The Nerd in Me.

There are several things in life that I have a total weakness for.

Books, is one of them.

I went to the library on Saturday to pick up a book which I liked the look of online.

I came back with this 'small' pile.

What can I say....

I'm a hopeless book addict.

Nerd.

Love,

L

{On My Heart} Mondays. [Part 5: Appreciate your Husband's Counsel]

Well this may be one of the harder posts within the 'On my heart' series that I have felt the desire to write. I find that with a lot of this series really.

This post is particularly hard as it involves revealing major sin in my own life, ways in which I still need to grow.

Hopefully the message is worth hearing though, so stick with me for now.

During our 18-months as husband & wife, A & I have managed to develop a wonderful habit of reading good books together. We started reading 'The First 90 days of Marriage' by Eric and Leslie Ludy, venturing on to a variety of material which has been amazing and so thought-provoking.

This habit has us currently reading through 'Love and Respect' By Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.

I can't sing this book's praises enough!

We have been reading through it for a while due to its length and intense (at times) content.

(Totally not trying to put you off it though...really!)

The last chapter we read was about an area that wives really should work on with regard to listening to the counsel of our husbands.

So many things within the chapter hit home for me.

While these are based around the marriage relationship, there are many things in here which can be applied to any relationship in our lives.

Allow me to share a few with you.

(I am by no means an expert at anything marriage related, 

so I share as one at the beginning of this season in life....)

• When you focus on negative attributes in your husband, you ignore a lot of ability and insight which he does possess.

How easy is it to focus on the sin in someone's life, all the while trying to cover up and excuse our own. We feel that those around us are the ones who need correcting and ask God to reveal sin in other's lives to them. We pray for Him to help them see their errors, all the while making excuses (even to the Lord!) about our own sin. I, at times, am ashamed to admit that I do the same to my husband.

• Many wives, myself included, feel at times that our husbands have little to teach us or little wisdom to contribute to a problem.  

This is confirmed in the book, Love and Respect, by the author when he recalls many couples he has counselled. When truly honest with ourselves, I am sure a lot of wives would agree with this statement. For me this is probably linked to focus on negative attributes.

• Do not fall into the trap of feeling that because your husband appears unloving or uncaring, his ideas are not worth listening to.

How easy a trap this is to fall into in any relationship. When we believe the best about others, we trust that each person close to us has goodwill towards us. In the vast majority of my own experiences I have seen that A never tries to be unloving or uncaring. In fact, in most of these scenarios, he doesn't even realise he is coming across that way at all!
We need to understand that our husbands have wise insight. They are not seeking to be unloving in gently correcting us! 

• Do not hinder your husband or your relationship by having a false idea that you are more spiritually mature or wise than your husband.

By doing this, we are able to instill a fear in our husband that he won't be able to say the 'right' thing in a conversation. Even if we don't mean to give this impression, it can be done. If we do have this attitude (even without meaning to) we can cause him to shut down in a conversation and say nothing. Of course, usually we then allow this behavior to hurt us further, thinking that it confirms we are more mature.

• Women may be naturally intuitive, but do not fail to appreciate insight from your husband, given to you by God. We need our husbands to see some things clearly despite our own intuition.

My husband sees things in such a different way than I do. This is a good thing. It is God's way of allowing me to see things from a different perspective sometimes. This is so wonderful when I have a problem which feels so huge and overpowering to me, A gives me perspective to see this problem is really not as big as I think it is. I am just letting it be that big.
(One example of this at work in my life)

• Do not judge your husband with contempt. It is dishonoring to the Lord.

In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. 

(1 Peter 3:1-2)

Sometimes I find myself believeing this verse says we must accept their authority, when they deserve it. But re-read it again. Nope, no conditions for this are mentioned. 

• Do you have an attitude of self-righteouness? Do you see his faults & mistakes easily? Do you want him to change & think of yourself as better, without the need of change?
  

'What I see happening in some marriages is that the wife believes - or appears to believe - that she does not sin. In many other marriages the only sin that a wife will readily admit to is her negative reaction to her husband's failure to be loving or for losing patience with the children. Beyond these areas, women do not see themselves as sinning, even though they readily admit to bad habits and wrong attitudes. They write these off to chemical imbalance, hormonal problems, or dysfunction due to family of origin.'

~ Love & Respect, Dr. Emerson Eggerichs

Let us not fall into this trap, friends.

I will admit I struggle with a lot of these things. 

Sure, my husband may have many things to work on, as do I.

