The old me would have freaked out whenever my husband did things that seemed to go wrong. Instead of saying encouraging words to him, I would blame him, and act like he was an incompetent fool. I feared that he was completely incapable of leading us out of whatever inconvenient situation that I found myself in. I thought that I had a right to take control over the situation, and used belittling and demeaning words that would cut him down and try to make him feel useless. I lectured and preached, sulked, and become resentfully bitter. I would ruin an entire day together, or maybe even a whole week, over any incident that didn’t go my way.

I can’t help but think of how many times that I panicked, trying to force things to go my way. For all of those years, I missed out on trusting that God knew what He was doing when He appointed my husband as the leader, and provider of our family.

I know that many wives can probably identify with the same type of fears that I had. Letting go of our fears can seem even more scary than stepping out in faith, but we need to trust that God has a better plan than we do. I can share from my own experiences that it isn’t nearly as frightening as it is in our minds, and when we practice trusting in God’s plan for our husband, and our marriages, we will begin to see miracles happening.

The truth is that we need to encourage our husband’s leadership, even if we’ve seen them make many mistakes along the way. Trust me, they will figure it out sooner or later, without us having to point out their every mishap. It takes a conscious effort to let go of the wheel, and move into the passengers seat to let our husbands steer us in the right direction.

This reminds me of a time years ago, when God began testing my faith while my husband was driving. I thought to myself, “Oh great, of all the times! You just had to pick his driving as a test of my faith”! I remember quite clearly, how I used to tell my husband that he was driving too fast, or driving too slow, or that he was going the wrong way, but the real kicker was when he would park as far away as he could from the front door of the supermarket in the freezing cold, and say, “This will be good exercise for us!” There I was making another scene by slamming the car door shut, and murmuring under my breath, “and now he thinks I’m fat”! I was fuming for hours un-end. I would even go as far as to make another scene in the store, and show the world just how much I thought my husband was a jerk.

The thing was that my husband was really never moved by any of my emotions. He learned they would soon pass and another storm would be brewing thereafter. So, he learned that he was not going to be swayed by any of my turbulent emotions. It was in fact, his unshakable faith that had eventually calmed the winds of adversity in our marriage.

Nevertheless, having to now confess all of this can really be embarrassing. It is quite sad when I look back and describe the levels that I went to in trying to emasculate my husband, but now … I am a completely different woman.

My perspectives have been renewed, my thinking has transformed, and my heart has softened. The fight to control my husband is finally over. I have surrendered myself as a submissive wife, and honestly have never been more at peace than I am today. Our marriage has attained a deep and profound level of respect and intimacy that most women dream of having, but may never have because they give into the fear of losing control.

My advice is to quit believing in this lie that haunts the marriages of many… because we are no more in control of our husbands than we are when we have lost control of ourselves. There is nothing more destructive than to think that we can control them, but refuse to take control of ourselves. One of the worst feelings of failure is when we cannot maintain our own dignity because we’ve given into our fearful outbursts of emotions which have wrecked havoc on our marriages

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