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bearWhen your husband is just plumb wrong, plumb in this context having to do with a level, a measurement, and the man is just plumb crooked, off-line, all wrong. That man’s math done don’t add up.

Not my husband mind you, my husband is perfect. Batman, I tell you.

I jest, he is awesome, but just a human man and therefore often wrong about things. Big things. Keep in mind here I’m not speaking of a sudden decision to run rum smuggled right under the nose of Revenuers or something. I’m not speaking of Bonnie and Clyde wrongness. Just ordinary life and the decisions we sometimes make, choices I didn’t agree with, financial out comes that ended as badly as I thought they would.

The worst wrongness was when he pretty much left the church. Christmas, weddings, funerals perhaps, but church became no longer important. Our kids were still small and I knew they would soon follow their Dad’s lead and not mine. I sometimes have a prophetic eye, so I can really see the end result of our choices, the full consequences of our actions, the impact it will have on others, and more often than not, I am right. I didn’t just see the future impact on our kids, I saw how it would impact him too, the regret he would eventually feel, the drifting away from faith that would happen, the fracture that would result.

I saw too the truth and reality of what it is like in life to find yourself completely unarmed when the poo really hits the fan. We had some real poo hit the fan and I was able to say, Lord, blessed be your name. I don’t get it, but I trust you. ” Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” I can lean into that promise.

Hubby and the kids were left shell-shocked, torn between muttering “God hates me,” and “I guess there is no God.” Adrift, suffering more than they should, while I have anchor for my soul. It’s not fair at all.

It’s tough, it’s painful stuff to bear witness too. I wish I had been able to hand my kids my faith, but I couldn’t. I wish I could give hubby rest for his soul, but I can’t. God can, and God is right there…but none of us can do that for anyone else. Not even for our own kids.

Communication is awesome, I really believe we as wives are called to speak up, to argue, to beg, to plead, to communicate, to make our needs known, to have a voice. Even a shrill voice, when necessary. There comes a point however, when submission becomes survival, when letting go becomes choosing peace, when the most woman affirming, wifely thing you can do, is to surrender all.

Woman affirming, that’s what submission really is.

Submission, even when your hubby is plumb wrong, it really works. I fought for a few years, and I am like a pit bull, let me tell you. If it had been possible to show the man what I was seeing, I would have duct taped him to a chair and used tooth picks to prop his eye balls open with.

After a while however, it became evident that I was doing more harm than good. I began to resent him, I lost my respect, he wasn’t even attractive anymore. I was carrying unforgiveness about him not doing what was right by the kids. Contempt began to slip in and I knew it was a battle lost. We could have spent the next ten years fighting over a dead horse or I could just listen to God and work to protect relationship and connection.

Needless to say, God always knows best.

I am a big fan of submission in marriage because it works. There are some exceptions. If your husband is named Ananais and the Holy Spirit is asking you where he hid his ill gotten gains, go with God on that one and tell the truth. In fact, always place God first and always tell Him the truth.

Sometimes you catch more flies with honey and even if you don’t manage to catch any flies, you’ll still have the honey.

I still have the honey.

honey