My wife and I recently had our third daughter. We are adjusting and enjoying being a family of five. After our first child, I did a very poor job of checking in with and encouraging my wife spiritually. I assumed she was spending time with the Lord, but she was so busy getting adjusted to nursing and changing diapers, that she was getting spiritually dry,
In preparation for our second child, we started discussing ways that she could stir her affections for the Lord while being weary from night feedings and the busyness of a newborn (and a toddler...18 months old). She started listening to sermons during the night along with seeking short devotion times during the day and that really seemed to help her.
Now, with our current circumstances, my wife is enjoying listening to sermons on her iPod at night (along with short devotions during the day). She feeds the baby and is fed spiritually. She said she doesn't always get a ton out of the sermons, but enjoys having something teaching her instead of being tempted to grumble in her exhaustion. Recently, see has been enjoying both Joshua Harris and Mark Driscoll sermons. Both of these men preach with passion and humor, which allows my wife to not drift in her sleepiness.
She especially enjoyed Driscoll's Marriage and Women that was done a few weeks ago. I listened to it the other day while running and thought it would be a good "blog recommendation." Enjoy!
Here is another good use for iPods.
2 comments:
I listened to this sermon as well. I thought it was great how Mark had sent the kids to public school, hired a housekeeper and sent his wife out shopping for new clothes.
I did have a few reservations however. I know two couples that explicitly have separate bedrooms and they are both strict complementarians. The wives simply lost all affection for their husbands and when the children moved out the wives just moved into a separate bedroom. I am not saying that this can't happen to anyone, but Mark may not have seen that many comp marriages in the empty nest stage. I have.
I'd like to share that I am acquainted with a group of seminary professors among whom Gordon Fee is one. His wife is the only one that I have met to be prominently and publicly there for him and they have a very close and affectionalte relationship. So Driscoll's sermon is a really sad comment on his lack of respect for other people.
Its also too bad also that a woman has to let her husband decide how many children to have, and whether to send them to school and if she can work, or invest money or any other thing.
There would be a lot of good things in that sermon if women weren't so completely disempowered of medical decisions etc.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for recommending this sermon. I really enjoyed it! I had never listened to Mark Driscoll and this has caused me to check out some of his other stuff. He has some really great sermons on marriage, parenting as well as so many other topics.
Ashley Forsyth
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