Tag: marriage

Don’t Wait Until “Later”

Life is an adventure: Life it to the fullest everyday!

Don’t Wait Until “Later”

Time Warp Story from – September 13, 2023

Have you ever heard (or maybe even said) “I’ll just wait until later.” 

I heard it often from a couple I knew when I was younger.  They said it about getting married.  I loved them dearly and wanted them to go to heaven.  I asked him once about Jesus and he laughed and said he’d think about it later.  I saw his life of serving others and prayed he loved Jesus.  She said she loved Jesus, so I knew I would see her in heaven.  Once, (probably very tired of a child’s repeated question) he said they would get married when I did.  He died a month to the day before I was to get married.  No, they never got married.  “Later” never came for that. 

I’ve heard friends say “later, when we have enough money,” or “later, when I’m settled in my career,” or “later, when life slows down,” etc.  But those “laters” never come and “enough” is never “enough.”  Life speeds by without seeming to care.  Road bumps happen.  Sadly, I watch as life unfold, oftentimes things or experiences people want get lost and turn into regrets. 

I heard so many regrets from elders as I was growing up that I determined I would consider future regrets whenever making any decision. 

Start a flock of chickens with my babysitting money when we finally had land?  Yes! (Learned I loved farming – didn’t regret that choice)

Stay in Kissimmee on my own or move with my family?  After praying about it and feeling a “nudge” to “move just one more time,” I chose to move “just one more time.” (To Saint Augustine, 22 years ago – I met Louis here and started my family and yes we have lived in the vicinity of Saint Augustine for those whole 22 years.) Regrets? No!

Decide to marry the first guy I dated three days after our first date?  Yes!  (I said “decide to marry” not “get married to” – we were engaged 15 days after our first date and married 4 months later.) November makes 21 years.  Regrets? No!

Start our family on Christmas Eve a month into marriage?  Yes! (Even though everyone thought we were crazy) Regrets?  No!  Our little amazing first married Christmas gift will graduate from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in less than 3 months. 

So many decisions we’ve made; some good, some bad.  There are only three I can think of that I seriously “regret” happening and one was back when I was 12. 

We can’t go backward, only forward in life.  This is why I always ask the girls when they are making a big decision (job, college, sports, life) – will you regret not doing this?  Will you regret taking that path?  Those are the questions I want them to think on. 

I challenge you to ask yourself: if you are being led to do something and you tell yourself and God, “later” for whatever reason, ask this: “Will I regret not doing/trying this later?”

If you are telling yourself you’ll do something “later” or “when you have enough” of something: ask yourself if you will regret not doing or trying whatever that is. 

A line from a movie I like says “a train won’t wait” and I’ve always translated that to be, “life doesn’t wait.”  My Daddy said we should live life with no regrets.  God gave us only a certain amount of trips around the sun and only He knows how many.  We should use those trips to serve God in everything we can without waiting for “later” and “enough.”  Have fun in your experience!  Enjoy this amazing life God has given you!  Don’t get stuck in any ruts waiting for “later.”  Pray.  Jump out of your comfort zone and see where life takes you!  One young woman I met as a missionary said she felt God calling her to be a missionary but thought, “later, after I finish college,” but her father advised her to just go!  She went!  She said it was the best decision of her life and continued to bring her boundless joy and she met so many interesting people and shared Jesus’ love with dozens of children at each place she was sent (she was part of a missionary team who traveled and her job was to put on hand-puppet shows for the children).  She discovered that she had a gift for learning languages and spoke more than 20 after three years in the field!

Love with everything you have.  Be joyful and thankful! Live life with no regrets! 

Thank you for reading.

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Dating Decisions – Part 4

Dating Decision Part 4: Dissecting Real Life and True Love #DatingDecision #Decision #Dating #Focus #Choice #Purity #Liberating #Saving #Love #Understanding #Choices #Allow #Marry #Marriage

September 23, 2020

Dating Decisions Part 4

If you’ve kept with this series so far, you know I’m almost 18 in the story now. I’ve been studying myself, trying to shift my focus to Jesus and become the woman I know He wants me to be. I’ve been people watching everyone. I am still very shy around my peers. I am only comfortable talking about dreams and hopes and principles; not very good at small talk. I die after “I’m good, how are you?” But ask my opinion on something and you get more than you wanted. I am a good listener. I sort people into boxes depending on what they tell me: mental boxes labeled, “stay away,” “like to be friends,” “want to learn more from,” and “never in a million years.”

