Submitting to your Husbands

Yep! I am going there!

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands."
~Ephesians 5:22-24

For the longest time this verse made me cringe due to my stubborness, thick-headed ways. This always seemed like a power-trip to me, but God has used this verse to teach me some amazing lessons about me, my husband, and above all HIM!
First of all, I am so glad I only have to submit to my "own husband" and not anyone else's:) Can I get an AMEN?!!
Second, after almost 13 years of marriage I am still learning to submit "in everything." I love my husband and he is a great leader, but Everything is a lot! Can't I just have something? What if he's not leading the way I thought He should? What if I am hearing God and He isn't? What if I could do it better? Aren't these the questions we, realistically ask ourselves in the heat of the moment?
I had one of these moments just a couple of weeks ago. We have been living in our duplex since August and life in the duplex is cozy with the 5 of us. I just knew whenever we sold our house we would finally get to move out of the duplex, immediately. Not that I am not grateful for the place to live, I am just ready to stop living out of boxes. Well, we finally sold our house. Yay!!! And I was all ready to go looking for the new Roberts' family home. Chris said he felt that we should not get in any hurry, stay in the duplex, and save up our money for awhile. Well, that went in one ear and out the other for me. I had a realtor, pre-approval for a loan, and house visits set up. He would go look at them with me, but he still felt this was not the right time. And so the tension began....There were frustrations, silent dinners, and more frustrations. Until.....God showed me I was not submitting in "everything." So, I went to Chris, humbly, and shared with him what God was showing me and that I submit to where God was leading him in leading our family. The tension, frustration, silence was immediately gone. Our circumstances hadn't changed but my heart had. It wasn't that I didn't trust my husband, it was that I didn't trust God to lead my husband. We think it is about laying our individual selves down to her husbands, but it is actually laying down ourselves to Christ.
If your husband is not leading the way you think he should, I have one piece of advice for you: Shut up and Pray!! We think we can change our husband when we didn't create our husband. If you want a change in the man, you can't go to the man, but to the one who created the man. And I promise if you commit to shut-up and pray you will see a change in him and you. Our calling as a wife, is to submit to the leadership of our husband so that we can come along side him and help him be all that God is calling him to be as a man of God.
And because I have committed to submit to my husband's leadership of this family, I have seen him step-up and seek God more and more. One of my favorite parts of my day, is when I walk into the living room or kitchen in the morning to catch my leader in his quiet time with His leader.
Will I give my opinions? Absolutely. Will I share my mind? Sure thing. Will I like everything? Probably not. But ultimately I trust my God with everything including my husband's decisions for our family. So, here is to the crazy journey of wife submission......and ultimately to God's plans for the Roberts' family!