Welcome! I’m glad you’re here. This is day 9 in a 31 days series on hospitality. Start from the beginning here!
Don’t worry. This is a family blog. I’m keeping it on the up and up.
But really, I’m convinced that it all begins right here.
In this bed, in this room, with this relationship.
The very person you love the most is the hardest one to love sometimes.
They often fall to last on the list. We cook the best meals and wear the best clothes for someone else.
We clean the house and get out the best dishes when company is coming.
And it’s time to reorder ourselves.
This person should come first; this person with whom I share my bed and my struggle.
I should make it my business to know what he likes and what he doesn’t.
I should make it my life’s mission to serve him, above all others.
Wanna know why America is in such wretched shape? We’ve lost the order of things.
“Things fall apart,” as the poet says. “The centre cannot hold.”
We kill ourselves and spend our last dime to make our children rotten but we’ve forgotten that it all hinges on this bed, and our holding it sacred.
See him with new eyes and study him. How can you help him? How can you ease his burden? How can you make him laugh?
Stop keeping score and just love and serve him.
You know him best so this won’t be hard for you.
Make him see that you hold this relationship in the highest regard.
Hospitality starts here. In this room. With this man.
The strength of our love for others depends on what happens here.
May the centre hold and may the best be full of ‘passionate intensity.‘
Love him well.
*************************
“I will love with urgency, but not with haste.”
From The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
amen
Amen! Totally agree…….married 28 years.
Oh, you’ve done it again, Edie, and I am undone.
This is it, isn’t it? The truest of sacred places, the inner sanctuary , is it too far to say the Holy of Holies of our homes?
I trust your Sultry Master will serve you well as you abandon yourself to serving others, especially your beloved.
Now, off to clean my bedroom and renew it’s charm and power.
Yup, that’s really what I’m gonna do right now.
your comments are always so awesome that i feel they should be incorporated into the post:)))
thank you. and i love it, the holy of holies! the girls and i were just studying the tabernacle yesterday.
mwahhhhhhh:)))
aw, shucks.
Sending a smile right on down to East Tennessee all for you!
Isn’t it crazy fun how home school often connects with other things we’re learning?
My kids think I plan it.
I’m okay with that.(maniacal laugh…)
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Just wow.
This….for me…today and everyday during this difficult season of my life. I want to eat this and allow it to become a part of me. Thank you, Edie.
praying for your this morning.
xoxo
This is so beautifully said and so important.
My dear Bible study teacher and friend used to say it this way … we have it all mixed up … we try to make our kids happy and our husbands good.
Life-changing, Glenda! Thanks 🙂
Amen, sister! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS!
SO well said, Edie! I could not agree more.
“Stop keeping score and just love and serve him”. YES. Jesus has done a mighty work on my heart of stone and, so far as my marriage is concerned, this is one of the most tangible ways. I used to be caught up (sometimes unknowingly) in the trap of only serving and loving well when I perceived that HE was doing that as well. If I felt like he was “off” then I was stone cold. The Lord has shown me that it is my calling to love him well ALL of the time. Good and bad. Regardless of anything. So simple, right? It has changed our marriage. Thank you for this precious post. It rings with Truth.
Oh.My.Gosh., I’m loving these posts, thank you so much! So glad I stumbled upon your blog Edie.
You are SO RIGHT! Jeff totally convicted me when I happily baked cupcakes for a church function, but didn’t even think to bake extra for home. Shameful, but true! Now whenever I bake for a function, I always double the recipe so my family can feel included.
i know, i’ve finally learned to make double, kim!
my kids used to say, ‘can we eat this?’
thanks for sharing!
AMEN!!!! People are so busy taking the kids from game to game and keeping so busy and by the end of the day there is no energy left. I know I can’t handle a busy busy life with running here and there. I enjoy so much staying home and doing things for my family and I am now going to try to better with my Al:) We have eight kids and I am so thankful that he works so hard so I can stay home and the kids can go to a private school. Thanks for this wonderful post!!!
i know and i fear that by the time we figure this out, we will have ruined a generation of kids.
kyrie eleison.
and thanks for your input:)))
Have you been spying on my phone calls and text today?!?!!?!? Because THIS? THIS IS JUST WHAT I NEEDED! THANK YOU!!!!!
yay annie!
no spying but hopefully some of those were ‘love’ texts!
:)))
This is great. Thanks. Good reminder!
So, so good! Thank you!
Convicted. Thank you, it was much needed!
Absolute truth. We have lost our way. Usually our husbands are last on our list. Our service needs to begin there!! Thank you for this blessed reminder.
Ruth
This is beautiful, Edie. “See him with new eyes…love him well.” Beautiful, and just what I needed to hear. I hate that darn sinful part of me that treats my beloved so terribly at times. I guess it’s because we know they will always be there, but that’s no excuse. Thank you for the encouragement to practice true hospitality – that starts in the bedroom. Beautiful!
how i love Yeats
but not as much
as my husband
this post
is timely
passionate
and so full of good stuff
thanks!