I hit 18.5, had gone out to Disney Springs with several friends from work twice (which my Daddy fully encouraged and wanted to know if we’d met any guys… no, we goofed off, went to a comedy show, watched the two oldest drink “Monkey Brains” from a monkey-head mug and get sillier by the second, sang along with a band, people watched, danced line dances at the country bar, and did cartwheels on the AMC stars waiting for my mom & the two other younger friend’s rides). After relaying this to my Daddy, he shook his head and said, “that sounds like ten year olds instead of adults!” I grinned, “but it sounds like friends hanging out in your stories.” Yes. I was crazy.

I was working at Disney and during the few lunch breaks I took, I joined the two other girls who claimed to be Christ-followers and we encouraged each other. It shocked me. Of all who asked me out there, every one of the “boys” (I refused to call them men per my Daddy’s earlier definition) expected a date to end with sex. No. No dating for me. At 18, getting a little bolder, I had started wearing a silver ring with my birthstone that my Daddy had given me a few years back for a birthday gift. I told anyone who asked me out that it was my virginity ring and a symbol of the vow I made to save myself for my future husband. That kept a few of the nicer “boys” from trying to ask me out. One named Guy said, “awesome, sister!” overhearing my spiel and encouraged with, “keep it up.” No, he didn’t ask me out; none of the few single “men” I met asked me out at this point.

The most important step in my dating decisions came when I left Kissimmee. I moved the last time with my parents (told my Daddy, “just one more time.”) and once in Saint Augustine I became an assistant in our youth group. I saw so much sadness and pain in the preteen girls I tried to mentor. This was the first time I agreed to help out with teaching youth. I prayed for each girl by name.

I discovered that the most important part of any girl’s life was to fall in love with Jesus first. Really. Truly. To give Him everything about you. Not to keep anything back – regarding life, love, boys, men, thoughts, heart. A girl’s first love had to be Jesus. A boy’s first love had to be Jesus. We went to a Rock the Universe concert and I listened to Nicole C Mullen tell us about how Jesus had to be our first and primary love. For all of our life; single and married, we had to constantly be “chasing” after Jesus. I realized that I was trying to keep control on my future and needed to surrender everything about my future to Jesus.

That was my final conscious dating decision: I decided I would always be a woman chasing after Jesus; that I would love Him foremost and that my future husband would love Jesus first as well. Jesus is my first love.

I learned that the term “missionary dating” was a huge thing for young girls. They seemed to think that by dating a non-Christian they were doing a good thing. I studied with them and we learned that the Bible clearly says being unequally yoked (aka a non-Christian and a Christian) does not work with God’s plan.

Basically there is one rule for Christians in marriage from Jesus and it is really simple: Ready?

Men: marry a woman who love Jesus.

Women: marry a man who loves Jesus.

There isn’t a “wrong one” if they love Jesus, there is only a “wrong first love.”

Jesus should be our first love. We should allow Him to hold our heart safe (the Bible calls it “protected by a hedge”) and wait on Him. If the person we are dating loves Jesus first, they will know how to love us. If we love Jesus, we will know how to love them.

We don’t obey Jesus out of fear, but out of love. As a Christian, we choose to avoid sin because we know sin breaks God’s heart and our passion is to serve Him with love. I wasn’t truly saving my purity for my future husband – I was obeying Jesus and His design because I loved Him. That should have been my first focus. Once I truly understood that my obedience with my body was because I loved Jesus it was liberating! I was understanding that God made sex in His perfect design and that within His rules, it was something to be looked forward to. (Honestly, at 18, I was still at the point where I thought “it” was super gross… dorky, I know.) It became less about rules and more about love.

