At the moment I am crawling my way through three books and one of them is Carolyn Mahaney's Feminine Appeal. I'm only on the second chapter and I've enjoyed it already. Basically she is going through Titus chapter 2 and the charge for older women to teach younger women. Chapter 2 of the book is called "The Delight of Loving my Husband". She talks about the way that Paul encourages the older women to train the younger women how to love their husbands in Titus 2:4. The word for love that Paul uses here is the agape love that we are used to but the phileo love. This love is an affectionate compassionate love. So often as women it is easy for us to love our husbands in the agape way - sacrificially, but hard for us to love them with phileo love. Some great words of wisdom from the chapter are:
"In fact, women will often continue to sacrifice and serve their husbands even is all the tender feelings for them have subsided. Author Douglas Wilson makes this observation: 'Women are fully capable of loving a man, and sacrificing for him, while believing the entire time that he is a true unvarnished jerk. Women are good at this kind of love.'" Yikes! I often use this to justify my attitude. I can clean and wash clothes totally pissed off and think Well I'm still serving you and fulfilling my role, what are YOU doing.
"Where sin is present, warm affection dissipates. Anger, bitterness, criticism, pride, selfishness, fear, laziness -- all vigorously oppose tender love. This love cannot survive in a heart that harbors sin." You can't muster up the feelings you need to love your husband affectionately. If there is bitterness in your heart it will always seem just like a chore
"... we were created to be our husband's helper not our children's mother. Certainly we are to love, care for, and nurture our children, but this love is to flow out of a lifestyle that is first and foremost committed to helping our husbands. Our husbands should always remain first in our hearts and in our care." This is a tough one to swallow but I believe it is true. Many husbands suffer because their wives have made their kids the number one priority and have left them (the husbands) high and dry.
So far, so good. I'm excited to see what the rest of the books hold
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