Last week, I shared with you some insights from a recent couple’s retreat my husband and I attended. If you missed the first part you can read it our here. Now I’d like to share the second installment of the Inseparable series.
What is our Role as a Wife?
1. Our role is to be the right helpmate for our husband.
We can trace our role as a wife from Genesis 2:18 which says, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”
If this is the first time you read this verse, I implore you not to raise your eyebrows! Helper does not mean a slave or maid here. As a helpmate, we are to support our husbands. We are to encourage them. We help in bringing up our kids, managing our household and our finances. We are to care for their physical, emotional and sexual needs because there is only one woman who can fill that need and that is us, their wives.
As a helpmate, we also need to know when to talk and when to keep quiet. I felt convicted listening to the speakers because I find myself complaining to him as soon as he comes home from work. Sometimes I get to hyped about my domestic troubles that I need an immediate sounding board. I forgot that this guy came all the way from the BGC area to go home to Las Pinas. I forgot he needed to breathe first, put up his feet and relax. I realized I can help him by holding my tongue for a while and let him de-stress then a more meaningful conversation would take place.
2. Our role is to submit to our husbands as unto the Lord.
Ephesians 5:22 says “For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”
Oops, did i make your eyebrows reach the ceiling again? This role is the hardest thing to do! Again, this is not to put down the role of wives in the marriage. Submission means falling under the protection of our husbands. God’s design is for the husband to lead the wife and their family. If we align ourselves to God’s design, we are putting ourselves under the God’s protection.
If we do not follow God’s design for leadership in the home, then we are allowing our marriage to be vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy. As an independent woman, I assumed leadership in our family at the start of our married life. I made the decisions and my husband allowed me. There was a reversal of roles, which complicated a lot of things. When I became a Christian and learned about this concept of submission, I didn’t believe what the Bible was saying. Until the Lord made it very clear to me one time when my husband finally spoke up.
It was a slap on my face. I knew what he was saying about me was true. I realized then the Bible is not kidding when it tells wives to submit. Eventually, I did submit but it was not easy. There may still be struggles along the way but by God’s grace, my husband has been very patient with me in this area. He does not lord over his authority over me. In fact, as leaders more weight is put on their shoulders because they are doubly accountable to God. As wives, we simply trust that God knows what he is doing especially when He assigned our husbands to lead our family.
3. Our role is to respect our husband.
Ephesians 5:33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
This is connected with submission, don’t you think? If we submit to our husband then in we are respecting his role as the leader of the family. I’ve heard this cliché before “Respect is earned.” But the Bible commands us to respect, again not an option.
So how do we show respect to our husbands?
Do we listen to what they are is saying or are we just focused on what we want to say?
Are we uplifting or destroying our husband’s reputation to other people?
Do we complain about him to our friends, family?
Do we take care of the money he has provided for us?
Are we showing him love or is he unsure if we do love him?
These roles are not easy to fulfill. But if we make a commitment to start working on this roles and putting to heart what the Bible says then our marriage would be how God designed it to be.
An exciting event happened that night at the retreat. We were to wear something nice for a candlelight dinner for two. Unfortunately, the place was not able to provide an intimate set up like that so couples shared the table with other couples instead.
After dinner we headed to the workshop hall for another talk by Pastor Joby Soriano, our head pastor. Earlier that day we were asked to write a love letter to our spouses which will be read in the evening. Then Pastor Joby invited all couples to stand up and face each other. Husbands and wives took turns reading their letters to their spouses. As my husband read his letter to me, I couldn’t stop my tears from falling. His sincere words touched my heart that I fell in love with him again. I think that was the first time we kissed each other in public after our wedding day. We were unaware of our surroundings. We were focused on each other 🙂
After that tearful exchange, the Pastor asked the husbands and the wives to respond to the vows with “I will”. It was a beautiful moment. We’ve been planning to have a renewal of vows sometime in the future and the retreat just answered our prayer. We wanted to commit to God anew as husband and wife who will now follow his design for marriage.
I want to encourage every wife out there who is reading this. If you feel there is no hope for your marriage or you are just enduring, take heart sister, God knows what you are going through. He sees your pain and your desire to work out your marriage. He will only help you if you allow Him too.
Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. 4 Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, 6 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. 1 Peter 3:1-6
Which of these roles are the hardest for you to do? What steps can you take to be the wife God designed you to be?
