What Do I Think? I Don’t Know, Let Me Ask My Husband.

Calm down. That was a joke. Well, sort of.

Those of you have been reading me for years are fully aware that I have no shortage of opinions. These archives reveal my thoughts on any and every topic, and 90% of what’s written here was written with no input from my husband, for better or worse, though I do have his approval.

Nevertheless, much of what I think and believe is heavily influenced by husband. Most of what I do is directed by him, implicitly if not explicitly.* He is in the forefront of my thinking when I make decisions since he has to approve, and so I invoke his name quite often in conversation. I do it a lot. However, I didn’t realize how much I do it online as well until I was recently asked about it. This gave me an opportunity to consider it again.

When we married I was 22 years old and understandably, most of my female friends were not married, were not considering marriage, and had no idea what it meant to be married. I barely had any idea myself. One thing I did understand however, after being raised in the home of my youth, was that it wouldn’t be wise to commit to dinner on Friday night with the girls or lunch on Saturday when my husband was off work without consulting him first. This began a turn in the way I conversed on a number of issues.

I found that when I was asked to do a thing and simply said “no”, people were more inclined to attempt to convince me that I could do or wanted to do said thing if I’d just take a little more time to consider it. However, when I said, “I asked SAM about it and he doesn’t think it’s a good idea”,  discussion quickly and blessedly stopped. Almost like magic.

Lest you are concerned that I went about offering my husband’s objections to things he would not object to, rest easy. That would be lying, and I didn’t do that. Well, hardly ever is a more truthful statement .  I did find that you quickly learn who your friends are when you decide that marriage means you are not a free agent and are accountable to someone or something other than your whims. Those who stuck around simply learned to say, “Check with SAM and see if it’ll be alright for us to get together this weekend.” Those who felt that it was too painful to see their friend be so tied down to a tyrant of a husband moved on.

Being a very young wife also came with the occasional overture from other men and I quickly learned to casually interject mention of my husband when I felt the need to. The habit stuck. In fact, in the story I recently recounted, one of the first things I said in response to the flattering compliment was this: ‘I have always thought Bright Eyes looked more like my husband.”

Issues of parenting, money, marriage, sex, and most everything else, I filter through the prism of what my husband thinks when discussing with others. If I disagree with him, I will share it with him for his consideration, but not with outsiders. What’s more, since we will go where he leads, it serves no purpose to voice any disagreement we have with others. It only serves to dishonor him publicly which is another thing I long ago resolved never to do.

It is now instinctual. As I pondered it recently I wondered if this is a bad thing or a good thing. It wasn’t the first time I’ve considered this. A few years ago I talked to the one other female in the world I trust to give it to me completely straight and who also appreciates the bond of marriage. Her reply was priceless:

“You are a unit. One flesh. It makes sense that he is so close to your heart that when you consider major issues you consider what he thinks as just as important as what you think if not more so. The only thing that carries more weight is Scripture. If people think that means you are losing yourself or your individuality, that is their problem. Those of us who know you know that you are one of a kind.”

I can’t help but wonder what kind of answer I would have gotten had this conversation taken place with almost any other woman, even a Christian one. Actually, I don’t have to wonder because I’ve had it a few times over the years and  I know how it goes. It always decidedly in favor of me asserting myself and seizing hold of my individuality.

The truth is that after 18 years of marriage I’m not sure I’d know how even if I wanted to. And I don’t.

*Please spare me the warnings about “worshiping” husbands. I am advocating no such thing and am fully aware that worship is for Christ alone. That however, does not precludes Scripture’s clear directions that we are to submit to and reverence our husbands.

Cure for Female Performance Anxiety? Don’t.

When I get dressed in the morning the overriding thing I consider is whether or not my husband will like what he sees. It’s archaic of me I know, but there you have it. Modesty is no longer an issue not because I dress immodestly, but because hyper-focusing on that often meant that I was dressed in a way that my husband hated.  I looked religious enough, but was unattractive to my husband. This was counter intuitive.

Once that phase passed I found myself in another one, where I always seemed to be overdressed compared to the other suburban mothers at the park, the PTA, and the supermarket. Every day when I went out I met the same refrain: “You look nice. Where are you going today?” I was going right where I was, and no place else usually. It go so that I became self-conscious about it  even though I was happy with my attire and my husband was pleased as well. Still, I tried to dress down a bit, find a more balanced way to look nice. That failed, too. Why it mattered to me whether I fit in with the sweats and flip flops brigade is a mystery.

Actually, it’s not a mystery.  A few years ago, right around the time I started blogging in fact, it became clear to me that we (women, that is)  are fairly well obsessed with performing for others. It feels uncomfortable to describe it that way and we may not want to acknowledge it, but that’s what it is. Forget the bravado you hear from those women who claim they could care less what anyone thinks of them. It is simply not true. We can learn to rise above the tendency, but it requires conscious effort.

I don’t get out much to do things or go places that don’t involve my family. That’s not a complaint. It’s simply a reality of life as a wife and mother of 5 children. There isn’t a lot of time for socializing and lunch dates with friends. As a result I’ve been pretty good at shaking off that innate feminine tendency to want to fit in with other women, but I’m not immune to the whispers of inadequacy that can come as a result of being the only one who (insert anomaly here). When I was a young bride I was dogged by the whispers, but now they don’t last long  when they get through at all.  I’ve learned to silence them quickly, by narrowing my focus.

