Kim

Hi, all:

Regular reader, but don’t post…I’d sent the below right to Cheryl and she thought it was worth posting in the comments, so here it is:

“That 1 Peter post was a terrific explanation, Cheryl, and shows me that I’ve been on the right track for a number of years now. As a brief testimony, I used to be a prairie-muffin wannabe and my household was falling to pieces as my husband grew farther and farther away from the God he was once marginally interested in. Through a series of truly severe trials, I realized that just letting hubby run the roost was doing some tremendous damage. So, I took “does him no harm” from Proverbs 31 into account and followed that, because I realized by not doing what needed done, I was doing him harm. I gathered my courage, stepped in and said “That’s it, it all stops–now”. Of course, the rigid women-squashers would have been hyperventilating, but Abba had already removed me from that to an extent so I was able to accomplish this. It largely became an unconscious trade-off of sorts on his part…he told me to dump the jumper-dress gig and wear some warpaint (makeup) once in a while. Once I did that, he began making every effort to clean up his act, too.

Guess what? We have a far happier, give-and-take marriage now than we did five years ago. He’s a community leader in several areas and often comes to me on things I have more ability in than he does. Unfortunately, due to a death in the family, my husband hates God worse than ever for “murdering” that person, and can not be made to see reason through any means, but he’s highly respectful of my strengthened faith through the same death. In the end, I realize his “act clean up” is solely in the flesh and anything could set him back, but so far the Lord has chosen to be very kind and keep him moving forward. For my part, I just keep showing him all the forms of respect he needs from me, and I of course pray for him–after all, it’s not over until the dirt gets shoveled!

Thanks so much for all your work…

Kim :-)”