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There are so many aspects of a transition into marriage. You are blending two lives and two families. You have to blend the night owl and the early bird. You have to blend the neat freak and the untidy one. You have to blend the Steelers fan with the Broncos fan. Well I guess that’s just my situation…

But for this article, I want to hone in on one aspect of this transition from being a single woman into a wife: trust.

It can be a scary idea for a woman to trust a man totally in marriage. It’s not that their husbands aren’t trustworthy or they don’t trust their husbands in some things, but the idea of completely submitting, when you think you are in the right or when it is a completely life changing decision on the line…that can be hard. And that’s why so many women find themselves wrestling with a tendency to take control.

Control: this is a major issue that wives struggle with when they enter a marriage. Submission is a discipline that you must work on cultivating now, as a single woman.

Think about it this way… It really is no wonder that the transition from the single life to married life can be so rocky for some. Marriage encompasses two completely different mindsets! As a single woman, you learn to be independent and look out for yourself. But then you get married and overnight you’re supposed to let someone else take care of you. That independence you once knew must now become a dependence on your husband.

The problem here is that today the mindset of a single woman is in direct conflict with the Christian life. The idea that single women are somehow independent and must fend for themselves in this world is a mindset that conflicts with what the Bible teaches. If we are children of God, then there is no independent life for us. There is no “Fend for yourself” mentality. And there is no “I am in control.”

On the contrary, it is God who is in control. God takes care of you. To be Christian is to be dependent on Him.

This control issue and independent mindset that you may have may not be easily seen as a single woman, but it magnifies tremendously when your life is intertwined with another in marriage. This spirit of independence that may be ingrained in your heart and mind can set you up for failure in all relationships; especially in your relationship with God.

With all of that being said, an inability to trust a husband in marriage is not necessarily a marital problem; it is a spiritual one. It comes from that idea of independence you let fill your mind; the idea of not trusting God to provide and take care of you. When you live in the knowledge that God is in control, it takes a lot of pressure off of trusting others. A trust in God makes all other forms of trust possible.

So if you are single now, begin the hard work of learning submission–submission to God. Regardless of whether or not you get married one day, this is a discipline that will factor into your job, your congregation, and your relationships.

That is a struggle that every woman must face and fight, no matter her marital status.

By Carrie Roberts
Carrie and her husband, Jeremy, work with the Parker church of Christ congregation in Parker, CO. Jeremy serves as the associate minister and Carrie is a 2nd grade teacher at a local charter school. They are both recent graduates of the Bear Valley Bible Institute of Denver.