Being the wife that he needs

Yesterday my husband asked me to help him with something.  I did.  After I'd finished he rant & raved about how he knew I could do it and he went on and on singing my praise.

I was taken aback a bit by it all, as it didn't seem like much of anything to me.  But it got me to thinking ...  and I began thinking about: being the wife my husband needs rather than being the wife that I want to be, or that I think I should be.  Is there a difference?  After giving thought to my question, I immediately began to pray, "Lord show me how to be the wife that my husband needs."

I learned something.  It was something that I'd learned before, but it was also something that I'd forgotten.  "Just as God's ways aren't my ways, neither is my husband way my way.  Just as God has to teach me His ways.  He has to teach me my husband ways.  And just as it is an ongoing process to knowing God's way—something that I will never grasp fully while here on earth.  It is an on going process to knowing my husband ways—something that I will never fully grasp."

I have my own perception and ideas on what I think a good and Godly wife is.  I have my own ideas on what I think is best for my husband ... based on the length of time that I've known him and been with him.  This is fine, but even after knowing him for as long as I have, sometimes when he and I talk he gives me a look that is so foreign it is if I am speaking Greek to him.  Sometimes he just doesn't get what I am saying, and I just don't get why he doesn't "get it."

Knowing this as my truth sent me to prayer.  "Lord my husband needs You in me because frankly, Lord, at times he just doesn't have a clue.  And neither do I.  So would You please help me be the wife that Kennedy needs?"

Being a good and Godly wife to my husband is an excellent pursuit, but my reach must go farther than that..  In my pursuit I must pay attention to detail and pray to become the wife he needs based on his particular personality and bent... the details.  The same way I pay attention to my children's personality and bents, I must pay attention to the man God has brought me to.

Case in point, one day I was at a meeting with my small Bible Study group.  The leader, who I will call Jenny, tearfully began to share how ungrateful her husband was.  She told us how she had went out of her way to please her husband. "Just this week I bought him another card—a beautiful one.  He read it, smiled and said, 'thanks.'"

She then shared with us how she would have responded if he'd given her the card.

I said to her, "Your husband loves to go fishing right?"  To which she began to talk about his many ventures with fishing.

I wasn't unsympathetic to Jenny's plight at all.  I was simply trying to get her to think.  To see the problem that I saw.

The problem was that Jenny was treating her husband the way she wanted him to treat her, instead of assessing her situation in discernment and dealing with her husband based on his tendencies and natural bents, she was dealing with him based on her own personal needs and desires.  Do y'all see my point?

Ladies we will always be disappointed if we treat our husbands in the manner other than their own individual personality.  We have to learn to speak their language.  Most certainly we cannot treat our men like they are our girlfriends.  That just will not fly with a man—for long anyway.
As women who love the Lord and want to please Him we must daily, even hourly pray and ask the Lord to help us be the wife that is totally suitable for our husbands.  We are already suitable.  Genesis says that He brought to Adam a suitable helper.  We just have to learn how to hone in on those skills as wives.  We can't have any preconceive notion.  We must simply wait for the Lord to show us and then move in the direction He leads.

Please don't misunderstand what I am saying.  God has called us to be kind, tender ... .  He has given us the fruit of the Spirit to always display as Christians.  That is a non-negotiable as is submissiveness, but in the fine-tuning of a marriage comes a lot of different compartments.  It is these numerous compartments that I am talking about here.

" ... I will make him a helper, suitable for him." ~ Genesis 2:18