Love? Respect? Okay...

Years ago we bought this book, okay my husband bought this book. It was probably our 5th marriage book and we've only been married for 14 1/2 years. This was a book that he read and I glanced at times.
This summer we heard that the gentleman who had written the book was coming to Ottawa this fall and that him and his wife were doing a 2 day marriage conference. I was a bit skeptical. What would be said? Would it just sound like 'the same old stuff"? I was blown away, okay we were blown away. Instead of being this psychologist giving us all the 'ways to a better marriage' talk, he went straight to scripture and explained how what he was saying was from scripture and couldn't be ignored. Why does Ephesians 5 not say: 'Wives LOVE your husbands and husbands RESPECT your wives'? Well, because God is not redundant! :-) We are women are loving and nurturing as God made us and men are respectful to others and want respect as well. They want to serve and protect and defend. But do we as women naturally respect our fathers, husbands and our growing sons. Do we want our daughter(s)-in-law to treat our son(s) the way we treat our husband? Men are not naturally nurturing and loving like women so that is the area that needs work.
Is our spouse the most important person in our life? No, Christ is to be and if we love and want to serve Christ then we will want to love and serve our spouse, etc...
So, that was the summary of the 2 day conference. It is so worth reading the book, or listening to the dvds or organising a web conference. It is a message we had never heard or really read in other marriage books. We do not love and respect our spouse because of how they treat us but because of how they do not treat us. We love and respect each other because of our relationship to Christ.
It was also a good reminder that as my boys get older they will want their mother's love but more than that they will want to be respected in their choices about school, spouse, etc... They will want to be loved and liked. If you get a chance to ever attend one of their conferences or read the book again...go for it! It is really worth it.♥