A Lightbulb Moment for a Wife Who LOVES Control

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I am so thankful to the wife who allowed me to share her story. I have a feeling that God may use her lightbulb moment to trigger a lightbulb moment for many other wives, too! 

Why am I stressed? Well I could say because my husband works 12+ hours a day 6 days a week and I only see him 30 mins a day and on his day off he just sleeps and he is grouchy all the time or because I have a much needed surgery scheduled for May 6 and still haven’t heard if my insurance will cover the surgeon, But, that wouldn’t be true…I am stressed because I want to control these things and I can’t.

I am thankful to say that the last few days and with the help of your story, Nikka, I figured out many things and I feel better.

Lying in bed the other night, I wondered what I was not getting. Then it hit me. April, talks all the time about making your husband an idol and depending on God to meet your needs but it just didn’t sink in.

One thing I was doing was trying to be the perfect wife.

I was trying to do all I could to be happy and smiling and helpful when my husband was awake. Then he would just be grouchy and mean and I would get upset. I would make his favorite pie and he would grump at me. I would fuss at him for his behavior and take another step back.

Another thing I was doing was reading and praying and trying everything I could to fix me so I wouldn’t be emotional and I wouldn’t be upset by his moods and I wouldn’t be upset because he would not ask for less work hours. I was upset because he didn’t seem to need me at all anymore for anything.

So what hit me was

  • I am trying to get closer to God.
  • I am trying to be a good wife.
  • BUT, I am not learning to control me!

Being a person that likes to control, I need to learn to control my responses. I need to make my own life right – now, during this season. I had been reading Joyce Meyers book on controlling emotions and she laid it all out and I finally got it.

  • There is so much power in controlling one’s emotions.
  • Not controlling them zaps all our strength. ( I am a poster child for that!)

I can’t get closer to God or be respectful if I can’t even control me.

Since I like to control this was like offering candy to me. I get to control something!!

  • I stopped immediately trying to be the perfect wife. That only brought me hurt when it wasn’t appreciated.
  • I will ask him if he needs me to do anything but I won’t fall all over myself trying to please him.
  • I also decided to stop talking about my problems or even thinking about them. I mentioned them here as only a point. When I think about them or talk about them it only adds to my stress. Something else I can control!!

When my husband was grumpy with me, I just answered nicely and went outside to my flowers. Instead of feeling hurt and offended, I thought well that is his sin, I will go do something nice for myself and enjoy God’s beauty. Another thing I can control!!

I really like to control, can you tell? I just needed to find a way to do it the right way.

The weird thing is I was having a hard time focusing on God through all this. Maybe like Nikki, I was just thinking that God didn’t want to do things like I thought He should, so why bother? Why wouldn’t God want my husband to work less and spend more time with the family? Why wouldn’t God want me to have my surgery?

Because God knew I needed to depend on Him not my husband for my companionship, safety and love.

If I depend on my husband for those things, I will always be disappointed when I don’t get it. Yes, I know you say this all the time, April but I just didn’t seem to get order of things. 🙂

I need to control my overwhelming emotions before anything else can fall into place. When I do that I will once again feel in control of my life.

So for me the order needed to be…

1. Control my hurt, anger, responses and thoughts.

2. Draw closer to God to meet my needs.

3. Respect my husband.

INSTEAD OF….

1.Try to be the perfect wife and respect my husband.

2.Try to be closer to God.

3. Hope God can fix my emotional messed up head and actions.

Seems like God should be first, right?…but He plainly showed me that He can’t be first until I get some of the junk out and make room for him.

FROM NIKKA:

 

Wonderful sharing! 🙂 Thanks for sharing your heart with us.

How refreshing your insight was on CONTROL.

Come to think of it, CONTROL should be amoral.

It is not bad or good in and by itself. It only becomes bad when one uses it for things or people that are clearly NOT one’s responsibility or business, like “changing” one’s husband because that is not for one to control, only God can change hearts.

BUT,

and this is the exciting part that I learned from your sharing..

We are encouraged to CONTROL things too by no less than our good God!

  • Control our tongue.
  • Control our temper.
  • Control our emotions.
  • Control our passions.
  • Control our desires.
  • Control our thoughts.
  • Control our actions.

Yay! We can still ‘CONTROL’ but in a good way, in a godly way!

 

FROM PEACEFULWIFE:

I LOVE this!  I remember thinking something VERY similar. I realized that I needed to control myself and that I could change myself – with God’s help. And I thought, YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Something I can control! WOOOHOOO!  I love being in control. I can’t control Greg. I can’t control God. But with God’s help, I CAN learn to control myself! So that is where I began to focus. That was also where my greatest power was and is.

What lightbulb moments have you had about these issues? We’d love to hear about it! You may just be the catalyst that jumpstarts many more lightbulb moments for God in other women’s hearts.

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This post is based on the fruit of the Spirit of self control (Galatians 5:22-23)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

and agape love that God commands us to have for all people (I Corinthians 13:4-8)

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

and showing honor and respect to our husbands (Ephesians 5:22-33)

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

and using wisdom as wives to build up our home instead of tear it down with our own hands (or mouths)

The wise woman builds her house,
but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down. Proverbs 14:1