“I am saving myself for my future husband because I love Jesus and He says it is the way.”

Once I wrote that in my journal, so much of the teenage garbage and pressures from everyone around me seemed to melt. It was perfectly okay to be a virgin adult. (Did I write that? Yep. I had so many from many age groups laugh at me and even my sisters teased me because I had what they called “virgin lips.”)

I was a few days from 19, still never been on a date, when I went to my Daddy’s family reunion in Georgia. Every one of my cousins and my siblings in their teen years had been on a date; most over 14 had already kissed. It was super laughter day for them. I loved that day. I loved now being able to witness to kids my age or younger about Jesus’ love just because they couldn’t believe I was wearing a ring on my wedding ring finger to remind me that my heart belonged first to Jesus.

It became a witness goal for me. Jesus used that tiny band for me to talk to so many young people during this season of my life. Most laughed. Almost all of them laughed. But I found myself praying for them and maybe my words helped a few.

We moved within Saint Augustine and started going to a new church. This was the first place I didn’t immediately jump into helping. I was almost 19 and still didn’t have a license. Instead I found myself trying to make friends. I wanted people with whom I could share life. I never wanted to leave the place called Saint Augustine. I had found a place my heart loved. I felt Jesus telling me this would be my home.

Fast forward 20 years:

I did leave dating and marriage and family up to Jesus. (Yes, stayed in Saint Augustine area.) I married a man who also loves Jesus first. We continually learn and love Jesus more and learn and love each other more – our relationship started with each of our first dates. In the world’s eyes, we were each other’s first loves. Really, Jesus was and is the first love for both of us. We loved Jesus with our bodies and futures. We each respected the other enough to wait until we were married. We didn’t “try it out” first. (BTW; Our chemistry is just fine!) We will celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary in November. In November 2052, we will celebrate our 50th. We are in this for the long run. Our focus is on Jesus in our love and marriage as it should be in all things.

My constant prayer is that people realize that their sexuality is not divorced from their spirituality. God made us complete. Just like our physical hunger shouldn’t make us decide we need to eat unhealthy things, our sexual hunger shouldn’t make us decide to do unhealthy things. Our ability to control the natural hungers or desires within us is what proves we are free. One can only be 100% free by giving everything to Jesus.

My story is uniquely mine as yours is uniquely yours.

My story is the tale of a girl discovering her self through Jesus. It is the story of a woman continually choosing to follow Jesus every day and in each decision. Often, I fail. I fall out of focus and instead let the negative self-image that my mind sees try to convince me that I’m worthless. Jesus says we are loved. Bought with the price of His blood from the slave market of sin – all sins. He knows the innermost parts of our mind, heart, and soul and still loves us! Nothing is too bad that makes us unloved by Jesus. He reaches out His hand so we can choose to charge our life in big ways and small ways and continually choose to live our life to show people Jesus through our actions; they will know us by our love.

I choose to focus on Jesus. I choose to focus on my first love. Through Him, and only through Him, am I able to show the love for myself, my husband, my family, and others around me in a way that reflects Jesus.

Thank you for reading!

~Nancy Tart

Dating Decisions – Part 3

Dating Decisions Part 3: Discovering Real Life and True Love

September 20, 2020

Dating Decisions – Part 3

At this point in my story I am a few months into 16, realizing that my focus cannot be on someone else. Jesus is my answer, my hope, my truth, not some guy I will meet “eventually.” That brought more peace to my crazy teenage mind than any other decision I had made since choosing Jesus as my personal Savior.

I determined to stand on the principles of virtue that I wanted to find in my future mate. If I had high expectations, it stood to reason that he should as well.

