(Part 2) Beautiful Is...? (that one word we hope I won't address)

Did a word come to mind right away?  Was it...respectful...or submissive? :)
Beautiful is...both of those!
I went from blogging about health and fitness last week (relatively easy things for me to be passionate about/get people to read about) to...the OPPOSITE!  To the attributes I struggle with daily myself, to these 2 words that get scoffed at by most of our society, to this concept that is going to be MUCH harder to share about! :)

But God is truth and His word addresses over and over how important it is for wives to submit to and respect our husbands.  I don't know why/when submitting to and respecting our husbands became such an awful/insulting thing.  Let's first clarify what this is NOT and disspell some of the misguided and misunderstood lies on this topic.

Submitting does not mean we have no thoughts of our own, that we don't have input in any area of our marriage or family, that we can't contribute to discussions and decisions, and it certainly doesn't mean we are some helpless female cowering in the corners of our own home or that we wander aimlessly about doing only what we're told, when we're told.  Sadly, I know there are men who try to achieve this kind of control and view the above examples as acceptable...this is not what God intended in His word and it's NOT what I'm referencing here.

Ephesians 5:22  Wives, be subject to your husbands, as you are to the Lord.

Ephesians 5:23  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the savior.

That's HUGE!  One thing about a submissive wife is that she does it voluntarily out of love for her husband, but more than that, out of love and obedience to Christ!  We as Christians submit to Christ - we recognize all that He has done for us...and we're overwhelmed, humbled, and surrender our lives, our will, etc to Christ's.  So when Ephesians says the relationship from husband to wife is like that of Christ to the church...why is it so much harder for us then!?  God gives husbands an ENORMOUS job and an overwhelming responsibility to provide for his wife and children, to protect them no matter what, to give up his own life if necessary, and to die to himself day in and day out for the sake of his family...God didn't cut husbands any slack!

I think in my own life about HARD decisions I've had to make - the worst are the ones that I think are going to upset someone, or cause them hurt or pain, that might break their heart or create distance between us...even if I KNOW it's what is best - it's still difficult and that's when those people are just friends or coworkers, they aren't my spouse, my OTHER half...they aren't my offspring.  Think of how our husbands must feel every time they have to make a decision that might hurt or upset us.  Sheesh - no thanks!

My dear friend once shared with me some very wise words.  This was shortly after I got married and I was frustrated about Justin and I's situation at home.  We were remodeling a small home and he was insistent upon doing it without loans/debt AND making sure we got out of the pre-marriage debt we each had before we furnished the home with furniture, a TV etc.  I was desperate for some cheap, used furniture from Craigslist or somewhere but he very much wanted us to simply wait, be patient, grow together during our time of sacrifice, and then...go pick out brand new furniture when we were debt free and could pay cash for it!  Day after day I pushed him, sending him one furniture ad after another and little did I know...I was crushing him.  I was making him feel like a failure of  a husband.  I was saying to him that what he was trying to do for me/for us wasn't good enough, that I was better and happier without him when I could do whatever I wanted, that I didn't want to wait and struggle with him for a few months so that we could celebrate together...I wanted what I wanted, and I wanted it NOW!  AND, that I would take less, I would take used furniture and I'd rather have that than trust him and wait to pick out new furniture together.  I thought it was soooo terrible that I couldn't have people over to our house, that we didn't have a place to sit down - but you know what - it was temporary, and it was the right thing to do!  Starting out our marriage by getting debt free was life changing!  Debt and money problems are one of the greatest threats to marriages today and we'll never face that, we'll never let loans have that power over us because from day 1 we committed (and by we, I mean He committed, while I fought him and challenged him daily) to remove that temptation/threat from our life and start our marriage by living within our means and honoring God with our finances!

Are you still wondering about the wise words from my dear friend!?  (I hadn't forgotten) :)
She said, "Learning to submit to your husband is HARD!  But you know what, learning to be a husband and to be the head of a household is hard too!  Husbands don't just automatically know how to do it the minute the wedding is over - our husbands aren't any more perfect than we are, they're just given and called to a much greater responsibility...and so sometimes, they're gonna drop the ball.  As wives, we have to let them drop the ball...we have to help them pick the ball up and reassure them that even when they drop that ball RIGHT on our toes (which hurts REAL bad)...that we're not going anywhere and that we're going to love them anyway.  Wives have to let their husbands know that we aren't going to stop respecting them just because they aren't perfect, or anytime they make a mistake, or make a decision that isn't easy for us."

I'm not proud of the above story I shared, and I'm ALSO not implying that I'm cured of all submissiveness or respect issues from that one situation! :) :)  But I have come to understand that when Justin makes decisions I don't agree with or that hurt/sting a little for me...I know and trust that it's NOT fun for him, that he doesn't LIKE or ENJOY making those decisions and that the only reason he would do it, is if he felt like that's what God wanted or that it's what's best for us.  I've also come to understand that I don't want that job, that pressure, or that responsibility.

Think of some beautiful Christian women in your life...someone who is an example of the kind of wife you strive to be.  I bet a common characteristic is that they are respectful of their husbands...and I also bet their husband's aren't ANY more perfect than your own! ;) ;)

As Christian women, we need to start taking our husbands' side and showing the world that we love our men and that we don't need to SAY it as much as we need to SHOW it by respecting them, and submitting to them.  You show me a husband who's madly in love with his wife and thinks she's the sexiest most beautiful thing God's ever created...and I'll show you a wife who works diligently to respect and submit as God commanded her to!

