Never Take Him for Granted

Never Take Him for Granted

A woman’s sister-in-law had posted this on Facebook. She gave me her permission to share it with all of you. Little backstory, she lost her husband in 2012 in a work related accident, leaving her with eight children to raise by herself.
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We did it again. The water heater gave out on us, so we boiled water on the stove top and the children found out how to survive without hot water at their fingertips.

Yes, they did say, “Looks like we need to go to our neighbors for a shower.”

I said, “Oh no you don’t. This is a great opportunity for you to see how we did it every day when I was growing up.”

Yes, finally I got tired of it and told Merlin to go under the house and see if he can figure out where the heat element is then we will go see if we can get a replacement.

He’s like, “Mom I have no idea how. I’m only 15 and nobody ever showed me how to do it. How am I supposed to know?”

I answered, “Because you are smart and are known for the ability to figure things out.” (I did not want to go under the house.)

So, he goes under to check it out and I hear the muffled yell, “Mooommm! I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

“Okay, okay, hang on, I’m coming.”

The desire for hot water overruled my comfort, and I got under there with him. We figured out where the elements are, but how do we get it off? Our wrench just kept slipping, so I proceeded to explain how it’s done.

“I think we need a large socket to get that thing off. Let’s go to the hardware store and see what we can find.”

We soon found it, so I explained it all in detail.

“I don’t need to get under there again, right?”

I told him how to turn the water off and drain it then take the element out.

Soon there’s another, “Mooommm, I can’t do this! The water’s not coming out of the hose anymore, yet when I go to take out the element water starts spraying all over me.”

“Okay, I’m coming.”

So I go under there again. We got it fully drained or so I thought. Took the top element off, but when I took the bottom one off, I got showered.

Yes, I sputtered and thought how awful miserable this is under the house kneeling in water, but we finally got it fully drained and new elements in. Turned the electric back on, and yes, it worked. Oh, the satisfaction is amazing!

So I have two messages for you ladies out there. Did you know there are a whole lot of things you can do around the house if you put your mind to it? You do not need to wait till your husband comes home to do it because now more than ever, I realize how hard a man’s work is, and how much we take for granted. He too gets tired and who will comfort him? Do you have any idea what it does to me when I hear wives say, “Oh, but my husband just doesn’t help much around the house, and oh, he just isn’t very strict with the children in their training like he should be. That’s why they are so loud and rowdy.” You know what I instantly think? You are one ungrateful woman … Nope, I will not even call you a lady because a lady does not talk like that.

I wish the wives everywhere would honor and love their husbands, and realize it is their only taste of heaven here on earth. If you won your husband in the first place, stop and consider how you did it. Was it with a smile or a frown? Did you stop smiling? Did you start saying, “Are you ever going to help with the children? I had them all day and am tired. It’s your turn?” Don’t you think he is tired as well?

Imagine if you went outside for a day and did a man’s work going up and down a ladder with tools and lumber and metal. Would you feel tired? Now consider this. After you come in that front door, would you want to be greeted with a smiling or a sour face? Which one would motivate you with just a bit more energy?

Now consider this, be glad you only need to be a homemaker and get to mother your little ones. Be glad you have a husband who gets the job of supporting you. Be glad that you don’t have to worry about making the money on top of mothering. Be glad you get to be a help meet. You are there to help, not drain. You are created to meet his need. You are the one he chose. Can’t you just let that alone bring joy to your heart?

What I’m saying is, please do not take your husband for granted, and please do not let me hear you complain. If it hurts me, imagine how it makes God feel. There is nothing I enjoy more then to see a couple being loving to each other. There are some who wonder if that’s not painful for me to see and honestly, no it is not, but it pains me to see them not get along.

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Ephesians 4:32

23 thoughts on “Never Take Him for Granted

  1. Great post today! I think we always need to be mindful of how hard our husbands work to provide for us. My husband is a mechanic and I cannot imagine having to do what he does every day for a living. I believe oftentimes as women, we fall into the poor me attitude and can only think of how things are affecting us. Never considering how hard our husband works to provide for us, and the fact that they are usually very tired when they get home and want to rest. My personal belief and the thing I strive for is that our home should be a safe haven for my husband. A place that he can rest, relax and enjoy being. He has put in a long, hard day at work, and he DESERVES to come home and relax. And yes, I realize that as a wife and mom, you have worked too, but let’s be brutally honest here, who has worked harder and has the larger burden of stress? My husband, who has to carry the burden of back breaking work in most cases, as well as dealing with a sometimes difficult boss and coworkers, and top it all off with the stress of knowing he is the provider of the family? Or me, the woman that is blessed enough to be home for her “job”, where there is no boss or coworkers to stress me out? And let’s be honest if you are training your children, you can always get help (even the littlest of toddlers can help, yes it takes time to show them, but think of it as an investment in their lives). I have been a stay at home mom for 18 years now and I KNOW without a doubt how blessed I am, you see I worked for the first couple of years my son was born. I KNOW how easy I truly have it. My man deserves my respect and he deserves to never be taken for granted! Love him, serve him, obey him and then reap in the blessings that follow!

  2. I’m blessed to have a hard working husband that provides so I can have the joy of raising my children. This is a great reminder to treat him with kindness, respect and affection.

  3. Amen! You’re so right, HH, and as our children get older our burden becomes lighter but a man has the responsibility to provide for his family all of his life. When I was sick with little ones, I was able to stay home and do what I could. Many times, men have to keep going under stressful situations when they aren’t feeling good. I am so thankful to be able to be home full time even in my older age!

  4. I would like to say to you who have written this letter I agree with you one hundred percent. I lost my husband seven years ago and 2009 and that is the hardest thing that I have ever gone through. I have teenage boys now and I know what you’re talking about fixing things around the house and trying to be a father to teach them how it is done and realizing that everything that my husband did before I have to hire somebody or do it myself with my sons together.

