The Force of Influence

"In denying woman authority, which goes from the strong to the weak and is submitted to out of necessity, the Creator has accorded her influence, which typically goes form the weak to the strong and is freely accepted, but only on the condition that it is not at all evident."

Woman  Her Mission and Her Life by Adolphe Monod

Adam's Predicament

Writing tenderly about Adam in the Garden of Eden before Eve was formed, Adolphe Monod, French preacher in the early 1800's, wrote:

"Gifted with  a nature that is too communicative to be self-sufficient, he cries out for a companion, a support, a complement, and he is only half alive as long as he lives alone.  Made to think, to speak, to love, his thought seeks another thought to sharpen it and it reveal it to itself; his word is sadly lost in the air or awakens only an echo that mutilates it instead of responding to it; his love does not know what to do with itself and, falling back on itself, threatens to turn into distressing egotism.  In the end, his entire being longs for another self."

...the lowest state to which a woman's mind can fall."

In A Bride Goes West Nannie Alderson, living in incredibly primitive conditions on the frontier, catches herself one day: "I saw that I was beginning to feel sorry for myself -- the lowest state to which a woman's mind can fall....I still think it is the most important lesson that any wife can learn, whether she lives in a house of cottonwood logs or in a palace."
Lord, forgive my pathetic self-pity.  I have not because I ask not.  And where I have asked and asked, and not received, give grace to bow content beneath your wise, fatherly disposing.

"...our other house was building."

In A Bride Goes West Nannie T. Alderson, a true frontier woman, talks about her first very rough home out west: "We didn't mind the hard things because we didn't expect them to last....Our little dirt-roofed shack didn't matter because our other house was building....We didn't expect to live on a ranch all our lives --oh, my no!"
Oh, Lord, help me not to mind the hard things.   You said, as you prepared to go, that you are building a mansion for your brothers and sisters.  I don't expect to be here long.

The Power of a False Story

I have been thinking lately of the power of story in our lives.  If good stories are powerful to inspire us, then bad stories must be powerful too.   I wrote about that here.

Happy Prayer of the Conquered

It is a very sweet thing to come into your presence, O Lord. Very sweet. Having you I have all. And what profit is it for a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

You are the Creator, the king, the wise disposer of all things. And so, O Lord, where you have ordered and it cannot be changed, let me bow humbly and trust deeply. Let not my care, my restlessness, my discontent, be for those things. Let my care, restlessness, discontent rather be for those things that are my duties, my freedoms, my stewardship, my service, the places that are my responsibility and the places, therefore, of influence. Rather than be consumed with self-pity and discontent, let me steward my influence ( considerable, in God's providence, for a woman ) and learn to love better, deeper, more generously. If I honor, love, give, serve, conditioned on others' deserving, I shall invoke the wrath of God against myself, for if He follows my example, I am hell-bound.

Lord, you providential crossing of my will and your continuing to do so after repeated entreaties, leaves me conquered. The upper hand I wished for is not mine but yours. And when by your grace I am in my right mind, I am as happy there as a servant under the most just King, a student under the wisest teacher, a vile beggar welcomed, pardoned, clothed and seated at a banquet.

The book husbands wish their wives would check out of the library.

Someone once said that the most important thing in marriage is being able to see something from the other person's perspective. The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands is a tool to help wives see life from the husband's perspective.  In that, Dr. Laura Schlessinger has done us all a favor.  It's true, husbands have no excuse for not leading.  But neither do wives have any excuse for disheartening their husbands by withholding affection and praise and refusing to be satisfied. Though Dr. Laura sadly does not know Christ, she has oodles of insight into human nature.