Tenderness

Series: Feminine Appeal: An Interview With Carolyn Mahaney

Leslie Basham: A mom's work is never done, but sometimes we need to put aside the latest task and just listen and give a hug or a word of encouragement. Here's Carolyn Mahaney.

Carolyn Mahaney: I get so busy serving my husband, my family, taking care of responsibilities in the home, that often times I neglect that tenderness, and that's something I really have to work at.

Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Wednesday, May 5. Here's Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I'm delighted this week that we are able to talk with my friend Carolyn Mahaney, who's written a wonderful book called, Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother and we're going to focus today on some of the insights the Lord has shown Carolyn from His Word about godly marriage. Carolyn, thanks so much for being back with us on Revive Our Hearts.

Carolyn Mahaney: Thank you, Nancy, it's great to be here.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: And I'm so glad you have with you today your three daughters. Why don't you introduce them to us and tell us just a little bit about each one because they're all newly, fairly newly, married and tell us who your daughters are.

Carolyn Mahaney: Happy to. My oldest daughter is with me. Her name is Nicole. She is married to Steve Whitacre and they have one son. And he is four and a half months old.

And my second daughter, Kristin, is married to Brian Chesemore; and they have two boys with a third son on the way.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Congratulations. I didn't know that. That's great.

Carolyn Mahaney: And Janelle, my youngest daughter, just recently got married around five weeks ago. And she is married to Mike Bradshaw. And it is a treat for me to have them here with me today.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Carolyn, did you start--you and your husband, C.J.--did you start praying for your daughters in relation to marriage when they were little girls?

Carolyn Mahaney: We certainly did and God has answered our prayers above and beyond. We just--in my view I have the best sons-in-laws in the world. So, God has been very gracious to us.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: And now you have the best grandchildren in the world, right?

Carolyn Mahaney: That's the truth.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Well, it is so exciting to see how the legacy of faith is being handed down from one generation to the next, as your mother taught you so much of the ways of God, and then you have taught your daughters the ways of God.

Your daughters are now in their twenties. And how are you, girls, if you don't mind me calling you that, now with your husbands and the families God has given you, reproducing in the next generation the Word of God, the ways of God, and, you know, God's great redemptive plan.

He intended that we should pass it on from one generation to the next, and I love to see families who are doing that. That's God's plan for the family, not just that people should be happily married, although He wants that. But there's a purpose for all of that, and it really has to do with God's greater plan, doesn't it?

Carolyn Mahaney: It does, and I believe that greater plan is the Gospel. So, if we are working out our family lives according to His Word, I believe God uses that to put His Gospel on display.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Now, your book is centered around the passage in Titus, chapter 2, which talks about older women teaching younger women what is good, and then Paul gives us seven qualities, seven feminine virtues, you call them, that we are to seek as women to cultivate in our lives. And several of those center around the home.

Now, we want to be quick to say that many of these qualities that single women can apply as well, and that it's important for single women to be learning these qualities, even the first one we want to talk about today, which is loving your husband.

Why is it important, and you younger married girls jump in here, why is it important for even single women to learn a principle like how to love your husband?

Nicole: Well, I believe femininity is something we're to cultivate as women, whether we are single or married. Being married does not make us more feminine. Our Mom taught us, during our single years, at home before we were married, that these virtues were vital to cultivate. Then we, also as single women, can adorn the Gospel and make it attractive.

I just remember my Mom helping us to see that if we didn't cultivate a love for the home, in those years, we couldn't expect to have a love for the home when we got married. But it's not only for preparation purposes that we are to cultivate these virtues, I believe they're given by God to all women married and single.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: When you, girls, were single girls your Mom was really working on helping you prepare for marriage. What were some the things that your Mom did to help you, as you look back now as young married women, how did your Mom help prepare you to face marriage? Kristin?

Kristin Chesemore: Well, she did many things growing up. She, first and foremost, taught us by her example. That was one of the greatest gifts she's given me. Secondly, she taught us practically. She, and many of them were fun memories along the way, but she taught us by taking us to different classes that would teach us skills so that we could serve our husbands effectively in the home.

We would do cooking projects together around the house. She would teach us to clean or do laundry. She modeled that for us, and then she practically taught it to us over the course of our lives. And all of that I've taken into my marriage. And it has served me so much.

Janelle Bradshaw: And she was always very clear, when she was teaching us these principles and these virtues, that God may not have called all of us to be married, and that applying these things and learning these things were not dependent upon marriage, that they were scriptural commands. And they were part of being a feminine biblical woman. And that there are so many ways to express that femininity when you are single.

I just found for me, I was only married six weeks ago, so in my single years I was really able to just express my femininity through helping care for my younger brother, through helping my Mom care for our home when she was writing, through caring for cousins, my nephews, interacting with different women in the church who already were married.

