Why I Celebrate My Husband… Publicly

By Taisa Efseaff Maffey

Today is my anniversary.  Ethan and I have been married four years now, which I’m sure sounds like nothing to most people.  Four years is not much of a milestone.  And yet, I will probably post something sentimental about it and about him on Facebook at some point today.  But really, this is nothing out of the ordinary.

If you’re Facebook friends with me, you know that I regularly post about married life with Ethan.  Sometimes funny things, sometimes mushy things.  I actually saw an article shared on Facebook not long ago that derided and bemoaned Facebook friends who post too much about their significant other.  Really?  What’s next?  Boycotting pictures of puppies and kittens?

Personally, I would love to see more people publicly celebrating their spouses.  Far more often, I see or hear people celebrating their kids, their pets, their meals, their home projects, their sports teams, their new haircuts, their cars, their travel.  None of this is bad or wrong (Hey, I do it too! And what’s Facebook for, anyway?), but I do think an important opportunity is often being missed there.

Truly, I’m not here to judge what anyone else does or doesn’t do.  I’m only here to explain why I personally like to publicly celebrate my husband and why I would encourage others to do it too.  Yes, even on Facebook, anti-PDA people be damned.

For starters, I married a really great guy, and I flat-out like to brag about him.  Why?  I want to honor Ethan and show off what a good husband he is.  Not to make anyone else feel bad but because I want him to know I appreciate him, and I want to encourage him to continue everything he’s doing right.  I want to keep all that good stuff going for us because I treasure our marriage, and I don’t want to ever take him or what we have for granted.  And so I live out our marriage with thanksgiving, and out loud so he hears it and knows it too.

We all have our primary love languages, but the truth is we need to be able to “speak” all five love languages with at least some fluency.  (You can find out your and your spouse’s primary love languages at http://www.5lovelanguages.com).  We all need to hear the “I love you,” and the “Thank you,” and the “I think you’re the greatest.”  I once read that it takes something like 10 compliments or positive statements to counteract 1 criticism or negative statement.  Confession: I’m not a perfect wife and I do regrettably sometimes find myself criticizing or critiquing things that my husband has said or done… or not said or not done.  With all my heart, I don’t want those things to discolor how Ethan sees me as his wife.  I don’t ever want to be the nag; I want to be the encourager, the admirer, his biggest fan and his safe place.  And so, I brag.

“Pleasant words are like a honeycomb,

Sweetness to the soul and health to the bones.” (Proverbs 16:24)

Secondly, I am hoping that other husbands out there will see Ethan’s example and take some notes!  I want to encourage all husbands to make it a daily point to love on their wives, make them feel important and special and beautiful and appreciated, listen to them, show interest in what they think and feel, care to know and understand them better, seek to please them.  Apostle Paul gives these instructions to husbands:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” (Ephesians 5:25)

“So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.” (Ephesians 5:28-29)

Both of these Scriptures describe selflessness and self-sacrifice as characteristics that husbands should have.  (Side note: These are also characteristics of a good leader.)  The comparison is made to nourish and cherish one’s wife as someone would take care of his own body and as Christ takes care of His people.  Husbands, are you nourishing and cherishing your wife, to the point of making her a priority over everything else?  Are you putting her needs and desires first, even above your own?  Obviously, I’m not talking about her “need” for new bedroom furniture over your need to get your only vehicle repaired, but rather maybe putting her need to talk and be listened to at the end of the day over your need to check out on your phone.  Or putting her need for some help in getting dinner on the table over your need to watch your show or game.  For the record, it doesn’t hurt to check in with her and actually come right out and ask her, “How are you doing?  Are you doing okay?  What can I do to help you or make you feel better?”  No kidding, she will look at you like you’re her own personal superhero!

Also, did you happen to notice that tiny part of the verse where it says, “he who loves his wife loves himself”?  The fact is when you seek to nourish and cherish your wife, you are activating happy, appreciative, loving feelings in her towards you.  In other words, when you love your wife in word and deed, seeking to fulfill her needs and please her, then she will in turn seek to fulfill your needs and please you.  In this way, when you love your wife, you are loving yourself because it all comes back to you… from her.  Husbands, are you actively investing in your marriage and in your wife’s well-being?  One definition of “invest” is

”to put (money) to use, by purchase or expenditure, in something offering potential profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value.”

