Our household functions on routine, order, expectations. Yesterday I knelt to my Master to greet him, as always and as expected. I perched on my knees, proud and ready to bare my body and my vulnerability to him, and he breezed right by me. No hand on my head. No pause to give my orders to serve. No legs to hug, no feet to lay my head upon, nobody and nothing all at once.

If I hadn’t already been on my knees i may have collapsed from the pain.

I masked my confusion and sadness in anger and attitude. Fine. He wanted to be ignored? I’d be invisible and distant. As i put my nose up in the air and sauntered about my business, the threat of discipline was in the air, palpable. I was pushing him in ways I shouldn’t have been. Still, my emotions ruled. I couldn’t stop myself no matter how I tried. I was pissed at my Master.

The ever-cool man I call my husband ignored my attempts to goad him. Once my fire died, he at long last asked me to explain my actions. I told him how upset I was that he didn’t even pause to acknowledge a slave waiting for him on hands and knees.

I expected a lecture. Had prepared for the bare-ass, bare-handed spanking over the knee that would surely lead to humiliated tears falling to the floor. I knew I had it coming. Instead, after a moment of deliberation, I calmly heard, “I’m sorry babe. I wasn’t paying good enough attention to you. I’ll do better.”

The spanking may have hurt less.

The weight that our M/s relationship has on my Master hit me like a ton of bricks. His responsibility is ten-fold to mine. He is strong every time I am weak. He provides the entirety of our world. His humility, his ability to say, “I will improve in my role for you” knocked me straight off of the ivory tower I was kneeling on. It suddenly made sense.

I don’t kneel for me. I kneel for him. I kneel for him to use me however he will. And if I am of no current use for him, I need to be confident enough in myself to say to myself, “I will humbly wait until I can be of use next.” I have chosen my path. I do not wish to be a burden on him; it is my job to lift his load and bring joy to his life. I was taught a valuable lesson in humility yesterday and it will not soon be forgotten.

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

–CS Lewis