Category: marriage

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marriage

Does A Wife Have Any Say?!

Many Christian women wonder: “Do I have any say? I know I’m supposed to submit, but does my opinion even matter?!”

Of course your opinion matters. My husband often says that after the Holy Spirit and Word of God the wife should have the loudest voice in her husband’s life.

Here are a few problems though:

1. Women are controlling. It’s true. And if you think you aren’t then read Genesis 3:16 where it says that part of the curse is for us women to “desire our husbands but they shall rule over us.” Since it’s part of the curse this surely isn’t talking about us desiring them emotionally or physically, nope, it’s a desire to control. Look up Genesis 4:7. God uses the EXACT SAME HEBREW WORD for desire when He is talking to Cain about sin’s desire for him. Does sin desire us in some lovely way? No. Sin wants to control us and take over our lives…like many wives want to do to their husbands. We have to control that sinful desire rather than seeking to control our husbands.

2. Women are often nags. We just don’t know when to stop. The bible says we are to follow our husband’s lead. We are to adapt to him, not the other way around. But we like to push and push and sometimes push some more, often in manipulative ways. Each husband has a different threshold for nagging 🙂 Some men are just too passive to speak up and let their wives know. I like to ask my husband if I am approaching the nagging line and he lets me know. I have also given him permission to tell me no more talking about certain subjects if I am just pushing it too much.

3. We think we want our husbands to lead but usually we just want them to lead the way we would lead. This is just another form of control. I am guessing if most women who whine about their husbands not leading got to experience what that is like for even a week they would find out quickly it’s a lot harder than they imagined since our husbands leading often means us not getting what we want. Which leads me to number four.

4. Submission means NOT getting what you want. When God calls us to submit, He’s requiring that we bend when we don’t want to. He’s calling us to put ourselves under our husbands when we don’t agree. If we agreed that would be agreement, not submission. 

5. Many women are overly concerned with how their husbands are failing and not concerned enough with how they are failing. Yes, your husband is not loving you perfectly like Christ loves the church, how are you doing with submitting to him as the church is to submit to Christ? Do you think you would be a lot better at it if he were a better husband? Well, you are called to submit to Christ every day and He is the perfect Husband and you fail in that…I fail in that, EVERY day. Don’t blame your husband. Blaming our husband’s for our lack of submission gets us no where but bitter.

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After reviewing these five problems and prayerfully considering them I would say women are in a better mindset to “voice their opinion.”  Usually voicing our opinion is a form of control, nagging, not wanting our husbands to lead and not being willing to submit. But, sometimes, we are genuinely passionate about something and rightfully so! Like moving. That’s a huge decision. When we were considering moving to WA from CA I voiced my opinion clearly but I told my husband in the end: “Ultimately this up to you, it’s on your shoulders and I will support your decision.” We need to have that attitude of support.

Other times maybe we are voicing our opinion on something we do or don’t want to do. Sometimes we are being flat out selfish. Sometimes we are genuinely concerned… only we can know our true motives. One time I voiced my opinion about something to my husband and I made it clear that I was concerned of having a panic attack if we did it. I wasn’t being manipulative or selfish, I just didn’t want to lose my mind. I have had 2 of those in my life and I am finding my threshold for things is lessening as I have more kids (I have 7 children ages 10 and under right now). My husband knows this about me and out of his love for me and wanting to take care of me as Ephesians 5 instructs him to do. he “submitted” and didn’t move forward out of concern for me.

Some of you are married to non-believers. This changes things drastically. In 1 Peter 3 God says the best way to “win your husband over” is without words. That’s right, words don’t work. He says your godly behavior is what will win him over. Nagging him, controlling him, complaining to him…are not godly behaviors. Submitting, encouraging and supporting him are godly behaviors. Does this mean to submit to abuse? No, by all means talk to your pastor about how to be safe and do what is necessary.

Too many of us wives are more concerned about our agendas and plans rather than God’s. We are very anxious about whether or not we will get our way. May we repent of that and see God’s desires for our lives and marriages!! His desire is to make us holy, not necessarily happy. We as wives are to picture the church’s relationship to Christ. A gentle, submissive spirit is how the church is to be toward Christ, not a rebellious, obsessive spirit that dominates and controls. May we be better at saying “Thy will be done” rather than constantly saying in different ways: “My will be done”.

The Lord will bless us as we submit to our husbands and seek to make God’s agenda our agenda. His agenda is for us to adapt to our husbands and have a gentle and quiet spirit that trusts in Him.

Love, Katie

Click here to see an extensive list of bible verses on us submitting to our husbands. 

If this article was interesting to you click here to get my husband’s marriage book! 

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marriage

Do You Let Your Husband Rebuke You?

Rebuke. Our flesh hates that word.

Coddle. Comfort. Encourage. Compliment. Our flesh likes those words!

Rebuking is loving though. Rebuking can be even more loving than comforting or encouraging because those we truly love receive not just compliments from us but the truth spoke in love from us. 