He may not have to work on the same things as I do. But you can be sure there are things which he excels in that I really need help with.

Let's not allow self-righteousness to destroy any relationships in our lives.

We are all sinners, saved by God's grace alone.

Let us give our husband's the respect & authority which is rightly theirs,
not wait until we feel they have earned it.

Much Love,
L

'Two Hearts In Love' Thursdays. [Sisters]

It's here!!!!!!

The brand new series is all about wedding planning.

I have so many inspiring pictures and projects related to weddings, 

I couldn't resist sharing them with you all.

For my first share on weddings, 

I would love to share this picture.

Because although I have planned my own wedding, my sister is now the sweet one planning hers.

This photo is just precious.

What a cute picture of two sisters at one of their weddings.

{Via}

One of the sweetest pictures I have ever seen.

The subject of sisters in weddings automatically makes me think of the Maid of Honor.

For my own wedding, I did have my sister as my Maid of Honor.

But that doesn't have to be the case.

I felt my sister was dear to me & had known me the longest.

I wanted her to be recognized on my wedding day.

There are so many topics within wedding planning around Maid of Honors.

{Image property of E.Girdlestone}

What I did, in order for my sister to stand out, was to have her in the same dress as all the other bridesmaids but her dress was in a different color.

Or rather different shade of pink.

Your Maid of Honor should be a girl dear to you, who understands you.

My Maid of Honor & our Best man were such a huge blessing to me leading up to our wedding.

My groom was still finishing up school, so he didn't get into town until 24hrs before we got married.

Since I didn't live in the place we were getting married either, 

I flew in about 10 days before we got married myself.

(Perhaps more on our story at a later point)

So you can imagine what a relief it was to have two awesome people helping me out.

The choice can be difficult when choosing a Maid of Honor though.

It can be a delicate issue at times in order to avoid hurting feelings or making your friends feel uncomfortable.

Choosing the ladies to stand up there with me was possibly one of the hardest decisions I had to make during the whole process.

How did you guys choose? Or how do you plan/think you should choose?

Much Love,

L

{On My Heart} Mondays. [Part 4: Loving Each other]

Loving each other is just so hard, isn't it?

So often we find ourselves being hurt by people who we know love us, or hurting other people without meaning to. 

We love so imperfectly, even the people who are most dear to us.

It can be so easy though to focus on ourselves in these situations, 

which in my experience can be such a huge part of the problem. 

Being married has certainly opened my eyes to a whole new side of myself which I never saw much. I never had someone living so closely with me, able to see the whole of me or the way I lived.

The little annoying habits which no-one noticed before, like leaving dirty clothes by the side of the bed when getting into it, or letting the dishes stack up until they absolutely must be done or waiting until I have no clean clothes before doing any laundry (you get the idea). 

There were so many little habits and patterns I had developed either at home or college which never affected anyone else before. 

My room was always my space.

No-one else was taken into consideration when I thought about what I did in my room.

I didn't purposefully choose to think this way, I just did it naturally.

So what happens when my room becomes our room.

I began to see how I had allowed selfishness to creep into my life in small places, 

and even justified it.

In times when I feel most frustrated at A, I usually find that its because I am distant in my relationship with God.

When I am close to God, it is so much easier to make allowances for others.

It is also easier to think less of myself and more of others when my relationship with Him is good.

Suddenly not being invited by a group of friends to go somewhere doesn't feel like such a big deal.

Because in the majority of these situations, people were not trying to be mean.

Our sinful nature is just naturally...selfish.

We don't naturally think about including others.

We don't think about how we may have hurt someone.

Ourselves is what our default mode says is important to us.

I realised recently that if I keep this in my mind when dealing with hurt from people, I find it so much easier to forgive & forget without even having to talk about it.

There is no need to deal with a conflict because I can easily overlook the offense.

This frees myself up to spend time thinking about more important things, not doing the typical girl thing and dwelling on it for hours, analysing every word of a conversation. 

(You know what I'm talking about right?)

I have been slowly learning this over the past 18 months we have been married 

(yep....18 months today!!!).

I have come across several bible verses which have been so helpful & super challenging!! 

 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.  

 Be devoted to one another in love. 

Honor one another above yourselves. 

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. 

Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 

Live in harmony with one another. 

Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.

Do not be conceited.

 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. 

Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

{Romans 12: 9-17} 

I was reading this and feeling so convicted about honoring others above myself.

Do I really consider others to be above myself?

