Ashleigh: The Wife of a Deployed Soldier

Ashleigh wrote a sweet post over at Rocks In My Dryer I wanted to point you all to: What I'd Like for You to Know

Married Valentines

"Can you believe we're married?"

It's a question my husband Merritt and I have asked each other often in the last almost two years. It seemed too good to be true. Best friends for so many years, finally being married to each other made our cup truly overflow.

The other night, as we lay there exhausted from a long week, trying to tune out the baby crying in the cradle next to us, I whispered to Merritt, "Can you believe we're married?"

This time it was with a tired chuckle that he answered, "Yes."

Yes, diaper bags and burp cloths are now an ever-present reality for my Valentine and me. Our terms of endearment now include "Daddy" and "Mommy." Our moments of quiet alone are few and far between.

Even though Merritt is still my first priority, that often means feeding Ruth first so I can focus on him. Acts of Service may not be the primary love language for either of us, but it's become the love language of parenting together: Merritt changing Ruth's diaper in the middle of the night so I can close my eyes for a few minutes, me putting away her toys and blanket so he doesn't trip over them when he comes home.

But the beauty of parenting along with your Valentine is that we have as much fun talking about potty training and where to put the crib as we did making house plans and swapping favorite Country love songs.

Last Thursday found us in Hallmark, because Merritt had a coupon he wanted to use. I offered to carry the baby seat while he shopped, because I already had a stash of Valentines I'd bought before we were married. We found my mother-in-law back in the bargain room, buying a baby rattle for Ruth. (Did we want the pig or the giraffe? We chose the pig, because it would go with all her other farm animal toys.) So our worlds of romance and parenthood often meet.

Being married to your Valentine doesn't always mean cards, chocolates, and roses. Flowers and cards don't always fit in the budget, and chocolate does nothing to help those extra pounds of baby fat disappear. But an extra-special dinner served on his favorite dishes, followed by a quiet candle-lit evening on the couch can turn any day into Valentine's Day at our house.

Being married to your Valentine brings out the romance in the practical things of everyday life.

Maybe that's why the Valentine card I'm giving him this year has a scandalous little ditty about how nice it is to see his clothes on the clothesline next to mine.

Maybe that's why, when he's propped up in bed reading the latest Little Britches book aloud to me while I rub his sore leg, I lose track of the story for a moment while looking at the man I adore.

Maybe that's why we've never been happier than when we tip-toe over to the crib and stand there with our arms around each other, watching our daughter sleep.

Yes, I can believe we're married.

That's why it's still too good to be true.

Alzeimher's: The Living Out of Love

In memory of Merritt's Grandpa, and President Ronald Reagan

who went home to Heaven after their bouts with Alzeimher's
leaving loving wives behind

• Blog: Grandpa and President Reagan
• Blog: Loving Him 'Til Death Do Us Part
• Ringing the Bells for a Generation's Heritage of Freedom
• Farmer's Wife or First Lady: The Woman Behind the Man
• Rush Limbaugh's Tribute to Reagan
• Reagan on Marriage

"We've had an extraordinary life, and I've been blessed to have been married for almost fifty years to a man I deeply love--but the other side of the coin is that it makes it harder. There are so many memories that I can no longer share, which makes it very difficult. When it comes right down to it, you're alone. Each day is different, and you get up, put one foot in front of the other, and go--and love; just love. It's hard, but even now there are moments Ronnie has given me that I wouldn't trade for anything.
Alzheimer's is a truly long, long good-bye. But it's the living out of love."
-Nancy Reagan in I Love You, Ronnie

"Whatever days are left to me, they belong to Him."
-Ronald Reagan

---

A Tribute to the Love of Ronald and Nancy Reagan

quotations from I Love You, Ronnie: The Letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan
(Published by Random House, Copyright 2000)

“This is a very lonesome place when you are someplace else.”

“Just think we were married 28 minutes ago. Yes, I know the calendar says years but what does it know? Time goes by faster when you are happy and I’m the happiest man in the world.”

“When I was young I thought marriage might be this way for a while: I never knew it could go on and on, getting better and better year after year.”

“It’s amazing what that four letter word, ‘wife,’ covers when it’s applied to you. It means a companion without whom I’m never quite complete or happy. It means the most desirable woman in the world who gets more desirable every day. It means some one who can make me lonely just by leaving the room.”

“She has 2 hearts—her own and mine. I’m not complaining. I gave her mine willingly and like it right where it is.”

“I wonder how I lived at all for all the three hundred and sixty fives before I met you.”

“We are so much ‘one’ that you are as vital to me as my own heart—with one exception; you could never be replaced with a transplant.”

“If I ache, it’s because we are apart and yet that can’t be because you are inside and a part of me, so we aren’t really apart at all. Yet I ache but wouldn’t be without the ache, because that would mean being without you and that I can’t be because I love you.”

