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Tonya's
Testimony
Today I am a
stay at home wife and mother, blessed to be a helpmeet to a wonderful man for almost 18 years and homeschooling our two boys. I am learning to be an effective keeper at our home and working on our homestead. Almost none of this was in my girlish dreams.
Thankfully, God has brought me a long, long way since those days.
I grew up in
the suburbs as the oldest of three. My father was a mid-level manager and my
mom stayed at home with us until I was about 13. Though Mom was always a submissive
wife, I was raised to be really independent and rather assertive. I remember
when I was in high school my dad bought me a plaque for my wall that said something to the effect of “Anything a woman
does she must do twice as well as a man to be thought half as good. Luckily this
isn’t too difficult.” That’s the mindset I grew up with. My dream throughout school was to attend college, law school, then practice law. I figured I’d get married at some point, but really never thought about having
children.
When I was nineteen,
I met my husband. We shared a loyalty to family, but were very different in most
every other way. He was a country boy with a dream of having a farm. I was a
city girl who couldn’t even keep a house plant alive. He’d grown
up in church, and, though I’d made a decision for Christ as a child, I hadn’t been to church or read my Bible for five years at that
point. We were married eleven months after we met. From the time I met my husband, God began changing my life.
The dream of
law school dissolved. A dream of having children grew in my heart. We fell into the pattern of “needing” two incomes to make it so when we started having
children four years later, I continued to work. By the time our second was born,
we were between a rock and a hard place. I couldn’t work because we couldn’t
afford daycare and I couldn’t stay home because my job provided the benefits.
On the verge of losing our home, God answered our prayers and rescued us from our financial woes by moving us to Georgia and providing us with a better income. Unfortunately,
I still had the job with benefits so the boys remained in daycare. When they
started school, we were blessed to be able to afford a private Christian school
for which I was very thankful, but the cry of my heart was to be home and homeschool them.
God answered
that prayer, too, in His perfect timing. In September of 2002, when our children
were in second grade and kindergarten, God told my husband and me to “get ready”.
We knew He was bringing me home to raise and homeschool our children at the end of that school year. We worked hard in the following months to get our finances in order.
It would be tough, but we could do it.
However, God’s
plans were not our plans. In January of 2003, my husband, a National Guardsman,
was deployed to Texas. Two months following
that, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It was quite a blow to our
family, but God’s “heads-up” allowed me to leave my job as planned, sell our big house in the good subdivision,
and move myself and our children in with my parents to help care for him in his last months.
When my husband
returned, we continued to live with Mom. During that time, God continued to prepare
me for His plan of giving dh his dream. I learned to cook (dh had always cooked
when we both worked) and I began grinding our own wheat and baking our bread. God
also began working on our marriage when my mom confronted me about my lack of respect for my husband. It was quite a shock for my own mother to tell me that, but I came to realize that it was true, I wasn’t
showing him the respect he deserved and God commanded.
The past three
and a half years have been just incredible. God provided dh with a much better
job and brought us to a 5.5 acre homestead about 20 minutes from it. The home
needed a lot of work and it was through all this that I realized how talented and knowledgeable my husband is in carpentry
and gardening and animals. My respect for him grows and grows as my eyes are
opened to so much about him. God also convicted me about submitting to my husband,
about submitting myself to God’s headship order. At the same time, He was
convicting my husband about leading our family – of course it was much easier for him to do that once I stopped trying
to.
God was changing
my heart and my dreams. He also started changing my outward witness. He took this jeans-and-t-shirts woman and convicted me to be modest, to wear dresses only and a headcovering
– took a year for us to submit to Him on that one. I am so thankful that
God is patient and allowed me to take baby steps – the knit dresses I already owned, then skirts (beginning sewing),
then plain jumpers (thankfully dh altered the pattern for me), and last month I was able to make my first plain dresses with
vests (and even altered the pattern myself!). I look forward to making more as
well as making my own hanging veils.
God also convicted
us about our spiritual growth, drawing us away from mainstream churches and has placed us in a wonderful little Bible-based,
family-integrated church with about 8 other families. The expository preaching,
men’s discipleship meetings, and encouragement of the pastor to start family worship at home has really helped us to
grow in the Lord and draw closer to Him and each other.
God continues
to convict us about going further with our homesteading and we trust that He is preparing us for the next step in His plan
for us, whatever that may be. We yield ourselves to Him and His direction for
our lives.
Submission and the Modern Woman
For the past 21-½ years, I’ve been married to a wonderful man. No, he’s not the strongest, the fastest, the richest one out there but, he is loving, supportive,
dependable and trustworthy-all the really important things that a good husband should possess.
Have I been the perfect wife? Well, depending on when you asked me that
question, the answer would have varied. The first ten years or so, of course
I was. I was young, full of life, and female- how could I have been wrong in any way.
The next six
or seven years, my thoughts shifted somewhat and, let me tell you, it wasn’t for the good. I was first in college, then had a degree, had borne and was raising four children without much help (or
so I thought), worked 40 hours a week (just like he did) and made as much or more money as he was making during many of those
years. If he couldn’t do his share of the work in the relationship, I surely
wasn’t going to waste my time trying to make things work.
As I reflect
back over those middle years, I am horrified and ashamed that I could have said, done and felt like I did. So many, many things I wish could be undone or unsaid. The
times I’d want to go somewhere and he wouldn’t, guess who got left behind without a second thought? Or the times I’d worked hard or long and just didn’t want to worry with making supper, guess
who went without or fended for himself (and many times fed the children and me!) There
are many other examples in our history of just what a “model” wife I was, but you’ve probably got the picture. To say I was lacking would be an understatement.
