Happy Birthday, Jesus!

In all the hustle bustle of gift buying, gift receiving, family, friends, and youself, everyone - including me at times - forgets who is the real reason for the season: Jesus! How blessed we are that He came to this Earth as a babe and saved mankind from our sins. He is a cause to celebrate for!
I hope all of you are having a wonderful Christmas, and you're staying safe if you're traveling anywhere.
This year, so far all I've gotten for Christmas is jewelry and clothes. But hey, I'm not complaining! In fact, I'm thrilled! I don't ask for anything, because I don't need anything. I'm blessed and thankful for what I have. And as a girl, clothes and jewelry are what I want! :)
I gave my step-mom a piano CD (Jim Brickman is amazing!), my sister this cute stuffed cat (Persian cats are beautiful!), my step-brother a book (The Fire Within is a good book for his level!), my brother a book (The Chase by Clive Cusler looked interesting!), my dad a card saying him and I need to go to starbucks and spend some time together (and I'd be paying for the coffee and treats!), my half-sister a soft, stuffed dog (she now sleeps with her new puppy!), my mom a top-50 Christian Tunes CD, and my grandma some money to go buy books with! Later today I'm going over to my mom's to celebrate Christmas with her - so far I've been at my dad's all week and we Celebrated Christmas over here on Wednesday night). :)
Anyways, I'm excited because I just finished this really good book! I know I'm only a teenage girl, but I've learned a lot from the book Love And Respect by Emerson Edderich. Here are the notes I took throughout the book:

• Unconditional love for her is just as powerful as unconditional respect is for him.
• Love alone isn't enough. Love is vital, especially for her, but you also need the man's need for respect.
• You can be right but wrong at the top of your voice and with your tone of voice.
• Ephesians 5:33 - "Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

         The greek word Paul uses here for love is "agape". This verse means:
       1. A husband is to obey the command to love even if his wife doesn't obey this command to respect, and a wife is to obey the command to respect even if the husband doesn't obey the command to love.
       2. A husband is even called to love a disrespectful wife, and a wife is called to respect an unloving husband. There is no justification for a husband to say, "I will love my wife after she respects me" not for a wife to say," I will respect my husband after he loves me."

• Without love, she reacts without respect. Without respect, he reacts without love.
• Craziness happens when we keep doing the same things over and over again with the same ill effect.
• Those of us in the church, who believe we have the Truth, are not using the whole Truth.
• Communication - one of 1st steps is to hear what God's Word clearly says.
• Just because you feel unloved or disrespected doesn't mean that that's the message being sent.
• The Lord has created a woman to love. Her whole approach to nurture, her sensitivity, love, and compassion are all part of her very nature. God created a woman to love - He's not going to command her to agape her husband when he created her to do that in the first place.
• A young wife is created to agape her husband and children, and will never stop unconditionally loving them. But with everything in daily life, she may become so discouraged that she may lack phileo.
• PMS - Pre-Murder Syndrome
• If a husband is commanded to agape-love his wife, then she truly needs love.
• When men hear negative criticism, it doesn't take long for them to start interpreting it as contempt for who they are as men.
• "Unconditional respect" is not an oxymoron. It should be given even if not "deserved."
• Women are much more apt to show how they feel.
• How to love a man = respect.
• Respect does something to the soul of a man. God made him that way.
• Of course women also need respect and men also need love, but the primary drive in sex is for women-love and men-respect.
• Men want to fight and die for honor. They are willing to serve.
• Men are to value women as equals.
• Men are the princes and women the princesses. This means 1. He has a need to be respected as the head, the one called upon to die (Ephesians 5:33). 2. The prince goes into battle for the princess, not vice versa. 3. The princess doesn't seek to be respected as the "head". Instead, she longs to be honored, valued, and prized as a precious equal. 4. The prince is to be considered "first among equals." He is her equal, but he is called upon to be the first to provide, to protect - and to even die if necessary.
• It's not an accident that in every culture, and generally as a rule, that men are bigger and stronger than women. This is God's visual aid concerning His purpose for men.
• Something within her thirsts to be valued as "first in importance". Nothing energizes her more! She's not self-centered. God placed this in her by nature.
• As women fear being unloved, men fear being disrespected (held in contempt).
• Men and women have different needs, but they are equal to each other.
• We easily see what is done to us before we see what we're doing to others.
• The mature one has to make the first move in repairing a relationship.
• She will not be a doormat, but a woman with power.
• A woman has a natural instinct to "mother", but she shouldn't "mother" him.
• Don't bring negativity into your relationship.
• Speak the other's love language so that they respond with and speak yours.
• If you step out in faith, claiming God's Word as the basis for your actions, then you are trusting God to bring to pass what He said He would do.
• We are only called to be obedient, and God will handle it from there.
• Sometimes, because men want respect, they try to motivate her to be respectful by being unloving (sort of like trying to urge her to be more watchful by poking her in the eye with a stick). And the same is true vice versa.
• "Be angry, and yet do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger." (Ephesians 4:26).
• Take the hit.
• Love regardless of respect. Respect regardless of love.
• Forgive without limit (Matthew 18:22).
• Forgiveness comes when we see our own unrighteousness. How can we refuse to forgive an offense when we, too, have offended?
• Hear each other's cries and respond.
• If you miss - rebound.
• His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.
• For husbands to follow:

