Session 2 (Women)

I'm going to start off by saying I am not an expert, so I am just feel like the Lord has talked to me, given me some words to share. But please do not look and go, "Wow, Raina and David-they sure got it together. We're learning and growing still, so I just want to start off that way, and then let's pray. You want to pray? Sure.

Okay. Lord, thank you so much for this, for this day, for this church, for these women and men who have chosen to spend a Saturday here to ultimately grow in their marriage, which is something that is pleasing to you. So I ask, Lord, we ask that you would be here with us, that there would not be words spoken by anyone who's speaking today that aren't coming from you and from your word and from your desire for our marriages, Lord. I pray that the ripple effect of this day, could be felt in all of our lives, in the lives of our children, in the lives of grandchildren, in the lives of the community around us. Because marriage is powerful, you created it, and when we love our spouse the way that you love us. The world sees that, and it's powerful. And so I ask, Lord, that you would use all of what is taught and spoken today for your glory and to show people who you are, ultimately that our marriages would point to you. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Okay, I just want to share a little bit about David and I, and then I'll get into what we're going to talk about, but just so you have a background, David and I met when we were 12 and 13. We started dating when I just turned 17 and he was 16, and we got married at 28 and 27. So it took us a while to go from meeting dating to marriage, it's like one of people's favorite stories. That like I know this couple who dated 12 years before they got married. That was me and David. And at the time of us dating, I was very impatient. But when I look back on it, when we did actually get married, I was like, Lord, thank you for making us wait because He transformed both of us so much in that 12 years of us dating that we were we moved into marriage seamlessly. We knew so much about each other; it wasn't a mystery for the most part about like our personalities. He knew what he loved about me, and he knew what drove him drove him crazy about me, and vice versa. And we have been married 16 years, so all of that is like we've been together since 1998, but we've been married 16 years. And I grew up in a family of a broken home with a mom who was very angry, and a dad who was very passive. And he grew up in a home where his parents are still happily married. His grandparents have all been married, are still happily married. All of his aunts and uncles are very married and happily married, and that was just not the family I grew up in. All of my grandparents have been divorced. My aunts and uncles have been divorced. My parents were divorced. So truly, all my cousins have been divorced. That my two brothers and myself are the only ones who have not. So that's like our background. So moving into how I grew up in marriage and what that looked like, to what the Bible says is completely different. And my mom is a Christian, but just what our home looked like was not how the Bible orients it. So learning it took a lot of hills and valleys for us, and the funny thing is, is we worked some of that out in dating because we were dating so long. So, but there is something that happens once you are joined together in. Marriage and how it shifts-that I could live my life how I wanted to and go home, versus I can't go home. We are at home together. We live together, so we don't have separation from when things happen. And I listened to a Bible study about wise and what it means to be submissive and what it means to have respect, and it was so eye-opening. It changed everything for me. So I'm going to dive into Ephesians five. I'm going to start at verse 21 through 24, and I want to start at 21 because I just think it's really important that a lot of the breaks in our Bible are man-made, but when Paul wrote this letter, he's writing it as one. He's not putting breaks in titles in his sections of his Bible. So I like that we start at verse 21 because it says, "Submitting to one another in the fear of God, that is talking about how we are doing it, like as as the church, but also when we think about who we are, submitting to one another in the fear of God. That is us submitting to our husbands in the fear of God. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is head of the wife, so also Christ is head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. The word submission, as Brandon had said, is to arrange or place in an orderly way to fall below somebody to fall in line. It implies a voluntary, willing choice rather than something that's forced or an oppression. So I love that it's our willing choice to do it, and it says that our husband is the head and we are the body.

