Elizabeth George - A Wife After Gods Own Heart: 12 Things That Really Matter in Your Marriage

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

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A WIFE AFTER GODS OWN HEART

Copyright 2004, 2015 Elizabeth George

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-3028-4 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-4258-4 (eBook)

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For Jim

Thank you for being

a husband after Gods own heart

so that I could grow into

a wife after Gods own heart!

As always, thank you to my dear husband, Jim George, M.Div., Th.M., for your able assistance, guidance, suggestions, and loving encouragement on this project.

Contents

O ften, especially in marriage conferences when my husband, Jim, and I both speak, we spend the first session sharing our testimonies in tandem. It is such a riot, because we couldnt have come from more opposite backgrounds!

For instance

We met on the University of Oklahoma campus when Jim was walking toward his pharmacology lab and I was on my way to ballet class.

Jim is an only child, and I have three brothers.

Jims mother was a stay-at-home mom, and mine taught six classes of English literature every school day for most of her life.

Jims mother cooked all day every day to provide dinner fit for a king and his prince. Meanwhile, at my house, my dad did the cookingand the grocery shopping.

After dinner, Jims mother parked Jim and his dad in front of their favorite TV programs with a homemade dessert. Then she proceeded to wash the days dishes and cooking utensils (by hand) and cleaned up the kitchen before she joined them. Meanwhile, in my home, my dad did the dishes and cleanup while my mom graded essays and book reports until midnight.

Oh, the list goes ondoes it ever! But you can imagine what happened after Jim and I got married. When Jim arrived home from his part-time job or his classes, naturally he expected a meal to be ready and waiting for him.

Meanwhile, I was patiently waiting for him to get home so he could fix us something to eat.

After about a week, I realized I yes, me, myself, and I needed to learn how to cook! My first dinner was homemade beans and cornbread. Well, who knew you were supposed to wash the beans before you cooked them? That meal of dirt-, sand-, and rock-filled beans (except for the cornbread) went out in the trash.

As you can probably guess, Jim and I had a l-o-t of growing to do in the marriage department. Oh, we were happy. We got a puppy. We went on many whirlwind last-minute trips together. We pursued and completed our goal of each graduating from collegeactually, on the same day. And then off we went on a thrill ride for the next four years, living in four different states as Jim advanced up the corporate ladder in his job as a pharmaceutical salesman, while I worked at an odd assortment of jobs so we were free to move for Jims job almost once a year.

But once we landed in Los Angeles and visited all the popular sites, all the fun seemed to roll to a stop. Because Jim was routinely promoted within the vastness of Los Angeles County, we didnt move anymore.

We had just moved out of the excitement phase of marriage to a Now what do we do? phase.

Now that we were settled (against our wills and desires), we did things settled people do. In addition to our full-time jobs we started to stuff our evenings with a variety of activities. For instance

We competed in bridge tournaments. We took a class to learn how to play chess. We joined a dinner group that rotated through the members homes for the courses of a gourmet dinner once a month. Jim enrolled in a woodworking class, purchased a load of tools, and built two beautiful bookcases for our home. Next he joined a photography classwhich, of course, required a better camera and rolls and rolls of film.

Oh, and in the midst of all this, we even took a marriage class taught by a husband and wife who were both marriage counselors!

Each of these ventures was exciting and challenging and fun. None of them was evil or bad or wrong, and we were growing in a variety of ways in a variety of areas. But at the end of each six- or eight-week class, the big question was, Now what?

Looking back, we realize we were stuffing our free time with a lot of things that were somewhat empty.

Operation Family

After five years of marriage we began to want to start a familyand had two girls thirteen months apart. We were ecstatic, if not a little overwhelmed.

Well, a little overwhelmed quickly advanced to totally ). Personal hygiene and grooming went out the window until I mastered a few life-saving shortcuts. And a stay-at-home date of watching a little TV on Friday or Saturday nights? Forget it. Neither Jim nor I could stay awake for even a one-hour program, let alone a two-hour movie.

Unfortunately I enrolled in a masters-degree program for getting a license in marriage and family counseling, of all things! What marriage? And what family? I know now that I was looking for help with my lackluster marriage and unfulfilling family life. I was searching for answers, solutions, and guidance that would help make things better.

Yes, I needed helpand went looking for it. But this was definitely not the season to take on a full-time educational degree program with two little ones under three years old. My days were spent driving my girls to babysitters and day-care centers, then heading for my classes. Once we arrived home after dark, I threw food on the table, threw my girls into the bathtub, threw them into bedand pulled out my classwork for another all-nighter of reading and writing papers.

All of this helter-skelter activity and my new frenetic lifestyle led to an unforgettable moment I have never forgotten. It happened in the kitchen after I had returned from school with my girls, trying to get a meal prepared before Jim arrived home from work. I dont remember what triggered it, but both of my little ones were distraught and crying. One was holding on to my left leg, the other to my right leg. Both were looking up at me, pleading and in agony. What did I do? I looked up at the ceiling and screamed to it, There has got to be more to life than this!