What is Submission in a Relationship?

Okay ladies, before we get started here, I need you to take one for the team. Hear me out. Don’t run. What I have to say you may not like at first, but in the end, you may feel differently. Let’s do this! SO...When you got married, what promises were in your vows? To love? To honor? To cherish? To submit?...Wait, WHAT!!! Did you say submit? 
I did say submit.

- Don’t leave yet.
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I have got something to say and spirit is here to make a way (pay no attention to the rhyme!)...When I said submit, or the act of submission, I can only imagine the heads spinning. I am assuming, of course, that you are thinking of submission as a gesture of willfully giving up your freedom, actions, and independence, for the man that you love. You could even be thinking of the words from our divine Biblical text that you brush off as ‘old-fashioned’ right? “Wives, submit to your husbands” (Ephesians 4:22). It is as if you have become a strawman and he pulls the strings. Truth, if someone told me to do such a thing, my head would spin as well. 

But, ladies, and gentlemen here as well, let’s look at it a bit differently. Let us begin with the word submission itself. In Latin, the word submit, submission, refers to the yielding, or humbling, of oneself. It is this notion of accepting or acknowledging something or someone greater than us, and offering our peace to them. Now let’s take it deeper. Let’s look at your union. Is there a connection between you, where you comfort and hold each other, pray together, grow together, face problems together? Or do you find that there are troubles that exist among you? Perhaps there are disagreements that are pulling you apart? What if I said to just stop...stop fighting. In fact, stop arguing all together. What if you look past the arguments? Look past the troubles? 

Find a place in yourself where you are reminded of those vows that you gave on your wedding day. I trust that you did not marry him to lose yourself to him, but to gain something better for you. Ladies, you know as well as I do, men are a different breed. But they will find fish from the bottom of the lake, deep in a trench, in cold, icy water, with THEIR TEETH for you as long as they know YOU have their back. You are a blessing in his life. He needs your support. He is also a blessing in yours. And that is why I write this for you today. Make note here, you married him to “gain something,” you gained “someone.” With that, you will face challenges. It is not the challenges that matter, but how you face them together. 

So, when I suggest submission here, I am not proposing that you give up who you are and what you have fought to become. He loves you because of those traits and your opinion matters to him. I am wondering, though, if you are in a hard spot in your relationship, how would it change if you were to submit, as I use it here? Maybe put the ‘honor of each other’ at the forefront of every conversation? Show your pride by cherishing the respect and unity of your lives. Humble yourself before him as you would want him to be humbled for you. Submit to the marriage by recognizing that there are two in your partnership; you can put your partner first without feeling at a loss. Value each other. Remind yourself of why you got married in the first place. Two is always better than one my friends.

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