So, it was never dependent upon marriage. You don't learn these things because you're getting married. It's because of God's Word and the Gospel.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Now, the first principle given to us, the first virtue in Titus chapter 2, that older women are to teach younger women, is how to love their husbands. So, that implies that loving husbands doesn't come naturally.

Carolyn Mahaney: It doesn't come naturally. If it did, we wouldn't need to be taught it. So, I think if we just automatically do what comes naturally it is, oftentimes, it's the wrong thing. So, it is something that we need the example and instruction of other women, and we need their help. But this particular love that in this passage of scripture, this particular love is the phileo love.

It speaks of a tender, passionate love. It's a love where you really enjoy your husband. It's a friendship love and...

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Now, the words that some of us are familiar with, in the Greek language, for love is the word agape.

Carolyn Mahaney: True.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: But that's not the word used here.

Carolyn Mahaney: No.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: What's the difference?

Carolyn Mahaney: And I find that interesting, that that word was chosen here, in this passage, in fact women are never told in Scripture to agape their husbands, to love them sacrificially, and obviously we know we are because the second greatest command is to love your neighbor as yourself.

And our husband is obviously our closest neighbor, so obviously we are to love our husbands sacrificially. And the word love there is agape but I think the reason phileo was chosen, in this particular passage, is all too often I think as women we're very oriented to responsibility.

We get so, so consumed with all of our responsibilities that very often we neglect this tender love. And I know, I find for myself, I get so busy serving my husband, my family, taking responsibilities in the home, that often times I neglect that tenderness. And that's something I really have to work at.

So I believe the reason this particular word was chosen is because it attests to me possibly our weakness as women, and that we really have to be reminded that this tender passionate love is something that we really have to work at and cultivate and keep fresh in our marriage.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: The fact that Paul says that older women should teach younger women how to love their husbands suggests that it can be learned. Do you think any woman can learn to love her husband?

Carolyn Mahaney: Most definitely we can all learn to love our husbands. If that command is given in Scripture then obviously it's something that we can attain to.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Now, you have three daughters here who you've taught this to. They love their husbands, they enjoy their husbands; but I'm hearing some woman saying, "You don't know my husband. He is impossible to live with. He's lazy. He doesn't take responsibility or he doesn't know the Lord, doesn't have a heart for God. And I thought I loved him when we got married, but it's been seventeen years now of real heartache and pain. And you're telling me I'm supposed to love and enjoy this man with tender affection? How do I do that?"

Carolyn Mahaney: That's an excellent question. The sobering thing is in this verse there is no contingency and we're not told to love if he is qualified, if he is deserving of that love, and in some situations we may look at a marriage and say, "That person is not deserving of that tender love."

Yet, the reason we can love is because we have first been loved, because God loved us that we in turn can love our husbands. And if we think about what Jesus did for us on the cross, when we think about God who so loved the world that He gave His only son to die, and He purchased our salvation, we can look at our situation, however difficult it may be and say, "You know, if God purchased us and gave us salvation, He can do the same in my marriage. He can take this situation and He can cause good to come out of this."

And I have watched many women over the years who have faithfully loved their husbands, even when they weren't lovable, and God has used that tender love to actually win their husbands to the Lord and it has been a very encouraging situation.

Leslie Basham: That's Nancy Leigh DeMoss talking with Carolyn Mahaney about how we can tenderly love our husbands, even when it might be difficult.

If you would like to read more about Carolyn's suggestions for how we can be a better wife and mother you can order her book Feminine Appeal. We have it available for a suggested donation of $12.

You can order Carolyn Mahaney's book Feminine Appeal at 1-800-569-5959.

You can also order Carolyn's book on our Web site, it's ReviveOurHearts.com.

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It's your support that keeps us on the air where we can encourage other women. Just like an older woman or a mentor can teach younger women, we hope this program is teaching younger women too.

Well, today Nancy and Carolyn have been talking about how to tenderly love our husbands. Here they are to continue that discussion.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: On the next program I want us to talk a little bit more about some specific ways that women can express that kind of tender love to their husbands. But, I wonder, Carolyn, if you would just take a moment, and I'd like to join our hearts together and would you just lead us as we pray?

Carolyn Mahaney: Sure, I'd be happy to. Father, in Jesus' name, we just Thank You for Your amazing love for us, and we recognize apart from Your love we are unable to love.

And, Lord, I do pray for that woman or those women in particular who may be listening to this program right now, who may be in a situation, in a marriage, where it is a very painful situation where her husband is, in some way, not treating her in a loving manner and she's finding it very difficult to love him.

Lord, I just ask that You would pour out Your grace upon her life right now. And that she would be so aware of Your love for her that she, in turn, would be able to love her husband and love him in the way You have called her to love in a tender and a passionate way.

And, Lord, that You would use this love to win this man, to woo him. I ask that You would do that, and that You would just pour out grace upon her life. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Amen

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministry.

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