Okay, so we’re not talking about investing money here but rather time, energy, attention, emotional and verbal engagement, you get the idea.  But the goal is the same: to invest “in something offering potential profitable returns, as […] appreciation in value.”  Not that the goal of marriage is to seek what you can get out of it.  That is the definition of selfishness, the exact opposite of what those Scriptures above were talking about, and it’s a recipe for disaster when it comes to marriage.  No, the point is that marriage is a symbiotic relationship.  The more a husband invests himself in his marriage and his wife, the higher the profitable return he will receive in the marriage and the greater his wife will appreciate in value.  Case in point: My husband makes me a better wife by the way that he loves me and treats me.  If he withheld his time, attention, or affection from me or outright treated me poorly, any interest or incentive I might have had in treating him well or pleasing him would steadily decrease and our marriage would self-destruct.  But Ethan treats me extraordinarily well, so my natural response is to reciprocate.  This is how it should be.

“If a man has enough horse sense to treat his wife like a thoroughbred, she will never become an old nag.” (Quoted from a decorative plate that used to hang above the kitchen stove in my house while I was growing up)

Lastly, I want to encourage other wives to make it a point to regularly praise their husbands.  I’ve written about this before in other posts (Marriage is Not 50/50), but it bears repeating: It’s a common joke in our culture that husbands are always wrong and the wives are always right.  More than once, you’ve probably watched a TV sitcom where the wife scoffs when her husband tries to help out around the house.  The response is usually something like, “Well, what do you want?  A medal?” or criticizing them for not doing it exactly right.  This kind of reaction basically guarantees that your husband will never try to do anything nice for you ever again!

“It is better to dwell in a corner of a housetop,

Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.” (Proverbs 25:24)

“A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm;

Restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand.” (Proverbs 27:15-16)

Instead, show respect for your husband as a man and reinforce the good things that he does with words of praise, encouragement, and thanksgiving.  It’s that marital symbiosis I mentioned before – the natural reciprocity of taking care of your spouse’s needs and then having your needs met in return.  I think we wives sometimes forget that husbands have emotional needs too.  They like feeling needed by us, they covet our approval, and above all they need our respect.

“Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” (Ephesians 5:33)

Even if it’s something small like changing a lightbulb, thank him.  Even if it’s something you think he should be doing anyway, like mowing the lawn, acknowledge that he did a good job making the yard look nicer.  Even if he didn’t notice you got your hair cut last week, tell him he looks handsome today.  Even if you can’t immediately think of something nice to say because there are complaints and criticisms in your head competing with each other, find something positive to focus on and praise him.  Retrain your brain to look for everything he does that’s helpful, good, and right, and seize every opportunity you can to say something encouraging to him and about him, especially when he’s in earshot.  The more you do, the harder he will work to please you.  It’s a win-win.

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

For the record, none of what I’ve said here comes from personal mastery over these principles.  I don’t claim to have a perfect marriage.  As much as I love and appreciate him, Ethan is not a perfect husband, and I am certainly not a perfect wife.  After four years of marriage, we are still learning and always trying to do better.  And sometimes that means going back to the basics.  I once heard a marriage counselor share that his very first assignment to the couples he counseled was simply… to be nice to each other.  Pretty good place to start, I think.  Some people, like the author of that article I mentioned earlier, might think it’s overdoing it to openly celebrate your marriage on Facebook, to brag about your husband or wife, to remind others that marriage is a wonderful thing.  Personally, I’d rather overdo it than underdo it.  Who’s with me?

P.S.  Happy anniversary, dear!  I love you.

Photo by Marina Koslow Photography

¿Quieres más?

By Taisa Efseaff Maffey

“¿Conoce a Cristo?” I asked the teenage girl in my best Spanish accent.  (Translation: “Do you know Christ?”)

“Más o menos,” she replied with an adolescent smirk.  (Translation: “More or less.”)

“¿Quieres más?” I queried.  (Translation: “Do you want more?”)

The girl shrugged her shoulders.  She didn’t turn away, so I, not knowing how to continue the conversation in my non-native language, handed her one of the flyers I had been given to hand out.  The flyer had on it service times for a church in downtown Ensenada, where I was street witnessing with other people from my mission group.  She took the flyer, looked at it, and walked away.