I had already told God (when I was 12) that I would keep myself a perfect gift for my husband. I did some silly girlish stuff that I kept hidden – like write letters to my future husband as I was journaling. Several, actually most, of these letters were destroyed by inquisitive dogs and siblings long before I was 19. I understood purity to be in the mind, body, and heart. Of all the people I interviewed, none told me they wished they had “tried it out first” but almost every person who had “tried sex out” before marriage told me that they wished they hadn’t. Most of them cited trust issues after marriage as their reason. A few told me it made them feel less worthy or made their partner less desirable. Several did not marry the person they “tried out” with. My Daddy told me that once a boy makes a conquest, he thinks of the girl as dirty, trash, something to be discarded. He said that was why he never wanted to use anyone. He told me “men don’t use women but boys use girls.” The silver screen brought that to life in “Spencer’s Mountain” where they get the cow bred and Dad says to son something like: you aren’t a bull and your woman won’t be a cow. That image stuck with me. Stories about my Daddy’s friends, relatives in our extended family, and from my curious interview subjects led me to the understanding that if someone doesn’t respect your decisions in regard to your personal limits, they don’t truly respect you at all.

That led me to the decision that should I be dating someone and they choose to ignore or press my limits, I would back up and leave. Don’t respect me = deal breaker.

I also decided that I would give them just as much respect as I expected. That was something I already did because I was raised that way, but I made that mental decision and wrote it down just to solidify it. If I couldn’t respect them, I wouldn’t waste their time. A wife is expected to respect her husband.

I started to think of myself as a wife-in-training. I had read a devotional book where the woman writer referred to her students as “women-in-training” and I loved that idea! I’m big on apprentice type learning. Show me, direct me, and I pick up rather quickly. I think that actually learning from someone with real world experience is the absolute best. (Another reason I LOVE the movie “War Room” – if you haven’t seen it, DO IT.) I picked out the qualities that I needed to work on (like patience and not nagging) and started trying them out on my siblings. Siblings had taught me that I was low on the patience thing. (Truthfully, children have taught me that I’m still, constantly, and will be forever working on the patience thing.) I am a big sister who likes to not allow her little siblings to get in a situation she knows how to prevent, but I had to sit back and let them learn after only one warning. My Daddy boomed a deep-belly laugh when he asked 17-year-old me why I let my little sisters go out in white shirts (in Florida afternoon, Kissimmee = 10 minute torrential rainfall at precisely 3pm) and I replied with “I warned them, but I’m trying to learn how not to nag, so I only said it once.”

My focus was now on myself. I understood that I needed to be a better person for my siblings, parents, and my future family. This was just the beginning.

I was still feeling tremendous pressure from peer groups to “date” like my siblings. My study had led me to the belief that dating was a long series of pre-marital interviews. I had been to job and volunteer worker interviews. I knew that the most direct way to find out if a person was a good match for the job or position was to ask direct questions. At 16, I could no longer blame my daddy and say “my Dad won’t let me date until I’m 16” therefore I began being super direct by asking, “do you love Jesus?” About half of those who asked me out laughed in a scoffing manner and (since I was primarily around church groups) respond with, “I go to church.” My reply to that “puffy religious response” was equally “puffy religious” – “no thanks. I can only court after I’m 18.”

At this point, mid-17, I still had an excellent relationship with my Daddy. I would tell him when someone asked me out. Once he told me my standards were too high, that I was expecting perfection. My reply was, “I’m looking for someone at least as much in love with Jesus as I am; the man is supposed to be the spiritual head of the family.” I was super-focused on getting into UMR or FIT at this point (two engineering colleges I was chasing) and my Daddy was big on education which is why I believe he didn’t press the matter really. I told him I wasn’t planning on dating until I was ready to marry. That became a repeated line whenever I was teased by family or my sister’s friends. One guy I didn’t like approached me about “hooking up for fun” and I asked him if he was ready to raise a child. His entire friend group left me alone.

I had devised an entire pre-programmed set of responses to boys and now men because I had yet to be asked out by anyone I actually would have dated. There had only been two young men whom I watched and admired the character of since I was 16 and neither asked me out. I actually had deep discussions about Biblical issues with both of them and discovered more about “Biblical courtship” from the latter when I was 17.

I delved deeper into the idea of Biblical courtship with a book I stumbled upon just before I turned 18. “I Kissed Dating GoodBye” by Joshua Harris – I didn’t agree with all of the book, but there were many bits that helped me to understand the whole courtship thing.

