Setting a Higher Example

Yesterday Kim (the upward call) wrote on what she was doing with her women's bible study. She opened her post with these words:

An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones. (Proverbs 12:4)

This is the theme of our Tuesday morning ladies' bible study. This is our goal: to be excellent wives. Not just so we will feel good about ourselves; not so we can be well-spoken of. But rather, our motivation is to please God through being excellent wives. Feminists would hate our study because we try very hard to focus not on how to change our husbands or make things more "equal," but how to sacrificially love our husbands. It's a tall order. We try to set our standards high because setting them high keeps us diligent.

This seems to fit in well with what I am learning and thinking about for the past while.
How do I serve God in how I relate to my family.

Jim and I will have been married for 6 years this coming June. Yeah...6 years.
They've been good years. I have to say that. I love him more now than when we married, though sometimes I find it difficult.
Yes...difficult.
Jim comes from a single-parent family. His mom is a house-cleaner extraordinare.
I am not. :)
When Jim is tired, or ill, or in pain, or just stressed from the busyness of life he does not find it restful to come home to a house that is not in order.
Like me, he is not a house-keeper extraordinare.

When he comments to me that he'd like thus and such done in thus and such manner...my first reaction is to say... well then...do it yourself then!

That is NOT what I am called to do.
God has been, over the past while, been convicting me that I need an attitude change a bit. That this attitude of well...then just do it...is not the appropriate attitude for me as a Christian woman married to a godly man (or just any man) should bear. My attitude should be one of submission and service not anger and self-righteousness.

My hubbie is good to me. He recognizes that I am a highly distractable beast. :) He is getting better at noting the progress I make. And I am making progress though I must say at times it seems that I'm making none at all. And listening when I need to talk through how I can to make it easier or more possible for me to stay on top of things. (I really like him listening even if his response is sometimes "I have no clue hun!"). :) And I am learning that if I want to get the house in better shape overall ---- for better maintenance down the road --- that I have to do it while the snow flies because once the nice weather comes I'm out of doors doing... gardening, playing with the boy, walking the dog, saying hun...let's go fishing. :) That doesn't leave so much time for the rest does it? :)

So I need to set a higher standard.
So I need to check my attitude at the door once in a while.
So I need to be a better example of what a Christian wife looks like. :)

Ahh.....so much learning yet to do...... :)