes to protecting life in this form?  Does it hold as much value?  Do we judge a form of life by its functionality?  Is its worth based on how functional the organism is to us?  If that is the case, the worth of an object is vulnerable to interpretation.  Could we also become vulnerable to interpretation?  What if our functionality diminishes?  What if we lose some function of our physical abilities or even mental abilities?  Has our value decreased because our function has decreased?  Do we determine the worth of an organism, or does the Creator of that organism (God)?  If so, it is our job then to be responsible caretakers, handling the most delicate and vulnerable with the most care.

What if I am inconvenienced in this process? Don’t I have a choice to continue a pregnancy or to terminate a pregnancy since this organism resides in my own body? Don’t I have a right over my own body?

Science/biology can be debated back and forth on this matter.  It’s been done too frequently to count.  Everyone wants to debate that if a fetus is dependent on you for sustenance, you can rid yourself of it at any time.  Thus, the debate continues over what substitutes independent living.  The argument is held that if the organism is not independent from you, you have the right to eliminate or preserve the (living) organism as you choose.

First of all, we are not debating a dead thing.  The debate is over a living organism.  Establishing that basic concept raises a different point.

If this is a living organism, we must then establish if it is a separate organism from its host (the mother).  Medical science establishes this fact.  The fetus has a different heart rate, different blood type, and different gender often from its host (mother).  It is obvious this is a separate identity.  Just taking the fetus’ DNA would reveal a separate DNA from its host (mother). Here’s a quote I recently saw on this matter:

“That baby’s DNA is human from the time of conception, and is separate from his/her mother’s. Yes, it proves that it is human from the very beginning. People will try and say anything to make legalized murder ok, and call it choice. EDIT- and for those who say that just because it has separate DNA from the mother does not prove it is life, and since it cannot survive on his/her own it is not life, here is another scenario that shows these statements are false. Let us say that a baby is born 2 months prematurely, and has to be in a incubator and hooked up to machines for a couple of months. That baby cannot survive on his/her own then. But try asking this question to the mother and father of this child. “Since your baby cannot survive yet on its own, it has not life”. That mother and father would not agree with you. Also even if a child is born on time, can that baby truly survive on its own. If the mother abandons that baby , the baby will die. Do they just say it is was the choice of the mother to abandon the child- NO THEY ARE CHARGED with murder.”

“To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion … it is plain experimental evidence.” The “Father of Modern Genetics” Dr. Jerome Lejeune, Univ. of Descarte, Paris

“By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.” Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic

Here’s an excellent link to a website written by physicians on this topic: http://www.prolifephysicians.org/lifebegins.htm.  Here’s a direct quote from their website:

“According to this elementary definition of life, life begins at fertilization, when a sperm unites with an oocyte.  From this moment, the being is highly organized, has the ability to acquire materials and energy, has the ability to respond to his or her environment, has the ability to adapt, and has the ability to reproduce (the cells divide, then divide again, etc., and barring pathology and pending reproductive maturity has the potential to reproduce other members of the species).  Non-living things do not do these things.  Even before the mother is aware that she is pregnant, a distinct, unique life has begun his or her existence inside her.”

Therefore the question arises, does the host (mother) have a right to eliminate this separate life because it is the host?  In order to respond to this question, we have to return to my earlier statements:

“Strength and power do not mean abuse.  They mean authority and responsibility.  We are accountable to God to deal responsibly with the rest of life, to not abuse that which He has placed under our care.  We are caretakers.  We use responsibly — not abuse negligently.  God created the rest of Creation for our enjoyment.  Therefore, we need to cultivate, preserve, protect, use where needed, and enjoy.  We are to be wise stewards.”

Because I may have the legal right to do something, does it make it morally right?

Using the same arguments that we raised earlier:

Don’t I have a choice to continue a pregnancy or to terminate a pregnancy since this organism resides in my own body?  Don’t I have a right over my own body?

First of all, this goes beyond your own body.  This is a living organism with a separate identity, as I briefly discussed.

Why do you think you have the right to terminate this organism?  Because it is part of your body?  It isn’t part of your body, it RELIES on your body to provide its necessary nourishment until it can function independently.  That takes us back to the point of life’s worth.  Is it based on its functionality or the level to which it can live independently?  If it isn’t, then we have to admit that a human life, even in its most beginning stages, holds value because of its very nature.  It is a living organism — not just any organism but a living human organism.  It is the start of a separate human life!