I may have bent your ears too long in this epistle. Oops!

Ready for the biggest decision of my dating steps? Covering that next time…

Thank you for reading!

~Nancy Tart

Dating Decisions – Part 2

Learning the focus is on me: Dating Decisions Part 2

September 18, 2020

Dating Decisions – Part 2

My first realization when I started thinking logically about dating came from a series of Christian youth books by Robin Jones Gunn – even “Christian” dating was messy!

I don’t like messy anything. I like clean houses. I like clean living. I like open honest relationships. I hated how, even with people the protagonist wanted to have life-long relationships with, she lied! Or at the least bent the truth! In the books, she always ended up trying to correct those lies and asking for forgiveness, etc. because it was a Christian book trying to teach about doing life as a Christian in our carnal world (and Robin did a great job). I discovered that my idea of “date” was totally 1950s (or maybe even 1800s) and not relevant to the world I really lived in. I found Christian youth of my time (late 1990s) were trying to reinvent what they called “dating” by calling it “courtship.”

I wanted to be best friends. I wanted to get married to a man who was happy doing Pooh Bear’s “nothing” with me and enjoying it. I wanted someone who I was comfortable with. When I looked up the word “intimate” in my ancient dictionary, it said “to know and understand the deepest parts of the soul.” I wanted someone with whom I could be intimate.

The second big decision I made came about at a Christian summer camp where I was a junior counselor. First, a little backstory:

I started seriously working on myself as a preteen. I wanted to be a better sister. The song, “I Want to be Just Like You” by Philips, Craig, & Dean, was my inspiration. I cried so much when I first heard it because I realized my baby sisters and brothers looked up to me. I was actually walking my sleepy 1-year-old sister to get her to bed one night with WKCL on the radio. My mind twisted the lyrics so the he and him was they and them. “I want to be a holy example for their innocent eyes to see…” etc. I cried because I was not a “living Bible” in any sense and I wanted to be that positive role model. When baby Mary was born, I was years into the process of allowing God to change me into a better sister (which later helped me be a better mom).

I am a people watcher.

I am an analyst (like my Daddy).

I would get frustrated almost every time we moved with the hypocrisy and boys I met in youth groups who actively talked about things that shouldn’t be. I got more sexual garbage tossed my way from them than from male coworkers, my Daddy’s younger business associates who thought I was older, and the general guys I met in the feed store! I would approach the various youth leaders (we moved very often and I was always the new kid until I moved a few months later) to address the situation because I did not feel comfortable smacking truth at the various boys. When I started getting mostly, “they are just boys” reactions or laughter or “that’s actually a compliment” (he had tried to touch inappropriately and I moved away and instead he made comments I had to look up the meanings of later), I got seriously frustrated. I would throw my hands up mentally to God and say, “are there seriously any boys actually chasing after You in my generation?” Looking back, I think God just smiled, shook His head at my silly teenage prayers, and would allow me to read an awesome story or see or hear some young man acting out God’s love. It was usually right as we moved away, but always this little drop of encouragement that made me feel like I was not alone in my trying to be a Jesus-following-teenager.

*Side Note* (My girls are showing up to be way bolder than I was – Thank you, Jesus! – and they actually drop truth bombs when someone is doing or saying something inappropriate. That I think is awesome because it is a far better testimony than just stepping away and handing it off to an uncaring third party.)

BUT: my focus regarding dating was still carnal. I was looking at them. I was trying to find “the perfect guy” rather than focus on myself. Sure, I was working on being a better me with regard to siblings, parents, and general truth and study, but I had yet to apply it to all areas of my life. In our culture, we are constantly hit with “finding our soulmate” or “finding the one.” We are focusing on us finding a match. If we are leaving eternal salvation up to God, why not leave matchmaking up to God?

