Dear Kitty,

By The Mind Filled on August 12, 2013 • ( 2 )

Dear Kitty,

I wear one of those rubber bracelets that has a saying on it.

“I love my husband – Eph. 5:22”

It looks all cutesy and I’m sure it provoked a few reactions in you like “awwwww” or “that made me want to throw up a little.” Some of you might know the verse referenced and some of you might go look it up. Let me save you some time…

“Wives, submit to your husband.”

Let me stop right there, because I’m sure you did. Brian did not buy this for me, it was a self purchase. He doesn’t ask me to wear it, I choose it. Know why?

He’s earned it.

Coming out of a long domestic violence marriage, you would think “submit” is the last thing I would want to do. In fact, “submit” in the definition I had learned WAS the last thing I wanted to do. Cowering in fear of retribution forced me to define what submission was and I was not going back there.

But that version of submission was something that was imposed by an external influence. That’s submission through fear and merely reflexive. That submission breeds anger and grudges.

The submission that makes me want to wear that bracelet is an internal choice; a change of heart. It is the submission that the scripture talks about in its entirety.

“22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

Ok, that was a whole lot of scripture and probably seemed a bit wordy. Let me break that down to you in what it looks like in our life.

You know that whole crucifixion thing? Let’s start right there. We know that it was because of love for us that Jesus went there. It was love that made him endure the sting of death. So above when it says “husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church;” it’s saying that the husband should love the wife that deeply. A love that puts others in first place. A love that is willing to sacrifice.

You know that awesome feeling when we think of how Jesus died for us? So much awesomeness that we want to repay that by loving him, by following him and believing his words?

That is submission. The act of wanting to please, respect and obey the one who clearly has our hearts and lives as his passion.

In return, my husband treats me as Jesus directed and let me tell you something…there is something incredibly sexy about a man leading his household with Faith. Standing beside me in church singing songs of praise in his booming voice, grabbing my hand during prayer time so our prayers are united and those times I wander into the room and he’s watching a sermon on his iPad and tells me “you got to hear this!!”

By his leadership in our home, by his hands creating the best life possible and by his heart loving us beyond himself; he has earned my desire to submit. By submission I know that I am allowing him to do what God created him to do; lead our family through life and into a closer walk with God. I have no fear of his authority, because I know that he will treat us with a love that says “You First.”

Hey men…want to become totally desirable to your wives? Be a man of courageous and reckless Faith. Be a man willing to sing out your praises for your life. Be a man willing to get in his knees beside his family and pray “Not my will…”

“I love my husband – Ephesians 5:22”