And I got this picture about just what we look like as humans. And can you imagine what we look like without our heads? Like if we just walked around decapitated. Just our lower halves, we would look so funny, right? And the lower half of us moves so much differently than our head. We can move sideways. We can move up and down our heads, but it it moves differently. But God has meant them to be together, and I love that picture of like our husbands are meant to be our head, but we are meant to be the body. We are meant to be as one, working together. The opposite of what submission is is to be dominant, to be assertive, to be forceful, and to be aggressive. And in this section, it says that we are to be submissive to our husbands as to the Lord. So, can you imagine being like, "Yes, I am submissive to to God, but I am dominant over God, I am assertive over God, I am forceful for my way over God, or I am aggressive over God. We would never say that, right? When you look at like, yes, of course, I will submit to my to the Lord. You're not thinking like I'm aggressively submitting to the Lord, right? You're like, no, I just give myself over to Him. But yet, why with our husbands, we can be aggressive, we can be dominant, we can be assertive, and we can be forceful for our ways to be done, for what we want. And the Bible doesn't say that's what we're supposed to do. So when you think about being submissive to our husbands as of to the Lord, who are we really being submissive to? To God, being submissive to our husbands means we're being submissive to God, to Christ, and if we are willing to submit to Him, we will be willing to submit to our husbands because that's how God designed our marriage to be. He designed our marriage to be in such a way where he is the head. It doesn't say he deserves to be there. It doesn't say he had to prove himself to be there. It doesn't say he has to be a Christian in order to be there. It says God designed him. That is who he is, and all our job is is to come alongside of him, to fall in line with him, willingly placing ourselves in line to follow in his lead in his direction. So, how we designed it this section to be is we're going to kind of. Present you guys with a question. You guys think about it, and then we're going to kind of talk about it, and then we'll move on from there. So my first question to you is: How do you understand the biblical concept of voluntary submission as a partnership rather than a loss of your voice or your value, I'm going to write. Say it again. How do you understand the biblical concept of voluntary submission as a partnership rather than a loss of your voice or your value? So take a moment, think about it. One of the reasons why it was a choice for both Bridget and I to be up here is because, in some ways, we are very different. I, the only thing that makes David upset, is me. I am the only thing that makes him upset, and he is only upset with me when I am upset with him. Like if he is annoying, if I did something to annoy him, he will not say anything. He will move past it. It will not linger. It will not bother him. But if he did something to annoy me, and I'm addressing it to him aggressively, then he's upset. So I have a very more dominant voice in our home, and so the things that I will do are going to be a little differently than Bridget, right? Yeah.

So I would definitely be on the end of submission. Like, is more natural for me. I am a more passive personality. I'm a more passive person in our home, and it is easy for me to let Charlie lead. That being said, I have to work to have a voice and to feel like I have value in the home because I can, in my flesh, without being intentional, I can I can get lost and just say you can lead and I'm I'm not even going to give my opinion right, and I can get into my head about feeling like he's going to do what he's gonna do, and that's the enemy. That's not necessarily true, but like so, Raina is coming probably from a place where she's needing to learn to submit, and I am coming from a place of I need to learn how to be in partnership and say, I feel like I have something to say about this decision, and there's value in that, and I think that you should hear me out. Now, I do want to specify, just because we're a little newer here, that that's not coming from him lording over me, saying I don't want to hear from you-that's just my natural personality-is to say whatever you want to do, you know, from going out to dinner to how we handle finances. What do you want to do? And so I've had to grow over the years to find my place because I'm naturally maybe too submissive.