“I love you so very much I don’t even mind that life made me wait so long to find you. The waiting only made the finding sweeter.”

“Tonight I’ll probably be looking at the Moon which means I’ll be looking at you—literally and figuratively because it lays far to the South of this mountain top and that’s where you are. That takes care of the ‘literal’ part—the ‘figurative’ part requires no direction, I just see you in all the beauty there is because in you I’ve found all the beauty in my life.”

“I could offer you my heart but I’d have to get it back from you first.”

---

At a private service in California on June 11, 2004, President Reagan's children shared tributes to their father

"As years went by and I became older and found a woman I would marry, Colleen, he sent me a letter about marriage and how important it was to be faithful to the woman you love with a P.S. -- you'll never get in trouble if you say I love you at least once a day, and I'm sure he told Nancy every day I love you as I tell Colleen."
-Michael Reagan

"At the early onset of Alzheimer's Disease my father and I would tell each other we loved each other and we would give each other a hug. As the years went by and he could no longer verbalize my name, he recognized me as the man who hugged him. So when I would walk into the house, he would be there in his chair opening up his arms for that hug, hello, and the hug good-bye. It was a blessing truly brought on by God."
-Michael Reagan

"...at his last moment, when he opened his eyes, eyes that had not opened for many, many days and looked at my mother, he showed us that neither disease nor death can conquer love."
-Patti Davis

"History will record his worth as a leader. We here have long since measured his worth as a man. Honest, compassionate, graceful, brave. He was the most plainly decent man you could ever hope to meet. He used to say, a gentleman always does the kind thing. And he was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. A gentle man. Big as he was, he never tried to make anyone feel small. Powerful as he became, he never took advantage of those who were weaker. Strength, he believed, was never more admirable than when it was applied with restraint. Shopkeeper, doorman, king or queen, it made no difference, dad treated everyone with the same unfailing courtesy."
-Ron Reagan Jr.

---

Myrna Blyth, in her column in the National Review entitled "Taking Care of Ronnie: Mrs. Reagan Gave Her Husband What He Needed":

Obviously, a woman who understood how to take care of a husband, in the best of times and the worst, is Nancy Reagan. Nobody could help but admire the valiant way she coped with her husband's long illness. The couple's great friend Michael Deaver has said: "As the years progressed, she didn't really go anywhere. She was simply there with him...Ronald Reagan was her life. From the time she met him, she'd done anything she could for him."

Yet during the White House years, the former First Lady was often criticized and laughed at for her total devotion to her man. Remember the jokes people made about Nancy's rapt and adoring look of love whenever her Ronnie spoke, no matter how many times she listened to exactly the same speech or heard exactly the same jokes. How women, especially, in those stridently feminist times, scoffed at the way she fussed over him, coddled him, and fiercely protected him from any criticism or slight.

What we were watching, of course, was a love story, the real thing, starring a woman who didn't mind being "the woman behind the man," not because he was a great man (which he was), but because she truly adored him. He, in turn, was a man who, even when he had forgotten his many glory years, was still trying to pick a rose in a neighbor's garden for his beloved "lady."

"Nancy was Ronald Reagan's emotional caretaker" Laura Schlessinger says, and all Americans owe her so much. Because of the way she cared for him, he could remain optimistic and resolute and effective as he cared for us. Unlike so many wives who are always criticizing, always asking their husbands to change, she loved him just the way the he was. That may be the most important reason he had the confidence and courage to truly change our world.

Rush Limbaugh, commenting on Blyth's column and Schlessinger's book:

"She [Nancy Reagan] didn't at all subordinate herself, and nobody ever thought that she subordinated herself... She just loved him! She just loved him and she knew who he was and let him be who he was -- and look, he never left her side. The premise of Dr. Laura's book is, if I can boil it down is, just: the happiest woman in the world is the woman who lets her husband be who he is. ...[President Reagan is]who he was because he found the right woman. Pure and simple. He's who he was because he found the right woman. So that's a great tribute to her."

---

She Misses Him

She shaves his face
She combs his hair
She helps him find his rocking chair
She cooks his meals
She wipes his mouth
And the window that he's looking out
She reads him books
She speaks his name
Oh every day is much the same
She sighs that sigh from deep within
The one that says
She misses him

She misses his gentle touch
And the way he used to make her laugh
She misses the man he was
In all of those old photographs
So strong, so kind, so sweet, so smart
The man who stole her very heart
She misses him

His children come on Saturday
There at his feet
His grandkids play
It's sad they don't know him at all
He's just the one they call grandpa
They take out his trash
They mow his lawn
Things he can't do since he's been gone
She's grateful that they're pitching in
And like everyone
She misses him

She misses his gentle touch
And the way he used to make her laugh
She misses the man he was
In all of those old photographs
So strong, so kind, so sweet, so smart
The man who stole her very heart
She misses him

And yes they're still together
After all these years
But sometimes you can almost feel
The sadness in her tears

She misses his gentle touch
And the way he used to make her laugh
She misses the man he was
In all of those old photographs
So strong, so kind, so sweet, so smart
The man who stole her very heart
She misses him

(by T. Johnson, sung by Tim Rushlow)

a fast internet connection

We have something I wish more young married couples had--a fast internet connection. And by "fast" I don't mean the lightning speed of satellite, DSL, or cable. I mean, fast on, fast off. Pull into the empty library parking lot after church, click "Send and Receive", and check our list of websites for the week as fast as we can--gnawing hunger pains keeping our surfing at a minimum.

