Christian Submission -- A Word Hijacked by the Enemy (Think 50 Shades of Grey)

The book is now a movie! Yikes.

Just a few short weeks after I started submitting to my husband, sometime in September last year (2013), he made this statement which made my heart leap:

“I am enjoying this, whatever it is you are doing.

I am reaping all its benefits.

I wish for more married couples to experience this.”

Well, that "this" is BIBLICAL SUBMISSION.

Dong had no idea at that time, just what I was doing, but it made a great impact on him, so much so that he encouraged me to start a ministry on it, even when he (or I for that matter!) still did not know what exactly I was up to! He said, 

"I want you to blog about your journey.

Write your own version of the Peacefulwife’s blog for the Philippines.

Our country is in dire need of role models to follow.

I am sick and tired too of hearing about husbands and fathers saying that the worst thing that can happen to a man is to get married and have kids.

Why do most men feel that way?

Shouldn’t we feel happy that we got married and have children?"

* * * * * * *

Submission.

In this day and age...

A scary word for some.

A stupid word for most.

An exciting and kinky word for others.

Think Christian Grey.

Think "50 Shades of Grey". (I am hoping you did not get to read it, but for those who did, well... okay, think about it for a moment.)

For sure, when I say the word "submission", the wife who has read this evil book will think "Dominant" and "Submissive", will recall the "Red Room of Pain", and will remember the "hunky and handsome" lead character, Christian Grey, who was ANYTHING but Christian.

And, there you have it... 

The enemy has hijacked not only the word, 'Christian', but the word, 'submission', as well. Two birds with one stone. Satan had single-handedly turned good into evil. He had managed to twist something beautiful into something perverted!

2 Corinthians 11

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

I was curious as to why many were raving over this raunchy novel. Some said there were steamy scenes in it, but I never thought it was a pornographic book pretending to be a novel!

I perused it briefly and sped-read, but disposed of it immediately. I regret having read it. :(  

I would be a hypocrite if I'd say I didn't get affected by it. In fact, it made my face flush and my heart beat faster! It was scandalous. The writing and the content was awful though, in my view. :(

I honestly got scared out of my wits by the implication of this horrible book.

I used to think that "there was nothing wrong" with reading "novels" such as these (romance and the like), being the kind of woman that needed lots of mental stimulation in order to "get in the mood".  I felt that if I read these kinds of books, that I would be "better" in the marital bed. Sort of like "the end justifies the means."  Dong would greatly "benefit" from my feeling frisky, if I read these kinds of trashy stuff, right?

WRONG.

Galatians 5:19

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: 

sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality

God is a God of Perfect Timing, and the devil is prowling like a roaring lion at all times, waiting for someone to devour (1 Pet 5:8). I got a copy of this book just three days after I had already let go and let God, and submitted to my husband as unto the Lord, in EVERYTHING (Of course, except in sinning! God trumps over Dong on any given day!). And timing of timings, I read about this kind of evil submission! (I do not know why I even read it in the first place, but I was just a baby in my respect and submission journey at that time, so I was still prone to being foolish and clueless.) Despite my having given in to temptation by reading this book, the Lord showed me through the error of my ways, what godly (holy) submission really was as opposed to worldly (godless) submission.

A selfie of my selfish self -2011 before God changed me.
I saw nothing wrong
 with dressing immodestly
or reading or viewing trashy stuff. :(

I was so bothered by it, that I wrote in my journal this entry:

September 4, 2013

Christian Grey. Fifty Shades of Grey. A piece of filthy trash.

It’s a book on masochism, sadism, kinky sex, dominance and submission…

 Funny how I am actually just learning on being a submissive wife, and this book comes along. Truly not submissive in the Christian sense of the word.

Submissive as in, the man is the Dominant, the woman is the Submissive.

It all pertains to sex, sex, sex. F***, f***, f***.

I fear for the youth of today who will read this book. It will create a whole new era of sexually perverted, immoral people.