Fast forward to summer camp and I’m 16. Part of being a junior counselor was the requirement to attend 5am to 7am workshops (aka sermons/lectures/Bible studies). I’m listening to one of the camp counselors talk about how he and his wife didn’t start out God’s way and it was messy. His entire program was on not dating someone who wasn’t on equal spiritual footing (aka, DO NOT be unequally yoked to a nonbeliever). Of course, he and his wife ended their story as Christians working to rebuild and repair their marriage and family – but his eyes when he spoke of the wasted years fighting and trying to control each other and using their kids as weapons against each other and divorce and coming back together… those eyes solidified what became my second solid dating decision. I had already written it years before in a community youth group workshop to “list qualities you want in your future spouse,” but now it was not just a “what I want” it was a deal-maker or deal-breaker:

My husband will be a godly man who loves Jesus with all his heart.

And my third decision came at the same time:

I will present myself honestly in all my relationships and make sure any potential date knows I love Jesus and serve Him with my whole heart.

…more on the third decision next time!

~Nancy Tart

“War Room” Thoughts

March 24, 2018

“War Room” Thoughts

Have you seen “War Room?”  If not, please do so!  It’s a wonderful movie that my children watch at least once every week or so.  Miss Clara is their favorite character.

Just in case you haven’t seen it, I’ll give you a tiny run down without spoiling the story: Miss Clara, a prayer warrior, wants to teach a young wife who is having marital issues, how to “fight” well with the right weapons (prayer) and against the real enemy.

This movie has opened much dialogue between my preteens, teenager, and me about marriage and relationships in general.  I love anything that opens the teaching door, so this is excellent.

Pray.  Miss Clara prays in her closet every day, she writes prayers for each area of her life, copies scripture to think on, and thanks Jesus for everything in her life.  Prayer is discussion; opening your heart to Jesus and letting Him know you need Him.  I don’t have a closet that is my prayer space; I tend to just pray wherever.  Honestly, for me it’s like with any other relationship: I talk when I think about it.  I know He’s always there, so I can openly talk to Jesus whenever.  I love that.  I feel closest to Him in nature.  Outside, hanging clothes, checking on the chickens, working in the garden, mowing, or walking in some part of Real Florida; these open my heart to feel close.  (And usually I end up talking and my girls smile – visitor children often think I’m nuts, which may just be right.)

Love.  Jesus loved each of us so much that He died for us while we were sinners (meaning we didn’t love Him yet, we were part of the “crucify him” crowd!) so if we can be loved unconditionally, we should return that love to others.  Especially our family.  (Husband, wife, children, parents, siblings, etc.) I try to see others through “love glasses” and this means to me that I see their positive qualities.  This seriously helps when I’m around someone who seems antagonistic toward me; I look for the positive and remember that Jesus loves this person just as they are and wants me to love them as well.  I will probably never agree with every family member on everything, but I can love them anyway.  (Granted, this is not someone hurting me, just someone I may have differences of opinions with… which some people get defensive and irritable when they know someone doesn’t agree with them.)

Trust.  When it comes to family and building relationships, trust is paramount.  You have to keep your word, respect others, and never lie.  It’s hard to trust those who lie (sometimes you can’t).  There was a child who was always asked “want to go fishing?” by a family member and a date picked, but then something always broke the date.  This child ended up saying to his parents of this person, “they don’t mean it,” because he had learned not to trust.  It’s so sad to see trust broken.

Submission.  This one line in the movie started a three hour conversation with one of my preteens… “my momma always said submission meant duck so God can smack your husband.”  It actually sounds sad to me, but often are we protecting those we love from the consequences of their actions?  Moms do it to our children if we aren’t careful.  Do we warn them about putting their bike away but then at dusk we are putting it away for them?  Do we tell them to finish a project for school but at the last minute it’s become our project?  As far as husbands and wives go, neither should be “fixing” the other.  God is the only one who can change a person’s heart.  We can pray for our mate, but if God thinks they need to change it will be between God and our mate – probably without our nagging.

