The Signs of a Good Wife

For years I have believed that the signs of a good wife are her ability to keep her home clean and cook good meals for her family. Unfortunately, I have never been very good at either. Sure, I can clean our apartment and do a good professional job, in fact, I worked as a cleaning lady over the years, of course, the clean home doesn't last long and I have never been a fan of cooking. As you can imagine this has not helped my self-esteem or my mental health issues. Thankfully for me as a Christian wife who also works full time there are a lot of other qualities that make a good wife, such as my love and respect for my husband, my ability to submit to him, the fact that I am a hard worker and last but not least my love for a and my relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for my sins and gave me my husband.
I also figured at one point that as a good wife I needed to take up cooking and baking as a hobby. One small problem though, I'de rather not. I figured from a financial and practical perspective that they would be great hobbies for a wife. Except I have no interest in spending hrs in the kitchen. For those of you who do, I praise your name and those around you who are benefiting from your love of the kitchen are blessed because of you.
Thankfully the sparkling reflection of the tub or the three-course meal with dessert included are not the only signs of a good wife. They are just two of the many signs of a good wife. They are two physical signs, but there are many other physical, mental, emotional, and physiological signs of a good wife. Some of those signs include being a good listener and cheering my hubby on when he has a bad day at work.
So just because you would rather watch tv than make a cooking show worthy meal every night is not a sign of being a bad wife. It shows that you are human and that there are many signs of being a good wife, including sending your hubby out for takeout because you had a long day at work and have no energy to cook.
God has given us each our own gifts, talents, and strengths and by his grace, we all are wonderful wives blessed with amazing husbands.

I pray that you are as blessed by reading this as I am to write it.
God Bless
~Ruth

The Importance of Hobbies

I've never been one for hobbies., until now. For most of my life, I spent my time focusing on school and extracurricular activities (which I guess you could call them hobbies, I do not personally). Then I got married and like any good wife, my focus was on my husband and school.

I'm slowly getting into hobbies now, I have been getting better at taking our camera out and enjoying nature and God's creation. That being said though it was rough finding the time, energy, and until recently an activity that I wish to do. You see, my life is currently focused on my husband, job, serving God, and paying off debt. It was not until recently when my dad came over to help with our income taxes that I realized just how important having hobbies/activities outside of your vocation really are. While filing my husband's and my taxes dad and I was talking about how he is coming up to retirement age soon and realizing that all my father has done his adult life is work. He is a hard worker and a driven man, two qualities of which I admire him for and also inherited from him as well. All my life dad went to work and then on the weekends he would spend his well deserved restful weekend reading a good book. Which is wonderful, but how much can one really read when they retire? I too may enjoy a good book but I would not be able to read all day for the rest of my life.

As you can imagine this whole exchange made me realize that a) my husband is very blessed to have a hobby that he will enjoy when he retires, and b) that I need a hobby.

I had already started to take our camera out to the local parks and play with the different settings and so on. So I challenged myself and started getting out more often to take pictures and really explore what I enjoy taking pictures of. I even took our camera to a baby shower recently and enjoying capturing all the fun that was had. I have really enjoyed connecting with God through His creation and learning how different angles, lighting, and other such settings can really make or break a great picture. It has been a joy to look at my pictures of my computer after an afternoon out and see what I was able to capture. I have also started learning how to do my watermark and sign my photographs like the professionals do.

At the end of the day, my thoughts through this season and this post is that our jobs are not everything. Yes, they provide a way for us to get out of the house and create a regular routine which for myself is essential (I thrive on routine), it also brings in money and allows us to maintain our lifestyle choices, but at the end of the day though, regardless of how much you like your job, and for me, I love my job and the people I would with. God has blessed me with some amazing co-workers that I love with all my heart and blessed me with the best management team that I have ever worked with, but no matter how much you love your job, you still need to have some fun activities outside of work, or else when you enter into retirement you will have nothing to do.

So, to all who are reading this, I hope that I have encouraged you to find activities that you enjoy doing outside of work. You may have to go through a season of trial and error before you figure out what you are passionate about which may be frustrating, but hang in there. Get through the growing pains and you will find all kinds of new activities that you enjoy doing and bring your life joy. As always I hope this post blessed you and challenged you like it has for me.

God Bless

~Ruth