C - Closeness
O - Openness
U - Understanding
P - Peacemaking
L - Loyalty
E - Esteem

• For wives to follow:

C - Conquest
H - Hierarchy
A - Authority
I - Insight
R - Relationship
S - Sexuality

• She wants him to be close. For her, face-to-face time is heart-to-heart time.
• Connectivity is what a woman looks for in any relationship.
• You can't motivate another to give you what you need by withholding their needs.
• You can either motivate or demoralize each other.
• The woman is an integrated personality. Her mind, body, and soul are connected, and her entire system reacts to her emotions and feelings.
• When her spirit is crushed, her body is unavailable.
• Women are more expressive; men are more poker-faced.
• The man is the Christ figure, the woman is the Church figure. And as a church places its burden on Christ, a woman wants to place her burdens on her man. Even if she can't articulate it in these words, she thinks of the man as the burden bearer - as having those big shoulders. When she goes to him for understanding, it's a compliment.
• Ephesians 5:25 - Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.
• Men should listen without trying to fix.
• Many times when a woman goes to her man with a problem, she's not wanting it solved, but she's just wanting to share.
• A woman talks to process her feelings.
• "Since she is a woman" (1 Peter 3:7), God made the woman with different needs and vulnerabilities from the man's, so he shouldn't pass judgment on her.
• Man and woman = TEAM!
• As you go head-to-head to solve problems, you'll go heart-to-heart.
• 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 : The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does, and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
• The man and woman shouldn't act independent from each other. THEY SHOULD AND CAN ACT TOGETHER.
• Tensions and conflicts exist to deepen relationships.
• You will not lose respect by saying you're sorry.
• A man's loving attitude triggers something within her heart as a woman. God made her this way.
• Women are wired for "equality"
• Words are very powerful to her.
• Lots of time, she doesn't need information, but reassurance.
• Song of Solomon 2:10 KJV - A woman always likes to hear her man exclaim, "You alone are 'my love'".
• She MUST have reassurance.
• She knows she's a one-man woman but when there's beautiful females everywhere else, she wonders about him at times. She needs reassurance there.
• She needs to show him respect regardless of his response to her.
• When she honors him, he will serve her.
• Men were made to work - Adam was even given the first job! In Genesis 2:15 it says, "Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it."
• From the very beginning, man was called upon to "work in the field" and provide for his family.
• The good-willed woman marries for love, not money, but nonetheless she is very aware of the need to make a "nest."
• Most men reflect Adam and most women feel like Eve. She alone can have a baby, and if she has one she wants her Adam to work in the field on her behalf so she can stay home and be with their child.
• Despite feminism's cries, a wife best qualifies as the one who "tenderly cares for her own children." (1 Thessalonians 2:7).
• Women can be called to positions of important leadership (see Judges 4:4) but she has incomparable worth as a mothr. A father with an infant still doesn't compare to a mother with an infant.
• He wants a woman who believes in him. There's a parallel here between Christ and the Church. Christ wants us to believe in Him, and we do that to the glory of God. But in the human sense, in a relationship, men do what they do for the admiration of one woman.
• Ephesians 5:22-24 = "Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is also the head of the Church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. Bus as the Church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything."
• The man is called to understand his duty to protect his woman. At the same time, the woman is called upon to place herself under that protection.
• The problem many women have today is that they want to be treated like princesses, but they don't treat their men like kings.
• Men are more vulnerable to criticism when it comes to "headship" issues.
• Having friendship in your love is important.
• Song of Solomon, where the main theme is passionate, ache-all-over-love, says in Chapter 5 to the couple, "Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers" (v. 1). Then later, in the same chapter, as the wife recounts how fine and dazzling her husband is ("outstanding among ten thousand" v. 10), she completes her litant of praise by saying, "This is my beloved and this is my friend" (v. 16; italics mine).
• Just as men make the effort to be face to face, women must make the effort to be shoulder to shoulder.
• She has emotional needs - he has physical needs.
• His unconditional love mirrors Christ's love for the church and her unconditional respect is like the church's reverence for Christ.
• Don't interpret delay as defeat.
• When blue & pink come together as God intended them to, it makes His purple. Purple is the color of royalty.
• Do everything in and for Christ.

Alright everyone, that's it! I hope you enjoyed those notes and learned some good things! This goes for married OR single OR dating men and women. However, the sexual intimacy parts is intended for the married couple. However, the whole theme of love and respect goes for both.
I need to go now. My siblings and I are playing our new Wii. Have a Merry Christmas!

In Respect,
Elle Camino