You know how when you buy a new car, suddenly every other car you see is that car? Or those shoes? Or that purse? Suddenly, you see them everywhere. When you first got them, you thought they were so unique, so special. And then you see them everywhere. Your good taste has been affirmed and you are pretty content with your car, shoes, and purse.
Or what about when you hear a story. Or a song. And then suddenly, your day is full of reminders of something in there, something different each time. And then six months later, you catch yourself humming it like it’s an old hymn or a 90’s pop song and you don’t know where it came from but your heart is filled with joy.
Believe it or not, respect is going to be like that. Suddenly, it’ll pop in everywhere. You’ll see how it plays out in the Hobbit and the interactions among the characters, you will suggest The Respect Dare as a training manual for a corporation, or you might not think that jokes are as funny as you used to.
“Jokes” like:
-Marriage: the adoption of a grown male child whose parents refuse to continue to care for him.
-Yeah, I have 3 kids at home – and one is my husband.
(Seriously, I just googled “husband bashing jokes” and got over 3 million hits. The very first one says “It’s hilarious. Come on in!” hmmm…)
Learning about respecting your husband will not always be easy – especially when these are the cultural messages that you hear. Every television show I can think of finds a way to belittle or undermine men in some way. Jokes like this pop up on facebook every day. And obviously, whole websites are dedicated to how we can “feel better” by putting our husbands down.
Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
This verse is not an easy verse. It’s hard to guard your heart from everything as we are hit from all sides. As Nina blogged about not too long ago, there is such an Us vs. Them mentality to the world we live in.
As young wives working on respect, it’s ok to correct someone who makes a joke about your husband that is belittling. It’s ok to turn off a show which sends that message. And it’s even ok to make a comment about the Christian comedian who decided to “men bash” during her act.
As we guard and train our hearts to respect, you will notice more and more the lack of respect from the world. And you will want to work harder on standing out from what our culture says is ok.
I dare you today to ask your husband for forgiveness for the husband put-down jokes that you may have told, or thought, or laughed at. And then try to not make those jokes. They hurt worse than we can imagine.
What have you noticed now that you are on the path to respect? What are some positive things and what are some negative things?
Leave a Reply