God gave us our husbands for many reasons and I think one of the best reasons is to help refine us. The Holy Spirit can use our husbands in our lives to make us more like Christ, IF WE LET HIM.

My husband has helped me SO MUCH in my weaknesses. Even though my flesh hates it, my spirit rejoices in knowing how God is using him to refine me.

Maybe you talk too much. (ahem, that would be me). Maybe your husband has told you that you dominated conversation somewhere and your flesh flared up and you defended your flapping lips by saying something like: “People like what I have to say!” and then you call your best friend that doesn’t have the guts to tell you the truth and so she coddles you and tells you: “No! You don’t talk too much.” And then you proceed to ignore your husband’s counsel only to continue in your conversation-dominating ways. 

Maybe you waste too much time on the internet and your house is losing out because of it. Maybe your husband has shared with you that he has noticed your priorities seem out of order and you get super defensive and offended saying he doesn’t appreciate how hard you work when all the while in the back of your mind you know you aren’t prioritizing keeping the home and he is totally right.

Maybe you are wasteful and your husband wants you to be more accountable with your spending…so you start to hide purchases from him rather than admitting you are buying more of what you want rather than what your family needs.

Maybe you’re a little dramatic and constantly complaining to him about other people so he tries to point out good things about the very people you are wanting to trash talk and rather than thank him you get upset and go and vent to someone else.

Maybe you worry too much. Maybe you are a total freak when it comes to your kids being sick and your husband is just trying to help you look on the bright side. Rather than thanking him you yell at him and tell him he doesn’t care about the children.

Maybe your relationship with your children is suffering because of your anger or lack of affection toward your children or any other number of things you do or don’t do. Maybe your husband tries to give you some counsel on how to love them better and you proceed to point out all of the ways he’s failing as a father.

There are SO MANY THINGS that we need to work on and change in order to be more self-controlled, God-honoring women. Who better to help us in this than the man who sees us day in and day out in the raw?! Who better to help point out where we can grow than the man who is best acquainted with our weaknesses?!

No, it’s never fun to hear about ways we may be “failing” or struggling in… but this life isn’t all about us never facing the truth. God wants to walk with us in our journey toward Christ-likeness and He wants to use our husbands to help us in this journey! Don’t inhibit what God wants to do through your husband. Pray for humility and a heart to grow more than a heart that wants to walk in pride and never be challenged.

Proverbs 9:8-9 could be written like this for us as wives: “Do not reprove a scoffer, or she will hate you; reprove a wise woman, and she will love you. Give instruction to a wise woman, and she will be still wiser; teach a righteous woman, and she will increase in learning.”

The opposite could be true too:

A scoffing wife hates her husband. When you reprove her she will reject your reproof. When a husband seeks to give instruction to an unwise wife she will refuse to be wiser and she will continue to decrease in her learning…

Don’t be a scoffing wife. Be a righteous, wise wife who considers her husband’s counsel…even when it hurts!

Love, Katie

 

 

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marriage

4 Simple Ways To Show Your Husband You Appreciate Him

Say it.

Sound too simple? It is, but very few practice it! Some of us are more verbal than others. Did you marry a man who loves to HEAR your appreciation for him? Then speak your appreciation. I don’t know what it is but for some women it’s like pulling teeth to get them to SAY “Thank you Honey! I really appreciate how you….” or “I am so blessed to be married to you because…” Is it because maybe these women were not verbally loved on growing up? Or maybe it’s just not how they receive love so they don’t give it that way? Whatever it is, if your husband lights up when you speak words of gratitude then you need to learn the art of speaking words of gratitude. We need to remember that we are what we practice. If we don’t practice what is uncomfortable, then will we never grow.

Show it.

Does your spouse love a good meal? Does he enjoy when the kitchen is cleaned up to perfection? Does he love when you wear your hair a certain way? When we SHOW our spouse our appreciation through our actions it speaks volumes! So the next time he does something you appreciate (or maybe just for fun!) show him your appreciation through a specific action that he craves!

Praise him in front of the kids. 

Our children should be witnessing our appreciation for their daddy. This is another form of communicating that doesn’t come naturally to me. I am more of a server than a communicator. But I have made efforts to grow in this area because I believe it is SUPER important. Too many children are having their ears filled with all the things that daddy does that annoys mommy or all the things that daddy doesn’t do right or all the ways that daddy is letting mommy down. If you are doing this then you are tearing your house down with your words. Here are some things to say instead: “Isn’t daddy wonderful? He takes good care of us and goes to work every day to make sure he is providing for us!” “Isn’t your daddy funny?” “Your daddy sure blesses us with his wisdom.” “Aren’t you glad that out of all the daddies in the world God picked this one to be yours!” “Mommy is so blessed to be married to daddy because he….”

Learn your husband.