What made me react this way? Why did I
have those feelings of having to always be right, to always have my way and always be in charge? One of the biggest flaws in my life during this time was my absence from Jesus Christ. I was a woman of the world, a 21st century gal climbing up the ladder of success and riches-
2 Tim. 2:16 – But shun profane
and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness.
Where did God, Christ,
religion or any of that spiritual stuff fit into the picture? What would it profit
me to be down there on Sunday with all those “do-gooders”? I don’t
know why He did it, but God never forsook me during this time-even at my worst, God kept me and mine safe. And although I couldn’t see it, He was trying his best to get my attention.
Well, about
five years ago, I finally go the message. Everything in my life was crashing
down around me. My older children, who were teenagers at the time, were on a
downward spiral of drugs and every other worldly vice. The babysitter was practically
raising my two younger children. It’s not realistic to think someone can
raise a family of four children between the hours of 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm and every other weekend- but guess who thought she could?
Basically all I did for my children during most of those years was feed them supper and put them to bed. Most days they ate both breakfast and lunch at school and I had to keep my nose to the grindstone to be
able to pay for that privilege. How warped was my world?
Worst of all, my
husband and I had drifted so far apart, we rarely sat down to talk or spend time together.
Time at the supper table was spent yelling at teenagers about what they’d done or telling the younger two to
hush “Mommy and/or Daddy had a long day and just want you to be quiet right now”.
We never had nor took time to just be together, without kids, bills, and problems- just the two of us as husband and
wife. All my thoughts went along the lines of “why can’t he just
do what I want” or “why can’t he fix all these problems”. I
know now what a mess my life was in but back then, I was doing, feeling, and reacting the same way as most women of the world. I was in the majority and I HATED it.
2 Tim. 4:3-4 – For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers and
they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fable.
I was definitely turned aside to fable.
The fable of the modern woman that says we should do our own thing, be our own person, and meet our needs however we
can. Just do it, as the slogan says.
Well, long story
short, I spent another year or so arguing with God that nothing in my life was my fault, others were to blame for the shambles
around me. But, thank the Lord, God won the argument and I had to try things
His way. Did all my marital problems immediately resolve? No – Did my children
fall in line, being obedient and pleasing? No. What did happen? I saw myself as I really was-the real me- and it wasn’t a pretty site. I saw selfishness to my own needs, self-centeredness, and a spiteful and mean-spirited person; anything
but the kind of wife and mother the Lord intended for me to be. After many tearful
rounds of talks, my husband and I made some tough decisions concerning our life.
We saw that society
and especially peer groups had much more influence over our children than we did so we chose to home school. This in itself led to a series of chain reactions in other areas.
I could no longer work full time outside the home. This greatly reduced
our income therefore, less going, less eating out, less “extra” money- period. More cooking at home, cooking from
scratch; we even had to get used to spending more time with each other witch really took some adjustment for everyone in the
household. Were we thrilled with all this? Most days, no, but we were willing
to “give it a go” and see what happened.
During all
these changes (many times it would have been better classified as upheaval or mass chaos), I was hearing and reading more
and more about wifely submission, husband as head of the household, etc. I can
tell you these were truly foreign concepts here at the Swafford house. I am the
outspoken one, the bossy personality in our relationship. He, on the other hand,
is the quiet type- slow to speak, slow to react/anger, long on thinking (of which I am NOT at times). Even though he didn’t necessarily like me taking charge, I think it was easier than having to argue
about it all the time (the lesser of two evils choice).
The more I read and studied, the more this concept appealed to me. First of all, it would give me some relief! With raising kids,
cleaning house, home schooling, etc., I had too much on my plate as it was, so maybe he could take over some thereby lightening
my load. As you can see, the choice to be a submissive wife was initially made
for my own selfish reason. But, as time has gone on, the reasons have changed. Now it’s about God’s plan for me and helping my husband be the best man
he can be (wife as a helpmeet).
Has the road
been easy? Far from it! There are
still many days that we have a major clashing of the wills. Does he always make
the right decision for us? No, but “he that is without sin among you, let
him first cast a stone…” Does he have the best interest of each member
of this family in his heart and mind? Yes, and as hard as it is to admit some
days, in most cases where I’ve overruled him, he turned out to be right! We
truly have a much happier household now. The decrease in monetary things has
been overcome many times over by the joy of enjoying our relationship, better relationship with our children, and, of course,
grandchildren! But, the greatest joy by far is the relationship I now have with
Christ, which for so many years I had pushed aside.
I can lay my burden at his feet and not have to be bogged down with worry, stress, or anxiety.
Matt. 6:27 – Which of you
by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
Jesus is beside me when I struggle with wifely issues and through the word
of God, I am brought back every time to my duty as a wife.
Eph. 5:22 – Wives, submit
to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
I pray daily that
God will bless me with many more years of marriage and that I can do a better job with any remaining years he chooses to give
me. I pray to be the best Christian I can be,
not only for my own gain (Heaven will be grand!) but in order to be a positive influence in the lives of my husband, children,
and family.
Apryl Swafford
I met Apryl a year or so ago and have
believed it was a divine appointment ever since. She is an incredible person
and a precious friend. When I asked her to write this article I knew that the
Lord would use her mightily and so He has. You will be blessed tremendously as you read this beautiful testimony of surrender
Angie
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