Intentional Today

We miss the entire point of sexual intimacy in marriage when we start looking at it like a chore, completely disengaged in the mind and just another thing to cross off a long to-do list.

Sometimes, we don’t know we’ve engaged chore-mode until we hit sexual blues and start looking at the root of our issues.

God did not create sex for your husband alone. He created it for you too. You are supposed to enjoy lovemaking!

It’s not something you do for your husband; it’s something you do together and for one another.

I like this quote attributed to Ogden Nash:

“To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.”

Love stays fresh and exciting as we work hard at not soiling and muddying it up. Yet muddling things up is something we are all familiar with.

Many marriages abide in long seasons of hot fellowship because one spouse, or both couldn’t bear the thought of keeping quiet.

Take me, for example. I don’t like being misconstrued.

I like it when people know exactly what I think.

It’s that time of the year when we set goals and plan for the rest of the year.

For me, setting the tone for the year began a few weeks ago as I was praying over certain areas of my life.

I sensed God talking to me about things I normally don’t like to think about.

Areas that have got to do with why I do what I do and how my attitudes affect the outcome of my prayers and expectations.

Going Deeper

I’ve been blessed to know great people who speak into my life.

We cannot understand certain things till we are practically living out the situation.

For example, a girl cannot learn how to be a good wife until she is a wife.

That said there are a couple of things I wish I understood better before I got married.

A few of those areas;

5 things I wish I understood before I got married

1. Submission would be harder before it got easier

I remember asking someone “I’ve heard that marriage gets easier the longer you are married?”

I have talked about how my husband and I are different in our personalities.

What that means is that we have no shortage of opportunities to disappoint each other

When we moved to America, I had to take a driving test to get an American drivers license.

On the morning I was taking my test, I confessed to Tommy that I was very anxious because the last time I went for a drivers test in Kenya, it had been insanely hard, for a number of reasons.

What I was looking for at that point was comfort and affirmation from my beloved.

Today I am sharing a couple of verses to encourage and strengthen your marriage.

The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:16

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work”

Your marriage will flourish when you know  – and apply – what God says concerning you and your man.

So I pray these verses challenge and “equip you for every good work” in your marriage!

Love

1. John 15:12 – 14

I’ve been looking at verses of Scripture on helping other people.

The following verses have stood out.

Hebrews 13:16
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Learned: It’s possible to “discount” the good in my marriage. There’s always something good…but I have to be intentional about finding it and be willing to share it.

1 John 3:17
But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

Long before I started writing this blog and for more than a decade, I mentored women – and a few good men;  together we grew in Christ.

Sometime back I was telling my husband how I was struggling to create products for sale because I’ve given my heart and passion away “for free” for so long it felt odd to start “charging” for it.

I am over that (if all goes well, my book comes out Feb 2015!) but I believe many wives experience the same transition-confusion after the wedding.

It’s not easy to switch from single-mode to married-mode.

I handed my upcoming book, Blues to Bliss; Creating Your Happily-ever-after in the Early Years to the editor three weeks ago.

As I wait for feedback and further edits, I’ve been creating some freebies to give away during the launch week (hopefully and if everything goes well, in February 2015)

Anyway writing the book and creating these giveaways has taken me way back to my early months of marriage.

And my early days in America.

Last week I came across this journal, where I wrote about the drama of making African food in an American kitchen with American ingredients! And 3 takeaways for life and marriage.