The Renewing of the Wife's Mind Part 1
Wives, what is your idea of beauty? What is your idea of love and marriage? These are questions that we ought not to ignore in the first years of our married life. I would advise the newlywed woman, or the single-almost-getting-married lady to take a real time off for herself and sit by a coffee table perhaps, write down these questions, and seriously attempt to answer them from the heart. Your answers to these questions will, after all, most likely determine how you will carry on your relationship with your husband.
I grew up as a teenager with two major vices --- a public and a private one. The former was romance novels, and the latter was pornography. What a combination. One fed the other well alright. I went on with these vices for years and needless to say they were my addictions. Of course, my mind began to be filled with all these false and perverted notions about love, romance and beauty. Without me knowing it, my perception of marriage was so distorted that it was way too far from its authentic attributes authored by its Creator.
Although I had stopped reading the romance novels by the time I got engaged, and had already been delivered from pornography a couple of years before that, my mind had not yet been renewed. Because of these ungodly ideas embedded so deeply in my psyche, a lot of disappointments, dissatisfaction, and false expectations built up within me in the first three years of married life. Of course, it did not help that I too had to go through major inner healing from issues of rejection.
Thank God for His Word, and thank God for mothers who speak with so much wisdom!
Ladies, romance novels are just that --- novels. They are works of fiction, and seldom do stories as such make their way into the biography or autobiography section. I say seldom because there are a few exceptions. The problem with us women who get so caught up with these novels is that we begin to fancy our own real-life marriages to make their way to Hollywood or at least to the publishers' press! There is nothing wrong with simple wishing it were so. It becomes a totally different thing, however, to expect our marriage to be so!
Without belaboring the point, allow me to share below some genuine biblical wake-up calls to our minds that may have been taken captive by the world's deceptive ways and philosophies. I will have to divide this blog into parts as I don't want to make it too long.
1. Wives (including us Christian wives) tend to keep a "rebellious streak" thinking that it adds to our spunk. What do I mean with that? I have heard some wives talk about their husbands in such a rebellious manner and celebrate such a dishonoring attitude as "strength, independence, and being in charge". I remember as a newlywed thinking it a boring thing to be a submissive wife. My mom cut that rebellious streak in me down, and the Lord used her to cause my eyes to see the beauty of a marriage founded on God's order.
2. Women want to believe they are the center of the marriage. This is one of the main themes of all romance novels --- how the man makes her feel like the whole world revolves around them, how the men change for the sake of the women, how the men adjust to the women's preferences, and on and on. The first portrayal of this distortion of truth was in the Garden of Eden. Adam let Eve decide, and everything else is history. We need to demolish these strongholds. God made the man first, and then the woman. The feminist in us cries out in rebellion, but we who are daughters of God ought to know better ---that God's ways always lead to peace and righteousness. Ladies, we adjust to the men. This was one of the sayings my own mother used to hammer on me in my first months of married life. My independent, strong-willed me would automatically respond by saying, "But what about me? Should he not also consider me???" And my prudent mom would reply in words that would go like this:
"There is no me in marriage. It's we. And if there's anyone who has to die to their preferences first, it's us women, because the instruction given to us is to SUBMIT."
Only when I chose to embrace truth over personal opinion did I see the wisdom of it all. Marriage was created by God to depict the kind of covenant relationship He wants to have with us. In the New Testament, we are called the Bride of Christ and Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church. The goal is perfect union, when the heart, will and mind of the Bride becomes one with Christ. Guess who has to submit? The Bride. I am sure some of us smarter women would quickly point out to Christ dying first on the Cross for us. I am not stripping the husband's need to fulfill his own responsibilities of honoring us and loving us. It would also not be love if all the dying has to take place from our side. Both has to be willing to concede, and it ought to be us wives who does so first. SUBMIT. In the epistle to the Ephesian church, Paul states it clearly "submit in all things". The Apostle Peter even points out the wife's submission as that which we ought to give to the Lord! Wow, what a tough mandate to us wives! And yet, God never calls us to do that which He will not enable or empower us to do ---IF WE ARE BUT WILLING TO YIELD to His will.
I have had to change so many times in my married life. I have had to renew my mind the way I manage my time because when you get married, you no longer live for yourself. You live to serve your spouse. The world tries to portray a submissive and serving wife as a "goody-two-shoes woman". But let's ask the independent wives if their marriage is deep, meaningful, solid and peaceful as well as fulfilling, shall we?
I have had to change some of my favorite pastimes in order to be one with my husband. I have had to make an effort to be interested in his own pastimes and interests. We did not have household help in our first year of marriage so I have had to wake up early to prepare breakfast for him. I had to get over my "cum laude" status and serve as a full time housewife for a time. I have had to change the way I see "date nights". I had to shift from thinking like an independent college dormer to a married woman who doesn't own her life anymore.
