Reblogged from THE CHRISTIAN PUNDIT:

Just as a woman must think carefully about a potential husband, you must be careful about a potential wife. Careful evaluation in a number of areas will save you a lifetime of frustration. Right now, you might think she's pretty, or playful, or nice to you. It's not enough. One pregnancy can alter a figure, responsibilities at home can reveal laziness, and a disagreement about money can turn her against you.

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Reblogged from The RESPECT DARE blog ... with Nina Roesner:

Dark night, interrupted by nursing. Baby asleep, the young mother stopped before leaving the room.

Through the doorway, she saw the dim light in the bathroom softly pouring across the hallway floor.

Shadows recoiled from the small light.

Too many still loomed.

Turning, she pressed her back against the door frame and leaned.

She looked down at her feet on the hardwood floor.

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Reblogged from The RESPECT DARE blog ... with Nina Roesner:

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Her eleven year old eyes met mine and she smiled, handing me tissues.

"I told you the movie would make you cry!" Her bell-like laughter bounced around the room, and my heart captured it.

Emotion leaked out of the corners of my eyes again. This time joy overflowed.

We hugged.

"Mom, I just love this weekend. It's the best ever," she beamed.

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Listen! My beloved! Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look!

Who is this coming up from the wilderness like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and incense made from all the spices of the merchant? (Sometimes he smells like the great outdoors from his hours of fishing or yard work, haha!)

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade. Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love.

My beloved is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand. His head is purest gold; his hair is wavy and black as a raven. His eyes are like doves by the water streams, washed in milk, mounted like jewels. His cheeks are like beds of spice yielding perfume. His lips are like lilies dripping with myrrh. His arms are rods of gold set with topaz. His body is like polished ivory decorated with lapis lazuli.  His legs are pillars of marble set on bases of pure gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars. His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, this is my friend.

My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh. My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for his love is more delightful than wine.

King Solomon made for himself a carriage; he made it of wood from Lebanon. (My man made for himself a fishing kayak.)

How handsome you are, my beloved! Oh, how charming!

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.

Come, my beloved, let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages. (The mountains or the beach will do, too!)

Come away, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice-laden mountains.

Take me away with you—let us hurry!

http://sherriwilsonjohnson.com/

No longer will they build houses and others live in them,

Isaiah 65:22-24

http://sherriwilsonjohnson.com/

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Proverbs 22:9

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I’m a stay-at-home mom. Most of my friends are married. So I don’t have much experience with the modern dating world and particularly not the secular dating world. But I am a Romance novelist and need to gather material from somewhere. Being a Christian novelist, it would be nice if I encountered a Christian version of The Bachelor, but given the content and the amount of heart-breaking, nearly degrading scenarios of the one on TV, I doubt a Christian version would exist. If it did, the ratings would not be nearly as high, I’m sure, because the material would not be as scandalous or cut-throat.

I actually watched a little bit of The Bachelorette last year, which kind of made me sick to see multiple guys hitting on one woman and her reciprocating. I also watched and enjoyed a show called Love in the Wild, which was a show where they paired up former Bachelors and Bachelorettes in outdoor competitions with the hopes that they would fall in love. Many of them did. My first TV program like this to watch was Outback Jack a few years ago and it was so cool that he picked the girl I hoped he would. So I thought I’d give The Bachelor a try this season.

For those of you who have never watched The Bachelor or its counterpart, The Bachelorette, the premise of the show is to take a lonely, successful, eligible (by the world’s standards) bachelor and present him with a houseful of women from every walk of life and have him pick one of these women to propose to at the end of the season. This doesn’t mean they necessarily get married but they usually do move in together and “try it on for size” so to speak. God bless this man because from the moment there is more than one woman in that house, the claws and daggers come out. The wine flows freely, the innocents gets ripped to shreds, the evil-doers rise to the top and somehow fool The Bachelor, and the competition has only begun.

The timid fail to express their feelings for this man whom they do not really know and they are eliminated because they don’t open up. But who wants to open up to a man who spends one-on-one time with twenty something other women and potentially tells each of them how special she is to him?

In an effort to win his affections, the shy girls try to come out of their shells, the less experienced ones try to play the part of a seductress (all the while looking like a little girl in high heels), and the experience-rich women will go to any lengths to get that coveted rose at the end of the night. The Bachelor kisses them all and breaks the rules with some of them by sneaking off to private locations… and hearts get broken.

So I definitely have learned a lot about what a woman will do to win The Bachelor. For some it’s about love. For some it’s about finding themselves again after experiencing a previous terrible relationship. For others it’s about winning.

