Lessons of a New Wife

 

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Rhiannon is dear to me already! I met her here on my blog recently and I am SO EXCITED about what God is doing in her life, marriage and heart. How I WISH I had understood the things Rhiannon understands so early in our marriage. I believe her post will bless you whether you are a newlywed or you’ve got a few years of marriage under your belt. Thanks so much for sharing your story with us!

Peacefulwife blessed me with the opportunity to do a guest post for her. I only recently started www.revolutionarywives.com so I am a newbie to the blog world. It meant so much that April believed in me enough to let me write for her. My deepest thanks!

BEING A NEW WIFE

I want to talk about a few things which will be especially helpful or meaningful to new wives because I, myself, am a fairly new wife. In the past ten months of being married to my amazing husband I have learned so many things. It is through God’s grace I have been able to grow through these experiences. I have learned how to be a godly wife, how to respect my husband and how to appreciate the preparation I had before marriage.

TACKLING THE FIRST YEAR OF MARRIAGE

I have heard for most of my life that the first year of marriage can be the hardest. I don’t agree with that for the most part because I believe the first year will be what you make it. Two helpful things I learned during the first months of marriage: Christ had to be the foundation of our marriage and I had to maintain a servant’s heart. I was not in this for myself; it was not about what I could get from my husband, but what I could give to him. Being a godly wife went so far beyond having a relationship with God while being married. Those two things cannot be compartmentalized they have to work together. My relationship with God impacted my relationship with my husband and vice versa. If I pushed God away, I started to treat my husband harshly and I had to realize early on that building my personal relationship with God was vital for my marriage. Once we get married being intimate with God cannot stop, it in fact needs to grow stronger. The closer we are to God the better we can love our husbands. In learning this I was able to take it one step further and fully learn what it meant to respect my husband.

Rhiannon and her husband on their wedding day in 2013
Rhiannon and her husband on their wedding day in 2013

FOCUSING ON BECOMING THE WOMAN GOD WANTS ME TO BE

My husband and I are not very aggressive people. He has a more passive personality and mine leans that way as well which makes our mannerisms with each other very nice and pleasant. Being nice to my husband is not respecting him though. I am being civil to him and loving him, but I can be nice and constantly undermine his authority or contradict what he says which is disrespecting him and negating his leadership. Nice is good, but respect is better. Luckily for me I got my hands on “90 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Got Engaged.” One thing it said that stuck with me was that whatever I saw in my parents that I did not like I needed to address in my life and start working on it. One thing I saw in my mom was a tendency to be aggressive and slightly demeaning. I did not want to carry that over so I began to actively work on changing the tone in my voice, thinking before I would speak, and if my husband brought up something I did not really agree with instead of making a matter of fact statement I would make a passive suggestion. This worked wonders. Instead of demanding my husband do it my way, I would listen to him and if I felt like his way needed work I would suggest an alternative idea. The power of suggestion is amazing. I realized I did not have to attack my husband to make my voice heard I just had to offer my opinion in a different manner and a nicer tone. This was the first step of many I made to prepare myself for being a Missus.

PREPARING FOR A GODLY MARRIAGE

One of the best ways I prepared for marriage was learning how to be the best me I could. I did not wait for my husband to complete me or validate me; I went to Christ to find those things. In the Word of God and my relationship with Jesus I found out who I was before I ever allowed my husband to become a part of me. I have had friends that watched their marriage fall apart because they went into it thinking he would fill the void in their life which was not true. God designed us so that the only way to completely fill that void is to allow Jesus to come in and fill us with all of Him. Once we are complete we can enter a marriage with a heart of giving instead of getting. My husband and I are always looking for ways to serve each other instead of draining each other. It is in this that we both find such fulfillment and joy. Another thing I did in preparation was read many books such as “Passion and Purity” by Elizabeth Elliot, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” by Josh Harris, “Sacred Femininity” and “Authentic Beauty” by Leslie Ludy. I highly suggest all of those and anything that helps to examine yourself so that you can go into your marriage ready to serve and not looking for him to fix you.

THE JOYS OF BEING A NEWLYWED

With all of the ups and the few downs my husband and I have been through over the past ten months I think the biggest thing that has surprised me is how much fun we can have together. How he can do some of the silliest things and it will just brighten my whole day or he will do some small thing such as making the bed and the heart behind that selfless act makes me so happy. Marriage can bring trying times, but if the two people that are going into it go in with eyes open and Christ at the center it can be such a wonderful experience. Having fun together, going on small, spontaneous dates and maintaining physical intimacy have definitely played a part in bringing my husband and I so much closer. Time is fleeting, but as someone told me once the days are long and the years are short so I try to embrace the time I am given with my husband to show him how much I love, respect and honor him. Here’s to many more years to grow with him and to grow in God.

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SCRIPTURE RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1

The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly. Proverbs 15:2

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. James 1

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. Matthew 16