And one of the verses that I want to talk about is Proverbs 31:26. It says, "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness. So David is kind of like a whatever you want to do kind of person, and he's like, you just tell me how like what our menu is this week. You just tell me what our plan is today, and it's not that he's doing it because he's weak or he doesn't want to lead us. It's just that that's how his personality is. That's how God made him to be, and we work in a partnership together where it's fine because I don't. I I handle all the kids' stuff. I handle this. I just tell them where we're going, where A, B, and C is, and we just move together. But when I today, he's taking Katie to soccer. Now I have to be like, okay, Katie has soccer games today at 10:30. She needs to be there by 9:45. That means she needs to be on. Field at 945, not in the parking lot at 945, and then I can be like, "Are you going to prepare them in the morning like me? And he's going to say, "No, they will get fed, they will arrive, and I have to be okay with that, he's not going to do it like me because he's not me, and I have to trust him that he's going to handle it. And he is-he's a great dad. He's a great dad to those kids, but he does not do things like me, and so I can come to him after this is all over and be like, "Okay, what the kids have for breakfast? What do you mean you fed them a donut? She needs eggs. She needs some protein. But then, what am I doing? Like he's not. He doesn't lord over me. But now, what am I doing to him? He didn't do it like me. So am I speaking to him in wisdom? Am I speaking to him in kindness? Because that's how our relationship works. Where it's different. He didn't do it like me. He, I have a voice. He knows it. My kids know it. But now I'm all upset. He fed them a donut this morning, and so that's where I have to work to be like, it's okay that he didn't do it like me, because he's their dad, and it's okay that he didn't handle things like I did, because my job is to show him kindness and to speak to him with words of wisdom, because words of wisdom, or she opens her mouth with words of wisdom. By being his helper, am I speaking to him like that, or am I tearing him down?

Yeah. So I think we can talk about the examples of you know, did he give them a donut for breakfast, but ultimately, submission I think gives us this sense of like feeling like we are lesser or like we don't have control, or I think ultimately the larger parts, you know, of our marriage, like how are we going to handle our finances, how are we going to handle going to church, how are we going to handle our values, how do we handle conflict? Right. A lot of times people view submission and they're thinking about an argument, and that he gets to win, or you know, like something like that. And ultimately, the verses are not speaking about he gets to win, right? We heard Brandon in there talking about how it's our position to be arranging ourselves under our husband for the sake of order, but that doesn't mean that we're giving permission to be unloving, or that that just means they get to do whatever they want. In fact, as he was saying, their order from the Bible is much more than ours. To love us the way Christ loved the church, right? And so I think there can always be this tendency for us as women to be thinking, "I will do that when He, right? Like I hope he's getting his talk in there. You know, we're all thinking that. Like, what are they telling them? Hopefully, they're telling them to you know to lay down their life for us, because that's what it says. And I hope that they're doing it right. And we're like, because if I'm gonna do this, he better be doing that. And unfortunately, it just doesn't work like that. It doesn't say do these things only if they are doing their part. We can only control us, and so our part in this scripture is to arrange ourselves as a role under our husband, supporting them, and ultimately, if there's a decision that comes to a head, saying, "This is my feeling. This is what I think. Right, and you're hopefully able to come to a compromise, but at the end of the day, sometimes somebody has to just make a decision. You're not always going to see things eye to eye, and then at that point, if you say, "I'm just going to submit to you as unto the Lord and trust that ultimately." Who I'm submitting to is the Lord in this, and letting go. But also, from my perspective of sometimes it can be easier recognizing that God gives you instinct. He gives like if you're seeking wisdom, you have something to offer in those conversations. If you're feeling like you don't like the way that your husband handles your finances, and you're sitting there quietly because you're supposed to be submissive, that's not helping him. That's not the kind of submission we're talking about. I went years of our marriage just probably not saying anything because I'm feeling like that's what I'm supposed to do, but that's not a partnership either. This is supposed to be two-sided. It's submitting, and then he's submitting also. He's laying down his life for me. If I'm not telling him any of the ways that it would honor me, then how does he know? I'm just you know thinking that he's gonna know. I would love if we did this, or I have I feel like I you know have been hearing something, or I feel like this is on my heart. If I'm not bringing those things to him, and then just being resentful because he's not leading our home the way that I want him to. That's on me, right? That's on me because I'm not bringing it. Now, if I bring it and then it's dismissed, that's when it needs to be become you know just between me and the Lord, of like Lord help me in this, because I'm not going to be able to change my husband's heart, but I serve a God who can, right? And sometimes also our hearts, the ones that needs to be changed, is ours, being willing, you know, to just be malleable both sides.

