Women. Men can't figure us out most of the time. We puzzle, attract, confuse, interest, confound, frustrate, intrigue, and plain old flabbergast our men, all while doing what we think makes love real and causes respect to happen.
All of us make mistakes. Looking all the way back to Eve, we women are bound to compare what we have with what we think we're missing and feel underprivileged at the imagining of what others might have.
And we're wrong more often than not.
Certainly, a large number of women suffer in marriage relationships. Abuse, neglect, and indifference exist. A sad fact and a growing statistic. But, a larger number of women have a diamond-in-the-rough kind of marriage -- at least I see it as a larger number, because I also firmly believe every marriage has a path of its own and we have the job of taking it for God's reasons. Most women, if they understood what they have, would see a pearl; a long time in the making, but worth the effort and having incomparable value.
Yet, women have this uncanny knack for digging potholes in the road to marital oneness, for sabotaging the gift God gave them in the early days of their love-building, respect-offering relationship with the man God presented as "the one".
God ordained marriage and He doesn't make mistakes. We make plenty of them, yet He uses those very mistakes to make something beautiful. We just don't allow Him the time, the elements necessary (our minds, hearts and spirits), or the leeway.
We women have this terrible tendency to try to harness God. That huge, mighty, all-powerful God of the Universe, Creator of All ... and we, in effect, muzzle him, constrain him and tell him "I know better."
I never said those words out loud or thought of myself as doing those restrictive acts, but I can see that I did. I'm willing to bet you have too, and maybe are doing it right now.
When you ask God to shine his spotlight on your wifely wrongs and your faults that you don't recognize in yourself, hang on tight. When a woman opens her mind and frees her heart for God to tune, wondrous occurrences take place. Transformation happens, beauty grows, truth reigns and peace covers every area.
Giving the control to God frees a woman, but she has to overcome the fear of handing it to Him. What will she do? How will anything happen in the family? How will tasks be accomplished and how will decisions be made? How will life, as we know it, go on?
It won't go on as we know it. It will move on to something better. God knows better. We just-a-bit-lower-than-angels people do NOT.
Women give wives a bad name. Within our marriage and/or family structure, how many times have you, the woman felt you have:- known better
- done more
- inferred more accurately
- understood the situation completely
- acted with better intentions
- thought more clearly
- created better flow
- directed activity with more ability and better outcomes
- tended the flock with more care
- shown love more
- made better decision
- cared more deeply
You assumed the responsibility and the existence some or all or more that these things in the lives of your husband and family, yet truly believed you held the key to marriage and family thriving? Maybe you were or are not so far into the deception that you may have thought you had a better bead on the target and that
if only he would listen,
if only he would see it another way (in other words MY way),
if only he would do what I ask,
everything would fall into place.
The place you have designated as right, wholesome, important, fulfilling, manageable, peaceful, and even righteous.
A sad lot, we womenfolk. We want our marriage to tick, and then we go and wind it too tightly. We want our marriage to hum, and then rewrite the tune. We want our marriage to thrive and we deprive it of the nutrients and care required because we don't understand the real needs of the growing relationship.
We may even pray our way through all of it, feeling righteous with a heavy coating of "SELF" applied, and not realizing how heavy-handed, high and mighty, and unprofitable our efforts play out in reality.
I was blind and now I see. Not perfectly, but I do see where I erred, where I make mistakes now, and where I can make changes, corrections and steps forward without demolishing progress with my own brand of marriage construction. I speak to the same type of blind women every week who think they can see exactly where the errors lie. If only he would ...
Just because you claim to make room for the Holy Spirit in your heart does not mean you heed it. We, as free-will people, created that way by God, can ignore the Spirit within us until we become numb to the nudging.
When we operate alone, of our own desire and from our own volition, we suffer at our own hands.
A wise woman builds her house.
But a foolish woman tears hers down with her own hands. ~Proverbs 14:1
Take the initiative this week to give up. Control, that is.
Give "wife" a good name in your home. Spread the word. Share the light.
What do you think? How do women cast wifehood in a bad light? Do you agree or disagree?
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