Marriage Mondays ~ Rate Yourself 1 to 10

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being Harriet Olesen (Little House on the Prairie) and 10 being Shirley MacLaine (far out), how flexible are you as a wife?

Photo from Little House Memories

While the kids and I were packing the car to drive home Saturday morning, I wondered why Jeff wasn’t calling to “check” on us. My inner Harriet Olsen was suggesting I go from wondering to pouting. As we headed down the road, I pondered the wives I’ve been with while traveling from Asia to South America to the Midwest in the last month. Wives with husbands of great vision have something in common: they are flexible women. 

• When a husband offered to take 4 women to a cultural site, his wife changed her plans to come with him and make it “culturally appropriate,” freeing him and guarding his reputation.
• When a young wife’s husband had to ship out on a naval submarine, she packed up the kids and got another Navy wife to go on vacation with her extended family.
• When we were late in getting home with a host husband, his wife fed the kids early and waited until we returned to make a meal to serve us.
• A wife with an aging kitchen joyfully said repairs could wait, since her husband required surgery and needed to recover.
• When a husband needed a week away to oversee work in another state, his wife took a week off her job to accompany him and enjoy some time together.
• When a mixed group went white water rafting, 2 “non-rafting” wives still went along, but they drove along the river, taking pictures and cheering on the group, meeting up at the end.
• A wife fell into the habit of jumping on Facebook after putting their child to bed each night. When she noticed her ignored husband finding something to occupy his night during those 10 minutes, she changed her habit and used the time to get a connection started with her hubby each evening.

Such an attitude can be the difference between having a husband free to embrace God’s vision or having a husband fearful of making a wrong move. Each individual decision may not seem life changing, but a pattern of flexibility, considering our husband first, can set our relationship tone.

A flexible wife has a free husband. She adds to his potential.

An inflexible wife has a fearful husband. She takes away from his potential.

Photo from Little House Memories

I wonder who Nels Olsen would’ve been, if Harriet was flexible. Maybe he would’ve been Charles Ingles!!!! ;) A flexible wife definitely has reasonable hopes and grace-filled expectations. She walks with the Lord and trusts Him to meet her needs, so changes in plans don’t send her reaching for the panic button.

A flexible wife starts her day holding loosely to her plans, ready to release them as God leads. He often uses a husband to deliver that “call.” A husband who learns that his ideas, dreams, impulses, surprises, or spontaneity are usually met with a lack of flexibility will stop sharing those ideas, dreams, impulses, surprises, and spontaneous thoughts. They’ll be slowly smothered.

We know the Apostle Peter had a mother in law, because she was healed in Luke 4:37-39, and that means he had a wife.Still named "Simon," he hadn't even been called as a disciple yet. To become a great evangelist and rock upon which the Church was built, his life was turned upside down. "Mrs. Peter" must've been one flexible gal to free her husband up to be the man God planned for him to be. The story could've ended, "But Peter's wife wasn't comfortable with the career change and didn't feel good about how the itinerant work would impact her routine." Aren't you glad it didn't? Most likely, Peter's wife was part of the ministry support team; what a journey the two of them must have known together! Harriet-Olsen-types don’t stay long on those kinds of journeys, and their husbands usually don’t either.

A flexible wife has a free husband. She adds to his potential.

An inflexible wife has a fearful husband. She takes away from his potential.

Where is your husband going? Is your flexibility encouraging him to get there? Or is a habit of inflexibility making it harder for him to reach his potential?

Let’s put our inner Harriet in her place and free our husbands to be the men God wants them to be.