GodlyWifetoBe Begins Her Journey

There are SO MANY women (hundreds and hundreds) who want to email me on a daily basis. What a wonderful “problem” to have!  But it is also an issue that weighs very heavily on my mind. I WANT to be able to mentor everyone!!!!!  This was not a problem when I just got a small(er) number of emails per day.

But I have learned the hard way that I can’t personally mentor everyone – even though it completely breaks my heart that I have these human limitations! And, I am still having a very difficult time with my eyes if I stay on the computer too long or read too much – so I do need to limit my computer time pretty drastically to just 2 hours/day – which is essentially the time it takes to blog and respond to comments.  

God is sovereign – and I know He will use even this issue  with my eyes for His greatest glory! I totally trust Him.

PEACEFULWIFE MENTORING PROGRAM:

What I am doing is taking 2-3 wives at a time who are willing to allow me to share some of our correspondence (anonymously), emailing with them, then sharing their journeys as blog posts.  Right now that is GraceAlone and GodlyWifetoBe.  I  will be ready to take on another wife in the next 2 weeks, God-willing. 

  • If anyone is interested in me working with you, emailing you and then anonymously sharing our correspondence as a series of posts (or maybe just one post, depending on the situation), please leave me a comment. Let me know if you believe you just need one session or if you need more than that, please. It will be mostly first come, first serve, but I will also be considering which wives situations will be most helpful to all of the wives who read my blog. 🙂

Requirements for a wife to participate:

  • You must be willing to put in time daily (unless providentially hindered, of course) with God for your own Bible study and fervent prayer, seeking to abide in Christ and to be filled with His Spirit. This is your power source – If you are not plugged in, I cannot possibly begin to help you.
  • You must be willing to believe that the Bible is the absolute truth of God and His wisdom and that all ungodliness and worldliness has to go and you must be willing to toss out everything you think you know about marriage, being a woman, God and living as  Christian and build your life on Christ and His Word alone.
  • You must be willing to focus on asking God to change you, not your husband. This is ALL about you and Jesus.
  • You must be willing to want to learn to find all of your contentment in Christ alone and to completely submit to Him as LORD of ALL in your life – even if you don’t know how right now, you must be willing to want to do this.
  • It does take a lot of courage to share stories publicly like this. Some of GraceAlone’s posts have had over 1300 views already, and will have more as time goes on. And some posts on my blog end up eventually having 30,000 or even 100,000 views. I want wives to be sure they are ok with this before asking me to commit time to them. My time is, sadly, very limited.
  • You must be willing to do the hard, painful work yourself. I can point you to Christ, but I cannot change anyone. I also cannot open anyone’s eyes. Only God can do that. And I cannot do the actual wrestling with God for you. That will be for you and God to hash through together privately.
  • I want to protect people’s privacy. I don’t want to divulge details that will make it obvious exactly who a wife or her husband is. Your privacy and your husband’s privacy are very precious to me. So we are not going to use this format to attempt to trash a husband publicly. I want to be sure wives know this up front.
  • You must be willing to focus on your end of the marriage relationship and your relationship with Christ. We may share some of the details, to a degree, of what is going on in your marriage in the first post, especially, so that wives will have a general idea of what is going on. But – then, the focus will be on you, not on your husband. You cannot change your husband. I cannot change your husband. The only person you have any control over is yourself. (The Cure for My Compulsion to Control) We are not going to spend any time talking about how your husband needs to change or what he should do. That is between him and God. Our focus will be only on your walk with Christ, your sin, your behavior, your obedience to God, your becoming a godly woman by the power of Jesus working in you.
  • You must be willing to accept that your husband may not ever change. If you want to do this journey with Jesus – your prayer has got to be “Change me, bless my husband.” There are no guarantees here that your husband will change. But if you are willing to seek God with all your face, I CAN guarantee you that He will radically change YOU! 🙂 And that is the whole point!
  • You must be willing to accept biblical truths and be willing to repent of any sin in your own life. If you refuse to repent of sin, I cannot begin to help you. You will be stuck. If you hold on to pride, bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, gossip, lust, greed, idolatry, envy, materialism, worldliness, etc… you cannot have the full power of God’s Spirit flooding your life and you won’t have the power to be the wife God commands you to be. Every trace of sin has to go. Will we stumble? YES. Then we confess our sin to God, repent and ask Him to empower us to live and walk in obedience again.

HERE IS A SECRET, MY PRECIOUS SISTERS (AND BROTHERS):

If you are willing to put Christ first and seek Him with all your heart and you are willing to fully submit to Him and learn from Him – you don’t actually need me! I had no mentor. It was just God, me, the Bible, His Spirit and over 30 godly marriage books in 2 years.

He is your Shield and your Very Great Reward. (Genesis 15:1)  If you have the willing spirit that I have described above – God will be free to do miracles in your life. It will be up to Him what He decides to do and up to you to decide how much control you are willing to give Him. But I am thrilled to have the privilege and honor of being a part of this journey for many of you.

