This week we’ve spent some time reflecting on how our words can impact our marriages.

• We talked about annoying his soul to death with the constant dripping of our words.
• We took some lessons from Job’s wife – don’t kick your man while he’s down.
• We looked at how our words aren’t always sinful or malicious – sometimes they are ill-timed. And sometimes, they reveal that our faith in the wrong place.

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

Proverbs 14:1

Are the words you are using in your marriage building your “house,” or tearing it down? What’s been on your mind this week?

Leave a comment, link up a post with your reflections, send me a note… I’m wondering. Is this series making you think? It sure has been stepping on my toes as I write it!

Missed any posts in the One Small Spark series? All the posts in this series are being indexed here. Hope you join us next week as we look at the power of our words in  our parenting.

Sometimes our words aren’t necessarily bad or malicious… sometimes they are simply ill-timed.

I rely on my husband. When something really wonderful happens, I want to tell him and have him rejoice with me! When something really terrible happens, I want to tell him and have someone listen and understand. When I’m not sure what to do, I want to tell him and have him counsel me!

The thing is, timing is not always my strong suit.

• Water begins to bubble out of the basement drain, and I rush to the phone to call NP. He is sitting with a client or in a meeting – what can he do? Nothing. Just listen to a hysterical wife on the other end and tell her what she already knows to do!
• An email with concerning news knocks me off balance. I stew and worry, and finally feel like I am about to burst. He calls me to say he’s on his way home from work… and instead of waiting 15 minutes, I lay the news on him right then.
• A terrible day with my children. They are disobedient and whiny, the baby is crying, my nerves are shot. He walks in the door from a long and difficult day at work, and I dump it all on him – sending the children straight to him for discipline, complaining about my day, handing him a crying baby complete with a dirty diaper that I ask him to change.

I frustrate my husband when I don’t carefully consider the timing of my words – telling him what he truly needs to know now, waiting for the best time to discuss everything else with him.

But more than frustrating him… what does this reveal about me? Am I turning to my husband for comfort and counsel and peace that only God can provide?

In 2 Kings 4 there is an account of a wife who fascinates me – because her reaction to tragedy is so different from what I think mine would have been.

The woman conceived and bore a son at that season the next year, as Elisha had said to her.

When the child was grown, the day came that he went out to his father to the reapers. He said to his father, “My head, my head.” And he said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her lap until noon, and then died.

She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door behind him and went out.

Then she called to her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God and return.”

He said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath.” And she said, “It will be well.”

2 Kings 4:17-23

The Shunammite woman held her precious boy as he suddenly fell ill and died – the miracle baby that God had given her. She calmly lays the still body of her boy on Elisha’s bed in the room she and her husband had provided for the prophet. She isn’t hysterical, she is quiet and full of faith – she simply asks her husband to allow her to go and see Elisha. Her answer to his inquiry often rings in my head – “it will be well.”

This kind of answer reveals the object of her faith – she turns to Elisha {not her husband} because God {not her husband} was the one who could address the crisis she faced.

Girls, do you suffer from a bad case of ill-timed words, a habit of crisis calls to your husband? These patterns in our lives reveal that we have placed faith in our husbands to do what God alone can provide for us. We frustrate them because we want them to solve our dilemmas when they are powerless to help.

A wife with her faith solidly placed in God alone has a soul at rest – and can say to her man, “it will be well,” even on the worst of days.

Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances.

Proverbs 25:11

Want to follow this series and make sure you don’t miss a post? You can follow along easily by subscribing to this blog by email or in an RSS reader! All the posts in this series will be indexed here for future reference, as well.

I’m also posting over at Scripture Dig today, looking at two of my favorite Biblical moms: Lois and Eunice. Hope you join us there!

Wives can be scary.

We see our men at their lowest points. We see them weep in grief when many may never have seen them shed a tear. We know what makes them angry, we know what breaks their hearts. We know the insecurities they have dealt with since they were little boys. We know the sin they battle on a daily basis, what can make them cringe in shame.

Marriage uncovers us not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually, as well. It is very hard, nay, impossible, to protect ourselves behind walls and build intimacy at the same time.

How easy it is for us to kick our men when they are down.

If there was ever a prime example of a wife attacking her husband when he was already in deep emotional, physical, and spiritual pain, it’s the wife of Job.

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. Then his wife said to him…

Job 2:7-9

Job. The man had, in the blink of an eye, lost every one of his children, his wealth, and even his standing in the community. He was a righteous man, but even his closest friends assumed he was living in sin because of the affliction that had come upon him. He literally sat in the ashes and scraped his open sores with a piece of broken pottery, seeking even the slightest bit of relief.

He was the definition of a broken man.

So, here comes Mrs. Job.. Perhaps he saw her coming and longed for a word of comfort, for companionship from his wife in this time of deep loss and suffering and confusion. I wonder if he hoped she would build him up and affirm that she knew he had done nothing wrong. She nears him and opens her mouth and speaks the anticipated words of blessing…

“…Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”

Job 2:9b

Wait… what?? Like balm to a wounded soul, isn’t it?

