Becoming a Submissive Wife
About 1 year ago I got into a fight with my husband and I gave him the options of splitting up or getting marriage counseling things were so bad between us. He begged me to give him some time to try to change. I agreed. It wasn't to long after this happened that the Lord made it very clear to me (through books that were given to me, scriptures I was reading in the bible, and one night camping I just had a clear image) that it was not my husband who needed to change but me!!!!!
So I decided that with the Lord's help I had to completely submit to my husband's needs, wants, and desires. I have started to do whatever he needs me to do with an "okay honey" and a smile on my face. Ever since I started this my mind set slowly changed to where most of the time now I really do mean it when I say okay and smile and I also have come to enjoy doing all of these things for him. We get along great!!! I have noticed that since I am happily and voluntarily taking care of him in every way, I am getting everything I need from him (for example one day I was very tired and he told me to take a nap if I wanted and he would take care of our son for a while) without having to ask for it. He has become more affectionate with me. And last night for the first time since I don't know when we stayed up until 2:00 in the morning togeather (he usually is in bed by 7:00 p.m. at the latest) laughing, talking, and being intimate. He also asked what happened to me to make me so much more fun and wonderful lately. He said that I was the woman he fell in love with and married again.
I can not write down all of the wonderful things that have happened since I started to live my life as a submisive wife. But I would definatly recommend it to any wife. After all we were created to be their help meets!!!!!!
1 comments:
Oh, yeah! I remember when this lesson started for me.
I was a new Christian, and very zealous, considering all the joy I had for being snatched out of such a terribly miserable lifestyle!
My way of "giving back" to God was to "Do". I was on several ministry boards, working in the nursery, leading worship, and counseling at the local crisis pregnancy center, among others. I was also a new wife and mother of two very young children.
My husband, a very new Christian, had begun to make excuses not to go to church...he had to feed the cows, or he had to go move the irrigation! He had alcohol and other addictions that he was struggling with as well. Our marriage was strained, mostly by my need to change him into what I thought he should be!
I was on the fast track, giving my time and energy to everybody and everything. I would stand in front of the church leading worship while he sat in the pew with the children. My family got what was left of me, and that wasn't much.
One day as I was reading in the Bible, I realized that God has an extremely important and essential role for women, particularly married ones with children! I tried talking to other Christians (especially women) about what I was reading, but no one seemed to want to go there. "That", I was told, "was for a different culture, in a different time!"
There was a battle going on inside of me. On one side of the battlefield, there was all the satisfaction and praise I got for doing such a great job at ALL THE THINGS I had been doing "for God". All, that is, except my marriage and children.
That takes me to the other side of the battlefield, the side that was calling me home.
God's word was saying one thing, but many Church folk were saying and doing another. Who was right?
At first I decided to go along with the flow because those folks had been in church longer than I had, and I figured they must know something that I had missed.
What I was actually missing, though, was the fruit of the Holy Spirit in my home, because I had been WORKING for God's approval while following a HUMAN way to accomplish it.
Would God actually be calling me to do things for him that were contrary to what was so plainly seen in his word, the Bible?
I finally decided that the answer to that question was, "NO!", so I went to my Pastor to resign my leadership positions in the church and Christian community, with the exception of counseling women in crisis pregnancy and post-abortion situations.
Long story short, my pastor told me that I was the spiritual head of the household because my husband was not behaving as such, and I should not lower my Christian standard by stepping out of ministry. He told me that he himself had been spurred on to become more serious about his faith and walk when he fell in love with a woman who was a "strong Christian". He improved himself in order to win her. He implied that I could accomplish the same for my husband if I stayed on my present course.
I thanked him for all his kindness and concern, but I told him that I felt that God was calling me home, to my primary and essential ministry, and that anything I did that took away from that was not from God, but from me. I told him that what I was hearing was confirmed in the word of God, and I had to believe it was God who was directing me.
And it WAS and IS God who was calling. Not that I have "arrived". I still have so much to learn, but I can tell you that my husband, given the opportunity to make decisions and set the pace for our family, overcame his addictions and developed a deep walk with the Lord; not because of my "example", or my nagging, or my cold shoulder, or my threats; but because he was finally loved and supported and encouraged to do so by my willingness to trust God to work HIS will through my husband, according to HIS design and plan.
When I stopped nagging and treatening, he was finally able to hear God!
My real needs are met when I am resting in the place that God has designed for me. My husband's tender care for me began when I stopped calling all the shots. When our husband's hearts safely trust in us, they have no anxiety about how the home is being managed, and they view it as a place where they can retreat and are nurtured. They are better able to be involved in and influence the direction of their workplace and community when things at home are well.
Our job, dear ones, is not to work or push to please God, but to REST and trust him to work. Marriage is a picture of Christ's relationship to the church, and it is a privilege and honor to model this to the world through our relationships with our husbands!
In closing, I am grieved to tell you that, not long after my interview with the pastor, his wife left him and his ministry was destroyed. She had been calling the shots from the beginning, and had been complaining to other women in the church that God had other plans for her life and she couldn't stand her husband "preaching" to her.
And that, dear sisters, could have been me.
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