Yeah, yeah, I. I saw this illustration once about what Bridget was saying about your husbands laying down their lives for you and you submitting to your husband. It's almost supposed to be like a contest of who can do what, what who can serve who more, right? Like he's here, you're here, but he's trying to put himself under you, and you're trying to go under him, and you guys are kind of working your way under lower, so that way you can be edifying and pushing the other person up. So just like how our I'm going to go back to the illustration. Like our bodies, like our heads are heavy. I don't remember what they say, but it's like a percentage of your body weight, and it's pretty heavy. Just going to throw that out there.

Pretty heavy for those of you scientific.

Scientific science homeschool lesson. But we need the rest of our bodies to support our heads, right, and that's exactly why God gave us a picture that we can see and we can grasp, because He's showing us that, like you can look at yourself and understand that, and that's what our husbands need. They need us supporting them, because their job is hard. If you think about it, they are accountable to the Lord for a lot, and we are also accountable to the Lord. Where we one day will stand in front of our in front of the Lord, and He's going to be like, "How were you in submitting to your husband the thing I called you to do? And we don't get to say, well, he was a jerk. He was hard. The husband you gave me was difficult.

Right.

We don't get to say those things because we chose to marry them, and so once we chose to marry them, we put ourselves in that union. And goes to what Bridget was saying: is do we trust God enough to change their hearts, to change them because of how they treat us? And that's what God's asking us to do. And going back to me personally, so much of the change that needs to happen is me. I'm the one who needs to change in in in my home because of my personality, because of how I want things to be. I want the finances done the way I want them to be done, and I my I know that I could be like, well, he's selfish. Well, he's a jerk. Well, he shouldn't have bought that. Well, he should have talked to me first. He doesn't owe me anything, but what I owe him is respect. I owe him submission. I do am allowed to have a voice, but is my voice in? Is it as sweet as the honeycomb, healthy to his bones, or am I tearing him down? Okay.

Yeah, I was picturing like like a body with two heads, you know, for a wife who is you know it's part of actually in Genesis part of the fall part of the curse is that it says that our desire will be for our husband. What actually that means is not-it's not that you will have this intense desire to be with your husband. It means your desire will be for your husband's position. You will have a desire to lead, to be in control. This is part of the fall, so having a body with two heads is not going to work. But also, like, if you're like I wasn't for years of our marriage, I wasn't holding his head up. I was just letting him like you got this, right? And I can just say whatever you want, whatever you want, whatever you want, because that's what's easier for me. Because then I don't have to put myself out there. I don't have to be vulnerable and say this is kind of what I was thinking, and potentially have it accepted or denied, right? It's just easier for me. But then I'm I'm like a floppy body that the head can like fall off, right? And so, like you have to be a strong body to hold up the head, and the body only needs one head.

Yeah. Okay. So we're going to move on to another question. What expectations of your husband are unspoken or unrealistic? What expectations of your husband are unspoken or unrealistic? And how can you submit them to God? Those unspoken or unrealistic expectations. How can you submit your expectations to God?

