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  • On Dwelling

    On Dwelling

    Close to the end of 2021, I had a lot of thoughts swirling around in this brain of mine.

    Thoughts about taking action vs dwelling. Thoughts about wanting to fix everything around me vs. stepping back and putting my need to take action into praying. I was constantly struggling with the desire to bring issues up and “fix” them with CJ, and the quieter, but consistent, thought that it’s not my job to fix anyone. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, bring my requests before God.

    Flash forward to 2022 and those thoughts have finally seemed to take shape and find rest. I started the year off in my journal, talking out with God what it looks like for me as a wife to support my husband in righteousness without becoming a nag or trying to lead him.

    I began my search in 1 Peter 3:1-5. “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respect and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external – the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear – but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.“

    In the contemplative stillness after I read that passage, the gentle thought pricked at my conscience:

    “But what are you doing to be the best you can be?”

    The part that stuck with me was “...they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.” It brings to mind what I – and I’m sure we all – have been told growing up “Don’t talk the talk, but walk the walk.” Never anywhere in the bible does it say “Yo wives, nag your husband 24/7 about the things he does that annoy you so he can change and be more holy.” But what it does say for both husbands and wives is to submit to each other in love.

    Submit – 1. To let down, to cause to sink or lower. 2. To yield, resign or surrender to the power, will or authority of another; with reciprocal pronoun. 3. To refer; to leave or commit to the discretion of judgement of another.

    Personally, I find all three of those definitions fascinating. I think the first one obviously refers to a physical act of letting an object down, but it also incites to me images of stepping back so as to allow someone else to shine brighter, and possibly even to lay down/let down our own expectations. I really like how in definition 3, there is a heavy note of trust weaved throughout; “to leave or commit to the discretion of judgement of another.” You can’t commit to anything without trust! So in a way, you could almost sub out “commit” with “trust” in that definition.

    Next, I landed in the place all women land when researching wifehood: Proverbs 31! I read through the whole chapter, and wrote down all the attributes of an “Excellent Wife” as laid out in the chapter, taking some abbreviation license.

    • The heart of her husband trusts her
    • She does him good and not harm
    • She works with willing hands
    • She rises early and provides for her household
    • She is ambitious (this woman literally buys fields and plants crops and is hustling!)
    • She is physically strong
    • She is charitable
    • Her husband is known among the elders because of her faithfulness
    • She laughs without fear at the future
    • She speaks wisdom and kindness
    • She is not idle
    • She fears the Lord.

    I don’t know about you, but when I compare myself to that list I can definitely see areas in which I fall short. Specifically being idle and being physically strong and laughing without fear at the future. I am definitely guilty of allowing myself to be idle, and allowing anxiety or anxious thoughts about the future to steal my joy. As i began to compare myself to the metric of this amazing biblical woman, my heart was tempted to be discouraged. But God, who is so faithful, guided my to a truckload of scriptures that uplifted and gave my thoughts direction.

    “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” – Philippians 4:13 – This is not an impossible task!

    “The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good concience and a sincere faith.” – Timothy 1:5 The goal isn’t perfect “wifely acts”, but loving care and action.

    “You, God, are my God. Earnestly I seek You; I thirst for You, my whole being longs for You, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and glory. Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You. I will praise You as long as I live, and in Your name I will lift up my hands.” -Psalm 63:1-4 – None of this can be done apart from God, and the life be brings through His word and Holy Spirit.

    “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving on another, as God in Christ forgave you.” – Ephesians 4:32 Forgive and be kind…we are none of us perfect, yet God forgives all of us equally, so who am I to hold any grudge?

    “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” – Colosians 3:15 – What he said.

    God is so faithful to provide conviction in the areas we need to change, and provide a way for us to do it!

    Since the hours spent in study of this subject and prayerfully pursuing God’s will for how best to be a support and a uplifter of my husband, He has given me such peace in the conclusion that my job is to constantly and earnestly lift Chris up in prayer and in love. That’s it, so simple! Oh how we can complicate things!

    I have never not been madly in love with my man, but since making the intentional efforts to view him through a lense of thankfullness and love, I cannot even describe the beautiful shift in how I see him. God has been at work in the transformation of my mind… and gave me a beautiful analogy about this. Often, I’ve heard christians describe this life as a battle, and just something we have to struggle through until Christ calls us home. As I pondered what my reaction toward sin/mistakes/annoyances within our marriage should look like, this image came to mind.