It's not that we couldn't get internet at our house. It's not that we won't ever have internet access at home. And it's not that it wouldn't be handy. Merritt calls my dad at least once a day during haying season to get the latest weather forecast. And Natalie and my mom get more than their fair share of calls from me asking if they could look up this, or buy that.

But as inconvenient as it is at times, it's kind of nice not to have internet access in our home. The computer doesn't stay on all day, a constant distraction pulling me from dishes or cleaning. Merritt and I spend our evenings together on the couch, reading books separately or out loud, listening to a book on tape, or watching a movie every once in a while--not staring at our separate computer screens.

And instead of wasting hours playing around on the internet, I've learned to make that quick connection count. I use Outlook so I can read and write emails offline. I blog by email. And I keep a Post-It Note on the laptop to make notes throughout the week of websites we needed to look at or download from.

We still have a FaceBook account, to keep up with friends--but we rarely get time to write on anyone else's "Wall" [and we keep our friends list to acquaintances only, sorry]. I like to keep up with a few blogs (like my little brother's that never gets updated, and this one called ylcf.org), and read friends' updates on LiveJournal. It's frustrating when someone links to something else and I find the link after I'm offline. And I detest LJ-cuts. But I make FireFox's Bookmark Folders work overtime, and save the links for next time, with a folder for "Blogs" and two ever-changing folders called "Open to Read," and "Open 4 Action." Then when I'm online, I "Open all in Tabs" and hibernate my computer so I can read the pages later.

We hope someday soon to have inernet access at least a little bit closer to home. It's hard to design websites and get good deals on e-bay when the 'net is 10 miles away. But I'm writing this post as a reminder to myself, for when we do get online again. Because, like any self-taught computer-geek, I always found it all-too-easy to spend inordinate amounts of time online. But I hope my time offline has made me a better steward of my time--on and off the internet. And when we do have a connection to the outside world in our living room, I want to make sure I spend my time and energy on what is in the living room, not beyond.

The Gift of Marriage

“‘Ah! who am I, that God hath saved

Me from the doom I did desire,

And crossed the lot myself had craved

To set me higher?

What have I done that he should bow

From heaven to choose a wife for me?

And what deserved, he should endow

My home with thee?’”

-author unknown, quoted in St. Elmo, by Augusta J. Evans

80th wedding anniversary!

This is news from earlier this month but worth sharing--imagine spending 80 years with your beloved!

Couple celebrates 80th Anniversary

No Exit

This morning's sermon on divorce was the best I've ever heard. (Of course, it would not take all the fingers on one hand to number the sermons I have heard on divorce. Despite the fact that I've gone to church since the first Sunday of my life. And grew up during a time of skyrocketing divorce rates. But that's a topic for another...sermon.) Our interim pastor, Steve Flora, is going through the Beatitudes. And he doesn't mince words. But what stood out to me today was his illustration.

Imagine, he said, motioning to the center where we meet, if this room had no windows, and only one door. If a fire broke out over here, what would your first reaction to be? You would run to the door. You would get out as fast as you could.

But what if there were no door? Or it was locked and dead-bolted from the outside?

If a fire broke out, and there was truly no way out, what would you do? Your focus would be on putting out the fire, not on running from the flame.

We should view our marriages as barred shut, with no exit. Then our focus would not be on running out, but on restoring the fellowship, squelching the flames of anger and fanning the flames of love.

Is your marriage locked tight?

Fascinating

Ravi Zacharias writes:

From the beginning God positioned this relationship of man and woman in a unique context. Having created Adam, God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone' (Genesis 2:18), so He created a partner for him. Man's aloneness was an impediment to his complete fulfillment.

I find that to be thought provoking, because in a very real sense, man was not alone. God was with him. Adam experienced companionship in his relationship with God...yet God said that man was 'alone.' Interestingly, He made this pronouncement before Adam's disobedience ruptured his relationship with God. So when God says, 'It is not good for man to be alone,' He must have had in mind a kind of companionship uniquely human to help meet Adam's human finitude in a way that God designed and orchestrated (I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah pg. 13, emphasis mine).

