The word for “help” is a common word in the Bible, first introduced as a description of the woman in the Garden. It means to do for someone what he or she cannot do for himself or herself.


WOW!!! That is from a textual note from Exodus 18:4 from the NET Bible (http://bible.org/netbible/index.htm). WOW!!! WOW!!! I am speechless.... that puts my whole ministry to my husband in a totally different light. That puts so much more in a totally different light:


--weaker vessel
--Eve was deceived not Adam
--your desire shall be fore your husband

ok, there's another textual note I will point out here:

Gen 3:16b You will want to control your husband,⁴⁸

but he will dominate⁴⁹ you.” (NET Bible)

48tn ...the word in Gen 4:7 ... refers to sin’s desire to control and dominate Cain. (Even in Song of Songs it carries the basic idea of “control,” for it describes the young man’s desire to “have his way sexually” with the young woman.) In Gen 3:16 the Lord announces a struggle, a conflict between the man and the woman. She will desire to control him, but he will dominate her instead. This interpretation also fits the tone of the passage, which is a judgment oracle....

49tn The Hebrew verb מָשַׁל (mashal) means “to rule over,” but in a way that emphasizes powerful control, domination, or mastery. This also is part of the baser human nature....

sn This passage is a judgment oracle. It announces that conflict between man and woman will become the norm in human society. It does not depict the NT ideal, where the husband sacrificially loves his wife, as Christ loved the church, and where the wife recognizes the husband’s loving leadership in the family and voluntarily submits to it. Sin produces a conflict or power struggle between the man and the woman, but in Christ man and woman call a truce and live harmoniously (Eph 5:18-32)

So, God made us to be helpers, "to do for our [husbands] what [they] cannot do for [themselves]" but the Fall turned that into a curse, a fight for dominance; but salvation turns it around, and we again learn to be submissive and they learn to love with grace. BUT we are still helpmeets, we are still here for a reason. We as wives need to be sensitive to what is domineering and bossy and what is truly submissively "doing what they cannot do for themselves".

I believe that can only be accomplished when we pray and submit first of all to God and His will. He will then give us the grace to be submissive and to be the helpmeet we were called to be.