Oh, husbands, if you’re out there reading this, or your wives have nudged you to get on here and read, well it’s a good thing…just keep reading and you will see why.
Husbands, despite the mood swings, the catty moments, the really hard times, you still must cherish your wife. Let’s start with the definition of cherish, I mean you cannot correctly or fully do something if you don’t know what it really means. Cherish in the bible refers to keeping warm, to warm, to do so with tender love, to foster with tender love. Further definitions include, to hold dear, to keep or cultivate (foster the growth of, to prepare, to improve by labor or work, care, or study) with care and affection, to nurture. Synonyms would include treasure, value, prize, appreciate, relish esteem, and revere. Now that we have an idea of what this means, have you been cherishing your wives? Why not? Oh, sometimes? I see. Oh, because it’s so hard at times…hummm. Well, it wasn’t so hard in the beginning when you two were infatuated with one another. Oh snap! Yeah, I called you out on this.
Listen, you were able to love and avoid seeing their faults, but then when the feelers all settled, reality slapped you. No, it didn’t, you just got comfortable to challenge those faults…the wives did the same thing to the husbands…so no one gets off easy here. The reason why it was so easy to overlook them before, not only because of the feelers, but you saw the best in them. You chose to view the faults as a mistaken outcome for something that did not or could not exist. You literally gave them the benefit of the doubt, even when evidence presented it otherwise. Wives you should reread this as well looking at your husbands…we did the same thing! All of us ultimately viewed them from their heart, the intent of their heart. We were able to see the good regardless.
Husbands, it is your duty, and really your desire to take care of and cherish your wife. It was never intended for you to shift to a form of selfishness, ladies you’re included here, to see the faults…because the faults were not such before so why are they faults at all? Who’s judging by what standard? You judging it? Because something is different, because something might be unfamiliar, because something may challenge you, doesn’t mean it is a fault at all. It simply means, the attributes of one another to fit together and compliment have not been fully established. BOTH of you have things to grow, and in growth comes change, and some change is very difficult because it is something you have known and done that cannot be or rather must shift and make room for even more. You cannot contain something the size of a jet in a garage for the size of a small SUV. Both are great things, but there are greater things ahead.
When you become one flesh, then you are no longer just you, it is both of you. When you tear down one or the other, then you have done so to yourself. The opposite is also true. When you build the other up, you have encouraged yourself as well. It is time to begin viewing this through the correct eyes of your heart and act accordingly. Cherish your wife, even when it’s a bad day, even a bad season…nothing changes because you know her heart. Did you think that maybe your very actions of love, understanding, and knowing her heart of love is the very thing that will draw her from those moments? Cherish your wife.
Wives, now for you briefly…be someone your husband can easily cherish. Be someone that too sees the heart of your husband and knows that even amid unforeseen circumstances, situations, and troubled heart, he loves you and he does not mean to cause any harm. If he can be patient with you to allow you all the moments he does and still is kind, yes, we all have our moments, but for the most part kind, then you can afford him the same. It’s unfair to keep him at a standard that is far too rigid for you to follow if he provided the same. Love even when you don’t feel it just know it; nurture, empower, encourage when you don’t feel you’re receiving the same; give when you have nothing left to give. Why? Because as one flesh you’re doing the same thing for yourself. Sometimes we all must hold both sides up for a season, it’s just what we do from the oaths we have taken. Not always is it shared, but in time it will balance out. As you already know, there are moments we feel less than which requires our husbands to hold us up…there is no difference for us doing it for them. Toughen up buttercup, it can’t always be your way.
“So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:” Ephesians 5:28-29.