I pulled this quotation from a longer excerpt. But it's so profound...so thought-provoking that I could not wait any longer to share it with you all. If you have not read any of Ravi's works, I urge you to pick up his book on love and marriage. Reading it for me felt like all my thoughts and hopes and beliefs were clarified, refined, and expressed with laser-sharp accuracy which I could never have accomplished.

Edited May 2008

Stand By Your Man - Part Two

The day had been long, the temperature gauge outside read well over 100°, it was after dinner time and I had forgotten that making a meal was now my responsibility alone. We were surrounded by boxes, gift wrap, tape, packing paper and a whole ton of dust and neither of us was in too cheery of a mood.

As I pulled out little knick knack after little knick knack from my cedar hope chest, I realized that I’d packed a few too many odds and ends that I wouldn’t later know what to do with. I’d forgotten about many of them, and had no idea what some of the others were for.

John picked up a little icy blue glass container of some sort, turned it in his hand and remarked that it was rather interesting looking, with the uneven sides, oddly curved dips in the outline. I nodded. I had no idea what it was or where it had come from, but it had sat in my room, filled with miscellaneous buttons, for a few years when I was younger. Then John asked if I wanted to keep it. I was terribly offended. Of course I did! It was mine, after all, and I was sure I could do something with it.

I told him, in a very hurt tone, that yes, I wanted the little blue glass… “thing”. He shrugged, set it back down on the floor, and said, “Okay. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just didn’t know what it was.” Then, in all my newly-married-wifely glory… I rolled my eyes at him, sighed loud and long, and turned quickly around to finish unpacking. My poor, new husband walked away slowly, now feeling like he obviously had no place in the unpacking of my hope chest, and headed for the garage.

Within the next few minutes, I found these two sheets of paper, with a title regarding respect and husbands. I remembered when I’d first read the article, and knew well what it was about. I started reading…about the importance of making our husband feel respected, revered, and oh-so-loved, because God made them with a very real need for these things, and they should be receiving the fulfillment of these needs first and foremost from their wives.

The author spoke of wives who have, over time, worn their husbands down to the point where they no longer have a desire to lead, because they know they will be ridiculed or questioned for taking any step left or right. These wives have taught their children that Daddy is just a big buffoon who knows little about real life and is a good target for jokes and poking fun. Their husbands are defeated, discouraged and feel like another one of the children, because their wives have pushed them down to that level. I saw my current attitude in some of the description and my heart hurt. I went out to the garage, put my arms around my beloved, new husband and asked him to forgive me. I did respect him, and wanted him to know it.

I wish I could say that was the last time in our short three years of marriage I’ve had to apologize for something similar. I am still stumbling, learning, and growing, day by day. But, due to the working power of Christ in my life, I can say that the excited greeting my husband receives when he comes home is just one small indication of how much he is loved and respected in his home.

Troy knows, as little as he is, that Daddy is our hero, and he believes it with all his heart. I know that Daddy isn’t perfect, just like Daddy knows the same thing about Mommy :smile:, but at this point, Troy sure doesn’t know it! My prayer daily is that I’ll model to our children the respect and love their Daddy deserves—just because God has made him their Daddy!—and that they will in turn love and respect their Heavenly Father, just as their Daddy does.

- by Ashleigh Baker

Stand By Your Man - Part One

“DadadadaDA!!”

This is the happy squeal greeting my husband nearly every day when he walks through our front door. When Daddy comes home, either in the evening or on his lunch break, as long as Troy (now 15 months) isn’t napping, the little guy is eagerly heading for the door the minute he realizes it’s about to open. Its celebration time around here! Big hugs for the baby, kisses for Mommy…even our Australian Shepherd gets in on the action, barking happily, her tail wagging, while she does her best to sit at wait for a pat on the head, instead of jumping all over the daddy of our house.

It doesn’t take much to see that John is loved here. If one were to ask him, he’d look at his little family of three (soon to be four!) with his signature “sappy-lovey-dovey” look and tell you that yep, his family loves him. We feel the same way.

Making sure John feels like a king in our home is something I’m constantly working to improve. I won’t pretend and tell you that I always act like the gentle loving wife I’d like to be, or that I don’t sometimes question his decisions or think he says the wrong thing. But I’m asking the Lord, daily, to help me show John more and more that he is the man, that I will follow him wherever the Lord leads, and that there is nobody on this earth more important to me than my husband.

I’ve found that for me, it is very easy to let the opinions of others, my desire for “all things perfect”, or for the praise of man, or even good things, like wanting to pour myself into motherhood or wanting to serve the Lord in various outside forms of ministry, to slip in and begin to separate me from my husband. Within a very short time of focusing on one of these, I’m doubting his wisdom in a matter, or sighing to myself when he says something I don’t agree with, or just beginning to have an attitude of frustration with him in general.

To those of you who are unmarried, it may seem an utter failure for a wife to ever feel this way, but remember, Prince Charming won’t always be perfectly charming, and I’m sure we know ourselves well enough to realize the same is true about us!

