I was working on a post from my final trip to visit the previously mentioned family in Ruston this weekend before school starts. I was having anxiety and enjoyed my final hoorah of denial. I could not wait to write for several reasons, mainly because I found an ice cream maker at a thrift store. However, that post must wait because my mind’s distracted hallways are also trying to fill a weird space in my room, and a piece of it struck inspiration. It is not a theoretical space but an actual empty wall, and I felt the way this blog goes, sometimes there needed clarity. I found a cabinet at a thrift store I plan to paint and use for storage, which motivated me to decorate the wall that it will be against, including the Hobby Lobby sign I found in someone’s garbage mentioned a few posts ago. The first paragraph illustrates a lot about my life. Cue: Thinking face emoji or the GIF of Spongebob and Patrick running around in hysterics

This brings me to state that I FINALLY have plans for my favorite photo I took on my solo trip to Ireland in 2015 and want to hang it in that space. I have recently reconnected with a girl on the same bus tour as me. (Little did I know that she messaged me after the trip in 2015, but I never got it because Facebook has hidden message folders!?? I did not know that, so tips from the top go check your messages! ha!) Digging through my pictures this morning, I found a few images of our group and messaged her on Facebook. I had not looked at the pictures in years, and they brought such a smile to my face. That trip was the beginning of my walk with Jesus and was the craziest time of my life. However, that is not the point of this post, and I am trying to stay on task.

While I was clicking through the photos, I found one that made me laugh because it was in a castle stairwell which God would bring to mind that I lived a Paul Washer sermon.

You see, I was trapped in the corner of a tiny stairwell with three other tourists (not on my bus). When I say tiny, the entire step itself is maybe a foot wide, and the staircase is spiral. We were stuck and had to wait (and wait and wait) for people to pass before we were able to leave. They did not speak English, and it was starting to get awkward, but since everyone smiles in the same language, I stuck out my phone camera and said cheese. We all laughed and took a selfie. It’s one of my favorite memories.

Little did I know that God would let me experience that to understand the metaphor in Paul Washer’s teaching “Recovering Biblical Womanhood” (Youtube link). I shared this same sermon a few weeks ago and never put the two together. I did not understand or think much about the stairs or their design. They probably explained it in the tour, but I was off in a distant land, and I do not mean just physical Ireland. If I heard the explanation, I forgot to remember. (Other details are foggy to me, though I seem to remember bits and pieces. Maybe the random facts come when I’m in the middle of Target and wondering how I know that???) I also did not know why the rooms at the top were so small. I did not think much of any of it until listening to a sermon about marriage. The staircase is designed that way in the event the castle was under attack. If needed, the stairs are narrow so that the person can fight an entire army trying to run up because only one person can fit up the stairs at a time. The rooms connected to it are all small with short doorways.

I included some of the transcript of the sermon, but it is relatable without being married. As human beings, we want to control and sometimes think we know better than God. I know that by my recent life crisis. God is saying, “Get out of the way”, but we know better and continue to fight. Only one is allowed at a time.

“Now let me give you an illustration. If you go to Europe, one of the things that you’ve always got to see are castles. I mean, they’re just unbelievable. But there’s something unusual about castles. The first… the front door of a castle is like really big, on the first floor. I mean, it’s huge. I mean, twenty-five guys walking abreast can go through that door. It’s a big door! What’s amazing is, you go up to the second floor and the stair way’s about this big. And the door at the top is like this tall and like this big. You know, like, man if that wasn’t an architectural oversight. Why did they do that?

Well, here’s the way, here’s the reason. Let’s say that there’s a bunch of people in the castle and they’re in there locked up because there’s an army, a gigantic army outside the castle. Well, that gigantic army, it storms that door, the first door. And it, twenty-five men leaning against that door and they push it in and here comes the whole army, floods into that first floor. And let’s say there’s only ten people in that castle. But the army’s 300 men and they’ve just busted through the door. All the people in the castle, the ten people, they run up that narrow stairway. And here’s what you need to understand. That stairwell is so narrow that is just takes one man with a lance at the top of that thing to hold off an army of 300 men, because all 300 hundred of them can’t get up there, only one at a time.

I just described your marriage. Women, your husband is sitting in his castle and he’s just having a good old time. He’s sitting in his lazy boy chair, he’s watching football or a hunting program. And you have had enough. Alright, so you storm the castle door. And what does he do? He does what every man ought to do. He runs. He runs straight up those stairs.

I like what one man said one time. He said, “There’s these three men and they’re all talking about ‘My wife, you know, she submits to me.’ And ‘My wife submits to me.’ And this other guy goes, “Pshhh, you guys are a bunch of wimps! When my wife talks to me, she gets down on her hands and knees.’ They said, ‘Really?’ ‘Yea, she gets down on her hands and knees and she looks under the bed where I’m hiding and she says ‘Are you going to come out and fight like a man or stay there all day?’”

But here’s the thing. Wife, your husband sees you, sees that double-edged sword
coming out of your mouth, and he runs up and he’s got his lance and you coming up that stairwell. And you’re coming up that stairwell fighting with him. That tongue of yours is moving like a weed eater. And the whole time you’re giving him the rights, you’re just telling him the way it ought to be.

The whole time you’re doing that, you’re also praying. “God, why don’t you help me with this man?, God, why don’t you help me with this man?, God, why don’t you do what you need to do? Why don’t you change this man? God I can’t understand.”

And every time you say, “God, why don’t you help me with this man?”, God’s
going, “Get out of the way.” And you’re like, “Huh u, I’m not getting out of the
way.” And you just keep fighting. “God, why don’t you get up here and help?” God goes, “There’s room for only one. Get out of the way.” And you won’t get out of the way, because you’d rather just wag that big, dangerous tongue of yours then you would get out of the way.

I thought about writing a book, I’m still thinking about writing a book to wives on how to act in such a way so that God will kill your husband. I’m just afraid it will be a best seller. We’ll have a lot of men dying. But remember what God says in Romans, well
in Romans 12? “Give place to the wrath of God.” Get out of the way. He says, “Don’t deal with your enemies. Don’t fight fires with fires. Someone does evil to you, don’t do evil back. Just get out of the way.”

And what God is telling a woman is this. “Continue in your godliness, continue in your quiet spirit. Seek to honor him as much as you can. And call out to Me and I will be your help in the day of trouble.“

God changes people. And this works the same way with husbands, except more so.”
– Paul Washer, Recovering Biblical Womanhood Transcript External link