Do I get a "me time"? Of course, I still do! And believe me, when you surrender to your husband's ways, he will delight in pampering you. He'll give you a break of course, every now and then. But when your husband is tired and you're all hyperactive from the exciting events of your life, take a pause and SERVE your husband's needs.
Him first before me. Just like in our relationship with Jesus.
I grew up as a teenager with two major vices --- a public and a private one. The former was romance novels, and the latter was pornography. What a combination. One fed the other well alright. I went on with these vices for years and needless to say they were my addictions. Of course, my mind began to be filled with all these false and perverted notions about love, romance and beauty. Without me knowing it, my perception of marriage was so distorted that it was way too far from its authentic attributes authored by its Creator.
Although I had stopped reading the romance novels by the time I got engaged, and had already been delivered from pornography a couple of years before that, my mind had not yet been renewed. Because of these ungodly ideas embedded so deeply in my psyche, a lot of disappointments, dissatisfaction, and false expectations built up within me in the first three years of married life. Of course, it did not help that I too had to go through major inner healing from issues of rejection.
Thank God for His Word, and thank God for mothers who speak with so much wisdom!
Without belaboring the point, allow me to share below some genuine biblical wake-up calls to our minds that may have been taken captive by the world's deceptive ways and philosophies. I will have to divide this blog into parts as I don't want to make it too long.
1. Wives (including us Christian wives) tend to keep a "rebellious streak" thinking that it adds to our spunk. What do I mean with that? I have heard some wives talk about their husbands in such a rebellious manner and celebrate such a dishonoring attitude as "strength, independence, and being in charge". I remember as a newlywed thinking it a boring thing to be a submissive wife. My mom cut that rebellious streak in me down, and the Lord used her to cause my eyes to see the beauty of a marriage founded on God's order.
2. Women want to believe they are the center of the marriage. This is one of the main themes of all romance novels --- how the man makes her feel like the whole world revolves around them, how the men change for the sake of the women, how the men adjust to the women's preferences, and on and on. The first portrayal of this distortion of truth was in the Garden of Eden. Adam let Eve decide, and everything else is history. We need to demolish these strongholds. God made the man first, and then the woman. The feminist in us cries out in rebellion, but we who are daughters of God ought to know better ---that God's ways always lead to peace and righteousness. Ladies, we adjust to the men. This was one of the sayings my own mother used to hammer on me in my first months of married life. My independent, strong-willed me would automatically respond by saying, "But what about me? Should he not also consider me???" And my prudent mom would reply in words that would go like this:
"There is no me in marriage. It's we. And if there's anyone who has to die to their preferences first, it's us women, because the instruction given to us is to SUBMIT."
Only when I chose to embrace truth over personal opinion did I see the wisdom of it all. Marriage was created by God to depict the kind of covenant relationship He wants to have with us. In the New Testament, we are called the Bride of Christ and Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church. The goal is perfect union, when the heart, will and mind of the Bride becomes one with Christ. Guess who has to submit? The Bride. I am sure some of us smarter women would quickly point out to Christ dying first on the Cross for us. I am not stripping the husband's need to fulfill his own responsibilities of honoring us and loving us. It would also not be love if all the dying has to take place from our side. Both has to be willing to concede, and it ought to be us wives who does so first. SUBMIT. In the epistle to the Ephesian church, Paul states it clearly "submit in all things". The Apostle Peter even points out the wife's submission as that which we ought to give to the Lord! Wow, what a tough mandate to us wives! And yet, God never calls us to do that which He will not enable or empower us to do ---IF WE ARE BUT WILLING TO YIELD to His will.
I have had to change so many times in my married life. I have had to renew my mind the way I manage my time because when you get married, you no longer live for yourself. You live to serve your spouse. The world tries to portray a submissive and serving wife as a "goody-two-shoes woman". But let's ask the independent wives if their marriage is deep, meaningful, solid and peaceful as well as fulfilling, shall we?
I have had to change some of my favorite pastimes in order to be one with my husband. I have had to make an effort to be interested in his own pastimes and interests. We did not have household help in our first year of marriage so I have had to wake up early to prepare breakfast for him. I had to get over my "cum laude" status and serve as a full time housewife for a time. I have had to change the way I see "date nights". I had to shift from thinking like an independent college dormer to a married woman who doesn't own her life anymore.
Do I get a "me time"? Of course, I still do! And believe me, when you surrender to your husband's ways, he will delight in pampering you. He'll give you a break of course, every now and then. But when your husband is tired and you're all hyperactive from the exciting events of your life, take a pause and SERVE your husband's needs.
Him first before me. Just like in our relationship with Jesus.