“Do you want to know Jesus Christ more?” is an interesting question.  It’s the question, really.  It’s similar to a question that came up recently for me.

The other morning I was having my prayer time, and I found myself repeating a fairly typical refrain in my prayer life: “I want to feel how much you love me, Lord.  I want to feel closer to You,” I prayed earnestly.

Immediately, this response popped into my head: “How close to Me do you want to be?”

Hmmm…

And then, this Scripture:

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8a)

And there was my answer.  But I’ll get back to that in a second.

We all have different perceptions of God.  Even Christians who love God and follow His teachings in the Bible may have differing perceptions of Him.  These perceptions can vary for as many different reasons:

Our perceptions may be based on how God was presented to us as a child, whether in church or by our parents or family members.

We may have been influenced by our childhoods themselves.  For example, if we had happy childhoods, then God may have been perceived as good; if we had troubled childhoods, then God may have been perceived as bad, angry, or even just indifferent.

Our perceptions of our Heavenly Father are also closely tied to our relationship and experiences with our earthly fathers (or perhaps other male authority figures).

It’s also possible to project our feelings about ourselves onto how we perceive God feels about us.  If we’re prideful, self-centered, and have a sense of entitlement, then we might think that God must approve of us and everything that we do, or at least won’t hold anything against us.  (It’s interesting to note that if you ask people whether they think they will go to heaven when they die, most will say yes because no matter what they’ve done in life, they feel they are still overall “a good person.”)  On the other hand, if we feel bad about ourselves and guilty for things we’ve done wrong or things we’ve not done that we should have, then we might think that God disapproves of us, is disappointed in us, or is even angry at us.

I remember being taught about Jesus as a child in Sunday School.  I was taught that He loved children, and He always looked happy and friendly in the pictures that I colored of Him.  And yet, there was a disconnect between what I knew about Jesus and how I perceived God the Father, even though I understood the two were intimately connected.  I knew intellectually that God the Father loved me, but I didn’t feel His loving affection towards me.  Rather, He seemed austere and distant.

Though I’ve been a Christian for over 20 years and am now obviously an adult, I’ve recognized remnants of those childhood perceptions of God in my relationship with Him even today.  Actually, if I’m being honest, sometimes more than just remnants.

Which brings me back to my original prayer requests, and the following response:

“How close to Me do you want to be?”

It was like I was being asked almost the same question I posed to that teenage girl: “¿Quieres más?”  (Do you want more?)

And then there’s that verse: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8a).

It’s set up like an if-then statement: If you draw near to God, then He will draw near to you.  Simple as that.  God never forces Himself on anyone.  He will be as close to us as we want.  The closer we move towards Him, the closer He’ll move towards us.  The closeness of our relationship with God is up to us.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:20)

“The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.” (Psalm 145:18)

But what do you do when there’s a discrepancy between what you know to be true and what you feel?  Or what do you do when your perceptions of God don’t line up with what the Bible teaches about Him?  Quite simply, the answer is found in Jesus.

In the Book of John, Jesus speaks to His disciples:

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?  He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?  The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” (John 14:7-11)

Though they had been spending time with Jesus face-to-face and listening to His teachings with their own ears, though Jesus had told them previously point-blank, “I and My Father are one,” even the disciples still hadn’t completely gotten it (John 10:30).

Jesus was God in the flesh.  He came down from heaven, a distance none of us can truly fathom, and walked this earth to be as close to us as possible, before suffering the punishment for our sins through the most brutal torture and death on the cross.  The way we learn Who God is and understand the depth of His love for us and grow closer to Him is by getting to know Jesus.  And what do you know, in the Bible we actually have a personal invitation from Him to get to know Him:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

I don’t know how long it will take me to completely get over my lifelong misperceptions about God – to feel completely secure in His love and affection for me – but I have a game plan and I’m going to use it.  We all have been given the opportunity to know Him, to grow closer to Him, and to experience His love for us, even when we do not understand it.  And that is by spending more time getting to know Jesus, through reading about Him in the Bible and by talking directly to Him.

I’d like to close with a prayer.  It’s for me and it’s for you, regardless of where you are in your relationship with God:

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14-19)

Amen.