I think that I have shared before, that I was not raised in a home that was conducive to this practice. I call it a practice because it takes constant work. When we read the Word, many don’t always think that it applies because it was written so long ago and things are not how they use to be. Well, I want to lay something out for you.
1763-1774 American Revolution, thousands of men die
1847 Women’s Suffrage Movement begins
1861-1865 American Civil War, with 620, 000 deaths
1914-1918 World War 1, killing 117, 000 American soldiers
1915 Suffrage Movement Marches up 5th Avenue, over 25, 000 women protested
1918 Influenza epidemic begins, killing 20 million
1920 The 19th Amendment is signed; Women now have the right to vote.
1929 The stock market crashes, and the Great depression begins. While men’s employment rates dropped, women’s employment rates rose.
1939-1945 World War 2, 6 million women joined the workforce, most out of necessity. The US suffered 418,500 deaths. After the war, many women were laid off either from job eliminations or to employ a man returning from war.
1960s Women protests begin for equal pay
1961-1975 US involved in Vietnam War 58,220 casualties, Men returning home from war had a high rate of PTSD, alcoholism, substance abuse, and domestic violence.
1980 Highest divorce rates to date
1990’s 7.6 million single mothers in the US
2003 The US invades Iraq, over 160 women die in combat.
One thing that I see over and over in this data is that we have war that leads to hardships. When these hardships happen, women raise up in the temporary situation, but we have a domino effect that is impacting generation after generation. Myself, having been a child from a broken home, raised by a strong independent woman, who was raised by her hard working mother (who was raised by her one armed mother after her father died in a farming accident during the dust bowl) and an alcoholic father (who was abandoned as a baby by his gangster bootleg parents and raised by adoptive parents) can see that hardships are generational. I can also see that because of generational hardships and trauma, I was raised to not submit to a man. Instead, I was told to be strong and independent. That is how I found myself attached to an infantry platoon in the middle of the Kadhimiya province in Iraq. When I came home from Iraq, there was no way that I ever would have said I believed in wives submitting to their spouse. However, the Lord changed my mind.
When I really made Jesus Lord of my life in 2016, I began to desire something different for my marriage. The more I got in the word, the more I understood what the Lord desired for my marriage.
I was given 1 Peter 3:1-12 from my friend Trista at a conference. This was the first time that I really began to see my husband as flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. This verse about being the weaker vessel was not offensive to me because I remembered how many times my husband came to my aid in my physical ailments as well as my mental ailments. In every battle I have faced, he has held my arms steady.
When we see the word Submit there is often a bitter taste in out mouth because of the American historical context of the word. We have to at least attempt to stop reading the bible from an American context. Instead read the word in its original context of respect.
Then I look over to 1 Corinthians 7. I don’t look at just the top portion that refer to marriage, but I look at what’s below it as well. The top portion talks about intimacy and divorce… but then in verse 17 we see this… Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches
Oh my Good Good Father. How sweet a reminder to all of us? I cannot tell anyone to submit to their husband, because only I am married to my husband. Every marriage is going to look different. The one thing I do know is this: If you submit with your mouth but you don’t submit with your heart, then you don’t submit. We have gone through the series rating our marriage in these different areas on a scale from 1-10. Except with the husband leading, we have only rated him. Well with this, we only rate the wife.
My husband and I were going through our numbers one time, and I gave myself an 8… then he said, but is your heart an 8? OH man. It definitely was not. I had to reassess and walk through some stuff with the Lord. If you are reading this, then I will assume you are interested in knowing more about biblical submission. The best way for you to get to know more about it, is to read the word about it. Another way to understand this better, is to understand vows and covenant. I have decided to go over that next. so, stay tuned. Subscribe for the latest posts, sales, and encouragement.
Grace & Peace
Chorley
Coming soon: Marriage Part 8 Vows and Covenant