She learned it at nineteen from a woman she loved, and it was said as a kindness, and it was the shape her whole life took afterward.
A good Christian woman does not complain.
She has kept it. Thirty one years and she could count on one hand the times she has said a hard thing out loud about her own life, and every one of those times she apologized afterward.
Her friends would tell you she is the most uncomplaining person they know. Two of them have said it in front of her, as praise, in the last year.
Here is what nobody knows.
The woman who taught her the rule is the person who has spent thirty years telling her, in a hundred small ways and some not small at all, that she is a disappointment. Not shouting. It is more careful than shouting and it does not leave anything you could point at, and it has been running since before she was married.
The rule and the person are the same person.
She has never once put those two facts side by side until she read them just now.
If somebody taught you a rule and then used it on you, this article is for you, and I am going to be very plain.
What God said He had done
Let me say it with no softening at all.
A good Christian woman does not complain is not in the Bible. It is not a paraphrase of anything in the Bible. A third of the Psalms are complaints, and God kept them, and put them in the book, and gave them to the church to sing.
And the rule you were given at nineteen was not doctrine. It was a sentence, and it has been used on you by the person who gave it to you.
Now read what God says about Himself when His people are being ground down, because there are three verbs in it and all of them are His.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.Exodus 3:7
Seen. Heard. Know.
Notice the second one, because it is the one that matters tonight. He heard their cry. They cried, and the crying was not a failure of faith, and it is not recorded as something they had to repent of. It is recorded as the thing God responded to.
You are seen and heard and known by God, and your account has been on the record the whole time. That is not my kindness to you. It is written in Exodus 3:7, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my sentence who carries a written line past a woman's ears into the place where she actually lives.
So thirty one years of the rule has not been humility. You have a dignity God gave and no rule can spend, and it is intact tonight. The word settled that long before you were nineteen, and the same Spirit who inspired it is in the house while you read this.
When the rule and the person are the same person
Here is what you have just put side by side for the first time, and it deserves to be said slowly.
A rule that forbids you to describe your life, given to you by the person whose treatment of you would be the thing described, is not a spiritual principle. Whatever was in her heart when she gave it to you, and it may genuinely have been kindness, that is what it has been doing.
And notice how completely it works. It is not enforced by anybody. You enforce it. It runs when there is nobody in the room, and it has kept you from saying one true sentence to your friends for three decades, and two of them praised you for it last year without knowing what they were praising.
I am not telling you what she is. I have never met her, and people are more complicated than a page can hold, and she may love you in ways that are also real.
What can be said is what the rule has done. Thirty one years of a woman with no way to say what her life is like, and a hundred small things a year with no place to go.
You have permission to describe your own life out loud, and describing it is not complaining in the sense that rule meant. Exodus 3 has God putting the cry of a people on the record as the thing He answered; His Spirit is the one who lets a woman say a true sentence about her own house without it being disloyalty.
Now, plainly, and this is the part that matters most on this page. Nothing here is telling you to leave anywhere, and nothing here is telling you to stay anywhere, and nothing here is adjudicating your household or that woman. I do not know your life and no page does. That judgment belongs to you, and to the people who actually know your life, and to God.
What can be said is this. If somebody is hurting you, that is not something God is asking you to absorb as an act of worship, and you are allowed to reach for help. Tell one person who can act. A doctor. A pastor outside that circle. A friend. In the United States, 1 800 799 7233 is the domestic violence line, 988 answers by call or text at any hour, and if you are in danger right now, use your emergency number.
God never asked you for your dignity, and He is not served by your being harmed.
There is no offering going up out of thirty one years of not complaining. Nothing has been formed in you by the hundred small things, and no worship has been given by your silence about them. What there is, is a woman being told she is a disappointment by somebody who taught her she was not allowed to say so.
You are humble before God tonight, and that has never once been the same thing as having no way to say what your life is like. Exodus 3:7 settled that He hears a cry and answers it, and the Holy Spirit is holding it steady in you while you read the line.
And notice what has not been said here. Nobody has told you what to do about that woman, or that she will change, or that a season of this is nearly over. Nobody is authorized to promise you any of that.
What He does next is His, in His own way. Your part today is one true sentence and one step toward somebody who can act. His part is what He builds on it.
Declare this over yourself
Christ is in you and you are in Him, and that is the ground under these words rather than thirty one years of keeping a rule. What He does next is His to decide, in His own way and at His own pace. Exodus 3:7 is the word underneath this, and His Spirit is the one who settles a spoken sentence in a woman who has apologized every time she said a hard thing about her own life.
- Rule that a good woman does not complain, you are not Scripture and you are not running this house. God said He had surely seen the affliction and had heard their cry, and a third of the Psalms are complaints and He kept every one of them in the book. The woman who taught me the rule is the one who has been telling me for thirty years that I am a disappointment.
- Fear that saying a true sentence about my own life is disloyalty, you are dismissed in the name of Jesus. Nobody enforces that rule but me, and it runs when there is nobody in the room. Take your hand off my mouth in this kitchen.
- Lord, You saw and You heard and You know, and my account has been on the record the whole time. I am saying out loud tonight that this is not humility and I am telling one person outside that circle one true sentence. The hearing is Yours, the saying is mine, and I am not apologizing afterward.
Exodus 3:7
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