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blogging, faith, insanitybytes22, letting go, love, marriage, opinion, submission
When 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.
Hey!
I enjoyed reading your post! I look foward to reading more of your posts! Good luck and happy new year!
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“God can, and God is right there…but none of us can do that for anyone else. Not even for our own kids.” and “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.” Huge. Thank you so much!
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https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiog6q2tKzRAhWosFQKHST-CXIQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.growyourown.info%2Fpage137.html&bvm=bv.142059868,d.cGw&psig=AFQjCNE9rt3HJOd-8oYRZp1NP0RTIf9EGQ&ust=1483753964989542
That’s not a right-looking plumb…but I think wasps (not to be confused with White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) make honey?
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Wasps do not make honey, but they build some cool-looking homes out of paper. J.
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EDIT:

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https://www.quora.com/Do-wasps-make-honey-or-any-similar-product
Making honey in the wrong plum.
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IMHO – Some would refuse to recognize the truth if it hit them in the face. If your church has not deviated from scripture, then you were right, and the Prodigal one should have returned to the fold. My father was a counterfeit; the passage about those who “hardeneth their necks shall be suddenly cut off, and that without remedy” became true for him.
You did all that was necessary, and leaving it to the Lord was the correct move.
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Interesting parallel:
Proverbs 29:1King James Version (KJV)
29 He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain
Proverbs 29:1 1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)
29 1 A man that hardeneth his neck when he is rebuked, shall suddenly be destroyed, and cannot be cured.
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WOW! That’s real transparency and introspection. Good for you! Funny how we can walk a mile in another’s moccasins, but we can’t make them drink after pulling them to the trough. Sometimes the closer we are to God, the farther away those closest to us are – by default?
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household” – Mt. 10: 34-36.
Seemingly harsh words, especially considering this among all Christ’s other more endearing promises. But unless two agree, how can they ever truly walk together? Like unequally yoked oxen – of which we’re so familiar with (NOT) – when my partner pulls left as I’m determined to go right – suddenly right is wrong?
As a minister, I always include in my premarital counseling the precept that Christian marriage is much more than a union between two committed believers; it is a three-fold knot that includes Christ. Those who heed such an admonition have benefited through the years, as each trial strengthens the knot – like water poured on leather – it cinches tighter, the harder to undo.
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IB, thank you for your honesty. Thank you for sharing that we all can have a struggle in our lives, our close personal life. Thank you for sharing how God is always with us, being our Strength, even during troubling times. Thank you for showing and teaching to listen for God, and listen to God, and not give up.
God Bless you Good Friend.
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