Okay, so I'm starting on this one because of my personality type, I have a lot of unspoken expectations, and probably some of them are unrealistic, but a lot of them are unspoken, and especially early in our marriage, My family, like Raina was speaking about, her family growing up. My family growing up. My dad had a lot of my personality. He was a lot like David, Reyna's husband, very quiet, go with the flow, served the family constantly. To this day, we joke about the fact that my dad never sits down. He was just like work, work, work, work, work. Also, my dad is not diagnosed, but 100% OCD, and cleans his house every extra moment that he gets. And my mom was just was a hard worker, and she cooked beautiful dinners for us, and took care of us kids. And that was without me realizing it. That was my expectation. And so when we got married, I'm like, this house is dirty. Like, who is gonna clean this house? And he's like, guess what? Charlie's mom. Charlie grew up in the South. Charlie's mom does everything. Charlie's mom delivers his dad tea. Here's your tea. You know, do you need something? Let me go get it for you, and we knew all of these things about our parents, right? You see it, but you just think we're gonna get married, and it's just we're just gonna do our thing. But no, he's like, who's cleaning the house? And I'm like, who's cleaning the house? Cause like my dad cleaned the house, and he's like my mom cleaned the house, and I'm like, are you gonna do your own laundry? And he was like, well, I thought you would do my laundry, right? But the fun thing is that these things weren't really like actually spoken; they were just in our heads, right? So I'm like, gosh, like, why is he just sitting on Saturday? But I'm not gonna say that. Just gonna get mad, right? Just gonna get like disappointed. Gonna be like, what the heck? Guess I'll do it. Wow, look at his laundry that he's just leaving there for. Guess I'll do it, right? And you do that year after year after year, and all of a sudden you realize that you have a lot of resentment because of unspoken expectations. That maybe some of them are unrealistic, right? But some of them are just like things that we carry into a relationship, and as soon as I speak it, like you know what, I kind of thought like you would clean the bathrooms, and he's like, oh, I just really hate doing the dishes, but I'll clean the bathroom if you do the dishes, and I'm like, you know, deal, right? But it takes a long time sometimes to even realize that you have an unmet expectation, and so there's this verse, First Peter, five seven, that says, "Whoa, sorry. Here I go. It is amazing, you guys. Can we just talk about readers? It's a great invention. Okay, so I'm going to start at six. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. So this is how we can submit these things to God. So, like I'm talking about simple things like who's going to do the laundry, right? But there can be really large expectations about how we're going to be treated, and if you're dealing with some of these harder concepts in marriage, ultimately, again, we're not going to be able to change our husband's heart. We're not going to be able to change his actions. We can change ours, and so submitting these things, casting them like literally at the feet of Jesus, my husband raises his voice at me, and I had an expectation that that would not happen. And whether it's wrong or right, you-it's like I didn't expect this, and I don't know how to handle it, and I'm not going to be able to change it. And so you lay it at the feet of the Lord, day after day, year after Year, and for me, again, there, there's just there's been things where I had to go to the Lord to say I didn't expect this, and honestly, so many of them did it happen like the next day, no.

But like I could look back. We've been married 22 years. The first 10 years of our marriage, like we don't even look like the same people. We don't have the same marriage at all. And a lot of it was just me going, God, I did, I didn't expect this. I didn't expect to feel like this, and just laying it down, and to be able to look back and see the way that he has honored those prayers, and then some. Right, like, is really amazing.

I was thinking as Bridget was talking about a wedding ceremony, and you know those people who like write their own vows, and it's like I promise to like let you win every argument, and I promise, you know, whatever whatever it is that they're they're talking about, and they have they have this expectation that marriage-I mean, weddings are so beautiful, right? But we have this expectation that that is what marriage is going to be like. But it's two sinners trying to be one person sanctified by God. But the sin issues in our lives don't go away because we're married. A lot of that is so much of what we have to handle within ourselves, and so my expectations of David sometimes are a little different. He works for the city of Garden Grove, and every once in a while he has to be on call for work. And what that means is that he's usually home at 3:45, but when he's on call for work, he could get home at 8:30, 9. He could get a call in the middle of the night. He is in and out all day long, and I just know, okay, this week is just me. I'm handling all the kids' things, all of our life things, and it's just me, and it's so interesting. He is providing for our family. We joke he, I have a bachelor's degree. He does not. I sub at my kid's school because I love it, not for the money. He makes what I make in two hours of overtime. And he is not with children. He is not with 24 children or whatever it is. And it's so interesting. I know he's working hard. I know he is hard at work. And when I am doing those dishes, and he comes home at 830, and he goes puts the kids to bed, and he says goodnight to them, and he falls asleep. How could he fall asleep? I'm tired. I've been with these kids all day, or I mean, and my kids are older. I do not have young kids anymore, so they do part of it. It's just still mentally a lot, and it's so crazy how quickly it can be like he's asleep. I'm still doing the dishes. How come he should be up? He's not spending any time with me. We only have when the kids go to bed to be by ourselves. And he went and got himself and fell asleep on the floor of the kids' bedroom. I'm gonna leave him there all night long. But then it's so quickly to be like Raina, you are so selfish. He has worked so hard to provide for your family, and you're mad about how he's not meeting what you think you need. But you're not even worried about what he needs. He loves to put our kids to bed. It is his favorite thing to do, and more power to him because I will happily do the dishes and watch a TV show while he's doing that. But I also know he can fall asleep really easily, and so I could tell him, "Hey, instead of falling asleep tonight, can you want to come out and spend some time with me? But also, if he's like, no, I'm tired. I have to respect that because I love him, and what he needs me to do is to take my expectations and put him at the feet of the Lord. Because I'm quick to tell him what my expectations are, but I'm also not quick to think about what his needs are. So for me, a lot of it is keeping my mouth shut and praying to the Lord and my heart change. Okay. You know, I thought we would be done real quick.

