“ Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.”
-Ephesians 5:22-23
I know what you’re probably thinking…we’ve all read this verse and heard so many sermons on it- not another schpiel…
Sometimes my first reaction to hearing this verse is one of gritting teeth. This scripture has been skewed so often to devalue women and allow men to rule over their wives in a sinful way, that I sometimes prefer not to hear it at all. I once heard of a husband who put his wife in the corner when she didn’t do what he asked…. How far from the purpose of this verse is that!?! I know that part of this cold reaction is a feminist-driven pride that mimics the curse over Eve exactly (yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you).
The other reaction you might be having is: oh, I know that verse well-CHECK, I am good to go. I have that down, no problem! This is usually driven by a self-righteous mindset.
The reality is that God wouldn’t have reminded us this truth through Paul unless we, as wives, needed to hear it.
I want my reaction to this verse to be one of encouragement and conviction. I know that I will never be perfect in this regards, but I want to enjoy the challenge of pursuing His righteousness in this way.
The hardest part of submission for me is the attitude of my heart when submitting. Any women can train herself to follow her husband’s lead exactly as he wishes, but can be only doing it outwardly. I want my heart to be cheerfully submitting. I don’t want my heart to harbor any resentment when he decides to not take my advice and go exactly the opposite way of what I thought was right. Or when the plans I had for the day are turned upside down.
Take some time to think back on the past couple of days, weeks, months- has your heart submitted fully to your husband’s lead or is there still a part of you that believes your route was still the better one (ready to remind him as soon as you get the chance)? Confess those sinful motivations to your husband and explain how difficult it can be to submit. Your husband will only be blessed by your honesty and be a great partner of accountability during future moments when it becomes hard.
Blessings to you in this pursuit of godliness in the attitudes of our hearts!
Friday, July 29, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
The Formula I Thought I Had To Follow
I came into marriage as equipped as I could have been. I had watched the educational movies, and read the books about marriage & about men and women. They were all extremely beneficial and I’m not discrediting being mentally prepared before marriage, but I feel that they instilled the idea of a formula in my head.
A couple of the things they taught me:
· I learned that I must always be a good homemaker and look good for my husband to make his day lighter when he returned home.
· I learned I had to have a cheerful attitude in everything I did, so he would desire to be around me and spend time with me.
· I learned that if I spoke his love language, he would always want to speak in mine in return.
And then real life hit me...
· I would come home mentally and physically exhausted from work. The last thing I wanted to do was clean up the house, create an extravagant dinner and put on a dress. And yet many days I did that…and then he would call to say he was running late. Utter disappointment.
· I would put on a fake smile when he got home late, but it only lasted a couple minutes- he would soon find out it was masking a lot of coldness toward him.
· I would satisfy him in the way he wanted to be satisfied (with the thought that I would then be satisfied later), and yet it seemed that my love language, quality time, always got put on the back burner.
The formula I read about, the “if”…”then”… rule soon fell apart. There is one huge fault with coming into marriage with that mindset- you married a sinful man and he married you, a sinful woman.
Yes, I believe that God has created us to act and react in certain ways. It is much easier to love a woman who is loving, kind and gentle. God’s word is true and he calls both sides to act in certain ways and His promises are true when His way is followed- NO DOUBT! And yet, life happens, stress happens and disappointment starts to kick in.
There were periods where I worked hard to keep exactly to the plan, to the formula I read about. After working so hard to be a certain person and act a certain way, I would find that it didn’t bring the results I had expected. Two things would then happen- both sinful.
Self-Centered Depression
I would end up in tears in front of my husband wondering what I was doing wrong? Why was my “love tank” so empty when I worked so hard to manipulate his actions to fill it? Was I not enough? What was I lacking?
Anger and Blame
He became the source of all emotional wrongful doing. I, self righteously, was constantly being a “good wife” and yet he was falling short in his husbandly duties.
How horribly sinful! When God called me to “die daily” and “lay down my life for my friend” how much more did he mean that in relation to the unison found in marriage.
I don’t mean all this to say that I no longer seek God’s righteousness in my marriage or not work to please my husband as the Lord commands. But ladies, just like we as Christian sinners can never achieve “holiness” in and of ourselves, we as wives can never be “perfect” in and of ourselves. Let us seek righteousness, fall at times, but continue to stand up no matter how often we fall. May the Lords name be praised in our every deed, motivation and thought!