Before I was married, I tucked a little article away in my hope chest, to be found when I opened it in my new home. I remember now the day I found it again. John and I were making our first house a home and were unpacking wedding gifts as well as our own personal belongings. I had unloaded the knick knacks, the linens, the small set of pots, the knit dishcloths… and then I found these few pieces of paper....to be continued....

- by Ashleigh Baker

The Foundation of a Happy Marriage

Gretchen actually wrote this article to be a preface for "Building Blocks for a Happy Marriage" but she forgot to tell me that. :smile: So...here is her preface...still very valid. - Natalie

Asking for advice, a reader wrote:
"It gets a little frustrating sometimes, knowing that he is the man I am supposed to marry, yet we can't move forward with our lives and get married because we are both still in college."

Or because he doesn't have a job. Or because my parents want us to wait. Or because...

Few relationships move from the first timid "hello" to the soft-whispered "I do" in the space of a year. And even those that do seem to think they had a long time to wait. Sometimes, God does seem to work with the speed of an arrow flying from Cupid's bow. And I couldn't be happier for my friends who met and got married so quickly. I wish them a lifetime of becoming closer friends.

But such couples are few and far between. Most, it seems, find the road to the altar long, filled with so many bumps, twists, and turns that they despair of ever reaching the state of matrimony. But in the end, they sing with the Country song, "God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you."

As an old married woman of a whole year, let me tell you a little secret. Once you are married, all those long years of waiting seem so short. And so worth it.

It may have felt like the longest years of your life when you were apart. But as soon as you are married, you will pray that the longest years of your life are ahead: together.

I am thankful that God took His time bringing Merritt and me together. All the tears, the frustrated journal entries, the long lonely nights, the phone calls I never wanted to hang up from, the goodbyes I didn't want to say...they all served to make me appreciate every moment I have now with my husband so much more. Like Elisabeth Elliot I claim, "There’s one thing I can give you that no woman on earth can outdo me in and that’s appreciation."

Not that couples who meet and get married within the space of a few months can't appreciate each other. But each time my husband introduces me as "my wife" (oh what precious words!), I remember all the years of the embarrassed introductions of "my friend Gretchen." Each birthday with my love, I remember all the birthdays I spent thinking of him, waiting for the card I knew wouldn't come but couldn't help wishing for. Each time I play with my husband's hair, I remember the years of longing to run my hands through those very same brown curls.

When you have loved one person so long, there is no denying that you will appreciate them so much more when they are finally all yours.

And that's all well and good, you say--but what about now?

Well, another secret I might as well tell you is that a wedding band on your finger does not make you any more patient, any more loving, any more unselfish than you already were. And instead of just spending your best waking hours with the one you love, you get to spend all of them--the good, the bad, and the ugly. Plus, you get to pick up their dirty clothes that always end up on the floor, and they will probably complain once or twice that you haven't done the dishes yet.

So if you can say with Nancy Reagan that your "greatest ambition is to have a successful, happy marriage," then start right now.

If you put all the energy you've spent being frustrated with the delays into practicing to be a good wife, I promise you, it might not speed up the approach of your wedding date, but you will have a happier marriage.

During this time of waiting, the two of you are laying the foundation of your future marriage.

Do not mix impatience and frustration into the building blocks.

Remember, the longer you have to build the foundation, the stronger it can be.

Related Articles:

Getting from Too to Two Takes Time

Farmer's Wife or First Lady: Woman Behind the Man

Created to Be His Helpmeet

Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage

Caption: Gretchen (right) with visiting friend Melinda riding across the Acheson farm, summer 2006

Building a Happy Marriage - Final Thoughts

If you want your marriage to keep getting better and better, then start right now.

Become a student of your man. There is no more enjoyable class.

Become proficient in making the meals he likes best. The way to a man's heart has always been through his stomach. Plan your menus around his favorites. Any future mother-in-law would be flattered to give you some of her recipes.

Write him love letters. It may be a quick email to his work address, or five pages of handwritten script. No matter your skill with a pen, he will read your sincere words of love and admiration over and over.

Enter his world once in a while. And learn to sense when he wants to be alone there. He will have fun if you join him for a tractor ride, but he cherishes his hours of solitude out in the fields. He will enjoy trying to explain his favorite sports game to you, but let him watch the game with "just the guys" once in a while, too. Whether it's his hobby or trade, whether it's mechanics or art, he will feel special if you ask for the honor of watching him as he works. Learn to anticipate his needs and hand him the tool he's looking for (this sometimes involves learning the difference between a pipe wrench and a socket). And learn when he'd rather you do your own thing.

Examine your pre-conceived notions about marriage. Observe other couples and learn from them--what you do and what you don't want your marriage to be like. Mentally plan and prepare to be the best, most loving wife possible. When you are married, you'll be glad you aimed high--because you won't be a better wife than you planned on being.