We gotta

speed this up. Okay, when a disagreement arises, do you tend to lean towards criticism, or do you look for ways to build your husband up with your words? You're disagreeing with him. What is your tendency to lean towards criticism or build him up? I really do want you to think about it. I'm going to read this verse to you, which I kind of mentioned a little bit. Proverbs, which one? I'm going to go to the bottom one, Proverbs 1624, pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul, and healthy to the bones. So as you can imagine, the things I said at the beginning of this conversation is that the only thing that makes David angry is when I am angry at him, and there have been times where we are arguing, and my kids will say, "Are you guys going to get divorced? And the pain on especially my daughter's face is so hard because I know for me the reason we're in this argument is me because of my unrealistic expectations, and it's okay to disagree with what your husband is doing, but for me, are my words sweetness to his soul and healthy to his bones? Because they are not sweet to my daughter's soul; they're not healthy to her bones. And now I put her in a place where she's afraid. She is worried. She's afraid that her parents are going to get divorced, and coming from a divorced family, I don't ever want my kids to feel that way, because it is so painful and so hurtful when you see your parents go through a divorce and you're stuck in the middle of all of it, and so I know that even my words cut David deeply. He will get quiet. He will shut down. He will not say anything. And sometimes I think, why aren't you saying anything? Why aren't you fighting back with me? Fight back to show me you love. Me, but he's so devastated by the words that I have said to him. He's thinking the person I love the most in this world hurt me so badly by her words, so he doesn't have it in it to fight back with me. And when I look at this verse specifically, God calls me for my words to be sweet to Him, for His soul and healthy to His bones, because my words have power. So that's where I'm going to pause. Let you add something in there,