My heart’s cry:
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Psalm 51:10
A couple of the things they taught me:
· I learned that I must always be a good homemaker and look good for my husband to make his day lighter when he returned home.
· I learned I had to have a cheerful attitude in everything I did, so he would desire to be around me and spend time with me.
· I learned that if I spoke his love language, he would always want to speak in mine in return.
And then real life hit me...
· I would come home mentally and physically exhausted from work. The last thing I wanted to do was clean up the house, create an extravagant dinner and put on a dress. And yet many days I did that…and then he would call to say he was running late. Utter disappointment.
· I would put on a fake smile when he got home late, but it only lasted a couple minutes- he would soon find out it was masking a lot of coldness toward him.
· I would satisfy him in the way he wanted to be satisfied (with the thought that I would then be satisfied later), and yet it seemed that my love language, quality time, always got put on the back burner.
The formula I read about, the “if”…”then”… rule soon fell apart. There is one huge fault with coming into marriage with that mindset- you married a sinful man and he married you, a sinful woman.
Yes, I believe that God has created us to act and react in certain ways. It is much easier to love a woman who is loving, kind and gentle. God’s word is true and he calls both sides to act in certain ways and His promises are true when His way is followed- NO DOUBT! And yet, life happens, stress happens and disappointment starts to kick in.
There were periods where I worked hard to keep exactly to the plan, to the formula I read about. After working so hard to be a certain person and act a certain way, I would find that it didn’t bring the results I had expected. Two things would then happen- both sinful.
Self-Centered Depression
I would end up in tears in front of my husband wondering what I was doing wrong? Why was my “love tank” so empty when I worked so hard to manipulate his actions to fill it? Was I not enough? What was I lacking?
Anger and Blame
He became the source of all emotional wrongful doing. I, self righteously, was constantly being a “good wife” and yet he was falling short in his husbandly duties.
How horribly sinful! When God called me to “die daily” and “lay down my life for my friend” how much more did he mean that in relation to the unison found in marriage.
I don’t mean all this to say that I no longer seek God’s righteousness in my marriage or not work to please my husband as the Lord commands. But ladies, just like we as Christian sinners can never achieve “holiness” in and of ourselves, we as wives can never be “perfect” in and of ourselves. Let us seek righteousness, fall at times, but continue to stand up no matter how often we fall. May the Lords name be praised in our every deed, motivation and thought!
My heart’s cry:
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Psalm 51:10
Monday, July 18, 2011
My Selfish, Bitter and Dirty Heart
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”-Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)
I originally didn’t want to start my first blog entry on a “bad note”, but I truly believe this is an issue that we, as young wives, get slapped with very early on in our marriage.
Our honeymoon time and the next couple weeks seemed to be very dating-like. I was more than willing to serve my husband and give things up for his sake. My feelings of “love” (really infatuation) drove me to be sacrificing and giving.
As time waned, I started seeing more and more of my “natural” self appear. Harsh words, annoyed looks, selfish actions came out that started showing how much my world was truly all about me. The ironic thing is both my husband and myself come from families with 12 children, so we’ve always prided ourselves in our non-selfish upbringing.
So things I didn’t think my husband would ever see in me started appearing….things I didn’t know I harbored were surfacing. The biggest one being bitterness which comes straight from selfishness. Ugly, ugly bitterness. The kind where little actions/words/reactions he had said or done were being stored in some distant place in my brain I didn’t know existed. I started having small outbursts that were initiated by seemingly meaningless things. And my “natural” self was being more and more exposed to the one person who was going to know me best.
When I used to hear the words “selfish” or “bitter” I never thought I’d associate them with myself.
My husband was and continues to be amazingly gracious. Amidst all those outbreaks, his peaceful demeanor stayed strong. I would go straight to a “flight” response while my husband always chose “fight”. He wanted us to work through things as soon as they came up, while I wanted to rage out in a long “speech” and then walk out with stone-cold silence. How absolutely silly and detrimental my actions were (and sadly continue to be). I was always the one to create the divide between us in my self-righteous silence. HE was always in the wrong, while I was reacting with the justified response (or so I thought).
How shameful thinking back to how commonly the scenario above replayed itself within our first two years of marriage.
Marriage is a great test to see exactly how sinful and dirtied we are as people without Christ’s covering.