I try to expand the principles of what we see to match not only the illustration seen in the movie, book, or example.  I can expound further on these four highlights and apply them to every area of our relationships and our own lives, (which, yes, I do with my girls 😉 ) but for now I’ve got to finish supper.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

Saying No to Nagging

My quest to eradicate nagging from my life

November 29, 2017

Saying No to Nagging

As the oldest of seven children, an analytical puzzle-solver who is rarely wrong (sarcasm), and a perfectionist, I also have a rather uncanny knack of nagging to get people to do stuff (I heard a sermon on the persistent woman before the judge and thought nagging was the same as her persistence.)   Since I was about ten or twelve, I started to learn (mostly from watching my Daddy while he was driving) that I don’t have to say what I’m thinking to that person’s face.  Because of this, I learned how to keep my nagging thoughts to myself around my siblings.  The younger ones who didn’t remember the nagging dictator began to enjoy my company and actually listen to me when I suggested they do something!  (This was an amazing and empowering discovery!)

Fast forward to when I’m a young woman considering long-term relationships with a fearful heart.  (I actually have to talk to a person I know nothing about? GOD!  How I am going to do this?)  I think I could actually hear God laughing, and the wind blew my Bible open to Proverbs 31.  (Anyone else remember singing that catchy song a guy sang about a “P31”?  Airplane-crazy younger me thought he was talking about a plane.  At least, teenage me realized he meant a woman.)

Have you ever read Proverbs 31?  The whole thing??  I freaked out and thought, “no way can I be all that.”

God said, “one verse at a time.”

So I started studying about the ideal woman.  (Most of the time, I laughed and journaled stuff like “I am NEVER going to be that!” and “This is IMPOSSIBLE!”)  Slowly I realized that this perfect woman just loved God first, loved her husband second, and allowed love and wisdom to rule her.  (Her business savvy totally intrigued me.)  Then came the part that is still my hardest challenge… I study by flipping to suggested parallel verses and almost everywhere in Proverbs this poor guy was saying stuff that I interpreted as “it is better to be buried in the deepest, darkest, scorpion-infested, cave that belongs to lions named “Ghost” and “Darkness” than to live in a palace with a nagging woman.”  (I thought, “CRUD!  Okay, God, this one you will really have to do for me.”)

In my study I realized that by “nagging” the Bible meant a woman asking, telling, or pleading with a man to get him to do something.  (I substantiated this by interviews with older married men I knew and they agreed.  One guy even said, “ask me once, I heard ya; say it twice and I turn my ears off.”)  I decided that once I was married, I would practice not nagging by only voicing my opinion once.  (At this point, I still “know” I’m right 99.9999% of the time, so I made an asterisk in my journal that added, “but in important matters I will remain firm.”)  I think God laughed at that too because who is to say what is important?

God’s timing is always perfect.

I finished writing my five-pages-in-my-journal decision after almost a year of study – writing everything I thought a Biblical woman in today’s world should be and listing the qualities I wanted to cultivate in preparation for being a wife and mother.  I ended it with a prayer (as I usually do when I journal) that read: “God, I think I’m ready to start my forever relationship.  If you think I am ready, please let the guy ask me out if I have met him…”

And God laughed again.  (That was written Monday, July 1st.  Louis told me we were going out on Wednesday, July 3rd.  We were engaged on July 20th & married life began on November 22nd.)

Have I conquered that nagging thing?  (NNOO!!)  My brain still talks back, but I have learned to keep my sarcastic thoughts inside, take a breath, form a perfect suggestion, SPEAK IT ONCE (ONLY ONCE, remember?  You promised God that!  – I had to argue that with my brain for the first 12 or 13 years of marriage every time.), and leave the rest to God.

This was also a HUGE trust issue for me.  (See, I like to be in control so giving that to another human even if I trust God to lead him is just bonkers to my analytical brain.)

I learned that to respect my husband meant to trust him to trust God with his decisions (our decisions) and over time, God has taught Louis that most of the time; it’s a good thing to listen to my suggestion.  (He said that, not me.  I never even mentioned this challenge until about a year ago when it was mentioned to me that “you never nag” and I had to answer the question, “why?”  It had always been something between me and God.)

Well, I guess the good thing is that Louis hasn’t lamented for people 3,000 years later to read “I wish to be in Daniel’s lion cave instead of with this nagging woman!” (At least, he hasn’t said that yet.)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

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