yeah. Yeah, I'm for sure more like David. Like definitely, I'm gonna be quiet. But sometimes I'm trying to think of what does Charlie call it. It's it's essentially like a passive-aggressive silence, right? Like I'm gonna hold it in. I'm gonna be careful with my words, but it doesn't necessarily mean That I don't have something going on right up here, and so this has been a lot, a lot of years of I am not going to express how I feel when we're in a disagreement, and I feel in that moment for a lot of years like I'm better than him because he's saying the you know maybe he's he's you know saying you you know, or there's this, and he's expressing his frustration, right? And I'm like, I'm just gonna sit here, and I don't have the ability to like just shout back with my words. Like I just don't have that in me. I completely shut down emotionally. I completely shut down, but my brain is going, and I'm like taking notes, right? Taking notes. Then when things seem real calm and I'm real comfortable, I'm gonna be like, oh my gosh! I have this grenade right here, right here, from like two years ago, right? And I'm gonna be like, throw it out there, watch it explode, and have him be like, what the heck? You've been holding on, you know? Like that was kind of, and in a way, it's more harmful than him just saying what is frustrating him in the moment. Ultimately, we could both, in those moments, handle it better. But I'm being self-righteous while taking notes mentally in my brain that I will never forget, and I'll be like word for word, like he's like you're holding on to this like verbatim. Like I'm all you said, you know, in 2018, like throw it out there. That's what you said, you know. And he's all, what are we even talking about? Like what's happening? So, this is another verse that can be very eye-opening when we let ourselves really rest in it. Proverbs 2715, and 16. It says, "A continual dripping on a rainy day, and a quarrelsome wife are alike. To restrain her is to restrain the wind, or to grasp oil in one's right hand. This is talking about women, wives, who just continually pick at their husband. I can do that in my mind. I'm not the type of wife that's gonna say it. I have a lot. I have a lot of friends that I could say, like, at certain times in their marriage, they can be like this. I know what it looks like. So sometimes it just looks like women who are like, you know, they're just always on their husband, like, and he doesn't do this. And if you would just pick up your underwear off the bathroom floor, or if you, you know, and I'm like, and it's constant. And the men are probably like, I'm at work all day, and I don't need to come home to this, right? For me, there's the other side of it where I need to be careful that I'm not. Keeping my running list in my mind, and what it's doing is the same thing in my heart. I'm just having this checklist, right, of things that are not that I'm frustrated about, but I'm not even going to talk about them. But they're going to come out in how I serve him his dinner plate, or they're gonna come out in you know like they're going to come out, and he's gonna be like, I don't know what we're dealing with right now, you know. But so ultimately, something I will say honestly in the last five years that's been really transformational for me because, because again, Raina and I are very different. So I have to manage my internal thoughts because I'm not going to be quarrelsome wife out loud. But I just start the running list as soon as I have something that upsets me, I my body goes back to what he did, you know, five years ago. What did he do seven years ago? Was it this is the same, you know? And I just start getting all worked up, and he's like, I don't know.

All I did is like not take the trash out in the moment, but he doesn't even know what's going on, and I'm back in all of these Arguments, and something that I have started doing is I just honestly I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm like I'm gonna go for a walk, and sometimes he doesn't even know I'm at. I'm just like I'm gonna go for a walk, and I literally go for a walk, and I just pray for him, like I just like, and I say thank you. Like I just need to change my mind, because at the end of the day, most of it is really not. It's we're not dealing with large emotional, you know, damage issues. These are small frustrations. These are things that I could I could let go of, or I could figure out how to say, "Could you do this? And that's on me. But I just and I just walk and I just thank God for the fact that I have a husband. Thank you that he has a job. Thank you that he believes in you. Thank you that he loves our children. And I just flip it in my brain, and I come back, and sometimes I'll talk to him about it, and sometimes I'm like, I really don't even need to like me and God just handled this, and it's my way of avoiding. I'm not going to be the drip, drip, drip, but some of you guys might be. That might be your tendency in the moment. Drip, drip, drip. I'm drip, drip, drip, and both of those, they have to be taken to the Lord for a change of heart.

I even want to address like our body language because maybe you're not voicing it, maybe you're just sitting there taking it. But what does your body language look like are your arms crossed are you eye rolling him when he's talking to you are your hands on your hips are you having a loud sigh are you disengaged our body language especially as women tells a lot about how we feel about what we're going through what we're doing, and we can try and hide it, but to our husbands who like know us, they look at us and they're like, "What? I see it on your face. What? What's the problem? And for a long time, David would not ask me what is the problem. He would just let me fester. He knew something was wrong with me, but he did not want to engage. And it wasn't until we've had a conversation over the years where I'm like, sometimes I need you to come to me because I don't want to always be drip, drip, drip. Sometimes I'm trying to hold it in, and I will tell you, I have tried what I've I have tried and failed the prayer because I'll be like Lord, oh I am so frustrated right now. Can you please change my heart? Please let like my words be kind and wisdom and all of the things, and I'm in it, and I take a walk around, and I walk in the house, and then I just explode, and I know instantly it's me. And one of the things that Bridget was talking about that I want to go into Romans 12, which we all know these verses. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a. Living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God. My favorite part of this verse, which is your reasonable service, which means He's not asking us to do something we're not capable of doing. It is a reasonable ask for us to present ourselves. This is talking to God, but back in Ephesians, it's telling us to submit to our husbands as to God. So we are to present ourselves a living sacrifice to our men, and it's reasonable. And do not be conformed to this world. Think about all of the TV shows that talk about the bumbling, fumbling husband, the idiot husband. Do not be conformed to that thought, but be conformed to, or be transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God, by transforming our minds and how we think, that it is reasonable to serve Him, that it is reasonable to talk to Him with respect and kindness, that God has given us the abilities to do that, to transform our mindset and our thinking, even when we fail, because it goes back to by the mercies of God, He's given us another chance. We failed, but He gave us another chance. We get to do it again. We get to try again. We get to come and say, "I'm sorry, I was wrong. I'm sorry in the way that I handled it, I'm sorry. My body language was what it was, and I get to transform my mind and my expectations. Because in the end, what does that prove? What's good? It proves what's acceptable and the perfect will of God, and that is what we're called to in our homes, with our children, with our peers, with our friends, are we showing what's the perfect good will of God by the way that we've transformed our lives? It's it's our biggest mission of a presentation of the gospel to people by what our marriages look like. Okay, we are just gonna. Should we just end with the last

