(THITU KARIBA) I don’t want a big family; in fact I don’t want to have loads of kids. I am thirty now and I am single, I don’t want to have kids later in life, I don’t want to be changing diapers and breast feeding let alone getting pregnant at 35. I don’t want to gain the weight, I don’t want the additional stretch marks and varicose veins, I don’t want to go through labor, and I certainly do not want something else taking up occupancy in my womb that would require a change of life style for months. It’s my body and I should have a choice about what happens to it.
Up to that point I am sure that some people may agree with me and some may think I am just being selfish. The truth however is, we all have something we want and don’t want to be asked of us where our bodies are concerned. Some of you don’t want to change how you dress; some of you don’t want to have to lose the weight. When I put it that way we all most certainly have something we don’t want. What we want is the one who says they love us to love us as we are, to consider what we have to give up, to consider what we want, but, that is not always the case. You have a want while they have a need.
Though I want to have few or no kids at all, he needs a big family with loads of kids, while you want to dress how you have always dressed, she needs you to wear a button up shirt and a tie, while you want him to love your body as is, he needs you to lose some weight. At times this need for change may be there before marriage and other times it may arise during marriage. Many times the one being asked to change will have list of points to bring up as to why they should not and the most common one is that if they loved you, they would not ask you to change. I agreed with this until this morning.
My friends asked me yesterday how I would react if instead of a spouse, it were God who was asking it of me. This morning I had a sit down with God and he broke it down. He showed me the life of Jesus. Jesus came to earth as a savior of men; he died a horrible death all for God’s love for us. Jesus asked God, his own father that if it be his will to take the cup or burden from him. Jesus however knew why he was sent and more over Jesus had submitted himself to God, in spirit, soul and body. Jesus traded in his want of our need. The bible then tells us that we are not to just say we love each other but to show it, it says that we are to lay up our lives in sacrifice even as he did for one another.
In marriage, we submit ourselves wholly to our spouses as unto God, wholly means that we also lay up our bodies as living sacrifices, we lay them up for our spouses as unto God. Furthermore what that means is that we are to trade in what we want for what they need. There are some things that count as abuse and mistreatment of the body and that is not what I am talking about, what I learnt and understood this morning is that, I may not want more kids but I need to give up what I want for what he needs, I want to be loved as I am, but they need you to lose weight, I want to dress how I always have but they need you to change. I know it is hard to swallow but like my friends put it; we are to think of it as God asking and us doing it for God because after all we are to submit to our spouses as unto God himself.
Our bodies must be laid up as living sacrifices in marriage and submitted, if we are not ready to do that then we are not ready to marry just yet, and if you already are married, now you know there is more to submission that you thought and that Gods grace is sufficient to do that which he has asked. Married or single, we are to ask God to create in us what he wants us to be for our spouses and our marriages. We are to put our trust not in our spouses but in God knowing that as we submit we do it as on to God, in obedience to God and that he will protect us as we do. He will not allow your spouse to abuse you, but as you submit God will reward you though your spouse.
It’s a hard pill to swallow, but his grace is sufficient. Until we do, we are to understand that we are not being selfish but disobedient to God. We are holding back our bodies from him while he calls us to lay them up as living sacrifices. Trust him with your body. It will be alright, have the kids, and loose the weight, change the way you look. It will be alright.
For more log onto Harusi Magazine on http://www.myharusi.com/