Well, I am up a bit early this morning. To get a good writing, I should have been up about an hour ago.
The preparations for Mary's baby shower are moving right along. Oh, wow, Jim has been off work and helping me so, of course, I couldn't write much on the email. I have gotten so crazy concerning the preparations, etc. My family, the jokers that they are, keep inviting more and more people, and I am running to keep up with it all. As they have more people, then I, of course, need more cake. This party reminds me of the show Father of the Bride. Except I act like the father in that movie, and the rest of my family are free as birds.
And as I have hurried along as if lightening out of heaven is chasing me, the Lord keeps speaking to me. He keeps telling me that it is the anointing that breaks the yoke. That above all, and in everything, we are to be witnesses for Christ.
And I can have everything perfect, but what good is that? So many have needs that only Jesus can answer. To run ahead of my husband and give my strength to women, and to forget him in the midst of it all? No, I don't want to act this out ... it has no power to win women to Christ. My life in submission to my husband is a life committed to Christ and His anointing.
Our power in the Spirit lies in our holy position of living under the shadow of our husbands' wings. We must look to our husbands and never give our strength to women. If we love the women around us, then we owe it to them to walk in an example of holiness.
I was watching the Waltons the other day on TV. And, like the show "Little House on the Prairie," the mother of the home is in love with her husband. Of course, the Jezebel is present in both shows. But what draws us to it is that the wives are one-man women. The wives both put husband first. And as they do, they become the best friend of the women around them. These wives are safe as they pivot from their submission to their husbands. They have words of wisdom as they live out of the covering of their husbands. The other women chide them but, when they need a friend, they know they can count on the submissive wife.
The submissive wife is faithful to her husband and to her friends. She has a heart of courage and she is not afraid.
A wife with no courage can't submit to her husband. A selfish, fearful woman can never submit to a husband. She is too afraid ... too self centered. She MUST have her way, as she sees it. She can't gently trust when things don't go as she had planned it would.
A woman of courage and wisdom will stand strong when her world is falling down at her feet. For courage is not courage as you fight and don't give up concerning your own way. The courage from God that wins souls is a courage that gets back up when your whole life has laid shattered before you. And yet you have enough guts to get back up and go at it again.
It takes a lot of guts to fight when all you have seen is a hell on earth. It takes a lot of courage and stouthearted wisdom to keep on keepin' on when the devil has proven to you that God doesn't care. Of course, God does care, but sometimes our spirits are so full of holes that we think we have no way out, and we must just lay down and let satan take our territory that we have fought for.
Sometimes the devil does convince you that life is not worth all the fight. But if, at this time of utter hopelessness, you get back up, then Jesus will meet you on that cutting edge. Maybe with just a bit of water for the hour to cool your tongue. Or maybe it will be the day of days when the final victory comes.
Sometimes it is that last call for help that bridges that gap between heaven and earth. That midnight hour when you thought God had forsaken you -- yet you cried out again in courage and faith -- is often the time the final hour of VICTORY comes. You thought you were too late but, in Him, you were right on time.
