From Nagging Wife to Walking in Newness of Life

I was rocking my daughter to sleep one night and there was a constant dripping of rain onto the air conditioning unit outside. It was driving me insane. The sound of falling rain on our tin roof is such a relaxing sound. This was not that. It was just this constant little noise that grew more annoying as it continued on and on. This is what the Bible compares a quarrelsome or nagging wife to in Proverbs. As much as I hate to admit it, I am so often that annoying dripping rain in my home. So often I'm the Proverbs 27:15 woman instead of the woman of Proverbs 31. I can give you a lot of excuses as to why this happens. I'm exhausted. I can't keep up with the dirty dishes or never ending loads of laundry. I never get time to myself to relax. I mean even when I go to the bathroom I'm trying to keep my darling little girl from nose diving into the bathtub or eating toilet paper. The list could go on and on, but these are just excuses. The reality is I'm putting what I want above everything else. I want clean dishes. So when my husband makes the dishes dirty I just cleaned, I nag. In that moment I decide to value clean dishes over loving my husband. I don't want to be the nagging wife. I want to love my husband well, be a great mom, and a great housekeeper all rolled into one cheerful put together in shape woman! I want to have it all together, but I don't. I just don't.

In and of myself I fall short daily, hourly, and minutely! I feel the words of Paul so deeply from Romans 7, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." All of this can leave me in a bad place of feeling inadequate and having a nice little pity party with a bowl of ice cream and a Hallmark movie. While ice cream and Hallmark movies are 2 very amazing things, they only help temporarily and they definitely don't make me a better wife or mom. The truth is there is only one place I can turn to truly be comforted and encouraged. There is only one place I can turn to be transformed into a person that encourages and loves others well. I must turn to Christ!

What does this look like practically? How do I keep from turning into that annoying dripping of rain? How do I turn to Christ on a daily basis? I live out His Truth. I can forgive others and seek their forgiveness because of God’s forgiveness in my own life. I can love others because God has loved me (1 John 4:19). When life doesn’t look the way I want, I can be content because I know contentment doesn’t come from my circumstances being what I want. In any and every situation I can trust in God to strengthen me (Philippians 4:13), but I must trust in God and not Amanda. I have to rest in God’s strength, not try to muster up my own. I have to die to myself and walk by faith in Jesus who loved me and died for me (Galatians 2:20). I have to pray and trust the power of the Holy Spirit to work these things in my heart and in my life. I need to wake up everyday and fix my eyes on eternity not on the temporal things of this world. For example, more Bible less Netflix! More prayer and seeking God, less Instagram and seeking likes!

Bottom line, to turn to God I need to talk to Him (pray) and listen to Him (read His Word). I must trust the words of Ephesians 2. I have to believe God is rich in mercy and that even when I was dead in sin He loved me and made me alive with Christ. I don't have to pull myself together; God pulled me together by Christ's work on the cross! Now, I can walk in newness of life (Roman 6:4) and know with confidence that God will complete the good work He began in me (Philippians 1:4). I can say with Paul, “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)” Bottom line, I have to rest in the Gospel EVERY SINGLE DAY. This Gospel, these Truths that initially set me free over 10 years ago, are the same Truths I must be reminded of every day and every hour of every day!