    We are all soldiers, walking home from a battle already won by our great Father. Behind us, the enemy’s puny last regimen follows, shooting their flaming darts at our backs, trying to keep even one of us from reaching home. I walk with those in my group, all of us supporting each other as we bear our burdens. Occasionally, one of us let down our guard, a dart finds home and myself or a brother or sister stumbles. Do I point out that the dart found them? Do they leave me in the dirt? No! We, through the power of the Holy Spirit are to pick one another up, dust off the dirt, and push forward, knowing the enemy’s strategy and watching for the attack to return so as not to fall again. Knowing our great Father has already paid for these wounds on the cross and will not hold them against us if we faithfully continue to walk toward home, and use the armor He has given us.

    So this brings me to my conclusion: Love aught to cover every hurt, every sin, every annoyance or mistake. We, as wives, are to prayerfully and in our actions support the men in our lives, and support them through the times when they stumble just as they do for us. We are to dwell in the peace of a quiet and gentle spirit, and faith that He is leading us both toward Home.

    -M

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  • 2021 Reviewed

    When I think back on 2021, I’m filled with satisfaction. The person I am and life in general are almost unrecognizable a year later….but at the same time not much has changed. I know that makes loads of sense. 2021 stretched me in so many ways, most of which were uncomfortable and frustrating at the time, but I can now see were preparing me for harder things to come.

    At the beginning of the year I hadn’t ridden in so long and was longing to, and then Olaf came into my life on Valentines day. I recognized the potential right away and jumped on the opportunity to lease him. The road since then come with highs and some very low lows, but I have learned much and grown as a rider.

    Much through the late winter and spring I was struggling away at a “Couch to 5k” running program. I missed lots of days, frequently had to reset and start over, and never made it past week three. My gym attendance was sporadic at best. Somewhere in there, a dear friend started encouraging me and we became accountability partners along the way. It was him roping me into a marathon relay that lit a fire under my feet and got me consistently training every week. Some weeks later, I signed up for a half marathon on a whim, just to see if I could do it. At the beginning of August I was running 2-3 miles easily, and near the beginning of October I ran my personal record of 7.01 miles on hilly terrain. The daily training and discipline of being “up and done before the sun” was a haven for me over the summer especially, as it was the most stressful year yet at work. Being able to have set aside even an hour in the mornings to just get my blood pumping and accomplish something as simple as a mile before work made me feel so accomplished, and like the rest of the day was nothing in comparison.

    In the beginning of September, I attending my first Masterson Method Bodywork clinic, and the experience was eye opening. Until that point I had been fairly sure that I wanted to pursue certification as an MMCP (Masterson Method Certified Practitioner). The first day I was there, after seeing just the morning session, I started looking at what the next step was and signed up for the next clinic before the end of the day. Bodywork perfectly ties together my love of horses, with my sensitivities to energy and touch, and has become a haven for me.

    The day after the Marathon Relay in October, I went to the gym. I had been feeling for a few weeks that I was growing too prideful about all I had accomplished with running in the past few months. I was all caught up in the grind, and hustle culture (I don’t think the mindset is necessarily bad, but it also needs the proper dose of humility). As I drove to the gym, I prayed and laid my thoughts bare before God, asking Him to help me see how I could best honor Him with this endeavor. Ten minutes later I was on the ground in a heap with torn ligaments and muscles in my left ankle, and on the bench for the rest of the year. Never pray for patience and humility…unless you really want to be forced to be patient and humble! This injury had me on the bench for two weeks straight before I was even able to walk semi-normally. Whereas I had been the one rising before dawn, getting out there with some serious mileage and waking up my husband when I got home, now I needed help to walk to the bathroom and couldn’t even wear my running shoes because the swelling was so bad. All the things I had been focusing on were taken away. No riding, working, running, or going out except for chiropractic appointments. I was forced into a season of rest, which I’ll admit I didn’t enjoy at first.

    But the fruit that came out of it still amazes me. God enabled me to have so much quiet time, to read my bible more and walk through the 7 Steps to Freedom by Neil T. Anderson. I had ample time to have a friend over, get coffee with my mom, and study. During this time I realized how many other areas of my life had been starving as I poured everything I had into running, training, work, etc. I realized how much healthier I felt when I wasn’t able to run or even move, and how important it was to keep that even as I was eventually able to move normally again.