Using wise words in marriage can be hard. No doubt, Job’s wife was in shock over losing her children, trying to figure out what was going on, and she may have assumed (as his friends did) that it was all Job’s fault. When our men are hurting, we are hurting, too. When they are grieving, we are usually grieving at the same time. When they are mourning over their sin, we are often struggling with anger and a sometimes even a sense of betrayal.

Our words have great power when our men face these times of vulnerability. Will we speak truth, encouragement, love, affirmation, reassurance of our commitment to them – or will we kick them when they are already down? My husband is also my brother in Christ – am I seeking his ultimate good, or am I going to use the sharp dagger of my words to wound him in revenge for how I may have been hurt?

The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.

Proverbs 31:11-12, ESV

Lord, please open our eyes to see our men as you see them. They are far from perfect, yes, and so are we. Reveal to us the sin and self-righteousness lurking in our hearts that bubbles out of our mouths when we are hurt and vulnerable. Show us where we have wounded them, give us courage to confess and seek forgiveness from them, heal our marriages from the damage we have inflicted with our tongues.

This post is linked up to Women Living Well Wednesdays! Want to follow this series and make sure you don’t miss a post? You can follow along easily by subscribing to this blog by email or in an RSS reader! All the posts in this series will be indexed here for future reference, as well.

We all know that our words carry tremendous power. Power to breathe life into the discouraged, power to maim with gossip and slander… power to splinter the intimacy of our marriages. We women seem particularly notorious for damaging our men and our marriages with our words, and the book of Proverbs has admonitions aimed right at us, ladies.

A foolish son is destruction to his father,
And the contentions of a wife are a constant dripping.

Proverbs 19:13 (NASB)

A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day;
restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand.

Proverbs 27:15-16 (NIV)

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “contentious” as “exhibiting an often perverse and wearisome tendency to quarrels and disputes.” “Quarrelsome” is defined as “apt or disposed to quarrel in an often petty manner.”

Those words are so vivid. Perverse. Wearisome. Disposed to quarrel. Petty.

This past Saturday NP and I woke up to hearing an interesting dispute from 5yo AG and 3yo LB’s room. LB has a truly aggravating habit of taking things from his sister and hiding them, and then forgetting where he put them. We listened with eyes still half closed as the argument unfolded dramatically.

“LB, where did you put my sillyband? Why do you always do this, LB?!”

“AG, I don’t know where it is! I’m sorry, AG! I’ll help you look for it.”

“LB, you’re lying! You do know where it is and you won’t tell me! Why would you do that, LB??”

“AG, I DON’T know where it is!”

[Incomprehensible whining and crying from AG...]

“AG, I don’t understand what you are saying! What are you saying?”

[More whining and mumbling from AG]

And then we hear LB calmly and resolutely say, “I’m going to hit you.”

And… then suddenly Mom and Dad were awake. ;)

The ridiculous thing about this whole quarrel is that my kids both couldn’t really care less about sillybands. They don’t ever wear them. AG didn’t really want it – LB didn’t really want it… selfishness turned something menial and insignificant into a ridiculous argument.

Being consumed with selfish pride makes us do such petty things – it makes us argue over ridiculous nonsense just like children. It’s often not because the matter at hand is really that important… but because we want to manipulate our spouse and give ourselves the advantage, the position of power. We are convinced that our desires are more important than theirs, we are consumed with thinking of ourselves and refuse to think of the other person – and it will ultimately destroy us both.

In Judges 16 we find one of the master female manipulators in the Bible – Delilah.

Then she said to him, “ How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is.”

It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.”

Judges 16:15-16

This whole scene is unbelievable to me. Delilah is whining because Samson won’t tell her how to destroy him. She keeps on pressing him to the point that his soul is annoyed to death. Indeed, his own foolish choices and her destructive manipulation (in the name of “love,” no less) ultimately killed him.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

If I am showing my husband the love of Jesus:

• Will I choose to pick petty fights over things that simply do not matter?
• Will I nag and quarrel and whine, pushing him to do what I want when I want it, refusing to recognize his desires as valid?
• Will I push my husband to do things that will ultimately harm him because I see some temporary advantage for myself?
• Would a transcript of my words read like a preschool argument?

We can build our husbands up and encourage them, speaking truth and love into their lives, or we can pick, nag, argue, and annoy their souls to death.

“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”

Proverbs 18:21

Time to turn off that drippy faucet, girls! Let’s breathe life, not death, into our husbands and our marriages today.

Since this week of One Small Spark is all about marriage, I linked today’s post up for “Marriage Mondays” at my friend Julie’s blog, Come Have a Peace! She always has wonderful insight and encouragement there each Monday – click on over and enjoy! Want to follow this series and make sure you don’t miss a post? You can follow along easily by subscribing to this blog by email or in an RSS reader! All the posts in this series will be indexed here for future reference, as well.