It’s hard to tell if love really has much to do with it or if it’s just the glamour of the exotic locations, candles, wine, and the ever-present cameras.

The Bachelor seems confused most of the time and if only he would listen to us as we shout at the TV, he wouldn’t make a mistake or crush these other fragile young women in his wake. Oh wait, this is all pre-recorded. Duh!

He confuses physical attraction for love and often does not think with his head or his heart when making decisions. In the interviews with him, he seems to say the same things about each of these ladies. He can see himself with them. He’s falling in love with them. Blah, blah, blah.

And the women! They want so badly to be chosen. For whatever their individual reasons, whether to find love or just to win, they want to be picked. But he can’t pick them all. That is a different show where the man has more than one wife. No, The Bachelor has the grueling task of narrowing things down to one woman.

And each week, as these girls are sent home, even the mean ones and the crazy ones, there is a part of you that remembers that feeling of rejection. What it felt like to be told, “It’s you. Not me.” That is, if you got told anything. I once had a boyfriend sing Freebird to me over the phone while he was drunk and away in another state at college. And it took me two weeks and a long distance bill from his collect phone calls to realize he had been breaking up with me. By the way, I was a Christian AND a preacher’s daughter, so I knew better than to give my heart to a guy like that. Shame on him because he was a preacher’s son. Shame on my preacher daddy for not setting the bar a little higher for the type of guys I was allowed to date.

Watching the girls pull away in the limousines crying their eyes out brings tears to my eyes. And The Bachelor is devastated to have to part with yet another one of his lovelies.

Somehow miraculously though he recovers quickly and finds the strength to wine and dine and kiss and snuggle with the ladies the next week. Funny how when money is no object and when America is your audience, you can pull yourself together.

Now I am not discounting the bachelor’s feelings. I’m sure he’s really looking for love. And I think the girls are too. But I have to wonder how much of what we see is really real and how much is embellished for the camera. Would those girls act that brazenly in a real life situation?

A bigger question that pops into my head is: how many single girls out there mimic these girls when trying to catch a man? How many put themselves in bars or even church situations on a nightly basis and throw themselves at men who wouldn’t pursue them honorably if they were a bloody seal and the man was a killer whale. These men don’t have to pursue when women feign all over them.

My heart breaks for the women on The Bachelor, for The Bachelor himself, and for all the singles who want love. What they really search for is the eternal love of Jesus. For those single Christians out there who already know that love, they long for a companion who shares their same beliefs and values. But it is nearly impossible to sift through all the facades to find the genuine person deep down inside–the person who deserves love, the person who won’t hurt you, who isn’t out to get a piece of you and then dump you.

So this blog post isn’t an answer to the quandary. It’s just an observation of what I see on TV and in the world around me. I’ve enjoyed watching the show–for research purposes, of course. Hopefully, my future characters will be as complex and multi-faceted, deep and shallow, unpredictable and predictable as the “characters” on The Bachelor. And hopefully they will all eventually find true love.

www.sherriwilsonjohnson.com

Originally blogged February 29, 2012

When we started dating in 1986, there were a few things about my man that stuck out more than just his ability to “tear up” his electric guitar, his charm, or his good looks.

These things were things that my former beaus had never exhibited. Things that a woman needs in a husband.

They are what made me make him my husband in 1988.  And thankfully, he still exhibits these qualities today. What are they?

1. He loved and still loves the Lord more than himself and more than me
2. He was and is a gentleman
3. He was and is spiritually knowledgeable
4. He was and is fun to be with
5. He didn’t and doesn’t have disgusting habits
6. He had and still has a great work ethic
7. He was and is committed to me and loyal to me
8. He gave and still gives me his heart daily

There are many more things that I could list that will probably pop into my head as soon as I press PUBLISH.

I didn’t list things like “being a good dad” because he wasn’t one until two years after we were married.

I also didn’t mention “spends lots of money on me” because he was a poor college student when we first got together. I’ve never measured his love for me based on how much money he spends because we’ve chosen a lifestyle that doesn’t often afford luxuries. But I can say that if I needed something, my husband would gladly spend our last dollar to get it for me. He’d willingly give up something he wanted so I could have something I needed.

I guess each of us could always find something in a spouse that we would like to change but the things I’ve listed above are qualities that make a man a keeper and that outweigh anything negative.

