A lesson in submission....

Last week, on Tuesday night, March 7th, 2006, Linnea and Megan were in an argument and Linnea got so angry she lost her temper and hit Megan. Keith and I talked to them about it, but when he declared what Linnea's punishment would be, I thought it was quite harsh. I didn't say anything to him at the time, however, because when I do confront him about things he does that I don't agree with, I do it when the kids are not within hearing distance. I firmly believe that as my husband and the father of our children, he is the head of our household. The last thing I want to do is undermine his authority in the eyes and hearts of our children.

I didn't end up saying anything to him about my feelings that night, but the next day at work I was still thinking about the situation and getting more and more frustrated and upset. So I decided to send him an e-mail with my thoughts. By the time I went to write the e-mail, I was quite angry. Let me tell you-anger gives birth to eloquence. Because when I was done typing it, I read it three times through and thought to myself, "That is one well-written e-mail." It said exactly what I wanted to say exactly the way I wanted to say it.

But the problem was, I was not speaking the truth in love. I was being mean and cutting and harsh, with my main objective being to make him feel bad so he'd change his mind. Just as I was about to hit "send", I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit that what I was about to do was sin. Yes, as Keith's wife and the mother of our children, part of my job is to tell him how I feel and how I see certain things, but it should never be through manipulation or an effort to control. Whatever I say to him should be spoken (or written) in love, and said with respect and honor, and backed up with lots of prayer. Because Keith is the ultimate human authority in our home, he will answer to God for any misuse of that authority. But if I rebel against Keith (unless he is telling me to do something that goes directly against God's Word), I am not only rebelling against Keith, I'm rebelling against God Himself, and I will answer to Him for that.

I've been learning a lot about obedience the last few years of my life, so when I felt the prompting of the Spirit, I immediately went to delete the e-mail. But, of course, the program gave me the option of saving it as a draft. I can't tell you how much I wanted to do that, to save the e-mail as a monument to my own anger-birthed writing skill and what I believed to be the unfairness of my husband. But because I truly wanted to be obedient to my Lord, Who I know always tells me to do things because they are what's best for me, I hit delete the final time. And the second I hit delete, God's peace flooded my spirit and washed away all the anger and frustration I had been feeling. I committed the entire situation into God's hands with complete surrender, and I've hardly given it another thought since then, except to praise the Lord for His constant and personal presence in my life.