{alison}
Well said and beautifully stated. Love this post.
Umm. Yes. I needed to read this and get my slightly (okay, more than slightly) selfish brain off of myself.
I never, ever would have linked marriage/love life to hospitality, but you are exactly right. You’re so smart! We need this. Keep these posts coming. It’s my favorite series! 🙂
~FringeGirl
thank you ,tricia.
and i’m not that smart.
i’ve just learned some painful lessons over the years:)))
thank you for always being so encouraging.
it means a lot!
xoxo
This is completely what I needed to read today… thank you.
Thank you Edie for sharing your heart.
Blessings from a former Blurker….
“Stop keeping score and just love and serve him.”
My husband has your Godly wisdom to thank for my serving heart today.
So blessed through your words of truth.
xoxomichele
Hi Edie – what a truth speaker you are – and so thankful for this message today. I’ve been visiting your blog for about a year or so – love your writing and sharing – but never have commented. Because I know you love Texas, and good music – wanted to share this with you as well – http://thedigitalagemusic.com/main/ohmygod-iamaseed/ You’re a blessing.
thanks, renee, how cool!
and from the great state of texas, of course!!!
i’ve gotta see if my son knows about them. (he’s in a christian band so i’m sure he does.)
thanks for sharing and for your encouragement:)))
Could not agree more. xoxo
WOW! I really needed to read this! My husband and I were told during pre marriage counseling that we should try and out serve the other daily. Its so easy to put your spouse last because you just seem to think “They understand” they will still be around and then you slowly unknowingly take that relationship for granted. This post is going to be my prayer. I want to put my husband first and serve him and ease his burden. Thanks for speaking from your heart and sharing and being so transparant.
Edie, I am loving this series, actually it is the only 31 day series I am following. This one hit home with me in particular. I have been married for 23+ years and about 5 months ago I was angry at my husband, for something petty I am sure. Later he was in the backyard and I was listing off in my head what makes me mad at him and then I noticed he was taking care of the back yard… like he always does, like he takes care of so many things and in a second my mind went from gripping to thanking God for all that he is. It was an aha moment for me! Just a few short months later he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died 25 days later. It has been devastating, I miss him so. But I am oh so grateful for that aha moment and the days and weeks that came after it. I was blessed, we were blessed, my 4 children surrounded him during his last hours thanking God for all that he was, the blessing of his life, even during all our grief feeling so blessed. Thanks for sharing this!
This touched me way down deep. I won’t forget your story and I have a feeling it will spur on other “aha” moments. Thanks so very much.
Laura, I’m so sorry for your loss. Thank you so much for bravely sharing your sacred life lesson, I will hug my husband a little longer tonight and do my best to appreciate all the selfless things he does for our family. I got a lump in my throat and teared up reading your comment as I am guilty of taking him for granted and ‘keeping score’ as well. I believe that aha moment was most definitely a tender mercy from the Lord. Hugs to you and your children.
Jessica
How soon we forget the basics of life. Thanks for this poignant reminder.
I love this post! What a great insight and a great reality check.
Edie, He is speaking through you. Thank you for being a vessel, and pouring yourself out. I take my amazing and giving husband for granted, and I know better. Thank you for this reminder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This series has been amazing!
love.this.post.
I couldn’t agree more. We have always made a point to put us first and for us women with children I feel like it goes against our natural inclination but it is so worth it. Everything else that is wonderful and happy in our home radiates from that. After almost 13 years we see the payoff in our family and I hope that our girls see what a marriage should look like and will mirror that in their marriages one day.
Around us we see a lot of marriages break up around the middle and high school years and my theory is that parents invest so much of themselves in their children’s wants, needs and lives and so little in their husband/wife relationship and then when the kids hit their teen years and grow more independent the parents are left with just each other and realize they don’t know each other or even like each other any more. So sad.
Thanks for this post.and encouragement!
Thank you Edie for the wisdom you share! When our 4 daughters were growing up, my husband and I made very conscious decisions to model behavior for our girls, down to the point of arguing in front of them so they could see how to resolve a disagreement.
Now after 33 years of marriage, and teaching marriage prep for our church, I see the wisdom in all this as they are beginning their own families and trying to set a similar example.
When we serve each other we serve Christ! In this age of multitasking, I can do this!
We need to live in a triangle, God at the top, our mate on the sides and kids at the bottom. But we have our triangle inverted, kids at top, then mate and God at bottom. your words resonated with me today, the more loving and gracious I am to hubby the more I receive from him and the happier I become. Your writing is always so pure and strong. I am still seeing the eluded word.
