Beautiful Womanhood with Sandy Ralya

I attended a Beautiful Womanhood conference this past Saturday at a local church. The founder and director of Beautiful Womanhood, Sandy Ralya, was our speaker and a woman who long ago attended "my" church.

I was surprised by some of her testimony because I was aware of her at church, and church people aren't supposed to have marriage problems, right? Riiiiight.

(I say I was aware of her because at the time, 25-years ago, I was in our church orchestra. From where we sat on the platform we could see most of the congregation and she and her husband always sat in the front, so I remember her.)

But as she continued to share I realized how she is not unlike other women with marriage issues, which is why conferences like this are so needed. Even church women.

Especially church women. There are a lot of hurting marriages, even in the church.

Beautiful Womanhood isn't about being beautiful in appearance, but being a beautiful wife, in the way that God calls us to be.

A few things I took away from the conference were:

• Don't correct your husband. He doesn't like to be corrected by his wife, which says he's doing it wrong. 
• Don't instruct your husband. He doesn't like to be instructed by his wife, which says he doesn't know how to do it. 
• Don't improve your husband. He doesn't like to be improved by his wife, which says he doesn't do it well enough.

I felt great conviction because I've done all those things, and I haven't been shy about it!

I especially laughed when Sandy's example of wanting to improve her husband was when they were on vacation and dressed for dinner. She put on a cashmere jacket, pearls and heels and waited in the hotel lobby for her husband. She bit her tongue when he came dressed in a camp shirt (complete with pockets for a compass), shorts (that had been pants that zip off at the knee), white socks, black shoes and a yellow tie!

Can anybody relate?! I sure could! I've busted my husband for a similar style!

But she said nothing and had an enjoyable time with her husband, because he was happy. (I'm not so sure I could look past that. I'd be very tempted to send him back to the room to change! OK, not temped...I would have!)

She talked to us about the need to respect our husbands. They need respect like they need air, so we need to find ways to communicate that to them. I'll be honest, that's hard for me sometimes. But our respect cannot be contingent on their actions.

We also need to learn how to identify the truth of our husband's behavior. Is he really sinning or is he just irritating? We need to discern the difference.

Abuse is sinning (and should be dealt with professionally). Scraping the bowl 20 times to get the last bit of oatmeal out of the bottom is irritating. (And it's sure hard not to say something!) We need to know the difference so we act appropriately.

Sandy's new book, The Beautiful Wife: Focused on Christ, Fulfilled in Marriage, will be available February 1, for $13.99. We were blessed to purchase advance copies on Saturday and I've already started reading. Wow!

Much of what she shared at the conference is in the book, and so much more. I can't wait to dig in even deeper!

There is also a Mentor's Guide for small groups, and a Prayer Journal.

Sandy has a testimony of how God restored her marriage. If God can heal hers, He can heal anybody's!

Follow Sandy on Facebook at Beautiful Womanhood or on Twitter at MentoringWives.

She also has a Beautiful Womanhood Blog.

If you're looking for ways to enrich your marriage I highly suggest using these rescources from Sandy.

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