one? The last question. So, in what areas of your marriage do you find it the hardest to let go of control and trust God's timing, or trust your husband's leadership. In what areas of your marriage do you find it the hardest to let go of control and trust God's timing, or trust your husband's leadership? So Psalm 62, five through eight says, "For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory, my mighty rock. My refuge is God. Trust in Him at all times, O people. Pour out your heart before Him, God is a refuge for us. Marriage is hard, like hard, hard. It requires so much selflessness. It requires us to die to ourselves every day, sometimes every hour. It's also so beautiful, and it can be this amazing reflection of Christ and the church, and this competition of laying down your lives for each other, but ultimately, it doesn't always look like that because it's again two sinners who are just trying, right? And God is the one that is never going to fail you. His timing is always going to be perfect, and his plan is for his glory and for your best interest. And so, whatever this is in your life. And there may be you may be like, oh, I have to choose just one because it's so hard to lay down so many of these areas, right? But whatever it is that is just probably you've been hurt in that area before. Probably you've been disappointed, maybe by your husband in this area, maybe you've been disappointed or hurt by a father or a grandfather or an uncle or whatever it is in this area or your mom, right? These can be deep, deep issues, and thankfully, we don't do it alone. We don't do it in our own power. We can't. We can't have a godly marriage in our own power. And so, submitting your marriage to the Lord as often as you can, in your heart, out loud, together with your husband, I just love these these words. Trust in him at all times, O people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Like it's just so hard sometimes. Cry to Him, pour out your heart to Him, Lord. Like I just need You. I can't do this alone. Me and my husband cannot see the other side. I can't let go of this. Please help me.

I just want to touch on one specific thing, and then we're going to close in prayer. Is that so much of when we're praying about the situations and things that are going on in our life? It's so easy to be like, Lord, change him. Yes, Lord, make him different. Help him see how he's hurting me. He should not talk to me this way. Make him realize how he should apologize to me, and transform that to Lord change me. How can I better serve him? How can I help him? How can I be who you created me to be? Not as a doormat, not for someone to trample over, but in God's design for what He designed us to be. And I do love because so much of when David wrote these, all of these things are in the Psalms. This is Psalm of David. He's being hunted. He's being looked for to be killed. He's hiding in the you know under a rock. Like so much of the Psalms is that way, and he's like, my soul waits for you. I trust in you. He's praying for his enemies. Sometimes he's praying for his enemies to be destroyed, but also, our husband isn't supposed to be our enemy. So we are supposed to pray for him to be like Lord, seek him, help him, not change him in who to who I want him to be okay. Pray,

Lord, thank you again for this time. We ultimately pray that you would be working in all of our hearts, and that the outcome of this would be that we would draw nearer to you, and in turn draw nearer to our spouses or our significant others. Use this time, Lord, for Your glory and for our hearts to be changed towards You. In Jesus' name, Amen.