As You Wish

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it -Ephesians 5:25

I pick up another armful of matchbox cars, wooden food, and papers, and tiredly carry them towards the messy playroom, exhaustion tingling down my body. Squeals of laughter erupt from the living room as I deposit toys into the toybox, and peek around the doorframe back into the noisy room.

A jumble of arms and legs tangle together in a wrestling match on the floor. One toddler, one big kid, and one dad. The nightly ritual of wildness and feigned fierceness before bed. The image of a father lion pops into my head; letting his cubs bite him and pretending to be injured so they feel confident in the hunt. I pause, leaning in the doorway, watching them and rubbing a hand idly across my growing belly, feeling the next small boy dancing around and waiting his turn to join the fray.

The man I married, and the boys we made together. He's gotten older, more tired. His hair is sprinkled with silver, the smile lines around his eyes have deepened, and the weight of a growing family rests squarely on his broad shoulders every day. The stress of life has taken some of his carefree youthfulness away, and given it instead to these little boys currently jumping on his back. Where does he find the energy to do this every day?

They catch me watching them, and I come into the room, pointing at the clock. Bedtime. They moan and groan, but Dad pulls himself to his feet and shoos them away towards their bedroom. He leads us in nightly prayers, reads them a bedtime story, then there's a million hugs and kisses, at least three questions, one needs to use the bathroom, more kisses, then it's lights out. They won't be asleep, but they might be quiet.

I plunge back into the kitchen to finish the dishes I'd left from dinner, and he steps into the office to finish writing invoices for the day, and research something for a friend in need. The dishwasher is running, the stove and countertop are cleaned, and the toddler is kicking his heels against the wall in the next room. I sigh, and start to head to the bedroom, but he beats me to it.

It falls quiet in their room, and he comes out to settle down on the couch next to me. He shows me his work for the day, we talk about the customers, he laments the rocks he had to dig up, but jokingly says that at least he doesn't have to go to the gym after work. I tell him about the children, we laugh over their antics, and the room falls quiet as I lean my tired head against his strong shoulder.

He's tired. It's been a long week. He's been outside, in the wind and below freezing temps for weeks on end, working hard, digging, leveling, painting, and talking to customers. He comes home every day and puts on the hat of Father, bathes the children while I clean up from supper, plays with them while I finish tidying the house, he listens to their very important stories for the day, helps them to bed, disciples them for being noisy, and still has company work to do. When it's all done, he's back to researching; for friends, for family, making calls, looking for parts, still searching for the bigger car we need before June, watching reviews on the washing machine we need because ours is broken.

He eventually slows down. His eyes glaze over with exhaustion, but he comes to the bed, lays down next to me, smiles and pulls me close, and we watch TV together before the lights go out, and tomorrow morning he's up at 6 am making coffee and starting all over again.

Sometimes the mundane drives him crazy. His back is always tired. There's always mud and grease and paint on him and his clothes when he walks through the door. His hands and arms are always scratched to pieces.

And he keeps going. He gives me these sweet children. He gives them his love, attention, and works hard to direct them towards being wise, mature men. He works to make sure the car I drive is safe. He keeps us in a warm, dry house, and hands it off to me to make it into an orderly, cozy home. And he does it every day, between quiet moments of stopping to kiss my cheek, squeeze me between his strong arms, or take me to the grocery store when the weight of pregnancy makes it hard for me to walk.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. -Ephesians 5:22

As a wife, and a Believer, I have read the verses to wives countless times. I tend to focus on my role in the family, skimming over what it says for husbands to do. After all, I'm not a husband. I try to keep in my mind the reminders to wives; to respect, submit, keep my hands busy and my home neat, keep the peace, raise godly children. But recently, I got caught reading the command to husbands and it stuck out to me; love your wives.

I've spoken to many women who are so upset at the command to submit to their husbands that they rarely stop to think about how husbands love their wives. We aren't slaves who get nothing in return; we are given love. The Bible is full to bursting about examples of Biblical love. One of the most famous is in 1 Corinthians.

Love is patient and kind, not jealous, not boastful, not proud, rude or selfish, not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not gloat over other people's sins but takes delight in the truth. Love always bears up, always trusts, always hopes, always endures. -1 Corinthians 13:4-7

None of that talks about grand romantic gestures, gifts, chocolates, or remembering anniversaries. Love, and I mean real, Christ-like love, is not much like the romanticized version of lustful 'love' we see in the movies.

Valentines Day is coming up. You can't look anywhere without seeing hearts and candies and reminders that we should be treated special because of the day on the calendar. It's easy to slip into the romantic love of the season.

But let me entreat you, sisters, to remember what real love is. Love is Yeshua's sacrifice for us. It's his patience on earth with us lowly sinners. It's the day to day workings of Yeshua healing the sick, even when he himself was exhausted. Love looks like Yeshua's life and death on earth, and it looks like God giving us mercy even when we deserved death.

Husbands are given the instructions to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. That's a tall order. Kind of puts into perspective the difficulty of the instruction us wives were given, to submit and respect, doesn't it? Nobody was given an easy task, but we were given excellent directions for having a healthy marriage.

It's very easy to get caught up in comparison, blaming, and thinking we are owed more 'romantic' gestures because that's how the world tells us love should work. But the only person we should be comparing is comparing ourselves to the standard set up in the Bible, and striving to meet it. The only person we should be blaming for our unhappiness and discontentment is ourselves for not taking every though captive to Yeshua. And the only 'romantic' gestures we should expect is the gesture of living with one another in peace (something the apostles often reminds us to do, and something us wives have a great deal of influence in).

I shared the story at the beginning of this post because it's what I've started to see ever since I learned what true love is. It's the daily, small gestures that my husband makes to provide for us. It's the forgiveness he offers me when I'm not perfect at carrying my side of marriage. It's the kindness he shows me when I'm tired, and so is he, but he gets up anyway. It's the fact that he selflessly works hard so I can focus on being a good wife and mother.

I also did not share this story to open up my life for comparison. Several years ago, a scene exactly like that would have been met by a much different attitude. I would have been grumbling, I would have been lamenting how tired I was, I would have been upset or even angry if he wasn't interested in chatting about my feelings at the end of the day. He didn't change. My attitude did.

Love is a daily choice. Respect and submission are a daily choice. When I give my husband respect, I can see so much clearer the little moments in the day that he gives me love. Much like in the story The Princess Bride, I can see how every moment he says "As you wish" he's actually saying "I love you".

We don't really celebrate Valentine's Day. We see no need to (although my husband often does buy me discounted chocolates the day after). But as it's approaching quickly, it made me really pause and think about romance and love. After having been married for nearly 8 years, I wonder sometimes if I'm supposed to want more 'romance'. I even jokingly said "maybe I should stop being so nice until you buy me flowers!" to him the other day, then instantly realized how silly that would be. Love doesn't hinge on 'if you do this, I'll do this'; it's a choice. And the choice I make every day is 'I love this man, and I want to make his life pleasant'. And because I show him respect, I can see how much he shows me love.

There's a lot to be said about how Biblical wives are supposed to act. Maybe I'll make a post about that someday. But in this season of worldly love, I wanted to exhort fellow wives and women not to get so caught up in 'romance' that you miss the steadfast love your husbands give you every day. The more you open your eyes to it, quite often the more you realize that in the quiet moments, he's been saying 'I love you' all along.

*cover photo from wix.com