He is the head of your household, and God placed him in authority over you. Learn when he wants you to give advice, and when he desperately needs someone to believe in his plan. Learn to be silent even when you disagree. Learn to just squeeze his hand or distract him with a kiss when he might be saying unkind words to someone else. There are times when you will need to speak up, humbly. Practice being a submissive wife so he will hear you at those times.

Show him your love. In public, and in private. For now this may be just a squeeze of his hand or a whispered word. But when you are married, let it be your goal to make him so addicted to you that he will never look anywhere else. Make yourself desireable to him. Give him all the love you have, and then some. It has often been said that you should never go to bed angry; neither should you let your husband go to sleep still hungry.

Show others that you love him. Never will your man stand so tall as when the world can see that his wife respects him. Make it obvious, in word and in manner, to strangers and to your closest friends, that you count it the greatest privilege in the world to be married to your husband.

Be joyful. Never stop smiling, with a smile he knows is just for him, a smile made extra brigh because he is there. When you are married and he comes home from work tired and stressed, your loving smile will be the most welcome sight he has seen all day. Always be sure to touch up your makeup and hair just before he is due home--maybe even a spritz of his favorite perfume. Run to him with a kiss. And don't tell him about the overflowing toilet, the overdue bills, or anything else unpleasant until he has had a chance to eat a good dinner and relax in his favorite chair.

Thank him. For loving you, for being your man, for taking out the trash, for providing the money for food and clothing, for working so hard, for helping you make the bed, for kissing you, for being the man you love so much. And thank God for him, when he is there to hear, and every other moment of the day when he is out working hard for you and of the night when he is sleeping right beside you.

- by Gretchen Acheson

Gretchen's Thoughts on a Happy Marriage

If you want to make your husband the happiest man in the world, then start right now.

When your boyfriend talks to you, listen with your eyes, not just your ears. When you are married, there will be many more distractions to get in the way, and fewer opportunities for good conversation--take advantage of them by being attentive to every word he speaks.

When he asks you to do some little task for him, make sure you remember it. When you are married, there will be a lot more things to remember--and oh how he will appreciate it if you actually do them.

When he seems to be down or discouraged, don't ask him what is wrong (unless it is really something you need to talk about), but instead, smile at him, love on him, build him up. When you are married, there will be many days when the weight of the world is on his shoulders, and many days when he is stressing out over something related to work. Learn your man's moods, so you know whether you need to remind him of God's promises to take care of us, whether you need to tickle him and make him forget all his problems, or whether you just need to sit there quietly, rubbing his sore shoulders, and run your fingers through his hair without saying a word.

Make a habit of the tasks that he overlooks. Whether it is throwing away the trash that collects in his car, or picking up his dirty socks, he probably has some little thing he never bothers to do (perfect though he is). Learn to take care of those little things without even thinking--and definitely without making it obvious to him that you "had" to do them.

Learn to make him look his best. Don't contradict him in front of others (or in private!). Don't criticize him, ever, to any one. Instead, tell everyone about this most wonderful man in the world that you are in love with. Extol his good qualities until the whole world knows. When you are married, you may find one or two bad qualities, but since you spent your entire courtship focusing on the good things about him, the bad ones won't be hard to overlook.

Practice thriftiness. Save your money now so that you will have a little stockpile when you get married. Learn to shop the grocery sales, use coupons, visit garage sales, and view GoodWill as the ultimate clothing store. Every man appreciates a thrifty wife. Learn the difference between being a bargain hunter and buying something just because it is a bargain. And when you're shopping for clothes, consider whether he will think that shirt quite so cute if he knew how much it cost.

Find out what it is that really annoys your man, and make sure to the best of your ability to prevent him from ever being thus annoyed. If it's dirty dishes in the sink, you may not find out about it until he is the head of his own house, but if it's hair in the bathtub and he has sisters, you'll learn to clean your hair from the drain long before you ever get married.

Learn what spells "home" to him. Then, whether it is a clean floor, cookies in the cookie jar, his favorite CD or ball game playing, or candles burning in the evening, make your home that haven he desires. Then you'll never have to wonder if he's coming home at night.

- by Gretchen Acheson

As Happy as We

Last Saturday, I watched as my cousin Brian slipped a ring on his new bride’s finger. The pictures in their slide show coordinated perfectly with the lyrics of the new Country song by Heartland, “I Loved Her First.” And as the vocalists sang Newsong’s “When God Made You,” we all rejoiced together with Brian and Jordyn.

My cousins make such handsome grooms. Brian is the third of my cousins to get married in the past few years. It is so exciting to see each one find the wife God made just for him.

I got Brian and Jordyn a funny card. Having just recently opened a mound of wedding cards, I knew they’d appreciate the humorous break in the midst of the pile of congratulations.

