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the welcome home messages
 

A page of links to my old 
Good Things & Recipes Letters

On Marriage

Are You Looking Around?
 
A Faithful Wife

Married For Keeps (part one)*

Married For Keeps -The Treasure-2

Is Your Marriage Next?

Answering Hard Questions

 A Virtuous Woman is a Crown to Her Husband 

Someday an Heirloom Marriage

On Submission

Hand Over the Pants and Let It Be You

Submission... is it for me?

Submission... again....


What if I were Obedient to my Husband ?

The Heart of  My Husband Safely Trusts in Me
(pt2 of) What if I were Obedient to My Husband?


A Help Meet For Him

A Good Wife
 

 For Mothers

When One of Your Children Wrecks Your Parenthood...

Of Roses and Wayward Children

 The Quilt of Motherhood

 Dear Mother

 
Why am I a Mommy?
  (a message for Mama's of boys)

 
Thoughts for Mothers

 
A Mother Worthy of Remembrance

 

On Blessing Husbands

Blessing Husbands and Fathers Everyday 

Ways to Say ~I Love You~ this Father's Day


On Modesty

The You-Know-You-Want-Me Clothes

Appearance: a Living Testimony of God’s Design

Feminine Attire... Modesty

The Appearance of a Christian Woman

The Reputation of a Godly Woman


Homemaking etc.

 Homemaking Sharing

 Is Your House a Home?

Are You a Woman Others Can Interrupt?

From a Saver of Quite a Lot

Where to Start
When You Don't Know Where to Start 

 A Homemakers Chat

 Ready Set Clean

 
Joy In Homemaking

 

A Potpourri of Messages


  All The Days Of Her Life 

  Bringing A Good Report

  In Sorrow & Affliction 
 
 
An Honest Evaluation 
                Time & Internet Use

 
He Is Trustworthy 

  Surveying the Year
 
 
How Will You Be Remembered?


  Grief

 
First Father's Day After...
 
 
What a Difference a Day Makes...

  No More Tears, No More Sorrow
         (after the deaths of fathers)


He Lives!  
 

A Faithful Woman 

A Joyful Wife… What a Gift! 

 Window Shopping 

 Your Sphere of Influence 

Things We Used To Do

Could This Be *The* Year For You?

 I, Being in the Way...

 Recounting The Years 

 A
Titus 2 Woman 

 
Nothing -But Everything... 

 Both
Hope and Quietly Wait 

 Are
You Wishing Your Life Away? 

 Are
You Committed?

The Secret of the Christian Walk

Can
you learn to rise while it is yet night?

 Faith...

 Make
Me A Servant

 Drinking
From the Well of God's Word

 Drinking
From the Well of God's Word-2

 Standing Still 
  -a message on faith
 

An Encouragement 

On Keeping a Journal

To
You, With Love 
        -encourage the discouraged
Are You Hiding in the Stuff? 

 
A Letter of Love to You
           -The LORD will carry you


             On Fear

 
Gripping Fear 

 An Unexpected Cross 
 

 
Stand on Faith and Trust

 What's Chasing You?

 
Stand on Faith and Trust      

 

 


The Welcome Home

Dear Sisters ---sweet-hearts--- in Jesus,

I have been remembering you in prayer and seek the LORD on your behalf that He will strengthen and guide you, that He will be your source, your All in all.  I’m compelled to write you to a letter of encouragement for marriage.  I do not mean to exclude those of you who are not married, those who are single/widowed/divorced---I am sympathetic to the various “life-situations” many of you face.  Even with that in mind, I want to make a note here for those who are married and who are struggling or who are discouraged.  Please forgive any offense this may cause those who are not in a marriage relationship.  I pray, the LORD being my Help, to be an encouragement nonetheless.

You know… your husband needs a sweet-heart.  Quite some time ago, many years, actually, a thought came to me… what if things are never going to be different than they are today?  What if my husband is never going to be a different sort of man than he is today?  What if the things he does today that are irritations or are inadequate or not up to par or whatever---what if these things never change?  What am I going to do?  How am I going to respond?  I began to wonder… how would the LORD have me to “handle” these things---these petty irritations, these inadequacies---these differences?  Then I asked how does Jesus handle me?  How does *He* handle the failings in my life?  How do I hope He will deal with me?

So, I went before the LORD and sought His Face… and I came to see my husband in a new light.  I hope I continually do, by the way.  Because that’s the way Jesus sees me---Jesus sees me in a new Light, and that’s how I need to see my husband. My LORD has forgiven me---and I *trust* Him to fully forgive me and to put away my sin, my guilt, my shame, my failings, my faults and to cover me with His loving-kindness and His forgiveness.  I *trust* the LORD, in faith, to do this and if I trust the LORD to do this for me, then, in faith, I do this for my husband and I seek to love him with the love of Christ.  The LORD had sweetened my heart---and I needed to be/demonstrate that to/for my husband.

