If you were anything like me as a little girl, you probably spent a lot of time watching fairy tale movies or reading stories about how a prince meets a girl and whisks her away into a beautiful love story and they live happily ever after.
You may have also played with your barbie and ken dolls and envisioned similar fairytale endings. When we get older, we hope and dream to play a similar starring role as the princesses we one watched and read about.
In each of our unique love stories that God designs for us, we in fact, do have a starring role to play. It may not be covered in jewels and a glass slipper, but that role is one of a wife and it is a title we can wear with great honor.
Genesis 2:18 speaks to this saying that “the Lord God said, “it isn’t good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” A helper might not sound like a role one aspires to be, but it actually holds a place of great honor.
The word for “helper” that is used for woman is ezer, and is derived from the Hebrew word azar used for God and the Holy Spirit. Both mean helper--the one who comes alongside to aid or assist. In the New Testament, Jesus told the disciples that when he ascended to heaven, His Father would send them another Helper, the Holy Spirit (John 14:16).
You see, the same title used for God, is the same title used for woman. To be a helper is a position of great honor, and we shouldn’t take our roles lightly.
Now, what about our husbands? For most of them, they didn’t play with Ken and Barbie, nor think about sweeping their future wife off their feet onto a horse into the sunset. Most of them played with trucks, or warrior type toys and certainly didn’t sit around watching fairy tales movies or reading book alike.
However, as these boys turn into young adults, their vision of their future becomes clearer and, in most cases, involves finding a wife to share their future with.
Perhaps you desire to be a wife one day, or you are already a wife and as life happens, you may feel your husband doesn’t see you as the woman of his dreams like he once did when he was courting and dating you in the beginning. In any case, there are things men desire to be able to call you their dream woman--the woman of their dreams.
Here are 3 qualities to becoming his dream woman in every stage whether you’re waiting and hoping, dating, or currently married:
1. Be a Prayer Warrior
Have you ever tried to change your husband or fix things and it doesn’t turn out as you planned? Have you tried to work on your marriage or work on your husband only to realize you have spent so much of your power, not seeing any results in your husband or your marriage?
Perhaps it’s because you are doing everything in your power and in your power might not be enough. As wives, if we want to become the woman of our man’s dreams, we need to not put all our efforts into fixing things in our own power. We must depend on God's power working in and through us to be the wife our husband’s needs. And we accomplish this through prayer.
The greatest work we can ever do in our marriage will be the work we do on our knees in prayer. Prayer should always be our first resort and not our last. It should be our key thing we do if we want to become the woman of his dreams. Acts 16:31 reminds us to believe on the Lord, “and you will be saved, you and your household.”
We have a vital role to play as our husband’s prayer warrior covering our entire households in prayer. Of all the roles and responsibilities God has given as us wives, being a prayer warrior is perhaps the greatest of them all. Someone who intercedes on behalf of someone else.
We have a real enemy by the name of Satan who wants to destroy our family and marriage. I certainly don’t say that to scare you for the enemy is already a defeated foe as this was accomplished the day Jesus died on Calvary (John 3:16).
But if we ignore his existence, we are ignoring his effectiveness he has been having by wreaking havoc in our marriages. To be the woman of our husband’s dreams, we can play a vital role in standing in victory with prayer over our marriages.
One of the devil’s many names is "diablos," which, translated in Greek, is the one who divides. He will go to great lengths to divide our marriages and families as his goal is to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10) our most precious relationships.
It is a battle not to be feared but to be fought in the only place where is can be won--in prayer. Let’s become the woman of his dreams by “praying without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17), for the “effective fervent prayers of a righteous person [a woman of his dreams] avails much” (James 5:16).
2. Respect and Esteem Him
The one thing a husband can’t do without is respect, and to become the woman of his dreams, we must learn how to respect him. My husband has told me that a man would prefer hearing we respect them vs we love them. Of course, they value our love, but most of us women would prefer hearing the words, I love you.
This is taught to us in Ephesians 5:33 as it is simply put: “each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Paul in this passage was summing up what is paramount for both men and women. We as women, want to be loved and cherished, just as much as our husbands want to be honored and respected.
