Still working out the technical enigma you see in my mixed up header 🙂 It’s just a reminder that I don’t have to be perfect!  Read on and find out why.

Have you ever found yourself sitting in a “seat of shame?” I was in the passenger seat, and my husband was driving when it last happened. I was left wondering, “Will I ever be a perfect wife?”

Feeling ashamed as a wife

Luggage in the back was filled with the usual pajamas, books, and boots, but the luggage in my heart contained holiday weariness, disappointment, fresh hurt, and emotional fatigue. Before I knew it, random words sprung the lock on my heart, and the ugliness packed inside exploded there in the car with my family. Verbal mistakes. Hurt feelings. Regret. Clean up had to begin with humility and confession.  Will I ever be a perfect wife?

A moment in the seat of shame made me wonder, “Will I ever be a perfect wife?” I get tired of being so flawed, so failing. Do you ever ask yourself this “Will I ever be” question?

It’s a fair question.  It deserves a truthful answer.

Feeling defeated as a wife

Many a wife hangs her head in fatigue or defeat, mentally counting up failures like a list of household projects. We want to be productive, gentle, inspiring, kind, fun, encouraging, romantic, and so much more.  Just making the list makes me tired. I’ll probably strip the old wallpaper off of our guest bathroom before I’m all that all the time, and that’s not encouraging! At first, the true answer to “Will I ever be?” is like adding dirty jeans to the top of an already high mound of laundry: discouraging. So, truthfully? “Will we ever be perfect?”

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12)

Is there hope for an imperfect wife?

On her own, a wife can never be good enough. Thankfully, God’s grace covers over her, His Spirit fills her, and His plan catches her like a leaf on a stream bound for a better destination.

Has God’s grace caught you out of your “not-so-perfect-wife” journey? His grace means there’s no judgment for those who  “in” Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1) Though I’m not perfect on my own, “…God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8).   So, “Yes, I can abound in good works. Every good work.”

The only way we overcome our humanness to be a good wife, even an excellent wife, is knowing that, “… it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).  It is God’s JOY to work on my shame-worthy self!  “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

I’m afraid I haven’t been in the seat of shame for the last time. But yes, sweet friend who knows the grief of the seat of shame, there will be a day when we will be “perfect.” Be encouraged that as we’re working on it, God is working harder. If we are “in Christ Jesus” God already looks at us without judgment, and He’ll keep on working on us to make us perfect.

For someone who has seen the view from the seat of shame, that gives me hope.  That gives me encouragement.  That gives me PEACE.