What I wrote in their card was different from what I might have a year ago, as well. Gone were the cousinly bits of advice. Seven months of marriage have taught me that I will never be finished learning how to better love my husband. Any bits of wisdom I might previously have tried to pass on, I now know they must learn for themselves.

No one can make you always put your husband first just by telling you—you must learn it by daily practice. There is no textbook perfect way to balance keeping the house clean, the meals warm, and your husband happy—you have to learn it for yourself, by learning exactly what your husband deems most important. And as my husband would testify, no one can explain to you how to understand your wife—it is something only time can teach you (I’m sure he would add, “if ever”, but in 7 months he has come to know me better than I know myself).

So what could I say to my newlywed cousins? Only this. That I prayed they might find as much happiness together as we have.

And truly, I could wish them no better than to be as happy as we are.

- written January 2007 by Gretchen Acheson

Following her man and her God

Ever since their first date (a Sunday afternoon presentation of The Messiah), she had known he was the one. "I laid it before the Lord and left it there," she wrote.

But she was called as a missionary to Tibet, and he was not.

"Do you believe that God brought us together?" he asked her in the intervening weeks.

Of course she did.

"In that case, God will lead me and you will do the following."

"And I have been following ever since," wrote Ruth Bell Graham in It's My Turn, (copyright 1982, p. 52).

But for the wife of Billy Graham, following her husband meant staying home, raising their five children while he traveled. That alone tells me she was a woman of strength. And that she got her strength from a never-ending Source.

I picked up my paperback copy of It's My Turn the day after the news of Mrs. Graham's death. It had sat on my shelf unread ever since I'd found it. Now seemed like a good time to read about this woman behind the man, this wife waiting at home for the returning evangelist.

There are few well-renowned people I agree with completely. Even fewer I would choose to emulate in all aspects of their lives. But I can I find what I admire about them, and learn from that.

As with everything I read, I paid particular attention to what she wrote about her marriage. I found much to ponder.

"It is a foolish woman who expects her husband to be to her that which only Jesus Christ Himself can be: always ready to forgive, totally understanding, unendingly patient, invariably tender and loving, unfailing in every area, anticipating every need, and making more than adequate provision. Such expectations put a man under an impossible strain." (p. 74)

And well-aware of the child growing so near the book I held in my lap, her words on motherhood had more to say to me than they might have a year ago.

"A good mother is one who makes it easy for a child to be good." (pg. 102)

The Grahams were obviously both of strong and very different personalities. But they had a love that stayed strong through long separations, and kept growing for almost 64 years of marriage (their 64th anniversary would be August 13th). That is why I paid close attention to their secrets.

"Love is not only the 'union of two good forgivers' but the 'union of two good appreciators.'" (pg. 76)

"A Christian wife's responsibility balances delicately between knowing when to submit and when to outwit. Adapting to our husbands never implies the annihilation of our creativity, rather the blossoming of it." (p. 55)

And she had a faith, that sustained her through it all. That is why I listened carefully to her words.

"For me, spiritual dryness usually follows an extremely busy period. Air must be still for dew to fall, and I was anything but still." (p. 162, emphasis mine)

"Worship and worry cannot live in the same heart: they are mutually exclusive." (p. 137)

Related Posts:
Lifelong Love Aflame
A Valentine from the not-so-Pink House

Marry a man who will make a good daddy...

"Marry a man who will make a good father." I don't know where I heard it, but it's always stuck in my mind.

Ever since I met Merritt in Yellowstone National Park that day, I knew he liked children. My little sister Jessica was just a year old at the time, and though Merritt and I never exchanged anything but shy smiles, he talked to Jess and made faces at her as I pushed her in her stroller
down the boardwalks in Yellowstone. I took such notice that I wrote to my cousin Melissa about how good this boy Merritt was with my baby sister. And a few mental notes were made for "someday."

As we got to know the Achesons better, and spent time at each other's houses, I had ample opportunity to observe Merritt's ability with kids, as he was an older brother himself. One picture is forever etched in my mind: he was kneeling down, holding the 4-year-old's hand, patiently explaining why one should not run in the house.

It was easy to picture this laid-back man as a patient father. Of my children. He would so well balance out my impatient tendencies. We would make a good team. And all our children would have curly hair...

"The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."

I married Merritt for a lot more than his curls and his ability with children. But when we were there at the doctor's office together, filling out forms and answering questions, I realized how much I had to be thankful for as the nurse glanced at the next question, looked at Merritt sitting there by me, and stated, "And the father is obviously supportive."

Yes, from the moment I woke him up at 4 a.m. to tell him the pregnancy test was positive, he has shared my joys, and held me as I cried from exhaustion. He held my hand as I walked into a new doctor's office. He sat there with me as we saw our baby for the first time on the ultrasound. And we both pleaded ignorance to how our baby could have gotten the stubborn genes, when the nurse had such difficulty getting the baby to stay in one position for a picture.

