Refreshing Love

Your love has given me great love and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people.

~Philemon 1:7

As a wife, does your love give your husband great love and encouragement? Do you refresh his heart? 

The verse above made me realize how, at times, my love towards my husband can be very selfish. I can't say with confidence that I always love my husband in a way that is refreshing to him or that gives him great encouragement. There are times when I don't treat him very kindly or hide the fact that I am annoyed by something he has said or done. It was humbling to hold up my love for my husband to this verse and see that I often fall short. Yet, my desire is to love my husband in such a way that it gives him great love and encouragement. So, the big question is, how to get from where I am to where I want to be? 

In every marriage there is always room for improvement. All of us, as wives, have a list of ways we can better ourselves. As I think about myself, here are the ways I can improve in order to be a wife whose love refreshes the heart of her husband:

• Pray more
• Be less selfish
• Keep negative attitudes/opinions to myself
• Keep my expectations realistic
• Be grace filled
• Smile, even when I don't feel like it
• Serve my husband with no strings attached
• Focus on "the big picture" rather than the immediate circumstance 
• Don't take life so seriously - laugh more
• Give my husband more time to himself

 I am sure there are other ways, but these are areas that I know I need to improve in. Taking the steps above will, without a doubt, give my husband great love and encouragement. It is a great starting point to be a wife who wants her love for her husband to be refreshing. I am sure that I will continue to think of other ways to demonstrate my love that will be uplifting towards my husband, but I must start somewhere and so the list above will be my launching pad.

 

 

What about you? I will ask again: As a wife, does your love give your husband great love and encouragement? Do you refresh his heart?