This week's chapter is titled "God's Recipe for Wives". Lynne shares a piece of advice that a friend shared with her after she had just gotten married..."Your desire may be to have a happy marriage. But you can't control that; that takes two people. The only thing you can control," she said, "is you. So even though your desire is to have a happy marriage, you have to make it your goal to be a good wife." Don't worry about whether your husband is doing a good job, ladies, the only job description we should be worried about is our own. Are we being good wives?"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." (I Corinthians 13:1).
Loving our husbands, with God's love, is assignment enough for the rest of our days together. "An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones." (Proverbs 12:4). Love your husbands good parts but the bad parts, also!
Admire your husbands! "This admiration is a source of great happiness, and the lack of it one of his most distressing miseries." (Fascinating Womanhood, Helen B. Andelin) Do we remember to tell him that we admire him? Even though you may have the manliest man on the face of the planet, ladies, he still seeks your admiration. "Our words can have a tremendous impact on our husbands, for good or for ill." Lynne goes on to remind us of Proverbs 12:18, "Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing."
Phyllis McGinley writes in her 1965 book Sixpence in Her Shoe: "Praise is better than wheat germ for even the least vain of men, and every wife ought to keep a supply in her pocket ready to scatter like manna."
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"Your adornment must not be merely external -- braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:3-4)
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