________________________________________________________________________________

I consider myself a bit frigid. (Haha! Too much info, but I have to say this!)

Dong thinks I should let loose more in this area. (a LOOOOOT more loose)

If I could, I would not engage in the marital act ever, be content with snuggling and holding hands, and still be totally fine with my love for Dong!  (Of course, I don't have credibility in this statement, given that I have given birth to four babies -- one baby, every three years since 2004 -- but believe me you, 3 out of the 4 were surprise babies given by God! Only one was "planned.")

However, my husband is a man. (Thank God!) And he has a libido and sexual urges far greater than I have. And he needs me, all of me, even and especially in the marital bed. (Men feel loved when we get intimate with them.)

We were fooling around with the camera (not with each other!)
at this time. - 2010 

What do I do now? 

How do I increase my libido?

By reading trashy pornographic novels such as these?

NOPE.

I do it by practicing BIBLICAL SUBMISSION.

How? 

Not by being strapped and chained to the bed, while being spanked! Yikes!!! 

I submit to God in everything, and then, I submit to my husband, Dong, as my leader in the marriage.

In layman's terms:

Biblically submissive
wife - Jan 2014

- I treat him with respect.

- I follow his leadings.

- I encourage his leadership.

- I support him in his endeavors.

- I respect his God-ordained authority over me.

- I do not nag, criticize, nor dictate to him what to do.

- I trust that God is leading me through my husband's decisions.

- I rest in God's Sovereignty, knowing that no matter what Dong's decisions may be, as long as I cover him in prayer and have faith in God, His Will will be manifested through my imperfect and flawed husband.

This is ultimately about trusting in God.

In trusting Him and letting go of my desire to control my husband and our lives, I am ultimately saying, "Lord, whatever happens, I know that You've got our backs covered. You are in control." 

This is the commandment the Lord gave to us wives:

Ephesians 5:22-24
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

and

1 Corinthians 11:3
3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife[a] is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

And since I now follow Jesus Christ and all His Teachings (or at least do my very best!), in my submission to God, then to my husband, I am now following too what Christ said to wives (and husbands too!) regarding marital/sexual relations.

1 Corinthians 7:5

Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

and

Our bedroom

1 Corinthians 7:4

The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.

* * * * * * * *

I am sure that if you interview Dong right now, he will say that I have "improved" in this area, but that I still have a lot of yielding to do. Haha! God knows though, that since I started biblical submission, I have "leveled up" in this area!

                              LOL!

_______________________________________________________________________________

Biblical Submission is not a new concept, nor is it "just" a human concept. All throughout the Bible, godly people submitted to God, in obedience to His Will. The whole Holy Family submitted themselves to God:

Mama Mary submitted (even if she was unmarried and very young at the age 14).

The Holy Family was submissive to
the Father's Holy Will.

Luke 1:38

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. 

Papa Joseph submitted despite the very odd circumstances he found himself in (Mary was impregnated by the power of the Holy Spirit, while they were not yet married!)

Matthew 1:24

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.

If Jesus' earthly mother submitted and His earthly father also submitted to God; it is not surprising that Jesus, the Son of God, submitted completely to His Heavenly Father, too. 

Philippians 2:5-9

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

_____________________________________________________

Jesus submitted COMPLETELY to His Father's Will, even if He was already God.

Is it too much to ask that we, who are but humans, submit too, to the Father's Will within our marriages?

Do we profess to be Christians? 

Then, let's stop making excuses anymore. Let go and let God! 

Biblical Submission is beautiful. 

It is freeing. 

It is liberating. 

It is God's Design for Marriage. :)

If the enemy has hijacked the godly words of 'Christian' and 'Submission', 

let's reclaim them in Jesus' Name! 

God's Will is always GOOD and PERFECT. There are no gray (or Grey) areas about it. ;)

Oh, and sex is sacred. 
Let's not desecrate the act. It was designed by God to be done ONLY within the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony (not before it, and not outside of it -- 
We waited till our wedding night to do "it".).

