“But godliness with contentment is great gain” ~ 1 Timothy 6:6

My brown hair was in rebellion. Falling down in unkempt wisps, it violently resisted my feeble attempts to keep it up. Flour covered my apron and my face…well, actually everything! I stood in the kitchen, busily baking the weekly batch of fresh bread. The familiar voice of Doug Phillips floated out of our tape recorder. He was speaking on the subject of the “Blessed Marriage.” Suddenly, something he said caught my attention.

“…Marriage can be heaven on earth. Or, it can be a taste of the other place....”

My hand stopped midair over a mixing bowl, poised precariously with a half-full cup of flour. Heaven on earth? Could my marriage really be like that? A deep sigh escaped my lips. I let my thoughts drift away dreamily to spotless kitchens, warm firesides, and fresh floral decorations. I smiled, envisioning myself smoothly running a household, supporting a tender and devoted husband while caring for sweet, rosy babies. Joy, contentment, godly instruction, and a serene peace would reign in my home whenever I got married.


The Happy Ending by Jessie Wilcox Smith

Abruptly, something in our kitchen began to sound like a jet plane taking its flight. Looking down, I caught sight of my bread dough whirling around inside our Bosch Machine at breakneck speed. I flipped off the switch and stood helplessly still, petrified with the thought that I had broken my bread gluten. Further exploration proved my fears to be unfounded, and the dough went into the oven without further complications.

I turned around to face the clean up mess that lay before me. I saw the sticky counters and the sink full of dirty dishes soaking in murky water. A light dusting of white flour covered the floor. I listened to my mother soothe a crying baby upstairs, then thought about all the things I had to do and had not yet accomplished that day.

“Will my own home be so challenging to keep up with”? I wondered.

I knew there were responsibilities that go with every household. However, somehow in that distant, lovely future, difficulties did not appear, and the discharge of duties just seemed to occur naturally. I longed for the day when “the one” would ask for my hand, my father would give his blessing, and “life” would begin. Life would then be exciting and full of new experiences. I would meet life’s challenges with my very own husband! I would bask in the love that he would so lavishly bestow upon me, and we would impact the world together through serving Christ!

At that moment in my life so many years ago, I found myself in the tennis shoes of an old maid at sixteen, feeling very discontented. I knew that should not be. So, pausing in my reverie I wondered to myself, “Is this actually a realistic view of things?”

This kind of thinking is sometimes known as a “Bed of Roses” mentality.

Though we may not be entirely unrealistic in our visions of marital bliss, there is a tendency for us as young ladies to have a somewhat “lace-edged” fantasy about what the marriage state is like. We dream about what it would be like to tend our own households, support our own husbands, and care for our own darling babies. We are certain we want our lives to unfold in a particular way. We are sure that if things were that way, we would finally be happy. A lot of girls go into marriage unprepared to face the real emotional challenges that arise. The whole thought that your marriage is just naturally going to be great and a success is a warning sign from the beginning. Every marriage has problems and disagreements, just take it from Elisabeth Elliot. She had a good insight for her daughter Valerie Shepherd. She said, “Believe it or not, the man that you marry, no matter how perfect, is still a sinner. A sinner! There will be things about him that will first shock you and then probably annoy you.”

How will you react to your annoyance? The same way you react to your father or brothers?

Most girls don’t take the time to consider that life is not going to be “A bed of roses.”

There will be the dishes to wash, laundry to fold, dirty diapers to change, and a frazzled husband who will come home hoping to find a haven of rest, not a dirty kitchen, a messy living room, and screaming children. He will want his wife’s sympathy, not her exasperation over the fact that he forgot to pick up the things she needed from town. We say to ourselves, “Oh, that would never happen to me. I would keep everything clean and be so sympathetic.” But it is a totally different thing to live it out.

It is easy to think that a young man who is to be your husband will bring you the emotional fulfillment that you so earnestly desire. But that is wrong, because you are putting your hope in a mortal, human being--a sinner saved by grace, but a sinner none the less. God says we are to put our hope in Him. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance” (Psalm 42:5).

If you do not expect your emotional needs to be met by God and God alone, your life will be filled with discontentment and disappointments over and over again. “It is better to trust the Lord than to put confidence in man” (Psalm 118:8).

The real test is whether you are doing it now. That is what will tell you if you will do it once you are married. How do you respond to your brothers when they are being thoughtless or inconsiderate? Do you feel annoyed and hide your feelings only to blow up at them later? How do you respond to your father when he instructs you? Do you submit grudgingly? Is your attitude towards your family one of service? Are their wants and needs more important to you than your own?

I learned a very important lesson here. I could practice my skills for marriage on my family--and I am not only talking about the culinary arts. Relationship skills are needed to make a successful marriage. You can measure your future success as a wife and mother by your present success as a daughter and sister.

These are important questions to ask yourself. We have to think about these things now. I will borrow a phrase and say, “If you don’t know where you are going, any train will get you there.” We must know where we’re going, and we also have to put it into practice now. If you desire is to be a virtuous woman, don’t wait until you get married to be a virtuous woman. Be a virtuous woman now! You cannot expect to cook like Julia Child if you have never touched a stove. In the same way, we cannot think that we will be loving and patient in marriage if we are not accomplishing that with our own family now.

And don’t think that just because you mess up sometimes, yours is a hopeless cause. It is easy to become discouraged with ourselves when we don’t see perfect results. Don’t allow Satan to gain a foothold by causing you to become caught up with your shortcomings and failures. There is a kind of sinful self-absorption when we cannot let go of what we have done wrong to focus on what we must do right. What we should do is admit it when we have failed, repent of our sin, ask God’s forgiveness and learn to try to do better in His grace. Remember we can’t be godly by ourselves. God is the one who produces Christ-like behavior and actions. With His help you can be a virtuous woman!



Seanna Hollinger is a homeschool graduate who lives with her family and enjoys serving the body of Christ. Seanna hopes to pursue an interest in writing and sharing a vision of beautiful womanhood with other young women in her community.

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