1983 November/December issue Part 2

What if my wife doesn't feel called?

This question is often asked by men who are preparing to be ministers or missionaries. I've never heard it asked by anyone who was headed for the insurance business, medicine, or an airline pilot's career. The ministry and the mission field are the ones to which people somehow believe there has to be a special call, separate and distinct from all other vocations, requiring a spiritual revelation of some kind for the wife as well as for the husband. And if she hasn't got it, there's nothing he can do about it except change his plans.

Not to try and answer the question about his call- that is a different kind of question- i would make one or two suggestions to the wife if she would let me. Because Eve was made especially for Adam- to be his responder, his adapter, his help ("meet" suitable, fit) for his need- it follows that it is the woman who is God's gift to the man. (not vice versa, in this special sense). He is the wooer, the initiator, the head, under God. When a woman consents to marry a man, she (if she's a Christian) should think about the relationship between Christ the Bridegroom and the Church, His Bride. The Church responds to His call. The bride relinquishes her independence, her name, her destiny, her plans for "a life of her own" (remember Jesus' words: "if anybody wants to follow me, let him give up his right to himself"), her family, her home, and perhaps even her country to join the life of this man. She accepts his destiny, his name, his future, and everything else as her own. If she is called to be his wife, she is called to support and encourage him in the work God gives him to do.

(The source of these perorations is not Why I Feel Good about Being Submissive, by Elisabeth Elliot [don't order it there is no such book], but the Book of Books- check out what it says about Christ and His Bride, and then ask Him to help you live by that paradigm. I'm asking everyday.)