Pink Sunglasses

This past weekend, danny and I attended a Marriage Conference at Gateway Church in Southlake. From reading the book that the conference was based on, we had somewhat of an idea of what to expect. I knew from the get go that I would enjoy the conference, only because I love "studying" and learning about relationships especially the ultimate boy-girl relationship. Like i said in my previous post, the book (and conference) is called "Love & Respect!"And today, I think I'm going to focus on what was taught for the girl friend, the wife, the mother, the friend, and the daughter for tonight.

Ephesians 5:33 says this

"However, each one of you also must LOVE his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must RESPECT her husband"

Yes, this is the verse that we have heard numerous amounts of times in our lives, even if you havent been to church or a marriage conference you've probably heard it. It's usually almost always 9 times out 10 said, written or some how mentioned at every normal wedding. However, theres one word from this scripture that is either missed or just flat out ignored by women. Actually, im going to go out on the limb and say probably the majority of women, Christian or not, usually miss the word RESPECT and we only see the word LOVE.

For the longest time I knew the scripture and I knew that in a nutshell, wives were to submit to their husbands. What I, shamelessly didn't know was what respect really was and what respect really looked like. And boy am I starting to learn, Dr. Eggerichs (the author/speaker) was sure to call me out, along with hundreds of other women as well.

Being women figuratively speaking means I see out of pink sunglasses, I talk out of pink mega phone and I hear with pink hearing aides. If your man is a man...theres nothing pink about him. Pink lenses see love, blue lenses see respect. Not wrong, just different. However, a wise person sees theres a difference. It is still processing in my head that the way I feel about being loved, is how he feels about being respected. My husband needs unconditional respect the same way I need unconditional love. First Peter 2:18 says ..."respect those who are good and gentle, but also those who are unreasonable" A husband needs respect that only his wife can give him;same as a wife needs love that only her husband can give her.

I Corinthians 7:28 says "those who marry will face many troubles in this life..." interesting that this verse is never said at wedding ceremonies dont you think?

In school I studied General Systems theory, which is a pattern of behavior that is caused by the same thing over and over again. The famous example of Systems theory is: The wife nags because the husband drinks, the husband drinks because the wife nags. The endless crazy cycle.

Well, even more crazier if you put it this way: Without love she react without resepct, without respect, he reacts without love.

However, the way to live your marriage, maturely and un-stubbornly is using the reward cycle known as : His love regardless of her respect, her respect regardless of his love.

I would love to continue writing but I could see where this could get boring to some, however, I think its totally cool! =) I still cannot wrap my head around the idea that my husband, danny ruth, with a mom like susie ruth (seriously a heart of gold)... would rather be respected than loved. Again, not wrong...just different. Oh...how great is our God..funny too.