• Forgive. Realize that you must forgive other people and seek God's forgiveness for yourself. Not doing so blocks your intimacy with God and poisons your heart with bitterness. Trust that God will always help you to forgive. Remember that the power of His death on the cross has made true forgiveness possible. Forgive freely and often, knowing that the power to forgive is limitless. Know that there is never any problem in your marriage that's beyond God's power to forgive to set both you and your husband free.
• Abide in Christ. Cultivate a close relationship with Christ by depending on Him and focusing on His strength, sufficiency, and enabling power. Strive to be aware of His presence with you at all times, and to enjoy spending time with Him. Spend time regularly in prayer and reading the Bible, listening for Him to speak to you.
• Understand and choose submission. Understand that submission doesn't mean being forced into anything or otherwise mistreated. Instead, it means voluntarily cooperating with another person out of love and respect for God and for that person. Let your decision to obey God take precedence over your desires to control. Rather than trying to nag or scold or plead with your husband to try to make him see things your way, seek to point him toward God by living a faithful life yourself and giving him a good example of what it means to follow God's leading. Choose trust over fear, selflessness over self-centeredness, integrity over manipulation, wisdom over ignorance and surrender over control. Ask God to give your husband wisdom and discernment. Genuinely listen to what your husband has to say. Affirm him when he makes a wise decision. Trust that, when he makes a mistake, God will help him learn from it.
• Choose purity. Avoid behaviors that could compromise your marriage vows. Ponder only honorable thoughts. Choose your TV shows, movies, Web sites, and magazines carefully and wisely. Dress seductively with your husband at home, but modestly elsewhere.
• Choose reverence. Ask God to help you notice your husband's positive qualities. Strive to respect him, appreciate him, admire him, honor him, and enjoy him. Compliment and encourage your husband whenever you can, and take the time to thank him for what he does for you.
• Pursue beauty. Make an effort to take care of yourself physically, honoring the body that God gave you. Know that keeping yourself in good physical shape will also bless your husband. Understand that men view their wives as extensions of themselves. Pay attention to your inner beauty, cultivating a gentle and quiet spirit and actively pursuing peace in all your relationships.
• Put your husband before your children. Make God your number one priority, and make sure your husband comes right after that. Although you deeply love your children, know that God deems the marital relationship more important than even the parenting relationship. Invest plenty of time and energy into your relationship with your husband, and don't let your relationships with your children infringe on your marriage in any way.
• Look beyond yourself and your husband to Christ. Don't focus on your own feelings or your husband's shortcomings. Instead, focus on Christ, and let your love for Him motivate you to be obedient to His calling for you as a wife. Know that if you mistreat your husband, whom Christ loves, it's as if you're mistreating Christ Himself. Remember that God notices your faithfulness and will reward you for the love you show to your husband.
Adapted from The Politically Incorrect Wife, copyright 2000, 2002 by Nancy Cobb and Connie Grigsby. Published by Multnomah Publishers, Inc., Sisters, Or., www.multnomahbooks.com.
Nancy Cobb is director of women's ministries at Christ Community Church in Omaha, Nebraska, and is a popular retreat and conference speaker. A frequent radio guest, she has written two other books on marriage. She and her husband Ray have four adult children.
Connie Grigsby is the coauthor of How to Get Your Husband to Talk to You and How to Get Your Teen to Talk to You. A teacher and speaker, she exhorts others to refuse to be content with a ho-hum kind of life. She and her husband Wes are the parents of three teenage daughters.
