Periodically, I am going to post things on my blog that I have posted elsewhere on the internet. Last week, I wrote the following in response to a Facebook post by a young woman whom I am calling “Fellow Sojourner”:
4 Replies to “#14: A Marriage Testimony to a Fellow Sojourner”
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Where is the Love ❤️ button????? what a great testimony!
Comp theology wants us to think a man will feel less like a man if he is not in charge, your story proves them wrong.
As a woman learning of Gods liberty I too now love to read the Bible and talk to God more intimately and more often and definitely more passionately.
But I love to see how this has been the case for a man learning of a woman’s freedom ultimately leading to his own!
If Christ shall make you free you shall be free INDEED!
Great observation. Free indeed, indeed! Christian men who practice comp theology aren’t just holding women in bondage, they are also holding themselves in bondage. They are shutting themselves out from a real relationship with God by their sin of lording-it-over another believer. Repentance for that sin restores fellowship with God. My husband used to say to me that God didn’t “speak” to Him when He read the Bible (like He seemed to do me…). That is not the case any more, and what a blessing that is! He pretty consistently tells me something new God has shown Him in the Bible, and often it is about women. He said he never even noticed women in the Bible before. Today He spent about ten minutes telling me (animatedly) about what God had shown him about Mary breaking her alabaster box. He then went and wrote it down. (I’m thinking about sharing some of the things he has written in some future posts!)
Well said, Kay. I agree. Many of us are “perfectly fine with the setup” until we are disappointed by our husbands not meeting all our needs for “love, psychological support, and spiritual guidance,” which is only found fully in our Heavenly Father.
As we put Jesus first and seek to serve Him then He can release the prayer in us for our men and trust God to make them the kind of men He intends them to be.
And I have learned after the end of my 41-year marriage and from the heart-wrenching testimonies of women who have suffered through multiple marriages that God is faithful even if our minds are blown by what appear to be catastrophic losses. Nothing is wasted and God’s ways are higher than our ways.
This is very helpful, because I’ve suffered in the same way from having a husband that was reared in a Christian home, same as I, both with Dad’s that “controlled” the family, making all the decisions other than in the kitchen and with the domestic responsibilities. For the most part, I was perfectly fine with this setup, until I began to realize as time went by that some of his decisions had not been good ones. I realized that I had some much better ideas that were very often being overridden. I found that when I prayed, God answered my prayers. When I prayerfully read my Bible seeking to know the Truth, God revealed wonderful things to me. However whenever I looked to my husband (like Eve did) for the kind of love, psychological support, and spiritual guidance I felt I needed, I was often disappointed. I’m very thankful that He loved me and the kids and worked hard to pay the bills and be there for us, but nourishing and cherishing me as his own body (Eph. 5) just wasn’t going to happen, naturally. So I have found that when I (like Mary) choose to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to Him talk to me, the best part is that when I give Him, one by one, my distresses, fears, anxieties, emotional pain, and deepest needs, He soothes me and quenches my “thirst” and shows me more of His loving self that never disappoints me or turns me away. (Oh, that I would do this more quickly and not hesitate!!) I truly believe we can NEVER go wrong taking this advice to put Jesus first and give Him permission to make us the women He intended us to be, and earnestly pray for our men and trust God for them to be the kind of men He intended them to be. If we take the lead to do this, then one day we, together with them, will match Him in every way as His Bride. I look forward to that day!!