My Secret To Being a Submissive Wife

We went to buy Matt new shoes. He was looking for good quality, to keep his feet well enough to exercise, and he was dropping a good bit of his stash of birthday and Christmas money on these shoes. 

“I probably will need new tennis shoes one of these days,” I muttered absent-mindedly, as I sat next to him on the bench while he tried on tennis shoes.

“Go look at shoes for you,” he said.

“No!” I said. “I don’t really need them.”

“Go look at shoes for you,” he said again.

“No, honey. Not with your birthday and Christmas money. No.” I was miffed at myself for saying something about my tennis shoes outloud.

“Submit to me,” he said sternly. (Matt speaks sternly to me about once every five years, so it was rather shocking.) I did quickly submit to his wishes and left the store with a pricey pair of tennis shoes under my arm.

Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:22 came to mind, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”

Matt’s love for me in the shoe section squeezed my heart. It was almost more than I could bear, as I saw him hand over his precious Christmas cash to the cashier to buy me something. Submitting means letting the man love you. 

Bigger picture? We submit to our husbands as to the Lord.

“Let me love you,” Jesus says. Hard to submit to such raw, self-sacrificing love, isn’t it? How could something this valuable be for me? I’ll never get over it. Squeezes my heart. 

My secret to being a submissive wife? Humbly receiving love when it’s offered.