Real Marriage_ The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together - Mark Driscoll [42]
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HANDS THAT FEED. Take the time to plan a menu for the week (or month) so you aren’t throwing unhealthy things together for dinner or tempted to always eat out. There are many recipe and cooking Web sites (for example, allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com) that offer healthy meal ideas. He will have more mental, physical, and emotional energy if he is not eating simple carbs and sugar all day. I’m not saying he can’t cook if he likes to, but be attentive to nutrition, and educate yourself so you are stewarding the health of your family well. And sitting down to regularly enjoy good meals together is a welcoming way to nurture your friendship with your husband.
HANDS THAT HUNT AND FISH. Be unselfish. I’m actually the one who likes to fish, and Mark doesn’t hunt, but the point is to do activities that he likes to do sometimes and have fun with it. Mark loves baseball, so I have attended many games and learned how baseball works. I often watched him play in high school. Our three boys also love baseball, so I spend countless hours at the field for all their games. In return, Mark knows I don’t like to shop alone, so he takes me to my favorite stores every so often and helps pick out what looks nice. He also loves to study the culture by watching some of the popular TV shows, so I watch shows with him that wouldn’t be my first choice. There is always something I learn from the shows as well.
HANDS THAT OPEN THE BIBLE. Grow your relationship with Jesus. If you aren’t getting fed through Bible reading, prayer, and personal repentance, it will be impossible to know how to serve and respect your husband. Since respect is a command, God will give us the wisdom and strength to carry it out and not leave us alone to figure it out. We have to stay connected to Jesus in order to keep our husbands a priority over tasks, kids, other people, and the pull of culture. I tried respecting Mark without keeping Jesus first, and it was a disaster no matter how hard I tried. I used to think I didn’t have time for daily Bible and book reading, but we just need to use the time that God already gives us for it. As a mother of five, I learned to pray for God to show me moments throughout the day to use for reading, and He has been faithful to do that. Anytime the order of godly (1) woman, (2) wife, (3) mother, and (4) friend gets switched, we commit idolatry and end up in misery.
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The Bible provides principles for how to respectfully help our husbands, but it does not give us many methods. Women are prone to ask other women what methods they use as respectful helpers, or to read books such as this one, seeking to be told what to do. Indeed, some good methods can be gathered in this way. But the best thing is to simply ask your husband. Start by telling him that you want to be a wife who “does him good and not evil all the days of her life.”a Then respectfully ask him where you are doing this well and where you could do this better, and make note of his answers. Ask him how he needs you to be a helper. Respectful conversations can lead to respectful actions in your marriage.
Communication can either encourage or discourage change in your marriage. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, Mark and I didn’t start out knowing how to communicate well. He came from a vocal family, and I came from a silent family. You can only guess how we collided when we got married! Mark would abruptly voice his comments, and I would become silent. He used to say it was like trying to volley the ball over the net, but it would never get