This morning we had a ladies breakfast with 60 women at a small church in Georgia, and boy was I excited to not have to get on an airplane. To have a local event at a church that was a few miles away from my home that was a real treat. This is a wonderful church of about 180 people, and there were 60 women who came to the breakfast. So many of the women had invited a friend from their neighborhood or the office and it was a really great morning.
They had already read both For Women Only (about a year or more ago) and For Men Only and had done discussion groups. The church had actually given out copies of both For Women Only and For Men Only to the congregation and it was really great that they are to able talk about the subject. So many women came up to the me to say they realized that they needed to do a reality check again and that they needed a reminder as well- due to how quickly they can forget things from the book. Some of the women shared that they had done really well at understanding what their husbands need and treating them in ways that were sexual that didn’t turn them down; and then gradually the old habits come circling back. I realized how hard it is to break old habits. I told them that I do this myself all the time, where I’ll be standing up in front of a group, my mouth is moving and my brain that’s saying, “Oh my gosh, Shaunti- you just did that last night” and I realized how critical it is for us to constantly keep a check on the state of our hearts and our minds to not flip back into our old ways.
Another thing that was incredibly encouraging to me was a woman named Kenny. She introduced herself at the book table and told me the most amazing story. She and her husband had been married for a number of years and had then divorced, and they had been tearing each other apart. They were divorced for a year-and-a-half and went to counseling and had friends walking them through it. Their eyes were open to things they needed to see, like being responsible for it and realizing it wasn’t just the other person’s problem. In realizing all of that they were actually willing to give it another go, and they got re-married and now they have a seven month old baby and she says they are doing fantastic. She had never read the book but she said the exact same thing by telling me just how much she realized that she had to own up to responsibility, to not tear her husband down.
Kenny also gave me an example where women need to see the little things. She was trying to help her husband lay out the clothes for their daughter in the morning to get her ready for school. Her husband said something like, “Oh, you don’t believe I can do it myself,” and she realized, “Oh no, it’s because I’m trying to be helpful,” but he was perceiving it as she doesn’t trust me to know what to do. Kenny said just understanding little things like that made all the difference in her marriage. What an encouraging story that was for me to hear. So for the others out there, keep sharing those stories because they encourage other women to not give up.