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Happily Ever After: Mood queen
God designed men with generally bigger bodies and greater muscle mass. But he certainly didn’t leave women defenseless. Most women, along with their beauty, come equipped with a tongue that can cut like a stiletto. That oral fillet knife, coupled with an unhappy heart and mood swings, can do a lot of damage to a relationship.
Solomon wrote, “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife” (Proverbs 21:19). “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping” (Proverbs 19:13). Let’s split up our application here:
Memo to wives: be careful of your tongue. Bitter words once set free can’t be sucked back down the throat. You have the power to use words to chop a man down, but you afterward might find that he doesn’t stand quite as tall anymore.
Don’t nag either. You cannot change your husband. Only he can change himself, and if you make him feel small, he will resist you out of spite. If you persistently make him feel small, he will live down to your expectations. Build him up, and he may just grow up into your high praise. Just as Christ has treated you better than you deserve, soften that tongue and speak to your husband better than he deserves.
Memo to husbands: sometimes you’ll have to let your wife’s words roll off your back. Man up. If you’re gone and she’s back home, don’t forget that her life is made harder by your absence.
God designed men with generally bigger bodies and greater muscle mass. But he certainly didn’t leave women defenseless. Most women, along with their beauty, come equipped with a tongue that can cut like a stiletto. That oral fillet knife, coupled with an unhappy heart and mood swings, can do a lot of damage to a relationship.
Solomon wrote, “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife” (Proverbs 21:19). “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping” (Proverbs 19:13). Let’s split up our application here:
Memo to wives: be careful of your tongue. Bitter words once set free can’t be sucked back down the throat. You have the power to use words to chop a man down, but you afterward might find that he doesn’t stand quite as tall anymore.
Don’t nag either. You cannot change your husband. Only he can change himself, and if you make him feel small, he will resist you out of spite. If you persistently make him feel small, he will live down to your expectations. Build him up, and he may just grow up into your high praise. Just as Christ has treated you better than you deserve, soften that tongue and speak to your husband better than he deserves.
Memo to husbands: sometimes you’ll have to let your wife’s words roll off your back. Man up. If you’re gone and she’s back home, don’t forget that her life is made harder by your absence.
Scripture
About this Plan
The experience of serving your country overseas--and sometimes seeing firsthand man’s inhumanity to man--may teach you important lessons about life while turning your stomach at the same time. But recognize that God has an even better way for us to learn life wisdom, a way that continually draws us closer to him no matter how far from family or church we might be. Because of his great love for us, he would much rather make us wiser through words. In this way we wouldn’t be sadder but wiser; we would be wiser and happier. The Bible’s book of Proverbs is an absolute gold mine of wisdom for the daily decisions you must make. It will help you develop your personal values and tune your life’s agenda more closely to resemble God’s.
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We would like to thank Time of Grace Ministry for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: www.timeofgrace.org
