Some positive things I gleaned from ‘Created to be His Help Meet’ was learning to be thankful and cheerful. I was probably stuck on living opposite most of the time. So this convicted me and I really appreciated it because I knew she had to have a real point there. Besides, I remembered my mother was often discontent and how that affected my parents marriage which ended in divorce.
I learned to be more organized with meals and keep things simple. I learned to ask my husband what are some simple things I can do to keep the house tidy enough. What were his main peeves? This really helped me a lot not to be overwhelmed and feel like a failure.
Positive to negative: I learned to be extremely flexible with my whimsical husband who was also a bit of a ‘Command Man.’ Well, he had some blind spots. He seemed to love the change in me. But I made a big mistake. I told him I wanted to submit better and almost perfectly. By this I meant that even for things I had qualms about. I would defer to him for concerns of conscience regarding some gray areas. I got the idea that I shouldn’t trust myself. Now my husband was to be the spiritual leader regardless of spiritual maturity and that God would ultimately be correcting and convicting him.
Debi Pearl used a lot of scripture and I didn’t look into the ways she used them. I started realizing later that some of the verses she cited were used in a highly questionable way. During Bible reading I would come across verses of scripture that seemed like it could clash with some things she was teaching women.
Another problem is I would be really bewildered about the way she treated the women in her letters. It was downright knife twisting mean! I felt sorry for these women. I wanted to write a letter to Debi Pearl but I was just too busy with raising the children and besides, I was afraid I might receive a verbally abusive letter. So I shrugged figuring she was just over passionate and she was wrong to be so mean but I’d just chew the meat and spit out the bones. I still had it in my mind that this book was an answer to prayer, so Debi’s zeal, while I felt it was wrong, I thought it might be there for a reason. Maybe she’d seen too many marriages die just like my mother’s.
To be continued.
Marriage Trouble Part 1
Marriage Trouble Part 2
Marriage Trouble Part 3
Marriage Trouble Part 4
Marriage Trouble Part 5
