by LivingForEternity The other day my husband came to me and confessed that sharing our story was just very painful for him to the point of tears. Out of love and respect for him I am submitting by not continuing to tell what we have been through. He did not ask me not to, but the last thing I want to do is hurt someone that I love so much. However, I would like to share where we are now, as how we got here really doesn’t matter. We choose to live from today and not Full post …
Tag: Created To Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl
A Wise Woman
by Kari
Because I must be some kind of masochist, I was browsing over at the No Greater Joy site today. I came across Debi Pearl’s article “A Wise Woman Builds Her House,” dated May 5, 2001. After rolling my eyes repeatedly, I decided to write my own version. Mrs. Pearl’s words are in black, mine are in red.
A wise woman doesn’t take anything for granted. She is thankful to be loved and seeks to make herself more lovely.
A wise woman doesn’t take anything for granted. She knows she is worthy of love and seeks to remember her true worth.
A wise woman doesn’t allow herself to be a liability but strives to be an asset to the marriage bond. She looks for ways to make, save, and use money wisely. Her husband knows he is a richer man because she is his wife.
A wise woman is not ignorant of the family’s finances and is involved in decisions that affect her well-being. She looks for ways to help balance the family budget by looking for ways to make more and spend less. Her partner knows they can depend on each other.
A wise woman seeks to be a part of her husband’s life. His interest becomes her interest. She looks for ways to help him in every endeavor in which he is involved. When he needs a helping hand, it is her hand that is there first.
A wise woman seeks to be a part of her partner’s life while maintaining her own identity. She develops her own interests to pursue when she does not share her partner’s interest. She looks for ways to support her partner without sacrificing her own life.
A wise woman knows that his peace of mind (and sometimes, wise understanding) is something she can give or take away by her observations and conversation concerning circumstances or people. She limits her conversation to the positive.
A wise woman knows that she must be honest with her partner and herself to achieve true peace in the home.
A wise woman sets a joyful mood in the household. She uses laughter, music and happy times to stir the children to a positive, joyful frame of mind. She knows this light-heartedness helps take stress off her husband.
A wise woman knows she cannot control anyone’s mood or temper besides her own. She does not attempt to force her children to pretend happiness and joy where none exists. She knows this will cause them unendurable pain, and ultimately create more stress in her home.
A wise woman gauges her husband’s needs. She seeks to fulfill his desires before even he is aware of them. She never leaves him daydreaming outside the home. She supplies his every desire.
A wise woman knows she cannot be all-knowing and expects her partner to communicate desires with integrity. She does not pretend to know her partner’s daydreams and does not degrade herself by becoming a porn queen against her will.
Family Man, Family Leader: Created to be His Help Meet – Help I’ve Created a Monster. Part 2 The Balance Shifts
We had two children nineteen months apart. We wanted a larger family than just two. At that time we had never heard of patriarchy. We just loved kids, and we loved making them. However, after that I did not have any more. Of course I was disappointed, but we were alright with that at the time. As they approached school age I began to fret. I loved being with my kids and I did not want to send them away. I had met a family one time that educated their children at home. I was still working part time, but we decided that I would stay home with the children and teach them myself.
If that is all that I would have done it would have been great, but of course I had to join a support group. That is were the trouble began. It was full of very fundamental families with many children. And of course none of the other mothers worked outside of the home. Their kids always seemed to be so well behaved. One thing I should have noticed is that there were very few families with teenagers. Since I did not have any I did not notice. I have come to realize a lot of these beliefs cannot make it through teenage years. Many of these moms were so “helpful”. They began to give me all sorts of advice, and that included Created to Be His Helpmeet and To Train Up a Child.
At that time I was questioned about how many children I planned to have. We were not trying to prevent pregnancy, so I shared that. Many mothers determined that God must be trying to teach me something, like maybe I was not being submissive enough to my husband and on and on. I began to feel like something had to be wrong with me, so I began to try to be the perfect, Godly wife. The only problem: I wasn’t reading the scripture, I was relying on Michael Pearl, Bill Gothard, Little Bear Wheeler, and eventually satan himself – Doug Phillips.