In conclusion, I know I don’t really include an “answer” to the issue of our selfish hearts- I want to address it further in another post, but I’ll end with this:
“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”-Lamentations 3:22-24 (NIV)
Thank you dear Heavenly Father that your mercy and grace are so great towards us!
I originally didn’t want to start my first blog entry on a “bad note”, but I truly believe this is an issue that we, as young wives, get slapped with very early on in our marriage.
Our honeymoon time and the next couple weeks seemed to be very dating-like. I was more than willing to serve my husband and give things up for his sake. My feelings of “love” (really infatuation) drove me to be sacrificing and giving.
As time waned, I started seeing more and more of my “natural” self appear. Harsh words, annoyed looks, selfish actions came out that started showing how much my world was truly all about me. The ironic thing is both my husband and myself come from families with 12 children, so we’ve always prided ourselves in our non-selfish upbringing.
So things I didn’t think my husband would ever see in me started appearing….things I didn’t know I harbored were surfacing. The biggest one being bitterness which comes straight from selfishness. Ugly, ugly bitterness. The kind where little actions/words/reactions he had said or done were being stored in some distant place in my brain I didn’t know existed. I started having small outbursts that were initiated by seemingly meaningless things. And my “natural” self was being more and more exposed to the one person who was going to know me best.
When I used to hear the words “selfish” or “bitter” I never thought I’d associate them with myself.
My husband was and continues to be amazingly gracious. Amidst all those outbreaks, his peaceful demeanor stayed strong. I would go straight to a “flight” response while my husband always chose “fight”. He wanted us to work through things as soon as they came up, while I wanted to rage out in a long “speech” and then walk out with stone-cold silence. How absolutely silly and detrimental my actions were (and sadly continue to be). I was always the one to create the divide between us in my self-righteous silence. HE was always in the wrong, while I was reacting with the justified response (or so I thought).
How shameful thinking back to how commonly the scenario above replayed itself within our first two years of marriage.
Marriage is a great test to see exactly how sinful and dirtied we are as people without Christ’s covering.
In conclusion, I know I don’t really include an “answer” to the issue of our selfish hearts- I want to address it further in another post, but I’ll end with this:
“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”-Lamentations 3:22-24 (NIV)
Thank you dear Heavenly Father that your mercy and grace are so great towards us!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Vitaliy + Anastasia=LOVE
I figured the best way to start this blog about being a wife would be to share my love story- every girl loves telling hers! :)
Back story: at the age of 11 years old I had taken the “purity promise” that my teen years were the Lords and I wouldn’t pursue any relationships during that time period. This was a strong drive in my life to not be distracted by the male population. I had seen enough heartache and mis-guided attention pursuing a sense of “worth” in a relationship. Throughout my teens, especially my high school years, I saw many examples of broken relationships in my Christian and non-Christian friends and knew how much potential sin was possible, as well as the distraction it brought. My high school years were years of great spiritual growth and I continued to purpose in my heart to be used of the Lord in my singleness.
Moving along; I had just graduated high school, 18 years old, and was preparing to start my schooling at a University. My days were spent immersed in the ministries at the church I was attending. Between the children’s ministry, small groups and the worship ministry, my days were packed. That summer, I was helping at the Sunday School camp and met Vitaliy’s (my future husband’s) sister. She and I got to talking about how I was seeking a church that was filled with the simplicity of God’s word and His people, so she invited me to a small church she attended. I eventually visited the church and immediately wanted to dive in to what was going on there, so I started helping with the worship group.
As I continued to go to the church and got to know the families that attended, I realized that Vitaliy was starting to pursue me. He says that the first time he saw me at the church; he thought “I want to marry that girl!” I, on the other hand, was still standing firm on the purity promise I made years ago and still pursuing my mechanical engineering degree. Also, Vitaliy is 8 years older than me, so at the time he didn’t seem like a potential prospect due to the huge (my thoughts at the time) age gap.
Vitaliy was a sound engineer and told me he really liked my voice and wanted to record a specific song with me. Being a young vocalist/musician it was an opportunity of a lifetime! We met up at the studio (chaperoned by my mom and my sister) and laid down the vocals for the song. He worked on it further and then started hinting at a full album recording. He began emailing me samples of songs in the direction he was thinking to go. Eventually we started talking on the phone more consistently and emailing longer emails. What started as a discussion about music, soon became very deep and personal.
