What a Husband Needs Help With

There are many things a husband needs a wife for, needs help with.  The most important reason and goal behind doing all these things that a wife should have as a motive is thinking about him.  A husband needs a wife to keep his house clean, cook his meals well, keep a budget, and take care of his health.  Keeping a house clean is easy when I use the guide I placed on the fridge next to the menu planner.  I feel I can accomplish what needs to be accomplished at a manageable, non-overbearing pace.  I have wanted to cook better lately, and I know whatever it takes to gather recipes and record the needed items on a grocery shopping list can be done.  Before I was married, I had educational training from a couple different sources on budgeting.  I have desired for a while in our marriage to put the teaching into practice.  Slowly, some things are coming together which are allowing me to come along beside him in this way.  While it is in the process of coming together, I have a handy file folder where I have designated a place for receipts gathered after items are purchased for the current month.  Taking care of my husband’s health is a joy, as I feel it is one of the top ways to love him, wanting him to live a good, long life.

Submission and Comfort

When a wife submits to her husband, there is a peace that comes. I was sitting on the front right of a vehicle with a good friend one time, parked in her driveway, about to go shopping. This was before I was married, and I look back and see how truly peaceful this experience was. She rolled down her window (she was on the driver’s side), and her husband talked to her. He was being firm, but kind and loving and telling her that she should be careful on some specific road or intersection. She responded so kindly and sweetly and gratefully to him that I felt a comforting peace. That submission that I had seen I had really liked, and I want to imitate that for my marriage so that those observing can be peaceful and blessed.

During the week that I was considering this topic for an entry and as the example of this couple was “floating around” in my mind to use to explain the peace from comfort and submission, I was about to head out the front door of my husband’s and my house. It was neat to practice the submission after he told me to be careful and drive safely, simply those words. I told him gratefully that I would, and we parted company in peace, me beginning to wonder who else in our future could see this example now practiced and feel peace, comfort, safety, and blessing. :)

Priorities

I have been trying lately to stay steady with my wifely duty routines following the chores I had written on the chart which I mentioned in the entry “Making Wifely Duties a Routine Habit.”  And I was able to add one thing to a day on my weekly chart this last week.  It was a simple thing.  But the idea of this chore addition was the turning point for realizing that I need to set priorities.  As I thought about it and realized that the absence of this chore is more availing of the time I have, priorities have called that I consider referring to the chart as only a “guide” for now, reading the list with a “grain of salt.”  I am not so bothered if this chore is not a priority.  I felt other things needed me more this week than to bother with the pettiness of doing what I felt I had been compelled to do before.  Cutting out a toilsome obligation has given me a sense of single-mindedness toward what ultimately leads to peace.  This has redeemed so much time, and I have been able to get ideas accomplished more rapidly.  Keeping priorities ahead of me keeps me pressing on toward the peace that I get from having such flexibility.  I may be able to keep up with that chore I added last week for other weeks, but right now, it is not a priority, and other things are calling.

Trust & Submission

                 I’ve been thinking lately about the benefits of trusting and submitting to my husband.  A couple weeks ago, I watched a bit of a video in which there was a challenge for men to convince their wives to buy some plain chairs in a furniture store.  The challenge was all set up.  The men knew about it, and the wives did not know.  The men were to just bring their wives into the furniture store, and if they could convince their wives to let them buy these plain chairs, both would win game tickets.  The wives did not know they were being video-taped.  The video showed several different couples at different times, with the same chair display, same set up in the furniture store.  All husbands knew the prize if they could convince their wives to let them buy the chairs—all they had to do was get a response of agreement from their wives.  All men tried.  Some wives were not budging with their negative answers.  Some wives seemed to just look at their husbands in disgust like they couldn’t believe their husbands would want the plain chairs.  Most wives questioned their husband’s judgment. 

But then, for one couple, the husband talked about the chairs as the other men had, and then he asked her to trust him.  She looked at him and said, “Yes.”  That was all that the men running the candid cameras needed to hear, and they made known that the couple should look under the chair seats and find ball game tickets.  It was pretty neat to watch the submissive wife and the winning man get their prize.

            I think if I trust my husband’s judgment, there are blessings and benefits that I don’t even realize before I decide to submit, that will come.