God's Gift

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Treasure Box: Genesis 2:18, 21-22; I Corinthians 7:34; 11:8-9

Love Notes:

A wise woman doesn't take anything for granted.
She is thankful to be loved and seeks to make herself more lovely.

If God created a special woman,
perfectly suited to be my husband's helper,
would I see that woman in the mirror?

I am God's gift to my husband.

When I am a help meet to my husband, I am a helper to Christ.

So, what is a help meet? It sounds so archaic. I was even surprised to find it in my modern dictionary. Help, I get, but help meet? Looking for that word in the New Testament...

Treasure Box: Acts 26:20; Romans 1:27; I Corinthians 15:9, 16:4; Philippians 1:7; Colossians 1:12; II Thessalonians 1:3; II Timothy 2:21; Hebrews 6:7; II Peter 1:13

"Meet" = appropriate, (what is) due, fit, fitting, right, qualified, useful

The genesis of God's gift of a help meet was creating Eve to be a helper (noun) who was meet (adjective), suited to Adam.

So, God has gifted me to be a gift: a proper, fit, perfect, good and well-equipped helper for the love of my life. This is His good and perfect will for my life in my vocation of wife-hood. How like God--He gives us the gift of giving ourselves.

So, let's start with baby steps. In what ways can I be a helper to my man? And I shall start today:

• Check in with him during the evening and weekends when he is working to give him an encouraging word, to bring him something yummy for his tummy, to just give him a hug & a kiss, etc. (My hubbie works from home.)
  
• Keep the children quiet in the morning when he is resting after going to bed at midnight (as is usually the case)
• Let him know if I won't be home for lunch, as he's asked

I was surprised that as I typed these three simple things, I was sorely tempted to add little details like "even though [fill in latest gripe in a subtle way, so it doesn't look like a gripe]." It's like my pride won't quite let go. If I were someone else and I read this list, I would think, "Good grief, how small and easy these things are." And they are--unless you have history as I do with my spouse. Unless you have "reasons"--good, solid reasons, you say to yourself--to "hold out" and not do these things. At least not until he does this and that, too...Oh, how slowly our pride and self-centeredness dies. How slowly our fingers are pried open from our resentments and ill-chosen memories to which we clutch as if our life depends on it.

But one cannot receive blessing with closed fists, clenched tight.

One cannot give and one cannot enjoy the gift given from God of giving to another, giving with grace (undeserved favor) by His Spirit, by His power, when one has closed fists, closed heart.

He gives us the gift of giving ourselves. And so He must give us this gift, for we are not able to truly give ourselves to another, not in the way of true agape' love. Only from what we have received from Him, can we give. The redemptive love of God poured out through Christ, given to us though we do not deserve it, cannot earn it, but received through simple faith and trust. Lord, with that simple faith and trust, transform me to give likewise to the one You have joined together with me.

Let this be my gift to You. Even as it is Your gift to me.

Love Notes are quotes from Created To Be His Help Meet and the accompanying journal by Debi Pearl (see left side bar).