This was on my brainstorming list of blog post ideas. Today, for some reason, it stood out to me. Maybe because it’s an area in my own life in which I’ve been trying to improve. What does my husband need of me, and what are my wifely responsibilities? I don’t think that wives are only around to serve their husbands, but I do believe God calls us to have a servant’s heart, whether or not one is a housewife.

Wives, Submit to Your Husbands

“Submitting to your husband doesn’t mean becoming his slave. It means recognizing his role and putting him first. After all, I believe this is the example Christ has set forth for us…”
–Melissa J. on Families.com

The biggest difference between a Christian marriage and a non-Christian marriage is whether or not the wife submits to her husband. God provides an umbrella of protection by putting the husband under himself, the wife under the husband, and the children under the wife. By living with that family structure in mind, I think that we will find ourselves living the happy, fulfilling lives God intends for us. But the wife-to-husband submission is very different from the child-to-parent submission. Notice in the Bible that children are told to obey, while wives are told to submit. (Ephesians 5-6)

1. Respecting

• The quote above touches on this, but I will re-iterate: I think that wives submit to their husbands through respect. After my husband so lovingly listens to my thoughts and suggestions, I should then strive to respectfully accept his decision as final. God has put that responsibility into my husband’s hands, and out of respect for that position, I defer to him. If a mistake is made, I should not criticize or ridicule him. I should continue treating him with the respect he deserves.
• I should not only respect his decisions, though. I also respect his goals and dreams, his space, his person. This includes holding back sometimes on snide and sarcastic remarks! (This is something Hubby and I are BOTH working on. We recognize that sometimes taking sarcasm too far makes one or the other of us start to feel unloved.)
• Avoiding nagging is, I think, a very big step in learning to respect your husband. Many women, including myself, have an almost uncontrollable urge to nag. (Only a slight exaggeration!) But when we nag our husbands, we end up feeling like their mothers, and they end up feeling like children. That is not respect, and, of course, we know this. It’s just hard to overcome sometimes! My friend recently suggested putting myself into the mindset of a personal secretary rather than a mom. It’s not a perfect analogy, but thinking this way helps me sometimes to remember that I should respectfully remind him of things and then trust his judgment about which to do and when to do them, rather than nagging him.
• Also like a secretary, I should take things into my own hands when possible. For instance, at my former job, I wouldn’t have asked my boss to do much of anything I could do myself. That’s not to say that wives should slave all week while husbands become couch potatoes, but I think you get the idea.

2. Praising

• I can no longer even count the number of sources that have told me about praising my husband. I hear it everywhere. Men respond positively to praise, and husbands respond very positively to praise from their wives in particular! It’s good to try not to criticize or nag, but it’s better to take it a step further and look for things your husband is doing that you can praise.
• Praise and support go hand in hand. As I praise Hubby’s accomplishments, I show appreciation for what he’s done, but I can also praise his efforts to let him know I support everything he’s trying to do, whether or not things go as planned.
• I try to put my admiration into words, so that my husband knows I see his hard work that sometimes seems unseen by everyone else. I want him to know that I notice how much hard work he puts into his job, even if he doesn’t feel he gets recognition for it at work.

3. Helping

“The Purpose of A Woman: God said, ‘I will make him a(n) ezer’ (Genesis 2:18).”
– Hem of His Garment Bible Study

• Many Christian wives work hard at doing things like cooking, housekeeping, parenting, and organizing in an effort to be a help-meet for their husbands, and I think that many non-Christians look at those women and think “servant” or, worse, “slave.” But that’s not it at all! Helping is not the same as serving, despite how it may appear from the outside. When God created Eve and said she was to be a helper, the Hebrew word used (ezer) is the same word as is found in the following verse:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
- Psalm 121:1-2

• I can help my husband by keeping the house managed for him, so that he doesn’t have to. I can learn what his life goals are and help him to meet them. I can help by praying for him. I can help in little things, like doing a chore I know he’s dreading. I can help him relax using, among other things, this list. And I can also help him by encouraging him to be a spiritual leader.
• The help I give my husband is something God designed me for, and it should be thought of in the same way as God’s help for us. In other words, it’s the power and strength of God working through us so we can do what he designed us to do – help our husbands. It’s not good for man to be alone! In other words, we wives are needed. It’s good to be needed.

In the Army

One other thing I was thinking about is how being a Christian wife might look different for those of us in the Army. I will probably have even more thoughts on this after we’ve gone through a deployment together.

For those of you readers who may already have a greater understanding of this, let me ask you: How is your relationship with your husband affected by deployments and long periods of “independence” followed by times of getting back into the groove of marriage? How do you respect your husband when there is so much distance between the two of you? Do you find it difficult?

Two P’s

Above all, I think that the best way to learn how to be a Christian wife is through prayer and practice. I’ve been praying for God to help me learn to be the wife he wants me to be since about a year before Hubby and I started dating, and I’ve been practicing for about a year now. I have not arrived by any means; I still struggle, but I’m still trying. My husband and my God are kind enough to lovingly forgive my shortcomings. I’m so grateful for their patience with me.

I would encourage any and all of you to begin praying now if you never have before, whether you’re single or have been married for years. God will always answer prayers that are in line with his will for your life, so if you’re asking for him to help you become the Christian wife he wants for you to be, he will definitely help you!