Wife After God's Own Heart , livre ebook

Harvest House Publishers, Inc. - George Elizabeth

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122 pages

English

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A Wife After God's Own Heart reveals how you can have what every married woman desires--a wonderful marriage filled with mutual love, friendship, romance, and joy. No matter what the state or season of your marriage, this book is for you. Join bestselling author Elizabeth George as she shares the keys to having a great marriage, including...communicating to your husband more effectively; understanding how to best support your man; having more fun as a couple; enhancing or rekindling marital intimacy; and honoring God together in your relationship. When it comes to making a marriage the best it can be, you'll find this book a practical help--including the many "Little Things That Make a Big Difference" in every chapter! Start now on the path to a stronger and more fulfilling relationship. Includes study guide.

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Publié par	Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Date de parution	01 janvier 2016
Nombre de lectures	7
EAN13	9780736942584
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0738€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version . Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Verses marked TLB are taken from The Living Bible copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Verses marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Italicized text in Scripture quotations indicate author s emphasis.
A WOMAN AFTER GOD S OWN HEART is a registered trademark of The Hawkins Children s LLC. Harvest House Publishers, Inc., is the exclusive licensee of the federally registered trademark A WOMAN AFTER GOD S OWN HEART.
Cover by Aesthetic Soup, Shakoppe, Minnesota
A WIFE AFTER GOD S OWN HEART
Copyright 2004, 2015 Elizabeth George
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-3028-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-4258-4 (eBook)
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author s and publisher s rights is strictly prohibited.
Dedication
For Jim-
Thank you for being
a husband after God s own heart
so that I could grow into
a wife after God s own heart!
Acknowledgments
As always, thank you to my dear husband, Jim George, M.Div., Th.M., for your able assistance, guidance, suggestions, and loving encouragement on this project.
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Becoming A Wife After God s Own Heart
1. Growing in the Lord
2. Working as a Team
3. Learning to Communicate
4. Enjoying Intimacy
5. Managing Your Money
6. Keeping Up the Home
7. Raising Your Children
8. Extending Love to Family
9. Tending Your Career
10. Making Time for Fun
11. Serving the Lord
12. Reaching Out to Others
13. Seasons of a Marriage
Study Guide
Notes
A Husband After God s Own Heart
About the Author
Becoming
A Wife After God s Own Heart