When for a month I had never been so exhausted in my life, nor had to eat so much so often to keep from being sick, and we were in the middle of spring planting, Merritt was there for me. Sending me to bed as soon as we got home. Making supper and doing dishes every night. Mopping the floor and washing windows while I was at work. And even making custard, cookies, and cheesecake, without any help, while I took naps. I had never felt so helpless, nor so loved.

When we all got the flu, I celebrated my first Mother's Day with a bowl of Top Ramen noodles my husband made me. (Next year, I'm hoping for steak and potatoes--but Top Ramen had never tasted so good.) And when I finally started feeling more like myself, he was the first to rejoice that "he had his wife back."

Now he's there to kiss my tummy and agree that yes, I'm getting fat. And yes, it's cute. And yes, that dress still fits. And even though I manage to do most of the cooking these days, Merritt still sends me to bed while he does the dishes every night.

And every morning, he is there to hold my hand and pray with me... And when he prays for "our baby", I get so teary-eyed that when it's my turn to pray, I can only say, "Dear Lord, thank You so much for my husband...

Long lives and happy marriages

My Great Great Aunt Ruth died on Good Friday. This July 4 would have been her 100th birthday. She almost made it to 100--she was sure planning on living that long. But she missed Uncle Charlie. And after being married over sixty years, who could blame her for finding the last seven years without him the longest in her long life?

I'm glad I got to see her again a year and a half ago. She and Uncle Charlie were the only great-great relatives I ever knew. And she may have been 98, but she could still play the piano better than most, and knew more songs by heart than anyone I know. You'd start to ask her if she could remember a certain tune...and she'd play "Try to Remember." Song after song, instantaneously, by heart. That was Aunt Ruth.

I'd forgotten about my last conversation with Aunt Ruth, until Natalie reminded me I'd written about it here on the blog (re-posted below). On our last visit to New Mexico, I'd told Aunt Ruth about Merritt, and shown her pictures. And she'd told me over and again about Uncle Charlie, and what a good husband he was.

I didn't get to visit her again the next year, because, like she (and I) had hoped, Merritt and I were married by that time. I'll have to leave it to my cousin Melissa to carry on Aunt Ruth's talent of making beautiful music. But someday, Lord willing, I'll tell my great-great grand nieces and nephews about my wonderful husband. And our family's tradition of long and happy marriages...

The last conversation from a visit with my 98-year-old Great Great Aunt Ruth on Saturday...

"Will you come again next year?" Aunt Ruth asked.
"Yes, I will, if I'm not married."
"Well," she smiled, "I hope you're married."
I giggled. "I hope so, too."
"How old are you again?" she asked.
"Twenty-two."
"That's a good age to be married," Aunt Ruth said with conviction.
"I'm glad you think so."
"Being married is the most wonderful thing, if you have a good man as I did.
"Well, I'm rather prejudiced, but I think I have the best man in the whole world."
"That's how it should be. That's what I thought of my husband."

I wish I could remember exactly how she worded those last few sentences... Uncle Charlie died six years ago, after he and Aunt Ruth had been married over 60 years. She kept saying how hard it was to live alone, that she wished they could have gone together. Yet as lonely as she is, all she talked about was what a good man Uncle Charlie was, and how they had such a good life together. She was full of fond reminisces and hearty praise for the man she still loves.

We heard the stories over and over. I s'pose that's how everyone else feels with all the stories I tell about my man. But I just had to laugh, because I'm sure when my great-great-grand-niece comes to visit me someday in a nursing home, all I'll talk about is that good-looking man in the picture frames all around me, and what a good man he was...

The Soldier's Wife

There, two stand in the door,
And embrace for one last time.
War has called one far away to fight,
And the other to fight at Home.

One will fight on a Sandy Plain,
Far across the Sea,
She will fight on the home front,
Facing battles as great as He.

For the Soldier's wife is a Soldier too,
With battles daily to meet.
For staying at Home is almost as hard
As fighting across the sea.

She is home, but she is not
Though busy her day will be,
A part of her heart is with her man,
In the sandy place across the sea.

She fights for courage to hope,
And for strength to keep going on
When she seems all alone-
And time seems so very long.

Battles to smile, battles to laugh
When tears began to run,
For the memories made in years past,
Before the war had begun.

She has more to face than most,
For the future is unknown.
And praying, longing, she waits
For her man to come home.

- by Chantel Harding
- photo of Staff Sergeant John Baker with his wife Ashleigh

Drinking from the same well

As a wedding present, relatives from New Mexico gave us this unique wedding vase. Janey told me the double opening represented the fact that now we would both drink from the same well.

A few months later, I was reading Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s new book Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage, and found much the same symbolism:

“Consider coming together with your spouse at the end of the day as an opportunity to drink from a well. The water doesn’t come up out of the well by its own force; you actually have to do something active to get the water to soothe your parched lips.