One very special way to communicate love and appreciation to those around us is to learn them, to seek to understand them, to truly know them. It says: “You matter to me. What you desire is important to me and I will make every effort to learn how you feel appreciated.” Maybe one or two of the ways listed above really seem like ways that your spouse would feel appreciated. Or maybe 1-3 didn’t seem like ways your spouse would feel appreciated. What way does say “I appreciate you” to YOUR husband? Do you know? Maybe one of the three above does say “I appreciate you” to him but he hasn’t let you know… or maybe, he doesn’t even know it himself! For example, Scott praises me often in front of the kids and I would have had no idea how much that would minister to my heart or makes me feel appreciated unless he did it. It wasn’t an action that I knew I craved until he started to practice it. Experiment. Try these different things out and look to how your husband responds. Pray for the Lord to open your eyes to understand your man better so that you are better able to show him appreciation. Not necessarily because he always deserves it but because how you treat your spouse is a reflection of your relationship with Christ (a quote from my husband’s book) and it is ultimately out of your love for Him that you respect, honor, love and appreciate your husband.

 

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Church marriage My thoughts

7 Ways To Always Be Offended

It seems some of us wake up looking for ways to be offended. I know I struggle with it! Here are the 7 ways I have found that make it quick and easy to be offended.

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1. Insist that EVERYONE view the world through your eyes. Forget that everyone is different. Forget that everyone comes from a different back ground and are at different places in life. Insist that they see everything from your point of view.

2. Don’t be open to any opinion that differs from yours. Especially ones that you can only back up with: “This is what I have always believed” or “this is how I was raised”. If you do this you will surely succeed at being offended. Refuse to be teachable.

3. Take every difference of opinion personally. Tell yourself that everyone is out to get you and the fact that they see things differently is because they hate your guts and are on a mission to ruin your life.

4. See it as your main goal in life to change the views of others. Scratch this verse out of your bible: “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands.” (1 Thess. 4:11) Instead make it your ambition to lead a loud life, never minding your own business or working with your hands. Make it your ambition to get all people to conform to your opinions.

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marriage My thoughts

5 Ways To NOT Hate Your Husband

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Scott and I on our wedding day! We were married August 5, 2006.

Scott and I will be married for 10 years this coming August! 10 wonderful, stretching, growing, fun, exhausting, loving years.

Around our anniversary I often contemplate where we are at in our marriage and what I need to work on. We should never stop looking for ways to grow as a spouse and to be more of what God has called us to be.

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My anniversary also makes me look at the marriages around me. Especially the ones that have been married many more years than us. They seem to fall into one of two categories: either sweet, comfortable, safe and loving or bitter, apathetic and cold.

We are daily laying the groundwork for what kind of marriage we will have in 5, 10, 20, 30 years. We are deciding daily through our thoughts and actions if we want to grow to be better spouses or bitter spouses.

How would you describe your marriage? Is it cold? Are you more like roommates than lovers? Do you offer a safe place for your spouse to come to when discouraged or hurting? Are you united, living as one flesh? Are you bitter and angry or content and thankful? 

None of us WANTS to be in a bitter marriage but unfortunately many of us find ourselves in one. I want to share with you five things that will help you to not be bitter in your marriage and hate your husband.

5 ways to NOT hate your husband:

1. Remember that marriage was never about you and your happiness. Marriage has always been for something much bigger and greater than your happiness. As we yield to God’s work in our hearts through marriage we are able to be sanctified and become more like Christ. Marriage is for Him and His glory, not you and your wants.

2. Focus on your faults, not his. Too many women are bitter because they take all their husband’s faults/annoying habits and put them under a microscope. They study their husband’s faults like a student studying to become a lawyer. They wake up daily and are irritated before their feet even hit the floor in the morning because their mind is filled with everything their husband does wrong.

3. Don’t try and change him. You know how hard it is to change you right? I mean, how many of us want to be more gentle, more forgiving, have more self-control etc? All of us. We all want to grow and change. If it’s hard for you to make yourself change how much harder is it to change someone else? As much as we want to be in control of our husbands and their behavior, we are not. We are not the Holy Spirit. The less we seek to change our spouse the happier we will be. 

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marriage

Do You Deprive Your Husband?

“For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1 Cor. 7:4-5)

When you got married you signed your body over to your husband (see passage above). When you said “I do” to your husband you were also saying: I give you authority over my body. This is yet another reason for you single ladies to be VERY PICKY about who you say “Till death do we part” to. Single ladies, be warned, who you marry will have authority over your body.

The passage goes on to say: “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a LIMITED TIME, that you may devote yourselves to prayer….” Let’s dissect that a bit. Notice the first part which pertains to the title of this post: “Do not deprive one another”. More often than not, this is an issue for the man feeling deprived and not the woman (I do know of some cases personally where it’s the other way around, but by and large men feel deprived more often than women). The bible COMMANDS US to not deprive our husbands so when we deprive them we are sinning. “…except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer.” I have yet to see a couple abstain to pray. Usually it’s just the wife depriving her husband because she doesn’t want to give of herself to him sexually. I have not heard of a married couple coming to an “agreement for a limited time” so that they can devote themselves to prayer.

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