O ften, especially in marriage conferences when my husband, Jim, and I both speak, we spend the first session sharing our testimonies in tandem. It is such a riot, because we couldn t have come from more opposite backgrounds!
For instance
-We met on the University of Oklahoma campus when Jim was walking toward his pharmacology lab and I was on my way to ballet class.
-Jim is an only child, and I have three brothers.
-Jim s mother was a stay-at-home mom, and mine taught six classes of English literature every school day for most of her life.
-Jim s mother cooked all day every day to provide dinner fit for a king and his prince. Meanwhile, at my house, my dad did the cooking-and the grocery shopping.
-After dinner, Jim s mother parked Jim and his dad in front of their favorite TV programs with a homemade dessert. Then she proceeded to wash the day s dishes and cooking utensils (by hand) and cleaned up the kitchen before she joined them. Meanwhile, in my home, my dad did the dishes and cleanup while my mom graded essays and book reports until midnight.
Oh, the list goes on-does it ever! But you can imagine what happened after Jim and I got married. When Jim arrived home from his part-time job or his classes, naturally he expected a meal to be ready and waiting for him.
Meanwhile, I was patiently waiting for him to get home so he could fix us something to eat.
After about a week, I realized I -yes, me, myself, and I -needed to learn how to cook! My first dinner was homemade beans and cornbread. Well, who knew you were supposed to wash the beans before you cooked them? That meal of dirt-, sand-, and rock-filled beans (except for the cornbread) went out in the trash.
As you can probably guess, Jim and I had a l-o-t of growing to do in the marriage department. Oh, we were happy. We got a puppy. We went on many whirlwind last-minute trips together. We pursued and completed our goal of each graduating from college-actually, on the same day. And then off we went on a thrill ride for the next four years, living in four different states as Jim advanced up the corporate ladder in his job as a pharmaceutical salesman, while I worked at an odd assortment of jobs so we were free to move for Jim s job almost once a year.
But once we landed in Los Angeles and visited all the popular sites, all the fun seemed to roll to a stop. Because Jim was routinely promoted within the vastness of Los Angeles County, we didn t move anymore.
We had just moved out of the excitement phase of marriage to a Now what do we do? phase.
Now that we were settled (against our wills and desires), we did things settled people do. In addition to our full-time jobs we started to stuff our evenings with a variety of activities. For instance
We competed in bridge tournaments. We took a class to learn how to play chess. We joined a dinner group that rotated through the members homes for the courses of a gourmet dinner once a month. Jim enrolled in a woodworking class, purchased a load of tools, and built two beautiful bookcases for our home. Next he joined a photography class-which, of course, required a better camera and rolls and rolls of film.
Oh, and in the midst of all this, we even took a marriage class taught by a husband and wife who were both marriage counselors!
Each of these ventures was exciting and challenging and fun. None of them was evil or bad or wrong, and we were growing in a variety of ways in a variety of areas. But at the end of each six- or eight-week class, the big question was, Now what?
Looking back, we realize we were stuffing our free time with a lot of things that were somewhat empty.
Operation Family
After five years of marriage we began to want to start a family-and had two girls thirteen months apart. We were ecstatic, if not a little overwhelmed.
Well, a little overwhelmed quickly advanced to totally overwhelmed. I felt like I had twins (although moms of twins are always quick to let me know, No, you didn t have twins! ). I was on mom duty 24/7. There was no longer any such thing as a good night s sleep, let alone a day off. There was no sleeping in or snoozing when a baby-or two-was crying her lungs out. No more eating whenever Jim and I felt like it. No more relaxing in a nice long hot bath. Shopping came to a screeching halt (which had some good side-effects when it came to managing our money-see chapter 5 ). Personal hygiene and grooming went out the window until I mastered a few life-saving shortcuts. And a stay-at-home date of watching a little TV on Friday or Saturday nights? Forget it. Neither Jim nor I could stay awake for even a one-hour program, let alone a two-hour movie.
Unfortunately I enrolled in a master s-degree program for getting a license in marriage and family counseling, of all things! What marriage? And what family? I know now that I was looking for help with my lackluster marriage and unfulfilling family life. I was searching for answers, solutions, and guidance that would help make things better.
Yes, I needed help-and went looking for it. But this was definitely not the season to take on a full-time educational degree program with two little ones under three years old. My days were spent driving my girls to babysitters and day-care centers, then heading for my classes. Once we arrived home after dark, I threw food on the table, threw my girls into the bathtub, threw them into bed-and pulled out my classwork for another all-nighter of reading and writing papers.
All of this helter-skelter activity and my new frenetic lifestyle led to an unforgettable moment I have never forgotten. It happened in the kitchen after I had returned from school with my girls, trying to get a meal prepared before Jim arrived home from work. I don t remember what triggered it, but both of my little ones were distraught and crying. One was holding on to my left leg, the other to my right leg. Both were looking up at me, pleading and in agony. What did I do? I looked up at the ceiling and screamed to it, There has got to be more to life than this!
The One Missing Element-the Most Important Element
Was I crying out to God? If I was, I didn t know it. But I believe with all my heart that God heard that cry.
Amazingly our lives began to take a little tiny turn-that ultimately ended up becoming a full U-turn. Easter was coming up, and Jim asked, Hey, what do you think about us going to a church Easter Sunday? I had no problem with that. During my growing-up years, my parents made sure everyone in my family went to church-and youth group.
So off we went that Sunday to a packed Easter service. During the next week a pastor from that church visited our home and shared about Jesus Christ and His sacrifice and how I could know Him and become a child of God. I politely listened, thanked him, and got back to whatever I was doing before he had arrived.
But it was a seed! And God made sure that seed got watered as I began to take our two little ones to church on the Sundays Jim had his Army Reserve meetings. Soon Jim and I started attending a church and became a part of a Sunday school class. On one of Jim s Reserve weekends, our teacher announced he was being transferred and tha