    November came with disappointments and discouragement. Just going for walks and working a two hour shift at work left my foot swollen and aching. After having not been in training for more than four weeks, I officially had to give up the half marathon I’d been looking forward to all year. The day of the race passed with a haze of sadness in the background; to have come so close and then have it taken away was disappointing. But every time I felt sadness creeping in, I remembered all the sweet things that came out of that period of rest. Would I trade those eternal realizations for being able to run that race? Not a chance. God gave this awesome body of mine the ability to heal, and the ability to run, which means I can run another race.

    December came with waves of anticipation and nervousness. My Advanced 5 day Masterson Method clinic had arrived. A Sunday morning in early December found Chris and I packed into an airplane bound for Houston TX. At home, a pile of Christmas cards (fliers) were waiting to be spread around once I got home, and an LLC was prepared and waiting for business. The week I spent in Texas will forever be a precious memory to me. I was surrounded by amazing instructors, the best horses to learn with, and the most supportive husband to come back to at the end of the day. I had serious doubts about my abilities as a bodyworker all that week, as I saw the mastery of our lead instructor Becky compared to my own issues. I prayed and hoped and practiced and prayed more, but the feeling of impending failure would not leave me. All my anxieties turned to jitters of excitement and tears of joy at the end of the week, however, when I was passed with flying colors and more commendations that I ever could have expected or hoped for. The flight home was one of Peace and excitement, having now the confidence of someone who knew what they were doing giving me their approval.

    Since that clinic, I have established The Pampered Pony LLC, and business has been steadily increasing above my expectations.

    I am so thankful for all this year was, and for all the closed doors that I can now see were closed so I would keep knocking and finding the right ones.

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  • Wife Skills: Communication

    As a married couple, your greatest tool is your ability to communicate with each other. Nothing can happen peacefully in a marriage without communication. Whether it is deciding how to steward your finances, or where to eat dinner on date night, your communication muscles are used every day. You can either purposefully hone and sharpen your communication muscles, or do what so many people do, and go down the route of assumptions which will give you nothing but frustration and turmoil. I have realized that this is particularly important in my role as wife, and that God has given me and all wives a unique gift in that we have the ability to facilitate good communication with our husbands. This ability helps us remove bricks from the wall that stands between us and our husbands, and create further oneness in our marriages.

    Most of the time we as women are the ones to bring up conversations. We can either do so in a way that makes our husbands open to conversation, or in a harsh and demeaning way that is not only disrespectful, but makes them put up defenses and sets the conversation up to be an argument rather than a place for us to come together and unite against whatever the issue at hand is. You will be miles ahead of other newlyweds and even couples who have been married for decades if you realize and act upon this one simple principle: Your spouse is your best friend and always wants what is best for you. Your husband has literally committed to being with you for the rest of his life and taking care of you; so what’s the point in not communicating with him? It’s all going to come out in the wash at some point, and all that will have happened is that you’ll stew on it longer and the blowup will be bigger when it happens!The main area I have had this struggle is in bringing up conflict or something that has been frustrating me in our relationship. I always worry that my husband will be upset with me for bringing something up, that he’ll be offended somehow, or bringing up the conversation will make the issue worse. Has that ever happened? No! I have, in my humble opinion, the best husband out there. He is very slow to anger and always eager to listen. Never once has he been angry at me for bringing something to his attention, but I keep letting that fear rule over me. I will stew over something that is bothering me, even when he asks me to share with him, and by stewing and overthinking I end up drawing out the issue even more! Plus, I do my husband such a disservice by creating this version of him in my mind that is so much less honorable than he is.By withholding something he’s done that is bothering me, or a burden that is weighing on my mind, I am actually robbing him of the ability to fulfill his God given role to help me through it, and remove an opportunity for him to understand my mind more.I am robbing both of us of the ability to work through whatever the issue is, and putting a brick in a wall between us, instead of removing it.Remember, it is not you against your spouse; it is both of you against the problem.-M

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  • Grr. The Internet

    Whelp, something happened in the interwebs that I’ve been trying to figure out for weeks, without success. Somehow, my old blog page still exists for viewing, but I can no longer access it. It was somehow deleted from my account access, and wordpress has a strict policy against granting me access.

    GRRRRRR.

    So, this is a new blog, to which I will be copying all my old blog posts.

    I. Hate. The. Internet.

    Also, clearly, I like to use it. Go figure!

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