Treasuring our husbands

Another month hiatus from blogging. I guess I should mention that these past few months have been some of the most chaotic months of my life. My husband and I took the challenge of purchasing a bank owned home beginning last October. Little did we know that banks are not too anxious to get homes off their hands, so we waited and lived with friends and then went to Mexico on a missions trip and then moved again... a total of 5 times the last being into our home the end of February. But, this past weekend, after 3 weeks of hard renovations, our living room caught on fire in the early morning. We are now living in a hotel while we figure out what is to be done next. Needless to say, I have been stretched to the max. I had times of just faith filled -trust in God's goodness, and times where I wanted it all to just end; times where I just laughed it all off with a cheerful attitude, and times where I complained until my husband lovingly challenged me.
The reason I am sharing this is because, after studying Titus 2 on Loving my Husband, I realized God knew we would all face that hill of taking a good look at our hearts. We all, as Christians, as long as we understand the sanctification process, must grow in Godliness. When Paul instructed the older Women to teach the younger women to love their husbands, he was talking about the Phileo kind of love (translated from Hebrew) being the kind of love that is passionate, tender, affectionate. In the midst of all of the chaos of these past few months, I recently had one of those "taking a good look at my heart" moments.
While renovating a home, homeschooling, sharing one room for 5 months with all of my kids, washing dishes in a tub, helping my husband in his pastoral duties, I found it easy (well not easy, but manageable) to "do " everything needed to be done, but in the meantime, pester my husband about not doing this that or the other. My evenings, when my husband just wanted to wrap his arms around me and end the day with a "love you, honey." usually ended up with me wriggling free and saying, "I'm tired, I've still got things to do."
I realized that loving in a Phileo love took work. It took prayer and creativity, and usually took an attitude of humility to die to my own sinful heart and make an effort to show my husband I loved him. After much prayer and repenting, I am ready to begin to find ways of loving my husband starting today. I want to add a link to a story I read about on the girl talk blog of one woman's story of how she too learned to love her husband and another link telling of the results of her effort. I hope this challenges and encourages you too.
http://girltalk.blogs.com/girltalk/2009/03/prize-your-husband.html
http://girltalk.blogs.com/girltalk/2009/03/above-all-others.html