Today is National Wife Appreciation Day and has been celebrated worldwide since 2006. Now, before you groan, this is NOT a Hallmark celebration – in fact, I couldn’t find any cards offered by them. However, if you want to get a card, you can go to www.123greetings.com and send an ecard. It’s probably too late to get an actual card for this year (unless a local store happens to carry one) but next year, you could order one from Etsy, Zazzle, Amazon, or Greeting Card Universe.
Also, to fend off any groaning, there is a National Husband Appreciation Day. It’s the third Saturday of April. Go ahead and mark your calendars for 2025!
Now, perhaps you find these extra days to be frivolous. Perhaps. But isn’t it worth having these reminders to get us out of routine and to plan something to celebrate? It’s too easy to get into a rut, going through the same motions day in and day out. We begin to take our spouse for granted and they can become just another part of our routine. We need these nudges to remind us of some truths.
Proverbs 5:18-19 says, “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. (19) Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.” What does it mean to be “ravished?”
Keil and Delitzsch says, “He speaks here of a morally permissible love-ecstasy, or rather… of an intensity of love connected with the feeling of superabundant happiness… to be wholly captivated by her, so that one is no longer in his own power, can no longer restrain himself – the usual word for the intoxication of love and of wine.” To borrow the lyrics of an old song, if you’ve lost that loving feeling, if you’ve lost the concept of being ravished, you need all the help you can get, and a wife appreciation day is a needed reminder.
What do you appreciate most about your spouse? If they were suddenly taken in death, what do you think you would miss most? Their smile and laughter? The way they can get you laughing when you’re having a grumpy day? Their organizational skills that keep the house running and supplied with not only the necessities but also the little special extras? Their planning of vacations and special events? Their listening ear and counsel when you need to vent or verbally think through a situation? Their patience and understanding when you get called out at all hours and special events interrupted? How about their constant love, attention, and affection? Do we honestly deserve it? And, what about the way that they can say what you need to hear versus what you want to hear?
These are just a few of the things I appreciate about my wife. I often thank her for these things – but not nearly as often as I should. It’s easy to get blurry vision as we travel rapidly through a day and not see clearly just how many things they do and to convey sincere words of love and appreciation.
So, today, let’s man up and let our wives know they are appreciated and loved. Solomon wisely wrote in Ecclesiastes 9:9, “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.”
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