One of the questions I had the opportunity to discuss this week during the live forum celebrating 5,000 likes on the Start Marriage Right Facebook Page was "What does it mean to be a 'spiritual leader?'"
I sort of dodged this question. Mostly because I'm pretty sure the real question was, "What does it mean for the husband to be the spiritual leader of the home?" and the next question up was, "What does being 'submissive' in marriage mean?" and I felt like that was enough of a Pandora's box to open for one hour. But also, when I was preparing for the discussion the night before, I remembered I had a book on my shelves titled "Spiritual Leadership." And I thought how author J. Oswald Sanders defined spiritual leadership was perfectly applicable to marriage, and to both husbands and wives:
“True greatness, true leadership, is found in giving yourself in service to others, not in coaxing or inducing others to serve you. True service is never without cost. Often it comes with a painful baptism of suffering. But the true spiritual leader is focused on the service he or she can render to God and other people, not on the residuals or perks of high office or holy title. We must aim to put more into life than we take out.”
I particularly liked that last line as applied to marriage: We must aim to put more into marriage than we take out.
I think it was Tim Keller who said marriages never are 50/50. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Sometimes they're 40/60. Sometimes they're 90/10. Sometimes one of you is going to have an incredibly busy season at work, and the other is going to have to to pour a lot more into your relationship than you are able to give back at the moment.
That certainly has been the case for me this past month what with launching this website, finishing off the hospitality series for SMR, finishing off another major series scheduled next week for The Courier-News and going to STORY (which, as I've mentioned, sort of messed me up for a few days there). My husband has been very gracious in overlooking the messy house and the frozen pizza dinners and the couple extra pounds I'm imagining around my middle from the missed workouts, and he even has pushed steaming mugs of caramel apple cider between my face and the keyboard on a few occasions, for which I've been incredibly grateful.
Hopefully, you also can be gracious in overlooking the fact I haven't posted any of my shorter articles that appeared in September in The Courier-News, some of which were pretty action-packed, what with buses rolling over and alleged kidnappers running around the suburbs with sawed-off shotguns. I'm just coming up for air now before diving into another week (and vacuuming -- Joel, if you're reading this, I promise vacuuming will happen sometime soon), so before I get swept into another work task, I give you...
- Elgin man charged, bus driver released from hospital after U46 school bus crash
- Perfect ACT scores times two at Jacobs High
- Parent jailed after altercation with South Elgin football coach
- New U46 principal evaluation process
- Firefighters explain attacks to post 9-11 generation at Jacobs
- D300, union still in negotiations: 'No one wants to go on strike'
- U46 hires interim chief of equity and social justice
- ECC expands ties with Roosevelt U.
- D158, teachers 'work very amicably' on contract
- U46 hears first Transformation Task Force report
- D300, U46 approve budgets that are balanced -- so far
- Alliance releases 'college-going rate' for area high school students
- Suspect in home invasion, kidnapping surrenders
Photo credit: Start Marriage Right.
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