As such, it should be protected under the same laws and guidelines that protect any other human life.

If we protect human life based on its functionality or ability to live independently, we fall into a “slippery slope” that can lead to the elimination of other “less” productive humans: the elderly, paraplegics, mentally-impaired, blind, and the list goes on…  Perhaps, our children will use the same reasoning we used on them when it comes to determining our worth when our functionality has diminished and when it becomes physically, financially, or emotionally expedient for them to do so.

So, if I believe all the above: that all forms of life hold value and should be respected and protected, I consider myself pro-life, right?  Yes, you are!  The question remains, “How pro-life are you?”

Are you pro-life when it is convenient for you?  Are you pro-life when you can control it?  Let me make myself clearer — where I am going with this…

What happens when my husband and I have decided we are done having children?  We like the number we have; we feel quite content with the number we have been given.  We want a specific spacing between the children we have.  What happens then when we have a “surprise” or “oops” baby?  How do I respond to the unexpected life — to the “inconvenient” life?  Do I still see it as having worth?  Do I still see it as life — a separate human life with great value?  Do I treat it with respect and with care?  I may have a good cry and be surprised, and that is okay, but what is the end conclusion/the result?  What is my official response to the unexpected/”inconvenient” lives that have been entrusted into my care?  How pro-life am I really?

Those Times When It’s Best To Resort To Humor

Life has a way of presenting us with many opportunities to challenge and stretch us.  Depending on how we respond (and of course the nature of the occasion), we can respond with tears, angry outbursts, or humor.

Humor is the best option of the three responses when it comes to some of my days — or maybe most of my days.

Some of the past few days have presented me with the following situations:

My oldest son was diagnosed with pneumonia last Friday.  That is not the humorous part.  The humorous part was not the fact that he miserably vomited all over the floor right after getting a bath to lower his 103.9 degree fever.  The humorous part for me was as I kneeled on the vomit-covered floor and guessed at what my son had eaten that day.  It was in laughing as I told my husband that this is definitely not what you picture when you think of motherhood.

I laughed later that evening when I told my husband how I had to catch my son’s vomit in my hands so it wouldn’t spew all over the doctor’s office.  I chose laughter.

At first I didn’t laugh the next day when a different situation occurred.  I have been using cloth diapers on my 17-month-old.  At times, it is necessary for me to remove larger waste through dunking the diaper in the toilet several times.  As I was dunking a dirty diaper in the toilet before transferring it to the bucket where I further process the dirty diapers, my daughter decided to imitate me.  She did so by grabbing a dirty diaper from the bucket and slopping it across the floor in her attempt to also dunk it in the potty.  Dirty waste water was slopped across my floor, my hands were holding a dirty diaper, and I had an additional mess to clean.  Would I react with anger, see the humor in it, and see the heart of my daughter?  (She merely wanted to help me.)

Life is full of these opportunities — opportunities to see things from a different perspective, from a godly perspective. 

Circumstances, people, our own sin natures are less than perfect and pleasant.  The question is how do I respond?  How do I walk with grace when life has a way of slopping dirty diapers across our way, throwing messy relationships in our path, and we are still dealing with the stench of our own sin natures?  The answer is found in God’s grace and in His Spirit.  To keep it simple, let me conclude with the following beautiful quotes:

“If the manner of life under grace is superhuman, so, also, the provided enablement is supernatural,and is limitless as the infinite power of God …. Too much emphasis cannot be placed on the fact that, since God has proposed the impossible rule of life and provided the sufficient Spirit, the believer’s responsibility is thereby changed from being a struggle of the flesh to being a reliance on the Spirit. Grace thus introduces a new problem for the believer’s life which is wholly foreign to every aspect of the law. It is the problem of the adjustment of the heart to the holy presence of the Spirit, and of maintaining the unbroken attitude of dependence on Him.” Lewis Sperry Chafer

“Holiness is in the spirit and of the Divine Spirit. It is not in forms and ordinances… It is not in prohibitions and self-denial. …Christ lives in men through the Spirit. He is no longer a model but a living Presence. Christian faith does not copy Him; it lives Him. Christ is not imitated but reproduced. Life is sanctified because He possesses it, lives it, transforms it. The Spirit of God does not work upon us; He lives in us. This is the contrast between works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit … Fruit does not come by toil but by appropriation, assimilation, and abiding. Holiness makes life fruitful because it abides in the Living Word and gives free scope to the Spirit of Life.” ~ Samuel Chadwick