Hebrews 13:4 
Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled.

May we all be richly blessed! :)

P.S. I am realizing how unpopular I am becoming by posting such unpopular thoughts, teachings and doctrines. But, I write not for myself but for God, so "bato-bato sa langit, tamaan ay wag magalit." It is far easier to shut up, but I long for every wife to be able to surrender their all to God, and so if I need to discuss and tackle contrary-to-the-world topics, then so be it. Don't just get mad at me, get convicted by the Spirit.  God loves you, dear sister in Christ. He is calling you NOW. If today you hear His Voice, harden not your heart.

Read also: Fifty Shades of Evil

Marital Sex

Dong and I enjoy 'acting' for the camera. And NO, this was not taken 'after'! Naughty you! ;) - 2011

Sex.

Whooo...

I feel inept and shy to talk about it, honestly. :P I find myself blushing just at the thought of writing about it!

As a Filipina, we are not as open to discussing it, as maybe people from the Western world are. It is still a taboo topic in most families. In my family, it was neither ignored nor always talked about. It was just silently understood that sex was not to be taken lightly. It was not until recently with the surprising increase of single moms, that talk about sex and sex before marriage has been considered somewhat "normal" here in the Philippines.

I am in no position to judge other women, so what I am about to write here in this blog post are purely from my point of view and from my own experience.

Dong and I made separate vows as young teenagers to God (this was even before I met him or knew him) that we would keep ourselves chaste till marriage.

Wedding Day - April 17, 2004.  I was sharing here about having kept myself chaste till marriage.

Already husband and wife -2006

When I met him and when we became a couple, he divulged to me that he had a secret. I lost my breath for a while, thinking that he would say that he was married or that he was gay (!) and I breathed a sigh of relief when he said with much 'embarrassment'  that unlike most of the men of his age, (28 at that time) he was still a VIRGIN. He said that he vowed to God to not give of himself to anyone other than his future wife.

I was floored!!! I made a similar vow to God at 15! This was the man God must have prepared for me!!! :) He was saving himself for the one God was preparing for him, just as I was saving myself for the one God was preparing for me! :) We were the perfect match! :)



Not to say that there were no temptations. My then boyfriend, now husband Dong was very attractive to my eyes, just as he says I was beautiful in his, and amidst raging hormones and feelings of being in love, it was so easy to just throw away our vows and just do it. But for reasons that can only be attributed to God's Grace, we never did. Not once in our seven years as girlfriend and boyfriend. Not until we got married.

Fooling around in front of camera, a year as bf-gf -- 1998

                                            Ephesians 5:31

31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

Suffice to say, our FIRST NIGHT was our honeymoon night and boy, was it awkward! LOL.

First Night was on April 17, 2004 (wedding night) :)

Well, this blog is not about that, so let's skip that part. :)

5 months pregnant with our first child

Rest assured after a few hits and misses (haha!), we got it right (somewhat) and that union bore us our honeymoon baby.

Exhausted from 12 hours of labor - Dec. 27, 2004

 Before we did "the deed", we knelt down and prayed to God that should the act bring forth a child, that that child may glorify Him. We consecrated the future child to God. Thirty-seven weeks after we consummated our love, Therese Claire was born. :)



Three years after, our love bore a second child, albeit by 'surprise' ... Andre Rafael. :)

4 months pregnant with Andre - May 2007 (featured in a magazine) :)

Knocked out 1st  time from a hard labor  - October 23, 2007

Yeah, I grow huge in pregnancy! - April 2010

Three years after, we got 'surprised' again by our third pregnancy. Another boy! Reuben Theo. :)

We did Lamaze!  I didn't lose consciousness. -- Dong was there to assist me. :) - May 20, 2010

37th week of pregnancy

And just when we thought we were done, God gives us another 'surprise' three years after again!!! My namesake, Isabelle Veronica. :)

Knocked out 2nd time on 4th baby - April 17, 2013, our 9th wedding anniversary :)

Wow. From not knowing anything about sex, we now have FOUR children -- spaced three years apart, born normally without epidural for the first three except for the last. :)

Simply amazing.