As our email and phone relationship grew, over about a month, we started to fall in love and talked about how if we were to date, it would only be for the purpose of marriage. BUT, I had to call things off. I felt convicted by the promise I had made years ago and knew that I was in a “relationship”, even though we’d never actually gone on a “date”. One night my Spirit was deeply convicted, so with a lot of tears and confusion, I called him and told him about my covenant with the Lord and said that I would have to talk to my parents about our relationship and only if they approved, would I then continue it. I spoke with my dad and explained my situation. He thought for a while. Talked extensively with Vitaliy and then blessed our courtship- we were overjoyed! Anyone who knows my dad will know that it was truly a God-guided decision since my dad does not take relationships/dating lightly.
So with my parents and the Lord’s blessing, we spent the next 3 months courting under a pretty strict regime. Vitaliy was amazingly respectful of my parents and the guidelines they set- making me appreciate him even more. Even though at the time, the rules sounded ridiculous to me, I can now appreciate my parent’s caution when it comes to the sin you can fall into when you are emotionally and physically attracted to someone.
We spent the next three months courting and seeking God’s will for us. After that time, Vitaliy proposed! <3 and three months later (Oct of 2008) we were married! <3 So began my life as the wife of a musician/sound engineer/visionary! :)
Back story: at the age of 11 years old I had taken the “purity promise” that my teen years were the Lords and I wouldn’t pursue any relationships during that time period. This was a strong drive in my life to not be distracted by the male population. I had seen enough heartache and mis-guided attention pursuing a sense of “worth” in a relationship. Throughout my teens, especially my high school years, I saw many examples of broken relationships in my Christian and non-Christian friends and knew how much potential sin was possible, as well as the distraction it brought. My high school years were years of great spiritual growth and I continued to purpose in my heart to be used of the Lord in my singleness.
Moving along; I had just graduated high school, 18 years old, and was preparing to start my schooling at a University. My days were spent immersed in the ministries at the church I was attending. Between the children’s ministry, small groups and the worship ministry, my days were packed. That summer, I was helping at the Sunday School camp and met Vitaliy’s (my future husband’s) sister. She and I got to talking about how I was seeking a church that was filled with the simplicity of God’s word and His people, so she invited me to a small church she attended. I eventually visited the church and immediately wanted to dive in to what was going on there, so I started helping with the worship group.
As I continued to go to the church and got to know the families that attended, I realized that Vitaliy was starting to pursue me. He says that the first time he saw me at the church; he thought “I want to marry that girl!” I, on the other hand, was still standing firm on the purity promise I made years ago and still pursuing my mechanical engineering degree. Also, Vitaliy is 8 years older than me, so at the time he didn’t seem like a potential prospect due to the huge (my thoughts at the time) age gap.
Vitaliy was a sound engineer and told me he really liked my voice and wanted to record a specific song with me. Being a young vocalist/musician it was an opportunity of a lifetime! We met up at the studio (chaperoned by my mom and my sister) and laid down the vocals for the song. He worked on it further and then started hinting at a full album recording. He began emailing me samples of songs in the direction he was thinking to go. Eventually we started talking on the phone more consistently and emailing longer emails. What started as a discussion about music, soon became very deep and personal.
As our email and phone relationship grew, over about a month, we started to fall in love and talked about how if we were to date, it would only be for the purpose of marriage. BUT, I had to call things off. I felt convicted by the promise I had made years ago and knew that I was in a “relationship”, even though we’d never actually gone on a “date”. One night my Spirit was deeply convicted, so with a lot of tears and confusion, I called him and told him about my covenant with the Lord and said that I would have to talk to my parents about our relationship and only if they approved, would I then continue it. I spoke with my dad and explained my situation. He thought for a while. Talked extensively with Vitaliy and then blessed our courtship- we were overjoyed! Anyone who knows my dad will know that it was truly a God-guided decision since my dad does not take relationships/dating lightly.
So with my parents and the Lord’s blessing, we spent the next 3 months courting under a pretty strict regime. Vitaliy was amazingly respectful of my parents and the guidelines they set- making me appreciate him even more. Even though at the time, the rules sounded ridiculous to me, I can now appreciate my parent’s caution when it comes to the sin you can fall into when you are emotionally and physically attracted to someone.
We spent the next three months courting and seeking God’s will for us. After that time, Vitaliy proposed! <3 and three months later (Oct of 2008) we were married! <3 So began my life as the wife of a musician/sound engineer/visionary! :)
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