Lastly - just as committing to live debt free and studying Dave Ramsey's approach was life changing for us, so too, is the Love and Respect series.  The DVD/Videos are profoundly eye opening and I recommend those even more than the book.  Below is a little quote/picture I have to remind myself of the significance of this topic.  Put it where you can see, and write it on your heart daily!

Beautiful Is...?

Beauty...we certainly are bombarded with what beauty looks like on the outside in today's culture.  Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and magazine photoshopped images of perfection flood in front of our faces daily.

2015 - a new year - may have many of us consumed with new workout plans, new diet plans, pills, skin creams, hair styles and more, intended to make ourselves look better, younger, "hotter"...

This Ministry for women...this blog..."Beautifully Broken" is all about how God uses our flaws, our baggage, our stumbles and falls, the scars that are left, etc to reveal His beauty, His grace, His glory to AND through us. :)

Everyone has their own idea of what external beauty looks like - thus the phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".  But let's explore the kind of beauty that is FAR less subjective.

Over the next few days/weeks - I'm going to look at what the bible says about Beauty.  I'm going to share my findings believing that we could ALL could use a reminder of this - because the message we get day in and day out in our culture, is VASTLY different from what the Bible tells us - and from what God wants us to remember.

When talking about external beauty, there are a number of features & attributes people might recognize as beautiful: long hair, pronounced cheek bones, full lips, bright eyes, big smile etc.  Just the same, there are a number of attributes in the bible that God tells us are beautiful.  So let's look at those and focus on those which have NOTHING to do with our DNA...:)

Because of all the hype about exercise, weight loss, and diet at the beginning of the new year, let's start there shall we?! :)  (and maybe also because I'm a fitness instructor...)   

• 1 Corinthians 6:19: "Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who live sin you and was given to you by God.  You do not belong to yourself for God bought you with a high price.  So you must honor God with your body."

• Proverbs 31:17:  "She girds herself with strength for her God-given task and makes her arms strong and firm."  

• 1 Timothy 4:8: "Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come."  

• This same verse from The Message reads:  "Exercise daily in God--no spiritual flabbiness, please!  Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever.   

Is taking care of our bodies and maintaining or striving for a healthy level of fitness good, YES!  And it's important.  If our bodies are God's temple, God's home...then we ought to treat them with respect.  What does that look like?  It means we take care of our heart, lungs, circulatory system etc. with cardiovascular activity.  It means that we keep our skeletal system strong with weights or resistance training.  Neither of these require a gym membership although that obligation may be what some need to remain accountable!  But staying healthy  has NUMEROUS benefits in our lives.  In my own life, physical fitness and regular exercise helped me get off and help me stay off anti-depressants.  I need the stress and anxiety relief that exercise offers and I need the endorphins after a workout that boost my mood! :)  Being healthy and fit makes it possible for us to serve a friend or congregation member when they need help moving and packing the moving van, it helps us keep up with our children (it even helps with pregnancy, labor, and post-partom), it certainly doesn't HINDER our relationship with our husband in the bedroom... (wink, wink).  Did you know that research cites exercise as the primary prevention for 35 chronic diseases!  Everything from stroke and hypertension to osteoarthritis and depression.  
Simply put...a healthy and fit women who takes care of her temple is a beautiful women, but her exercise efforts and goals should be shadowed by her pursuit of Christ.

More than anything, a Christian women who is fit and healthy is beautiful to me because it represents a life of balance (assuming her focus on fitness and health is a balanced, healthy one).  It means she honors the body God gave her, she desires to honor her husband by maintaining a healthy size/shape (which is NOT a 0 or a 2 for ALL of us - so don't take that out of context!), she desires to set a good example for her children and have the energy to enjoy them and the things they like to do, it may even mean that she desires to set a good example for the young women in her sphere who need to see that healthy and fit does NOT always look like the magazine covers would have us believe.

Now a couple points I must also make...women who have a health condition that makes exercise hard, this post is not intended to make you feel discouraged or inadequate, and I'm also not saying if you exercise, you'll NEVER have any health problems or challenges in life...because we all know and acknowledge that things are NOT perfect on this side of heaven.  I recently met my own bout of discouragement this fall after a double knee surgery (my 6th one in total).  I went into the surgery thinking the Dr. would fix my knee pain and I'd be ready to run another half marathon this spring...but came out of the surgery hearing from him that some things were fixed, but that the knee pain I've been feeling is permanent.  There is damage to my knees that is beyond repair and that long distance running isn't a realistic option for me anymore.  It was VERY hard to hear, but it doesn't mean I can't be fit and healthy.  It means only that I can't run half marathons, or 10ks for that matter.  But I CAN swim, I CAN walk, I CAN use an elliptical, I CAN have fun with dance cardio in classes like Zumba, I CAN lift weights...there are many things I CAN do and so I will focus on what I CAN do...and let go of what I can't.

Lastly I want to leave you with the last verse I shared 1 Timothy 4:8, while exercise is good and important - it DOES not trump the importance of God's word, spending time in it, and clinging to it, in fact it pales in comparison.  Our focus on fitness and healthy should never be higher on our priority list than pursuing Christ.  On another day, in a different post I can share about my struggles with over exercising and under eating in my floundering attempt to "control" things in my life and to "work away" the pain that I had experienced.  I see MANY women strive for goals that are both unrealistic and unattainable...or maybe attainable but nearly impossible to MAINTAIN - that is NOT the kind of balance I'm speaking of.  That level of obsessing is NOT the attribute of beauty that the bible steers us towards.

Do you have a healthy woman as an example in your life?  Did you learn this from your own mother or are you trying to set a different example for your own children?