As well as learning to rejoice with those who are rejoicing?

Well that one is tough, Lord! 

What if someone has what we are waiting on Him for?

A relationship, recently engaged, married, expecting a precious little one.

From my own experiences, I have found that if I show I am happy for someone (even if I don't feel it right away)....my fickle heart will usually follow.

  

Then I find I am geniunely happy for them.

So friends, let us continue to aim to live by the words of Paul in Philippians when he writes:

Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, 

loving one another, 

and working together with one mind and purpose.

 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. 

Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

Don’t look out only for your own interests, 

but take an interest in others, too. 

{Philippians 2:2-4}

Here's to living life learning how to love one another genuinely! 

Much Love,

L

 

{All Glorious Within}

Hi wonderful friends! 

So I suppose you are all wondering by now what is going on over here while I have been working for the past 24hrs on changing things and making a mess of links, etc.

I decided that my blog needed a different name as Like Rain was becoming confusing with it's different spellings and use of the period in the name. 

So after I was asked this week what my favorite bible verses, one that I shared was:

'The King's daughter is all glorious within....'

Psalm 45:13

After I wrote this verse among several others, I suddenly thought how wonderful a name like 'All Glorious Within' would be for a blog. 

Then I realised how it fit with what I was currently aiming to do on this blog.

  You may have already seen my explanation in the updated 'About Me' section. 

But if you havn't I shared how I love photography & have a heart for homemaking.

So my desire for this blog is to continue sharing projects for the home which I discover online (or my own), while seeking to encourage others to model after the Proverbs 31 woman.

(Photo Credit: Hannah Cousino, Edited by All Glorious Within)

She is such a wonderful goal for us, christian women. Seemingly impossible at times, but not unobtainable through God's strength (Phil 4:13). 

She truly looks after all the workings of her home, and it is seen as a blessing & God-given role. 

Don't get me wrong, I feel God calls women to roles outside of the home also (e.g. nurse, lawyer, etc). But that the role inside the home is not to be forgotten.

So why the name change?

Well, I felt that Like Rain Inspirations didn't really emphasize the message I was trying to get across.

My aspiration is to be a godly daughter to my King. To seek Him in all that I do.

So for both myself & also my home (based on Proverbs 31) these things should be all glorious within (Psalm 45:13).

I hope this change is clear. I apologize for any obvious incoveniences it causes to button links, news feeds (still working the bugs out on those), etc.

I hope to have them resolved as soon as I can.

With this name change has come the addition of the sponsor page at the top, where I would love to hear from you about doing a button exchange on my blog. 

As well as the addition of the Etsy page. 

(I will feature this in an additional post)

I hope to encourage you whether newly married, married for a while, courting/dating or single and waiting to seek to be all glorious within. As well as to encourage you to seek to create an atmosphere of feminine beauty either in your home, room, dorm room or wherever you live. 

I may not have all the answers, especially in the marriage department, but I am willing to be used and to share what I have learned thus far.

Love to you all this winter evening ladies.
(I will start up my regular posting on Monday)

L

radical.

Hi beautiful people.

So I am contemplating a radical change this weekend.

Something completely insane at times in the blog world. 

 *drum roll*

I may go for a name change to this blog.

It will not change in content. 

Just change its name to something simpler for people to remember. 

Watch this space for the decision.

Much Love,

L

P.S. My decision may be based on whether or not I can change this without creating a whole new blog.

P.P.S. New sponsors coming soon....be sure to check out the new buttons.

P.P.P.S. Personal update on Christmas & travels coming soon.

Absent.

Hey Everyone!
I apologize for my lack of posting over here at LikeRain.....I have been taking a much needed break from the blogging world to rest & reevaluate the direction of the blog.
Originally I had planned to not post while the hubby & I were away visiting family. Since returning, work was crazy so I have been MIA this week also. I may have things up and running again from monday. I am contemplating adding a new weekly series.....on wedding planning. Inspired by my sister & her fiance and all the cute things I have found online while searching for them. Or maybe a craft project to include the kids for?
What do you guys think? Or perhaps my blog should take a complete new direction.
Leave me some love and let me know your thoughts.
Much Love,
L

Happy New Year!

Source: shooflyvintage.tumblr.com via Kate on Pinterest

Happy New Year!!!! 

We are away travelling for the next 10 days.....airport here we come.

On to warmer weather. 

So I won't be posting much.

Enjoy the beginning of the new year!

What resolutions are you making?

Much Love,

L