A man approaching retirement called the retirement office to inquire about his pension. Afterward, he was asked if his wife worked.
“She’s worked all her life making me happy”, he replied. “Yes sir, but has she earned money to receive her pension?” “When we got married we agreed on an arrangement”, he said. “I would earn the living, and she would make the living worthwhile”.
“Make the living worthwhile.”
Have we forgotten the very essence of that? Have we forgotten to live for someone else, that doing so IS what makes a living worthwhile?
The Lord has really been working in my heart a lot lately about my role as a wife. If I could sum up what I believe makes a happy, time-proof marriage, it would be this:
Live to make your spouse’s life better.
Our natural response may be,“Why should I do that when he doesn’t do that for me?”
And we are so unwilling to take our eyes off of his faults, look at our own shortcomings, and realize we may be a large part of the reason he doesn’t respond to us the way we think he should.
My duty as a wife, and more importantly as a Christian is to be a “living sacrifice”, not as concerned with what I’m getting, than what I can give.
Do you want a joyful home? Be joyful.
Do you want a tender husband? Be tender.
Work on becoming the woman with whom your husband feels MOST secure–even with his greatest weaknesses (boy that’s a hard one!)
He has the whole world to make him feel inadequate, tired, unaccomplished or weak.
If he has one place to go, one person who will guard his reputation, his feelings, his manhood, one person who will make his living worthwhile, that man will run to that place…to that person…he will cherish it and will never leave.
Note: This morning, ironically, after I reposted this article, I ran across the article, Tolkien Speaks: The Secret to a Happy Marriage, in which is written: “What did Tolkien have that many marriages do not? How did he make it work? The answer is simple: He understood that real love involves self-denial.”