Kenya 2009 - Part 7

Is Paul Right?

A few girls came by to visit us the other night. One of the girls had been in Kenya in 2007 so she knew Daniel and me from back then and had wanted to visit with us.

Anyway, the 3 girls, ages 17, 19 and 21, and I went in to our sitting room and they started asking me about married life, relationship questions, God questions, etc. and I found as we talked, I was getting energized. It could have been the fact that I was having really nice and needed female to female conversation with these girls but when we started talking about incorporating God in to our relations, etc, it was more than just that.

After they had left, Sean, Daniel and I were having dinner together and they both commented that they could see a spark in me when I was talking to those girls. Any question that were asked of me, I didn’t laugh at the silliness of it or rebuke it, but honestly listened and answered appropriately, I even shared with the girls, the struggles of being overly independent in today’s world as a woman and how it has been a bit of an issue for Sean and I; because at times he wants to serve me as his wife and I won’t let him…because I can “do it myself.” I gave them food for thought; I made myself vulnerable and real to them and that allowed them to feel that they could do the same with me and they too shared things with me and it was great! I LOVED it!

And why did I love it? Because I think it stems to the role that women are to carry out - as stated to Titus by Paul in the Bible. It says how the older women are to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to too much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. (Titus 2: 3-5)

I read a book given to me last year by a friend, in preparation for getting married. The book is called, The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura Schlessigner. It’s surprising how many people know her and I had never heard of her until this book. Dr. Laura is a very out-spoken person and I have found that people either hate her or love her. I, after reading this book, LOVE her.

In her book, she talks about how we as women have emasculated our men over the years. The major cause: we’ve become so independent that we tell our boyfriends, our husbands, our lovers that in reality, we don’t really need them. So why are they there? To give us children? To fit the status of being married? To snarl at when we’re pms’ing? To fill our physical desires?

Dr. Laura believes “it’s a result of the women’s movement, with its condemnation of just about everything male as evil, stupid, and oppressive, and the denigration of female and male roles in families, as a well as the loss of family functioning as a result of divorce, day care, dual careers, etc….The result is women get married thinking largely about what their marriage and their man can do for them, and not what they can do for their men.”

Men are simple creatures, who come from a woman, are nurtured and brought up by a woman, and yearn for the continued love, admiration and approval from a woman, it makes them vulnerable to their woman’s moods, desires, tantrums, criticism, disappointments, dissatisfactions, angers and rejections. Women need to better appreciate the magnitude of their power and influence over men, and not misuse or abuse it.”

It’s been interesting to have been single for so long and have married friends around me over the years. I have been able to sit back and watch how the couples interact and the on-going joke of “who wears the pants in the family!”

One of the many things that I have noticed to be common in many of the marriages is the “it’s my way or the highway” mentality that women get. Here’s a common scenario:

It’s Saturday morning and the wife complains that the house is dirty and it needs to be cleaned. She mumbles how she always has to clean the house by herself, etc. The husband asks if he can help, wanting to remove some of the burden off his wife (and not deal with her crabbiness or mumbling about it for the rest of the weekend). The wife asks him to help by vacuum the house, or clean the kitchen or whatever room. So the husband goes and does it. A little while later, the wife comes along and says things like, “You missed a spot,” or “It’s not clean enough,” or etc. Instead of thanking him for helping, we say, “It’s not good enough!” or “Why did you do it THAT way?” Do you think the next time you want him to help you clean something; he’s going to want to do it?

Dr. Laura says: “Wives need to remind themselves that when their husbands do something differently from how they would do it themselves; it does not constitute a breach of sanity or a display of contempt. It is merely a DIFFERENT way to do something.” So look at it that way.

Also: “In the real world of humans, women have a unique urge toward bonding and nesting and nurturing. Men have a unique urge toward protecting, providing and conquering….Men are doers; simple, straight-line types. The reason they have a tendency to rescue damsels in distress is because of their need to be admired for their chivalry.”

So why don’t we let them? Why don’t we let them be the man that God created them to be? We women watch the chick flicks and saw, “Awweeeee…” when the guy says something beautiful and romantic to the girl. We watched the Disney films when we were younger and wanted a Prince Charming to slay the dragon and gave us such a kiss that it would wake us up from a coma.

We wanted our heroes so why don’t we let them be our heroes?

Last week, Sean and Daniel were outside having some guy time and I was in the house, getting ready for bed. I pulled the “decorative pillows” (some of you ladies know what I mean!) off the bed, when I saw a gecko on MY pillow. It scared me at first and so I let out a scream. The scream of a woman “awoke” Sean and Daniel.

Now if I had been alone that night, I probably would’ve dealt with it myself (as I did in 2007 with a giant rat in my bedroom with the help of one of rat-phobic female intern) but the fact that I had Sean, my husband, who I know would love to “protect” me from the evil gecko, I text messaged Sean to come and get this gecko for me. And when he got it out of the bedroom, I thanked him for getting rid of it for me. And it made him happy to know that I needed him.

Women aren’t weak, that’s not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is that we need to realize that men were created different than us and their uniqueness, their needs, their desires should be just as important and in the forefront as our own.

It’s difficult wanting to be the wife that I am supposed to be and not the wife/woman that the world has taken in and accepted. I don’t want to be the head of the household. I want to submit to my husband.

Paul is writing to the church, in Ephesians 5. You know, the famous and often disputed section on “wives and husbands” and how it talks about wives submitting to their husbands? Many women loathe the word submit, thinking it means that they become the doormat for their husbands. That’s not what it means at all. Sometimes we forget what the rest of the section says.

Here’s the husband’s responsibility: “Husbands, love your wives, just as CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH and gave himself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkly or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

Wow….what a responsibility! Our husbands are told to love us like Christ loved the church. Christ died for us, He sacrificed himself for us. And that is what a husband is to do for his wife…to love her unconditionally, as Christ loves us. Where do the husbands even begin to love like that?

If we know Christ and love Christ…we submit and surrender ourselves to Him. If we know our husbands well and their relationships with God and know how much our husbands are desiring to be like Christ…then submitting, surrendering ourselves to our husbands should be just as understandable and desirable to do.

Yeah, I know I’m not an expert at the marriage (and children) advice (only being married for 4 months and not having any children yet) but going back to the beginning of my story…helping these young women (and hopefully other young women in the future), by sharing my experiences in my younger years, in mine and Sean’s engagement time and in to the few months of marriage, revived me. Sharing with them that although Sean and I don’t have any major issues, there were still minor struggles during the engagement and early marriage due to my way of thinking on things. It was wonderful…doing what we women are really designed to do, submitting to our husbands and mentoring/training the younger women…I felt fulfilled and refreshed after doing it.

So what’s the answer to my blog question: Is Paul Right???? Hmmm…..imagine that? Paul, through his obedience and relationship with God, actually knew what he was talking about.