So, instead of being my husband’s capable helpmeet, I now became a meek, submissive, and unable to make any decision on her own little wife. He was also being counseled by men who were into ATI (Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute) and finally followers in a very big way of Doug Phillips. I still am not ready to reveal how closely we are associated with Phillips. But it is very close through friends of ours.
My husband was now becoming the “leader” of his home. He stopped helping me with chores around the house. If he needed something done I was expected to drop everything to meet his needs. I never went anywhere that he did not want me to go. I even missed a going away party for a dear friend of mine. She was very hurt by this and our relationship has never been restored. He wanted me home to be at his beck and call.
Family Man, Family Leader: Created to be His Help Meet – Help I’ve Created a Monster. Part 1
My husband and I met at work. We were both recovering from failed marriages, and were friends for a long time before we started dating. After having a failed marriage we were both determined not to let another one fail.
We had two kids within nineteen months. That was fine as we wanted several children. He worked a lot of hours so I was a very capable manager of our home. I could feed babies and fix water leaks. I did not find it necessary to ask him about every single thing I did. If something needed fixing or doing I took care of it if he wasn’t able to. We were partners. However, as the children began to approach school age I began to question whether I wanted them to go away every day. I had quit work by this time, and really loved my kids.
It was decided that I would home educate them. Both of us are college educated, and we felt confident that this would be possible. I was not into a whole bunch of character stuff. I just liked my kids and wanted to be with them. As I began to get involved in a local home school group I was introduced to some ideas I had never heard of before. I met a lot of women who were very different from me. They seemed to be so calm with their many children. They had never worked and many were not college educated.
As I said before I was very independent. I was in no way co-dependent on my husband. I was a very capable person who could take care of most anything I had to. My new “friends” saw this and sought to “help” me. One of those helps was Created to Be His Help Meet.
Created To Be His Help Meet ~ An Open Letter to Debi Pearl
by Africaturtle
Dear Debi,
It’s been a few years now since I read your book Created to be His Help Meet for the first time.
I am married to a Mr. Command Man, as per your book’s description. My mom gave me your book for Christmas the first year I was married (six years ago now). She told me it was the best book she had read on the subject, and after reading it I was convinced it was too. (I had already read many other Christian books and periodicals on godly womanhood, including those of Mary Pride, Nancy Campbell, and a few from Vision Forum.) As a new wife and soon-to-be mother (I was pregnant within the first month after our wedding) I soaked up all of your stories and advice, expecting wholeheartedly to put these lessons into action and experience the heavenly marriage I was destined for!
May I also note that I had been very careful in choosing a godly, Christian man. Someone who welcomed the idea of children as a “blessing”, that served God wholeheartedly (we were involved in campus ministry together) and who respected my ideas and encouraged me to be a “keeper at home”, as described in Titus 2. I was sure we were destined for something great and unique as a family, and that our lives would be a testimony of faith and God’s greatness in a place that was in dire need of the light of the Gospel (we were living in Europe, not the US).
NLQ FAQ: The Bible and the Nature of Woman
by Kristen Rosser ~ aka: KR Wordgazer
Q: Doesn’t the Bible say I was created to be my husband’s helpmeet, that God designed me to joyfully give myself to my husband’s vision for our family?
To see what God’s plan and purpose for women is, we need to go back to the beginning– Genesis 1. What is the first thing the Bible says about women?
“And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and . . . over all the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the earth.” Gen. 1:26-28.
Is there any distinction made here between the male and the female? No, what we see is identical treatment of the man and the woman, and identical status of the man and the woman before God. He formed them both to be in His image and to have dominion, and then he told them to be fruitful and multiply and rule the other creatures.
Of course we must be careful not to take these commands in an unqualified state. The life and writings of the Apostle Paul make it clear that not every individual must “be fruitful” by having offspring (See “The Bible and Birth Control” for more on this topic.). Indeed, in the New Testament, being “fruitful” in terms of having children is not mentioned; what is important is “bearing fruit,“ which means good character and good deeds that help grow the Kingdom of God. Nor does “subdue the earth” give us the right to mistreat our fellow creatures; we are to be good stewards over the creation. But the important thing to note here is that Genesis Chapter 2 must be read in light of Genesis Chapter 1. The woman, no less than the man, is given rulership. There is no hint in Genesis 1 that the man is to rule over the woman.
Michelle says, Never enough babies!