As part of the 40-Day Respect Dare by Nina Roesner  I’m doing, I challenge you to find some positive things in your spouse that haven’t changed over the years that cancel out some of the negatives that life has heaped upon your marriage. Choose to dig deep and see your husband for the young, handsome, fit “rock star” that’s still inside of him. (Inspired by Dare #8)

Philippians 1:9-11 – And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Reblogged from The RESPECT DARE blog ... with Nina Roesner:

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Forever will I remember the first time I heard about the woman in Proverbs 31. Sitting in Bible study with a group of older women (not just in age, but in maturity) the leader, a woman in her 70's, read the verse and asked my favorite question ever asked in a Bible study: "Who would like to slap the daylights out of this woman?

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Our family has been through many opportunities for growth during the last couple of years—car accidents, unemployment, financial struggles and attempts to recover, health issues, death, relocation, and changing churches. The cycle has repeated itself more times than I care to admit. It’s like we’ve been on some kind of nightmare merry-go-round. As a friend of mine recently said, “Stick a fork in me. I’m done!” Yep, that’s about how I feel some days.

Dissatisfaction and complaining have knocked at our door on a regular basis and as a woman, it’s been all too easy to jump on the complaint train and take a long trip, dragging my friends and family with me. As the years have passed and we’ve become a bit older and wiser, we’ve learned to focus on God’s blessings and not on the things we don’t have. But it hasn’t been easy. We’ve had to constantly resist the urge to complain and had to remember that God always provides. We’ve had to continually remind ourselves that life is all about faith in God and not faith in an employer or the job he provides or the money that job supplies. Our faith is placed in God and not in any man or woman in our lives. He’s the only one that will not let us down.

But when you’re struggling through tough times, it’s extremely easy to make an enemy out of your spouse and to lose sight of the bigger picture. It’s hard to remember that you’re a team and you have to stick together. We’re in a battle against strong forces that would love nothing more than to see our homes destroyed. We have to stay on our toes. When we cast aside complaining and all kinds of strife, everyone seems to feel better—even if the circumstances don’t change. And that puts us one step closer to winning the war!

I’ve realized that as a wife and mother, no matter what situation or trial or hardship we find ourselves in at the moment (because there will always be one), one thing remains the same. Walking through these struggles is an opportunity for us to build up our homes instead of tearing them down.

What does that mean? You know, take the lemons and turn them into lemonade! And it starts with our relationships with our husbands.

Because I am a very open person, I am prone to telling more details about my life and what happens behind our closed doors than I should sometimes. My husband doesn’t like to talk about our private lives. And he really doesn’t like to whine and complain in public and he prefers that I don’t either. He would rather we talk about the blessings God has given us than the things we are doing without or the things in our past that have hurt us. After all, no matter what we’re doing without, we’re still far wealthier than the majority of this world. No matter how uncomfortable our mattress may be, as my husband recently reminded me, some people don’t even have a mattress. No matter what our troubles, there is always someone with tougher struggles. I feel wealthy beyond measure…in so many ways…when I look at things from this perspective.

By constantly complaining about (and even just talking about) not having the things we want or need—like food and clothing and paid bills—I am tearing down my home. When I whine and complain I cause my husband to want to stay home and avoid any interaction with people because he can’t trust that I am going to “behave myself” and bless others instead of dragging everybody down with our woes. I send a message to him that I think (and that everyone else thinks) he does not make enough money to pay for things. I send a message that we’re not happy with our marriage or with the different aspects of our lives.

By constantly complaining, I inadvertently tear my home down and convey to my husband that no matter what he does, it will never be enough. For shame, for shame!

This is not at all what the desire of my heart is and these messages I may be sending are not at all the truth. I love that he’s private and doesn’t go around blabbing about all my mistakes. I love that he cherishes our private moments and doesn’t boast to his friends. I truly appreciate his efforts to be the breadwinner and I love the fact that he knows it is God who provides, not himself. I watch him head off to work every morning with his sack lunch and his coffee, shoulders held back, ready to face whatever he has to face. He shares with his co-workers about our tight budget and always brags about my cooking when they ask what he brought for lunch that day. I love him for facing the wolves every day so I can stay home, manage the home, work my part-time job, do ministry, and write books.

Building up our homes must start (after committing it to the Lord) with watching our words and actions and making sure that they glorify the Lord and honor our husbands. To build up our homes, we must look for opportunities to serve those in need, therefore, pointing those in our homes (and those whom we serve) directly to the Great Provider. God wants to prosper us when we seek Him and when we leave the details up to Him. God’s ways are immeasurable. We make things easier on Him when we do our part to build up our homes instead of tearing them down.

I long to make Proverbs 14:1 a verse that I live by – a verse that provides a blueprint for a well-built home. Won’t you join me?

I’m reading the 40-Day Respect Dare by Nina Roesner and it’s inspiring me to make my home a better place to be.

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