@rachallison1@AppalachianBr3w I dont understand this. You look very young. And you are beautiful. Do these people step outside? The woman hating is strong
No offense but I think we underestimate how many of our current problems, both cultural and political, are downstream of the decline in reading, the decline in learning and the loss of interest in the humanities.
@BecomingCritter This is why you must brutally and violently fight to change yourself to even mildly alter the mean of your person for the better for the moment that you ease up
I used to love my wife because she earned it.
When she was kind, I was kind.
When she respected me, I respected her.
When she didn't—I didn't.
Marriage was a transaction.
A balance sheet.
I gave what I got.
Nothing more.
Then one Sunday our pastor said something I couldn't shake.
"The way you treat your wife is the way you treat the Lord."
I thought he was being poetic.
He wasn't.
That night I looked at my wife.
Really looked.
She was exhausted.
The kids had been brutal.
The house was chaos.
And I was keeping score.
Waiting for her to earn my kindness.
That's when it hit me:
I wasn't loving a woman.
I was worshiping myself.
Every act of service I withheld was worship I stole from God.
Every cold shoulder was an altar to my ego.
Every "she started it" was a prayer to my own righteousness.
Marriage isn't a contract between two people.
It's an offering to the One who made them.
I started loving her differently.
Not because she deserved it.
Because He does.
I served her when she didn't thank me.
I pursued her when she pulled away.
I led when I didn't feel like leading.
Not for applause.
For an audience of One.
She noticed.
Not right away.
But one night she said:
"You're different. What happened?"
I told her the truth.
"I stopped loving you to get something back."
"I started loving you to give something up."
She didn't understand at first.
Now she does.
When you love your spouse as an act of worship
Everything shifts.
The scoreboard disappears.
The transaction ends.
And marriage becomes what it was always supposed to be.
A daily death to self.
A living sacrifice.
An act of worship disguised as a Wednesday night doing dishes.
Your spouse isn't your enemy.
They're your offering.
Treat them like one.
My daughter hand-writes her college application essays, then types them up.
She plugs them into an “AI detector” like they tell kids to… and every one comes back 80%+ ‘likely AI.’
She’s been writing these all week.
She’s frustrated. She’s furious.
I don’t blame her.
whenever I'm on my phone/laptop around my 2yo, he hits me with "mommy come back to me" or "mommy wake up!"
a devastating indictment from a guy who still eats his own boogers