You are all welcome to comment and discuss on the posts and on my Youtube channel, April Cassidy. 🙂   If you have questions, you are welcome to ask. I may have a post that addresses that issue or I may be able to use your question for a future post. 🙂 Or there may be other believers here with experience that can give you biblical counsel. I believe you will find a great deal of support, encouragement, prayer, godly counsel and wisdom here! That is my prayer for each of you.

And, you are ALWAYS welcome to share your testimony of what God is teaching you and doing in your life. We all love to hear those! 🙂

FROM GODLYWIFETOBE:

The main areas I think I need help with are

  • respecting my husband
  • forgiving my husband
  • enjoying his company.

Hmmm… Well, I haven’t been sitting down studying the Word of God. I work in a Christian environment, so I’m surrounded with God’s Word and people daily, but I haven’t been sitting down reading the Word solely on its own. I read blogs and sermon snippets etc. I LOVE worship music, and that’s how I feel really connected to God and let a lot of my emotions out. So I do need to READ the Word…but I just don’t want to read a verse on my phone app…that’s like a slap in the face to God I think…so I guess I just don’t do it hoping that looks better to Him than doing it half heartedly..

Potential idols…I think

  • having a godly marriage is something I want
  • having the perfect husband
  • being completely happy

Sins would be

  • my pride…I do think I know more than my husband
  • forgiving but letting bitterness take root if I don’t see changes
  • not having sex with my husband? Does that count as one? I have no desire to have sex with him…we have sex 2 times a month probably. A lot of that comes down to me being tired after work, him not meeting my emotional needs that I long for, him having a lack of hygiene, him being out and not home.

You also asked about bitterness and I know that I have the potential to fall into bitterness. I’m not so sure I’m bitter at God, I just wonder sometimes what He’s doing and if He’s hearing my heart’s cry…

FROM PEACEFULWIFE:

My sweet girl!!!!! You haven’t been spending time in prayer and God’s Word???? That is like trying to run a computer that is not plugged into the power outlet. You are trying to do all of this without God’s power. That just won’t work. Ever. For anyone.

That is going to be step number one. You HAVE HAVE HAVE to have time in God’s Word and in deep prayer. I need you to be committed wholeheartedly to God and to getting in His Word and praying deeply for yourself for Him to show you sin and for Him to change you – or this isn’t going to work.

(A resource for wives who have been withholding sex is www.forgivenwife.com, and my posts “Sometimes I Feel Like  I’m Just a Piece of Meat to My Husband, ” and “Taking Initiative Sexually in Marriage.”)

FROM GODLYWIFETOBE:

I spend time in prayer all throughout the day!! 🙂

I’m just unsure where to start reading my Bible. I just feel when I’m reading sometimes I’m not paying attention because I’ve read it so many times. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover many times and each book on it’s own many times. I’m a teacher in a Christian school so I have to teach the Bible, too, so I read it then.

Where would you suggest is a good place for this journey to becoming peaceful?

I’m willing to start now. I need to get this into gear 🙂

FROM PEACEFULWIFE:

Well… I would suggest starting in I John and reading at least a chapter if not more than that per day and pray and beg God to speak to you, to show you any sin He wants you to get rid of and to transform your heart and mind by the power of His Spirit.

This is going to require absolute surrender to the Holy Spirit – then you will be able to resist the enemy’s lies and attacks and can be full of God’s power to become the woman He desires you to be for His glory. 🙂

After I John, I would suggest John, Acts, Romans and then the epistles.

And, I would suggest listening to or reading as many David Platt and John Piper sermons as you can!

FROM GODLYWIFETOBE:

I found this interesting.

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:9, 10 ESV)

As a Christian I do keep on sinning in areas. I think we all sin. God knows we all sin which is why we need Jesus…I don’t get this part. Or maybe “make a practice” means we don’t go purposefully out sinning but it’s become part of us and we need to be refined and sanctified. What do you think?

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:18 NIV)

That’s another verse that’s important to me. I don’t like lip service!

Oh and you’ll be proud of me! Hubby wanted to get a loan for a dirt motorbike. I wasn’t keen on the idea but I kept that from him as I know he wants one so he can go riding with the kids and the one Christian man he still respects. So I’ve said nothing, financially I don’t think it’s wise, but he’s trying to connect with the kids and that’s important!

FROM PEACEFULWIFE:

Yes, that part is VERY interesting, isn’t it?

It means habitual sin. Living in sin.

We cannot continue on in unforgiveness, pride, disrespect for God or our husbands, idolatry, self-righteousness, bitterness, resentment, gossip, hatred, jealousy, etc… Those ought to be exceptions not our general way of life.

Maybe you can say you are proud of him for connecting with the kids! And thank him for being such an involved dad?

FROM GODLYWIFETOBE:

Ahhhh yes, habitual sin. That makes sense.

I finished 1 John. How interesting it ends with “keep yourself from idols”. I really have to think about the idols that I have…

I’m praying God reveals it to me!

RELATED:

What Would an Email Counseling Session with Peacefulwife Be Like?

How to Use This Site

Forgiveness

God’s Perspective on Forgiveness

Exploring the Depths of Bitterness

Finding God’s Victory over Bitterness

Stages of This Journey

How Husbands Often Respond to Wives in the Beginning of This Journey