The Role of a Wife

I want you to know that I love being a wife and a mother. In fact I have never wanted to be anything else! From the time I was a small girl, my goal in life was to get married and have children. It was difficult for me to wait the two years my husband and I set aside to get established financially and have our own home. As soon as the two years were up...well that was it! I was more than ready to start a family. My husband was very supportive in this, and nine months later our first baby was born. 

Being a wife is something that is not celebrated by many these days. Sadly, a great number of women do not seek that high calling, nor do they even realize that they are missing out on so very many blessings. There is much to be gained by determining in our hearts to lovingly submit to the husband God gave us.  

Can we truly celebrate being a wife if there is little, or no, submission? To be a wife is an honor! To submit to our husband is an honor! To seek to please him is an honor! When we willingly (note the word ‘willingly’) do these things, then we are truly blessed above measure by our Heavenly Father. He rewards our obedience to His Word.   

However, doing these things because we have to, opposed to because we want to, will bring little or no blessing. For sure, we have to learn and that takes time. It can take a while for what we read in the Word of God to get from our head to our heart. But there must come a time in our journey when that will happen—when we can lovingly submit without thinking, “Why am I doing this? What’s the point? He’s such a grouch. He’s never thankful,” etc. 

‘He’ is not the issue. God did not call our husbands to submit to us.  It was the other way around! Now we all know that our men are to submit to their Heavenly Father, just as we are, but they have many more responsibilities before God than we do. Their role as priests of their home is way more challenging and definitely way more difficult. Would you really like to be responsible before God for all that went on in your home, for all that came into your home, for the upbringing of your children, to determine God’s leading for your family and much more? It is a huge responsibility—certainly one I wouldn’t care to carry. See how blessed we are dear sisters.  Being a wife is a cinch, compared to being a husband and a father.

My life has been difficult at times, but when I look back...oh dear, if only I’d been a loving submissive wife, I am convinced that my life would have been more peaceful during these times. There have been many times when the peace in our home was vanquished. I am convinced this would not have been the case if I had submitted to the confidence that exuded from my husband. When I did not trust his discernment or his leading, it caused us to go through some times of testing again and again. Dear Sisters—take my word for it. It is so very important to let our husbands take the lead. When we are lovingly submitted, our advice will often be sought and our opinions taken into consideration, and even our husband’s mind can be changed by our godly attitude. But again, it is a result of loving submission and it is a blessing from the Lord. 

It really breaks my heart when I see young married women throwing submission out the window.  How sad it is that they do not know how to be a true wife—and how sad that the young men have no idea how to be a godly husband. 

Let us look to the Lord together in working to be better wives—godly women who reverence their husbands, whose daily aim is to please him and to put him first, before her children and before herself.