    Not only that but you go to bed alone. I drive alone Everywhere I Go. Before when my husband was still alive, we did everything together like he wanted me to help him work on cars outside, hand him the tools and we would talk like best friends. We were like best friends. I miss that so so much and it’s not easy to find a man that you can love like that again. I wish I would have when he came home from work not just only greeting with a smile but go and give him a hug here in there when he came into the door with a smile.

    There is so much more that I would change if I ever had that kind of love again. I feel the same way when I hear a woman say bad things about her husband or complains about he’s not helping her enough. I go through such a hard time thinking you have no idea what you have. You just think of what you do yourself. You don’t think of what the men do for you.

    When my husband was still alive I always thought I had the perfect man but I didn’t realize how good he was until he was gone. He died because of depression. He committed suicide and I feel like I could have pushed him to go for help more than what I did. I wanted him to see the doctors but he said they wouldn’t do anything and he gave up. I didn’t know that he was suicidal at that time so I was not worried about that and one day he was gone. It has taken so much to overcome that pain. Well I will never overcome it completely but I have to move on for my children’s sake and for myself. I still miss him very much and I still love him very much but to all the women that still have their husbands appreciate him, treat them with respect and love.

    Thank you for writing this letter. You are an amazing woman. God bless you and keep you strong.

  5. On sentence particularly struck me [my emphasis]: “I wish wives everywhere would honor and love their husbands and REALIZE IT IS THEIR ONLY TASTE OF HEAVEN HERE ON EARTH.”

    Those are extremely confident and extremely black and white words she uses.

    Is she a prophet –“daughters shall prophesy” — that Acts 2:17 speaks of? Is this connected to Titus 2:5: women actually do taste heaven when they ensure that ‘the word of God is not blasphemed”?

  6. So true, even for the grandmas in this group. My parents turned 90 this past Fourth of July. On August 6fh my dad died. I inherited the job of taking care of my mom and sister. I am still crawling out underneath this mess. In 68 years of marriage my mom never paid a single bill, never learned to drive, had no idea where any important papers were or how much money was in the bank or even what banks they used. So many repairs were left undone that it’s impossible to get a fair price for their house. The sad part about it is my brother financed two cars and several credit cards under my dad’s name without their knowledge and creditors are coming out of the woodwork. Most of all? I haven’t been able to grieve my dad’s passing because all of these things have occupied my time.

    This is what l have learned, if you don’t take care of the financial things at your house, ask your husband if you can sit down and discuss things like passwords for accounts, bills due and especially where important papers are kept. My sister-in-law and her husband had a great way of taking care of the financial things. They would trade off every other month doing the bills etc. so both of them were aware of their financial situation.

  7. Katharina, your story brought me to tears and has inspired me to better express my love to my husband when he comes from work. I’ll think of you and say a prayer for you and your family when I welcome him home tonight. Thank you for your strength in sharing.

    Love,
    Jessi.

  8. I am so sorry about your husband’s passing, Katharina, but thank you for sharing how much you loved him and how all of us wives whose husbands are still alive to appreciate, love, and respect them as we are called to do.

  9. I can say from experience that having strife in a marriage brings little joy in life and having harmony brings much joy! Maybe this is why Debi Pearl refers to having a “heavenly marriage.”

  10. Oh, Katharina, I am so sorry for your loss. I will be praying for you and your sons today. Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Your post has reminded me to be very, very grateful when my husband comes through the door this evening. Life can change so quickly; we do not know what the future holds. May God bless and keep you.

  11. Thank you for a much needed reminder! I always feel the sting of my husband’s absence when he goes out of town, and this is a rare occasion. We just don’t realize how much our men actually do for us until we are alone and something breaks down or needs fixing. I feel ashamed now of all the times I complained that he didn’t help more, when he is really pretty great at helping when I need it. I think women today just expect that men will do 50/50 of the housework and the childcare, even if they are stay-at-home moms. We definitely need to stop taking our men for granted and step up our game a bit.

    Since we homeschool I sometimes feel like I am a working woman just as he works 40 hours a week. But I am quick to forget that I am afforded so many more luxuries in my “job” than he is. I have the comfort of being in my home day after day. I can take lunch or breaks whenever I feel the need to. My job is rewarding. I never have to drive in bad weather or deal with unsavory people day in and day out. Most of all, I don’t have to answer to a critical boss. All of these things makes me realize that I would not want my husband’s job of being the provider for the family, and it makes me appreciate him all the more!

  12. Wonderful post, Lori, thank you for sharing that today. My mother was widowed when I was young so I saw firsthand how devastating it is for a woman to lose her husband and how hard it is to run a household by yourself. Whenever I find myself getting cross with my husband now, I stop and say to myself “if I was looking back on this moment after he was gone, how would I *wish* I’d reacted?” That’s usually enough to bring me out of my sour mood and act with love and gratitude again.

  13. This is excellent, thought provoking, and convicting. I think of my single and divorced friends. This morning when I got up, I thought of how my husband has to get up at 3:00 something to go to work and does not get much sleep. He works so hard for our family. This encourages me to show him appreciate more. I have a perfectionist personality (I actually am quite hard on myself also) and I see his flaws so much sometimes.

  14. Actually, more than his hard work, he has the gift of wisdom and is a great Dad. Having someone to talk to about problems is so great, too. (You can combine my comments if you want).

  15. I am so sorry to hear off you loss,,but so glad to hear of the love you had to share, isn’t that o lot of times what keep us going,,,memories of good times

  16. You are a breath of fresh air in a divorced ravaged society.
    I pray that you & your husband will experience God’s provisions and peace

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