Now you might think… ah… that’s easy with a husband you love and who loves you.  But, what of the difficult marriages, a difficult husband?  I would prayerfully and respectfully share that I believe God---I believe His Word and I believe in the power of His blood, the power of His love and the power of prayer.  I believe it is next to impossible to be at odds with one you’re regularly praying for and for whom you’re regularly seeking the good and the best---the one for whom you believe, trust, hope and bear and endure all things.  When I am at odds with someone, I desire and work to get my thoughts in such a state as to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things---in love.  When my mind is in such a state, I cannot remain at odds with them.  Now, they may still be at odds with me, they may still not care for me, hold a grudge against me, dislike my ways, etc., etc., but so far as it depends on me, I seek their good---in love, by bearing, believing, hoping, trusting, enduring all things: in Jesus.

So, then, what about marriage?  This is on my mind a great deal because this week my husband and I will celebrate twenty-seven years of marriage---and we do celebrate this gift---not only of time, but of all that God has done.  We set about celebrating one another, we have our minds set on the other---believing, bearing, hoping and trusting and enduring with the other.  That’s what love does---that’s what love is.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13.7)

I guess I’d say that pettiness and un-forgiveness sours love, sours hope, erodes past blessings and, ultimately destroys marriage.   As we’ve come to this point of the year where we commemorate all the previous,  I’ve considered the years and what has been the blessing, the glue, if you will, of marriage---of lasting love.  I would say determination to be committed to the things that matter most and to leave off with things that don’t matter and to be ever learning to distinguish what those things are.  As we age, it’s far easier to see what really matters and what really doesn’t matter.   I’ve been learning more and more over the years that a sweet heart isn’t petty.  A sweet heart isn’t easily angered or easily ruffled.  A sweet heart isn’t self-centered/self-absorbed but is tender and forgiving.  A sweet heart isn’t mean-spirited, haughty or rude, and a sweet heart isn’t sarcastic or cutting because a sweet heart is gentle and kind.  As is spoken in 1 Peter 3.1-6, a sweet heart is governed by the fear of the LORD and is submissive, quiet, meek and not afraid or suddenly bothered.  This is the sweet heart a husband needs… every husband desires a sweet-heart wife.

It won’t matter who was right and who was wrong, who did more and who did less, who was stronger, who had what…etc., etc.  In the end, what will matter is: what was done with Jesus and was He the center of it all?  What will matter is: did you walk in love and was Christ glorified?  Was the time sweet?

Oh, you’ll make some mistakes, you’ll have some regrets, some disappointments, some---maybe many---trials.  You’ll face defeat and sorrow will visit your home.  Sorrow skips no home.  But in the end, you’ll have a lot of rocks---a lot of monuments to the LORD as you live in love… bearing, believing, hoping, trusting, enduring all things---together.  In the end it will be just you and Jesus.  In the end it will be whatever you did with whatever He gave you, whatever He commanded, whatever He prompted in His Word for you.  In the end, it will just be Jesus.

Your husband will be most blessed (and most inspired) by you as you walk with Jesus.  You cannot walk alone---your heart will be a stone.  But you can walk with Jesus and He will give you a heart of flesh---a tender heart, a loving heart, a forgiving heart.  A sweet heart.   This is the work of the LORD---this is the work of the Holy Spirit in a life yielded to Him.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36.26

I pray that it will be your desire to be your husband’s sweet-heart and all that that entails.  And what if things are never going to be different than they are today?  What if your husband is never going to be a different sort of man than he is today?  What if the things he does today that are irritations or inadequate or not up to par or whatever---what if these things never change?  What are you going to do?   I pray you’ll join me and do what I did… I pray you’ll go before the LORD and allow Him to examine your heart and I pray He will begin a work in you as He is doing in me.  I pray He will be your All in all, that you will walk in faith and strong confidence in Jesus---that you will lack nothing and that you will allow Him to work in your life, in your love and in your heart and that you will allow the LORD to work in your husband’s life and in his heart.  This is where only the LORD can work---only the LORD can change a heart.  

I pray that the LORD will use these thoughts to perhaps encourage you----if your thoughts concerning being a sweet heart were not rooted and grounded in the Word but were, perhaps, based on the world’s way of being a sweet heart---because without Jesus and His work and ways, nothing will ever truly satisfy and nothing will ever be truly sweet!

A woman can *act* sweet for *a time,*
but only a woman who *is* sweetened by Jesus can be sweet for *a life-time*

I pray your husband’s wife ~smile~ will truly have and be a sweet heart… because every husband needs a sweetheart and every child needs a mama who is a true sweet heart.   Wherever you are, whatever you do… I pray the LORD will be with you.


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