I have now read this post four times. I read it yesterday and had one of those gob-smacked-slack-jawed-oh-duh moments. Wow, just wow, how completely and utterly true. I have just been letting this post marinate with me, every sentence, those small, complete thoughts, like little pearls of wisdom. Those little pearls, that as a Christ follower, we should know so well; but somehow we get all caught up in everything OUTSIDE of that room, the room where is should always begin, the room that should be the jumping off point for everything else. Thank you, for the (deeply) needed reality check.
Amen! It is amazing to me how many don’t know this – and for those of us who do – how often we can forget it! LOVED this post! Thanks so much!
It all seems so simple doesn’t it? Yet, I tend to forget just how lucky I am. Thanks for reminding me of something I already knew. As always you amaze me with your words and your timing.
My husband and I have been struggling with getting even lately. We know how to push each others buttons. We take out our anger and frustrations on the ones we love the most, don’t we? I live a very comfortable life due to his hard work. I am making a daily promise to honor him.
Thank you for getting my attention!!
I could not agree more!!! This has been on my heart and mind more and more recently!! I am blessed to be able stay home and not work and I love serving my husband. I feel like it is such an honor and privilege!! I so want other women to understand this. I so want to live it everyday and moment because I fall short. What a difference it would make in our homes. What a difference it would make in our communities. What a difference it would make in our country. Seriously, amen, amen and amen!! =D
I hosted a little fellowship at our home today. It was completely terrifying for me. Reading your series has been so helpful. I tend to think of my home as my Fortress of Solitude but lately have been convicted to open it up more. To stop worrying about our 90 year old, tiny house full of toys and school papers. To share what we’ve been blessed with rather than focus on what we don’t have (which is right from my BSF lesson this week). And the fellowship was such a wonderful time that I actually felt energized and wanted to schedule another get together at our house! That is a new feeling for me. And now you have opened my eyes to a whole new aspect of hospitality. My husband is so good to me; so loving, understanding and generous. I now wonder if I give him the same. Or do I just receive?
excellent! and one of my favorite poems too 🙂
thank you ! so well said, in which I needed to hear 🙂
amen and amen, edie.
Celebrating 20 years of marriage on Oct 24. What a good thing to read at this time. I think I have been a bit lazy lately…
…we’re four years out from my cancer diagnosis and life is on the upswing and getting better and better each day…but (and this is a big BUT) – life in its hardest can take an amazing toll on your marriage, especially when your cancer kills every hormone in your body that would ever make you want to be hospitable to your husband again…but i was, and i loved him and our little family all the way through the bad parts and into our recovery. and the only way i did it was to circle my wagons, prioritize my love for him and knew that we were going to get better but that we couldn’t lose ourselves in the process. i sacrificed experiences, acquaintances and even friendships – but i kept my family together and thriving during what i hope will the hardest part of our life together. thank you for this series. it is speaking to my soul.
this is it.
we are really loving our kids when we are loving their father to the fullest.
we all fail miserably at this at one point or another in our marriages, but God continually calls us to make our sweet husbands our very first priority.
I just love the way you said it. All of it.
And I agree. I’m loving this 31 day thing you’re doing girl. Hospitality is so my heart and I love how you’ve been unpacking it for us. Very inspiring/convicting/encouraging all in one. 🙂
Sasha
Sharing this right this minute (then reading your part 2 — ha!). . .thank you, thank you, thank you for this!! You have such a way with words. . .of saying what’s on my heart but I can’t articulate the way you do. Some of the comments have put tears in my eyes. One hit hard: we have it all mixed up … we try to make our kids happy and our husbands good.
My friends don’t come to me for marriage advice anymore because I say “first, touch him and let him touch you” and “second, write him a love note. . .no matter how raging mad you are right now, do exactly the opposite of what you *want* to do”. . .I have tried these methods and they work. . .but they are HARD. And we are programed to not want to do “hard”. You say it in such a nicer way 🙂
Hi Edie,
I am a long time reader of your blog, since I first found you a while ago through the beautiful Miss Paige Knudsen, but have not commented before. I took a step back from actually blogging for such a while, but this post has resonated with me like very few have! Thank you for this post which I have read at such a much needed time in my life. It has struck both my heart and my head and has inspired me to strive to put my priorities where they should be! Blessings to you ~ Xx
wowsa edie!!! i love this.
it could not be more true.
thank you for saying the truth…always.
🙂
and THAT bed….is so amazing.
Yes Edie, thank you for your inspired words. Heaven knows (and you know) that I could use all the help I can get. 🙂 I am so guilty of doing this as I’m sure we all are. The sad part is that so many of us moms love on our kids SO much more than our husbands, then have nothing left to give them. I was vowing in my head to do better and then I read Laura’s comment and am even more inspired now to be the wife and partner that God wants me to be, and your are SO on point with where America has gone wrong. I often read comments online and am beyond baffled at some of the me, me, me, mindsets out there. It frightens me to no end.
xo,
Jess
I love this! SO true! Needed this today. Keep sharing your words. They are a blessing!