God couldn't have spaced the births more perfectly. Save for Therese whom we prayed for and  "planned", the three kids were all pleasant surprises ("wrong" counting, withdrawal-gone-"wrong", moved period-that-became-a-pregnancy). But in God's Greater Scheme of Things, there is no such thing as a"mistake". Every single one is a gift from God.  We are grateful to the Creator of Life for making us co-creators. These children are His and we are only stewards.

                                Genesis 1:28                                                    28 "And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Our four gifts from God :D

In our highly sexualized times and cultures, just what is SEX in the Bible and how does it fit into a godly marriage?

                                 1 Corinthians 7:1-40

                                          English Standard Version (ESV)

       Principles for Marriage

7 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

I am a bit guilty about this, in that, my husband who initiated almost all of our lovemaking got a BIG FAT NO from me most of the time. :( 

Not that I found him unattractive. On the contrary! But, I usually was too busy, too tired, too this, too that. At my most controlling behavior, I also was too bitter and too resentful of him to add  that to my list of things to do! I felt that I was already exhausted from my long to-do list as the self-proclaimed leader of the family! Sex was the last thing on my mind and if I engaged in it, it felt like a marital chore. Dong was/is always a gentleman and he never forces me. He always waits for me to be "in the mood". He also is very mindful of my cycles and practices much self-restraint and self-control, when I am in my "unsafe days". Especially since we have seemed to be SO mathematically 'wrong' in our counting in the last three. LOL.

Family of 6 in San Mateo - 2013

After I got into my submissive journey, that was when I realized that I had to submit to my husband in EVERYTHING, including the marriage bed.

                                           Hebrews 13:4

"4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous."

                                               

Not to say that I  have no say now to my body. 

Not to say that Dong is  licensed now to be "Christian Grey-dominant" and I, "Anastasia Steele-submissive" (That is so not Christian and that is so not the description of Biblically submissive! Be wary of that book, sisters!). 

Not to say that I  have no control now over my sexuality.

But that, since I now have decided to let go and to let God, and have decided to respect my husband including his sexual desires, I should now make it a point to give of myself wholly and totally in all aspects, including marital relations.

It shouldn't feel like a chore.

It shouldn't feel like something I should get over and done with.

It should always be a wonderful and beautiful experience. One that is an intertwining of souls and not just of bodies. After all, marriage is not just a contract but a covenant. Sex within marriage is not carnal; it is sacred. 

Sex within marriage -- the complete union of man and wife as one body -- is representative of the unity of Christ with His Church. It's total. It's selfless. It's what God designed for man and wife to enjoy and cherish, while being open to the possibility of being co-creators of God through procreation. 

In ending, since this post is making me feel really uncomfortable (!) (but I write upon the promptings of the Holy Spirit so I obeyed), SEX within MARRIAGE under the commandment of Christ for us "wives to submit to our husbands", is just another aspect of how we can experience a deeper bond with our mates and how we can respect our husband's leadership.

New Year's Eve 2012

Since I became submissive to him, Dong has become even more gentle and has shown and expressed his desire for me even more. And since he is more manly now and is stepping up the plate, he has become more desirable too in my eyes. Sexy both ways. Win-win! ;)

God wired men to desire women. Women, since the fall of Man, have "desired to rule over men"! After crucifying this sinful flesh though, what was once a "desire to control" our husbands has now turned into a "desire to follow" them. Hopefully, this will also turn into a passionate desire for our husbands too, in every.aspect.of.the.word. ;) 

                                              Ephesians 5:33

33" However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

May we all be richly blessed! :)