Hayley DiMarco - The Fruitful Wife: Cultivating a Love Only God Can Produce

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A NOTE TO THE READER:

To better serve you, Ive created discussion questions for The Fruitful Wife that you can use for group studies and individual reflection. These free resources can be found at:

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Sincerely,

The Fruitful Wife: Cultivating a Love Only God Can Produce

Copyright 2012 by Hungry Planet, LLC

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

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Published in association with ChristopherFerebee.com, Attorney and Literary Agen t.

Cover design and image: Connie Gabbert

Interior design and typesetting: Kevin Lipp

First printing 2012

Printed in the United States of America

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G ODS W ORD is a copyrighted work of Gods Word to the Nations Bible Societ y. Quotations marked G ODS W ORD are used by permissio n. Copyright 1995 by Gods Word to the Nations Bible Societ y. All rights reserve d.

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Emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the autho r.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-3070-8
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-3071-5
Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-3072-2
ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-3073-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

DiMarco, Hayley.

The fruitful wife : cultivating a love only God can produce / Hayley DiMarco.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4335-3070-8

1. WivesReligious life. 2. Christian womenReligious life. 3. Fruit of the Spirit. I. Title.

BV4528.15.D56 2012

2012013408

248.8435dc23

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

CONTENTS

The Fruitful Wife isnt a book about making your life more amazing, though it certainly can do that. The Fruitful Wife is about experiencing a life filled with the fruit, or produce, of God the Holy Spirit. Its not about the perfect woman, because its not written by the perfect woman, but its about a life set on looking away from yourself so that you can better concentrate on the Father. So The Fruitful Wife is about what happens in the life of a woman who understands the effect of having the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, perfect, and holy God of the universe take up residence in her body.

The Fruitful Wife is about having something to show for your years on this earth. Its about producing rather than destroying, and its about giving as well as getting. James MacDonald once said that if God isnt changing you, then he hasnt saved you. And this is my firm belief. A life filled with the life of God is one that is ever changing, ever pruning, ever growing, and ever flourishing.

There have been times in my life when I have been fruitful and times when Ive struggled and been barren and unproductive. So this work isnt about my perfect life or my perfect devotion but about our perfect God and his unceasing grace and forgiveness for our less than fruitful attempts to live lives filled with the fruit of the Spirit. I hope that as you take this journey with me youll be encouraged by the reminders found in these pages of the goodness of God and his power to bring all that goodness to fruition in your own life.

INTRODUCTION
What Have We Done?

You will recognize them by their fruits.

MATTHEW 7:20

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

GALATIANS 5:2223

The fruit of my first year of marriage was a lot of broken plates. In that year I produced more broken plates and angry screams than probably anything else. If the fruit of the Spirit in you is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, I was a barren tree (that liked to throw plates).

While we were dating, I was a fruitful woman. I was in love, joyful, peaceful. I was patient with God because God had finally brought my Mr. Perfect, though I was a little impatient about tying the knot; the old clock was ticking, after all. But I wasnt struggling with impatience like I did before I met Michael. As for kindness, that was easy. I wanted to please him. He was certainly pleasing me, and so being kind in return was effortless. I was just overflowing fruit in my life. And then it all changed.

See, Michael and I got married later in life than many couples. We were both in our thirties when we eloped to the Bahamas. You might say that by your third decade on earth, you are set in your ways, used to life on your own, and youd be right. So when we moved in together, our worlds turned upside down and the fruit fell off both of our trees. We didnt understand anything about each other except that we didnt understand each other. Our fights seemed monumental. And so was our frustration and anger. We would both get so upset at our inability to communicate and at our apparent mistake of a lifetime, that we would both explode in anger. And in order to save our bedroom door and fine china, we both took action. Michael bought a punching bag, and I went to Goodwill and bought an armful of cheap plates. Our basement/garage was subterranean and covered with a thick rock wall. So we set up our anger management stations in the garage with a big pile of ceramic plates for me and a punching bag for him. Every time that we argued, which was almost every day, I would run downstairs and pick up a plate and scream as I sent it careening into the wall. The sensation of destruction and the outpouring of my anger on that fragile object would relieve enough stress for me so that I could return to the fray, get back to the relationship, and try to power through the next few hours. Ah, wedded bliss!