Today we’re continuing Wedding Week here at Home with the Boys (to celebrate my little sister’s wedding this weekend!!!) with another fabulous guest post on marriage advice!

Women Living Well is one of those blogs I MUST visit every day. Courtney has a real God-given gift to teach and encourage women. I feel uplifted and challenged every time I visit!

Thank you so much for sharing your heart with us Courtney!

*****

Hmmmm… Is marital bliss possible?

The truth is, we wives can be cranky at times.  It’s easy for us to try to take the role of teacher and judge to our husbands – thinking that we see their faults and we are here to point them out – but does taking that role ever bring a woman marital bliss?

Nope!

We know that when our husbands fell in love with us it was not because we were wonderful teachers and judges! They married us because they loved the sparkle in our eye when we smiled at them, they loved how we made them feel, they loved how we respected their thoughts and wanted to hear and understand them. They loved how we embraced their dreams of the future and were so trusting and loyal and how we overlooked their short comings.

Then they married us – and well – Proverbs 19:13 says "a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping."

 
Do you catch yourself maybe not criticizing your husband out loud but
thinking critical thoughts in your heart – maybe he leaves his dirty clothes
on the floor and your annoyed. Then he does it again. Then he does it again
and suddenly you boil over with anger and an abundance of bitterness comes
out.

Luke 6:45 says "The good man brings good things out of the good stored
up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored
up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."

What if in the dirty clothes situation we thought how blessed we are to have our husband?  There are women who have lost their husbands, who are all alone living pay check to pay check.  They wish they had someone’s dirty clothes to pick up off of the floor. If we thought this way – when our husband walked through the door he’d be greeted with a warm hug rather than the cold shoulder.

Who you are behind closed doors when no one sees, is who you really are. Does your husband come home to a quarrelsome wife or a wife who has a sparkle in her smile when she looks at him? Does your husband feel judged by you or does he love the way you make him feel? Now you may say – but Courtney – you don’t know the awful things my husband does! I don’t – you are correct – but I do know that God’s word says to not be quarrelsome and to store up good things in our hearts – no exceptions are given.

 
When we resolve our own heart issues and choose to have joy I believe every
woman can have marital bliss. Because bliss (or joy) does not come from our
husband but from God. And when we are obeying God’s word and doing his will
we will find peace, rest and joy.

Walk with the King!

Courtney

Courtney blogs over at Women Living Well. She has been married to her high school sweet heart for 13 years, home schools her son and daughter and is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute. Her passion to see women living well landed her on the Rachael Ray Show in November, 2009. Since then, she blogs regularly about faith, marriage, parenting, homemaking and more.