Cassidy - The peaceful wife: living in submission to Christ as lord

April Cassidy has written an excellent book! I endorse her heart and message. In fact, I asked my daughter-in-law to read it and she reported to me, I am wholeheartedly encouraging you to endorse this book. She addresses the impact of the love and respect message from Ephesians 5:33. Also, she delves into submission and challenges her fellow women to rethink the word submission and what it should really look like in their lives. She is open and honest about how she thought she was a good wife but realized, after reading the Love and Respect book that you wrote, what she had overlooked. April does an excellent job of placing a mirror in front of readers so that they may see the ways they have been disrespectful, but she also provides a comforting hug as she explains how the disrespect can end and a life of respecting ones husband can move into place. She provides great insight into her own struggles and a wonderful chapter where her own husband gives his thoughts on her transformation. April challenges, encourages, and breathes hope for all wives. I feel like this is a companion book to Love and Respect. There is something about receiving advice from someone who has walked the same path as you, in the same high heels perhaps.

E MERSON E GGERICHS, author of Love and Respect

April knows what its like to struggle in her marriage with frustration and anger toward her spouse. Her journey to becoming a peaceful wife will resonate with any reader who wants new peace in her own marriage. I love that this book walks each of us through the reality checks we need in order to have the marriage we want!

S HAUNTI F ELDHAHN, social researcher and best-selling author of For Women Only

The Peaceful Wife is a must-read for every bride who wants to arm her marriage in the spiritual battle! April Cassidy offers her own beautiful story of awakening to Gods design for marriage and calls us all to humbly embrace the help of His Holy Spirit. Her writing is well grounded in Scripture and filled with eye-opening wisdom, testimonies, and checklists to help me and every wife excel at honoring God by respecting our husbands.

J ENNIFER O. W HITE, author of Prayers for New Brides and Marriage Armor for the Praying Bride

The Peaceful Wife: Living in Submission to Christ as Lord
2016 by April Cassidy

Published by Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel, Inc., 2450 Oak Industrial Drive NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49505.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwisewithout written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations in reviews.

The author and publisher are not engaged in rendering medical or psychological services, and this book is not intended as a guide to diagnose or treat medical or psychological problems. If medical, psychological, or other expert assistance is required by the reader, please seek the services of your own health care provider or certified counselor.

Personal stories have been used by permission. In some cases, names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

All Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

ISBN 978-0-8254-4394-7

Printed in the United States of America

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I dedicate this book to my loving husband, Greg.
I am so thankful for your patience with me as I stumbled along trying to understand what on earth it meant to be a godly wife. Thank you for offering such a beautiful example of the grace, mercy, forgiveness, and unconditional love of Christ to me. I thank and praise God for what He has done in each of us and in our marriage. I certainly could not have done any of this on my own. What a blessing to me that God allowed us to share this narrow path together.

I am now a very happily married Christian mother of two, part-time pharmacist, and Christian marriage blogger. Sharing Gods design for marriage with women is my greatest passion. In this book, I want to explore some things with you that I wish I had been exposed to before Greg and I ever got married. My prayer is that God might use my experiences to help you avoid some of my painful, self-defeating mistakes and find His life-giving, beautiful wisdom instead. I am not a professional counselor, psychologist, pastor, minister, psychiatrist, or seminary-trained expert. I am a wife who loves God wholeheartedly and who wants to relate my personal, life-changing experience with Jesus Christ and the Bible.

I write from the perspective of a wife who was formerly strong willed, controlling, bossy, perfectionistic, people pleasing, overly responsible, overly helpful, and dominating with a passive, unplugged husband. I must write from what I know, from my own story and experiences. In the process, I am excited to share some other wives stories as well. God has allowed me the honor and privilege of watching Him transform hundreds of women and their marriages through my blog at www.peacefulwife.com. Although Gods Word applies to all marriages and all situations, this book will probably be most helpful for wives whose marriage dynamics fall into this general category of a dominant wife married to a passive husband.

Wives who are rather timid, overly submissive, or passive may need to approach biblical concepts about being a godly wife from a different angle. They may need to learn to speak up more and to be bolder, for instance. We each have our own worldview, personality, and personal history that help to shape the way we filter what we read. I want to be up front about my particular slant so that my words might be most helpful to the greatest number of women.

I fervently desire to honor God with every word I write. I pray that each believer will carefully weigh what I write against Scripture. I am human and prone to error, after all. The Bible is the only source of absolute truth. Our job as followers of Christ is to love and obey Jesus; He handles the results.

One book doesnt begin to give me enough space to share all that there is to know about becoming a godly wife, but I am excited to get to share a bit with you. I pray that God might richly bless your walk with Him and your marriage as you prayerfully read through these pages. I pray that God might use me to point you toward Jesus as both Savior and Lord and toward the wisdom of His Word. I pray for you, my precious new friend, to experience the supernatural peace, joy, and abundant life God has prepared for you as a woman who seeks to honor and please Christ above everything else in this world. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the keys here. I cant do the hard work for you, but I am thrilled to have the privilege of walking beside you on this exciting journey. I still have thousands of miles to go myself. None of us will reach total perfection until we are in heaven, face-to-face with Jesus our Lord. There are no guarantees of specific results in your marriage or in your husbands life as you seek to please God, but you are guaranteed that God will radically change you when you seek Him with all your heart and desire to walk in full obedience to Him.