How A Christian Wife Should Love Her Christian Husband

There are many ways that a wife can show her husband her love for him. We have to change the "me" outlook to the "us" outlook. Now a day's there is too much separateness between couples. She does her thing and he does his thing, and they barely do anything together. All of this separateness is truly dangerous for couples, emotionally speaking.

We have to change our attitude and perspective by making it a point to include our husbands in our lives, no matter what it is we are doing. If God created marriage as "one flesh" of mind, body, and soul than when we live separate lives from our husbands we are essentially rebelling against our God-given role for marriage. If we are rebelling against God's design then we will have marital problems.

A healthy marriage is an intimate relationship. Intimacy has to be created with our husbands through our emotional, physical and spiritual affections. There is too much thinking that "we don't love our husbands anymore" attitude! Too many married couples do everything apart from one another, which can cause emotional detachment and separation. It is at these times, when neither spouse is intimately involved emotionally with the other that infidelities materialize in the marriage.

We often tell couples, especially women to not reject their husbands sexually but just as important to marriage is to not contradict our husbands emotionally and spiritually. When we act as if we don't care about what our husbands have to say or when we discount their loving lead over us, or when we contradict them, then we are essentially saying that what they say and do is somehow wrong or does not meet up to our standards. Emotionally, this is very damaging to the intimacy aspect of the marriage. Many wives do this to themselves by allowing the worlds views to seep into their hearts and minds.

When we refuse our husbands management and protection we're saying that what he has to say isn't important. When a wife is too independent to mind the things of her husband, or to consider his thoughts, ideas, and decisions in the marriage then he is most certainly going to feel rejected, discounted and demeaned by his wife. Is that what you want? A husband who feels inadequate in his abilities as the man of the marriage? In a Godly marriage, the wife is to be her husbands help meet not his obstacle meet. And then these very same women wonder why their husbands are meeting up with women on social networking sites and texting and flirting. Duh!

God created the man to be the decision-maker and management overseer of the home and family, but when the wife usurps her husband's role, he may be tempted to find emotional attachment where he thinks the grass seems greener. It's a natural response to an unhealthy home environment. Emotional adultery runs rampant in marriage today. And the advent of social networking websites is just another tool where dejected and demeaned husbands can find emotional and possibly sexual attachments.

Of course there is no justification for committing infidelities in marriage but when we are rejected and demeaned by our spouse it can sure make that grass across the fence look greener than what we got. It is at these times when we need to sincerely pray for our spouse to come into the light and truth. And we need to pray for ourselves that we do not break down and do anything against the sanctity of the marriage. God listens!

The Christian culture of today is very vain and self-righteous in its thinking. Wives are not encouraged by society to love their husbands or nurture their marriage. In fact they are encouraged to treat their man with contempt. Is that not selfish and self-righteous? Today most wives are encouraged by society to be independent, apart from their husbands and only care about themselves. And it is this, which is killing marriage and causing the adultery pandemic we are experiencing today in Christian marriage.

Why do you think God made Eve with Adam's rib? He didn't have to use Adam's rib, but He did. This is to show that woman comes from man and once she is married he is her covering and protector. A wife becomes "one" with her husband and she is to be beside him in her help meet role. It is an unselfish, love and respect kind of role. Woman was not made out of man's feet to be below him, nor was she made from his head, to be above him, but she was made from his rib, to be beside him.

Think of your husband above yourself and stop looking to society to tell you what to think and what to do in your marriage. Look to Jesus Christ instead and let Him be your example. This is how a Christian wife should love her Christian husband.

When You Spar, How Hard Should You Hit?

When you spar, how hard should you and your partner hit?

The short answer is - as hard as you want.

If you're preparing for a full contact match, then at least part of
your training will need to be full contact. Most martial artist don't
compete regularly in full contact though, and many of them don't
compete at all. For them, sparring full contact probably isn't what
they want to do . . . but then they miss the benefits of full contact
training.

And what are those benefits? Well, hitting and kicking full power
requires better conditioning, better set ups, more exact use of
leverage, footwork and rotation and it conditions you to not freak out
when you get hit.

On the other hand, you're going to have injuries - jammed fingers and
toes top my list. Also, getting hit hard in the head is sort of like
getting x-rays: you should only get so many in a lifetime.

So how hard should you spar?

Here's how I like to spar in my school. We wear head gear with a face
guard, and a sturdy rib and chest protector. The rules are: VERY light
contact with punches to the head (anything more than that seems to
escalate), light kicks to the head. For some reason, they're easier to
control than punches, probably because the person is farther away and
you don't feel the pressure to back them off with power. Full contact
punches and kicks to the body wherever it's covered by the chest and
rib protector - again, I use the most solid ones I can find. Full
power (or close to it) leg kicks. They sting, but I've yet to see an
injury from a thigh kick. Take downs are allowed, and the fight
continues if it goes to the ground.

Following these rules, we've been able to have good matches, get a
great workout, and improve timing, power, combinations, and both stand
up and ground fighting.

Doesn't all the gear get in the way? Of course it does. The face
guard blocks vision, the chest guard is bulky and makes it difficult to
do some moves.

You don't have protective gear on the street, so why wear it in the
School?

Huh?

Who said anything about the street? It's a sport. If you want to get
completely "realistic" in your training, why not just go at it with
baseball bats, or guns? A sport is a sport. It has advantages and
disadvantages when you try to apply it to anything other than the sport
itself.

So, if you haven't sparred the way I've just described, you might want
to give it a try. I recommend that you only use a chest and rib
protector that is so strong you can let your partner side kick you full
power in the chest and you get knocked down but not injured or even
bruised in the least.

Being able to hit that hard is fun. Knowing that nobody is going to
get hurt keeps it fun.

Until next time, train like you mean it.

Rob LaPointe

P.S. In a few hours I'm heading into Washington, D.C. to teach a Tai
Chi workshop at a hospital's annual staff retreat. It's 45 minutes
long and they're paying my $675.00. I've got two other seminars in the
pipeline. If you're not getting bookings and paychecks like that, I
strongly suggest you check out my site http://indyinstructor.com/