3 Important Ways Crown Made an Impact on My Marriage

The tour announcement came up—a marriage book. Crown: 30 Wife-Changing Lessons.  My instant response was to sign up, but one problem prevented me.

I’d already reviewed it.

Yup! After attending the launch party for Nancy Kaser’s fabulous book, Crown, I wrote a review and pretty much bullied half my friends and family into buying a copy.  I even bought a bunch to have on hand to make it easy for them.

It’s that good.

Still, the tour announcement taunted me.  I wanted to participate. When you’re passionate about someone’s books, you get a bit obsessive. There have been lots of books that I’ve bought by the case over the years, so this wasn’t anything new.

Still, why annoy readers with a double review?  That just didn’t seem kind.

That’s when I got an idea.  I’d apply what I learned in the book over the next three months and make my “review” more of an update on what the Lord taught me through study of the book and the Scriptures associated with it.

That was before September 12th—before the day I got the call that changed our lives and took me away from home for over two months.

Before everything turned upside down, inside out, and left me a sick, worn-out rag on the floor of God’s laundry room.

Okay, that’s a disgusting metaphor, but you get the gist.

On the surface, those weeks and months of me being in Noel and then at Loma Linda are epic failures as a suitable helper for my husband.  I wasn’t much help to him at all, actually.  Instead, I was absent, uncommunicative, tired, distracted, and that’s just the beginning.

My poor husband worked hard all day, came home, had to try to get a shed set up for my son to move into, had to keep the household going, had to make decisions. Let’s just say it was probably his worst nightmare.

And I wasn’t there to be the buffer.

So I sat here to write down how the Lord used Nancy’s book to minister to me over the past few months, and I didn’t know what to write.

I couldn’t say, “Nothing,” and yet… wasn’t that exactly what happened?  Nothing?  How could I write down… nothing?

A prayer of desperation changed everything.  I began to think of things—things that I might not have ever noticed before that time away from family.  I thought I’d share them with you because I believe those things were prompted by the insights I collected from the book.

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3 Important Ways Crown Made an Impact on My Marriage

Servanthood:

After weeks of serving my mother, I realized something.  I don’t serve my husband the way he serves me—the way he should be served. My service is mostly behind the scenes things that no one but me knows about.  I’m comfortable with that.  But here’s the problem. If I keep my service to him hidden even from him, does he feel honored and respected?

Look, we’ve hardly been home.  I got home the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (at 6:00 at night) and a week later found out I was headed for Minneapolis for my mother-in-law’s funeral. Another week. Gone.  This time, with just my husband.  Both of us sick.  Both of us grieving.

Still, my goal even then was to remember to make him feel served.  Did I succeed?  I have no clue. But I’m aware of needing this to be a thing in a way I wasn’t before reading Crown.

Respect:

They say familiarity breeds contempt.  I say this is even true of marriage.  No, no.  I’ve never felt actual contempt for my husband.  Never.

However, the more familiar you become with someone’s flaws, the easier it is to fixate on those instead of the fine qualities you’ve always admired (or once admired). Seeing my husband step up and take over things I know he hates doing, handle stresses that aren’t his strong points, and all of it without a single word of reproach or hint of guilt for me not being there when I should be…

R-e-s-p-e-c-t.  Period.

I credit  Crown and the Scriptures it pointed me to with my current fixation in ensuring I show respect and look for things to respect.

Joy:

I don’t even remember if she addresses this in the book, but this has been a season of learning to choose joy.  Joy, like love, is often a choice rather than a feeling. I recall sitting in my mother’s house, in the wee hours of the morning, missing my family like nothing and remembering the verse I’d memorized in the little school one street over from where I sat.  Right then.  “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations…”  A modern translation says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds.” (Berean Study Bible).

Pure joy.

Today, when some odd little thing threatens to annoy, I recall that I’m home.  With my husband.  He has the entire month of December off as he always does.  I get to spend it with him.  Yes, we’re sick.  We most definitely have a total disaster of a house.  Our family is in upheaval, and we’re dealing with multiple kinds of grief.

But I’m home.  I have my family.  Not only that, but I can bless my husband by choosing joy—being joyful.

Did I learn other things from Crown?

Oh, yeah.  But right now, these three are what stuck with me, even when I didn’t have the mental fortitude to think about the book, my marriage, or anything of significance.  These are where the Lord worked in my heart.

That seed was planted by Nancy Kaser and watered by time and Scripture.  The Lord alone will bring any fruit He desires.  I’m just grateful for the lessons I’ve learned in the process.

Crown 

About the Book

Book:  Crown

Author: Nancy Kaser

Genre: Christian Non-Fiction, Biblical Marriage

Release Date: August 20, 2019

Whether you’re in the honeymoon stage or celebrating your fiftieth anniversary, you have never before been in this season of your marriage. Your family dynamics, finances, health, emotional state, location, ministry, employment status—all the factors of your life—are in a perpetual state of transition. As a married woman, you are continually wife-changing.

The Scriptures never change, but they can always be freshly applied to every season of marriage.

Crown is a resource that combines solid Bible teaching, humorous and humbling tales from the author’s own marriage journey, and dozens of compelling stories from real women just like you. Based on Proverbs 12:4, “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband,” Crown includes concrete Scriptural truths and real-life examples that will equip you to be the excellent wife God created you to be.

Complex issues such as biblical roles within marriage, physical intimacy, communication, forgiveness, and home management are all addressed with candid honesty, encouragement, and biblical substance. In thirty wife-changing lessons, you will be instructed, challenged, and motivated to walk in obedience to God’s beautiful design for marriage.