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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Humbling

Today is Manly Man's birthday! Happy Day Manly Man!

I arranged for Grandma and Papa to keep the boys last night so Manly Man and I could go on a date! He was so surprised when I asked him to get the stuff out of the back of the van (their pillows and suitcases)! We had a wonderful date...we went to dinner and a movie and then for coffee. It felt really weird not trying to rush home. It felt really weird getting ready for our date and not having children around. It was VERY quiet in our house yesterday afternoon. It was the first time in almost 4 years that we were in our house and the boys were not...almost 4 years! We so needed it!

We have been wanting to see Fireproof since we knew it was coming out, but actually making it to a movie is very hard! We are always interested in movies that have firefighting in it. From Manly Man's perspective, they did a good job, overall. There were a few things we noticed, but all in all, the fire scenes were good. We chuckled at the firehouse humor, and were grateful that the language was MUCH better than it tends to be in a "real" firehouse. Manly Man has to deal with hearing the foul mouths every time he is on duty. It is hard!

We wanted to see the movie for other reasons...it is a Christian done movie, and as a few folks have said, it was well done and not "cheesy." We have also had our fair share of hard things to deal with in our marriage over the last seven years. We learned about the movie when we were going through one of those patches. We have been having honest conversations a lot in the past few months, which have been good, but hard too. Manly Man asked me if I thought that I loved him well. My answer was immediate, "No." I thought that I didn't love him well because I wanted him to meet expectations that weren't fair, especially since he wasn't made to meet them, or even told about them from me! I have been struggling with that the past couple of weeks. While watching Fireproof, I felt the Lord stirring in my heart. I didn't love my husband well because I didn't love the Lord well. It was such a resounding chord in my heart, that I knew it was from the Lord, not the enemy trying to attack me. I cried through most of the movie. I cry thinking about it now. I think that the Lord has been using the past few weeks to soften my heart so that I could actually hear from him! How wonderful that He knew what needed to be done, so that I could be ready to hear the message that I needed. Me loving my husband doesn't come from me...it can only come from an overflow of the love of the Lord. I am humbled now at my need for Him...I always knew that I needed Him, but I thought I could do much of it on my own! It is my prayer that I can lean wholly on the Holy One, instead of just saying that I do.

I am waiting for some answers from the Lord. Perhaps as I do lean wholly, I will start to hear a few more answers!

Are you leaning wholly on the Lord?

3 comments:

Caroline said...

Thanks for sharing your heart. I think I need to learn how to love Adam through the filter of Christ as well. Marriage is a difficult thing and we've only just begun. I feel you on the expectations thing - I'm queen of expectations. I'm glad that the Lord is speaking some things to you though. Its so encouraging that we don't stay in the same place!

Karen P said...

Hi Nan,

Lots to think about. Thanks for sharing and hor your honesty.

4funboys said...

glad you were able to enjoy a night out... We wanted to see that movie too, we just haven't made the time to do it.

thanks for sharing.