So, what does it look like to respect our husband so that we can become the woman of his dreams? Or perhaps, some of us are asking, how do we respect someone who might not have earned our respect? Why should we respect someone who doesn’t show us love in return?
What if we just simply don’t know how to show respect to our husband?
Going back to the first quality in becoming the woman of his dreams: it all starts and ends with prayer. Respecting your husband is not pointing out the reasons to our husband on why he’s not someone to be respected showing our lack of trust in him.
But rather, it’s making a pivotal yet profound change to praying about it first. It’s wrestling out anything regarding your husband with God first before anything else. Scripture says to “seek His kingdom first, and then everything else will be added until you” (Matthew 6:33).
As you pray for your husband, he will begin to see you respect him and see you as the woman of his dreams honoring him. The amazing thing is you’ll begin to see the seeds planted grow over time.
Every seed you plant to respect him, notice him, regard him, honor him, prefer him, praise him, and esteem him will grow into something beautiful, and eventually, you’ll see the fruit from it.
So, let’s begin to pray about everything regarding our husbands, and trust the Lord hears us as He promises us in 1 John 5:14. Let’s trust God’s leading through our husbands and respect him by trusting him as the spiritual head of our home in the role that he plays.
One of the most giving gifts as wives we can give to our husbands to be the woman of his dreams is to esteem him, showing him respect with “gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4) taking everything to our husband’s maker, our God, in prayer.
3. Support and Encourage Him
The world will try to grind our husbands down. We can become the woman of his dreams by admiring his efforts by building him up while supporting him rather than partnering with the world by engaging in tearing him down. One of your husband’s greatest longings is to be adored, admired, and appreciated by the woman of his dreams.
We can do this by supporting him in all his endeavors, all while encouraging him along the way reminding him just how much we believe in him.
The primary way to support and encourage our husbands is through our words. Remember--the world is full of discouragers.
To be the woman of our man’s dreams, we need to let them know how we support them and believe in them with our words. Our words can cause someone to start, stop, and can direct the entire course of one’s life as King Solomon wrote “the tongue has the power of life or death” (Proverbs 18:21)
He also wrote that “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones,” (Proverbs 16:24), but “reckless words pierce like a sword” (Proverbs 12:18).
To encourage it involves affirming your husband. According to the dictionary, to affirm means to make firm, to declare positively, to assert, to confirm, to ratify, to validate.
Are you affirming your husband or doing the opposite with your words? Do your words bring life or death?
We can have incredible influence on our men. Satan knew this when he tempted Eve. Adam’s desire for Eve overrode his desire to obey God. Our husbands lead our home as they are called to be leaders and we are told to “submit” to their leadership as it says in 1 Peter 3:1.
But we can have great influence on them with our words. Let’s not tear down our husbands, ultimately tearing down our homes through our words. Proverbs 14:1 says “the wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.”
Do your words build up or tear down?
To become the woman of our man’s dreams, let’s work on building our husbands up by supporting them in their big decisions and everyday ones too, while we encourage them with our words along the way.
Happily, Ever After
While we may not live in a fairy tale movie or be the princess of a happily ever after book, we have a starring role in God’s greater plan as a wife.
My prayer is that as your husband reflects back on a life married to you, that he can call you the woman of his dreams, as he will say “many women do noble things, but you, my dear, surpass them all.” (Proverbs 31:29)
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Peopleimages
Alisha Headley is a writer + speaker who has a desire to meet the everyday woman in her everyday life with biblical truth. Stepping into her true calling, she left the corporate world behind as a former-financial VP to love on her family as a stay-at-home wifey + dog mama, while also being able to pursue her passion as a writer. Healing from a chapter of life consumed with lies she once believed about herself, she is inspired to point women to Christ to experience the freedom + power to overcome those lies with the truth written in God’s word. In her free time, Alisha enjoys road trips around the country, working out so she can eat her favorite foods, and creatively styling her outfits with a craft for fashion. Alisha is a proud wifey and dog mama living in Scottsdale, Arizona.
You can follow her blog by visiting her website or connect with her on facebook + instagram.