The adult I spend the most time with is my husband, so it’s natural that I turn my energies toward what he likes and needs. Paul admonished those wanting to be married that it would be so, and there’s nothing wrong with that. He also admonished women to encourage one another in our home endeavors. Full time wives and mothers are a minority, so it’s hard to find others to build camaraderie with. It’s challenging being a relic in a world where value and productivity are measured chiefly in dollars and cents. Finding like-minded ladies can create a sense of belonging, but can also open the door to dangerous comparisons.

When you combine this with the innate feminine tendency to compare and measure ourselves against anything and everything, it can make for a disquieting existence.  I realize that men can be competitive and experience stress, and all of those things, but it’s different for us. The fact that there networks of blogs, websites, magazines, talk shows, and books with the express intent of advising and encouraging women makes it obvious that women are more prone to this tendency than men are. Men have their own sets of challenges, but this is about us.

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson from watching my husband over the past 2 decades. That lesson is that it’s better to set your goals, set your sights, and stay focused without allowing the opinions of others to toss you this way and that. I’ve found that men tend to be better in general at doing this.

I would usually go out of my way to tell women not to try to be like  men, but this is one area where I’ll make an exception. Thankfully as it turns out, this ability to keep one’s eye on the prize isn’t one that only men should cultivate. The idea of singleness of heart is found throughout Scripture, and as long as our hearts are turned toward the thing that God has called us to, we have the ability to tune out the voices that call to us to ignore those things that are most important in an attempt to fit in.

For the Christian wife, the opinions of the ladies at the PTA or mid-week Bible study are irrelevant when there are no clear  issues of sin and righteousness up for discussion. We are to submit to God and our own husbands.  Have you ever noticed that men tend to respect another man’s right to run his home as he sees fit? Women on the other hand, hold one another up to impossible standards. Impossible because we’re daughters of Eve, chronically discontent without a lot of prayer and internal work.

We go from being at ease in our own skin to being convinced that the sister with the floor-length dresses and head coverings is more holy, and emulate that. Suddenly the husband we respected and looked up to is flawed because he plays XBox on Saturday mornings while Sis. Smith’s husband leads the Saturday morning  men’s prayer gathering. We get out of our place and start using our “godly influence” to nudge him in the right direction: away from his video game and toward the path to church ministry. We hate our house, our bodies, our jobs, and on and on it goes.

Life becomes one big performance depending on who is watching. There’s no peace in our hearts, no joy in our walk, no intimacy in our marriages, but we look good to those on the outside looking in. My life forever changed when I recognized the fruitlessness of religious theater. Experts say that women are  unhappy, and they have myriad questions and theories about why. There’s no mystery here, really. It’s round the clock performance anxiety. It’s enough to make anyone stressed, irritable, and crazy. Even professional actors get days off.

Once you cease to care about owing anyone anything but the debt of love, the pressure to perform goes away. The drive to measure up to whichever arbitrary standard you’re face with today dissipates.

Hang up the mask, and put on the sundress if it’s what your husband prefer no matter what Sis. Smith has to say about it. You’ll eventually learn to rise above the subtle criticisms and judgmental looks.

Simply refuse to play the game. It’s the cure for feminine performance anxiety.

Even Though I’m Sick to Death of Hearing About “Rights”…

I have lent support over the past couple of years to those Christian men who have dedicated their blogs to the cause of justice for men. I have very real and concrete reasons for this which I hope to explore further in future posts.

The law, education system, and anti-family court system in this country have removed every incentive for men to assume their God-ordained roles as leaders and protectors, while rewarding and protecting irresponsible female behavior. The church, with its tacit support of feminist ideals under the guise of equality, has been complicit in the plan. A church where the masculine is undervalued and the feminine is extolled is one I am deeply wary of.

I often find myself disagreeing as much as agreeing with what is espoused in what is known as the manosphere since I encountered it, but  I still believe there is potential for good there.  It is partly the lack of intellectual honesty on the part of the American church that creates frustration not only in the men who have been burned by our refusal to hold one another to a godly standard, but to people like me, who were raised in a community that gives us a clear snapshot of what the American family, church and culture will look like 25 years from now if we are not bold enough to say enough is enough.

One of the things I have had to do is make a clear distinction between those bloggers who are seriously interested in a return to Biblical family order -which I have come to believe has little to nothing to do with whether a wife works- and those who are simply interested in promoting a masculinist agenda that is the mirror image of the feminist agenda.

Some of the blogs on my link list which have been there a long time, such as The Elusive Wapiti and Dark Brightness, are the cream of the crop when it comes to denouncing the injustice against men while holding to the standard of Biblical responsibility and chastity for both men and women. I’ve added a couple more that are also worth noting, such as The Society of Phineas and Empathologicalism.

One of the things I have learned during my time online is that blogs, their authors, and their readership often change. Some for the better and others for the worst. Click at your own risk. Inclusion on the link list is not an endorsement of everything written or espoused on the blog in question.

More False Equivalencies?

Let’s not equate porn and gaming, by David French.

In response to an article on CNN saying that pornography and video games are “ruining a generation” of men, French makes an excellent observation and one that I think bears repeating:

 Look, I know that many, many men and boys spend too much time gaming.  There are also many, many men and boys who spend too much time watching television, playing golf,  or obsessing over sports (and sometimes all of the above) — you name the diversion, and you’ll find people who indulge in excess.  But it’s a category error to equate games and porn.  To do so exaggerates the danger of games and minimizes the evil of porn.  So if I stay up too late Saturday night playing Diablo 3 (and I probably will!), is that remotely comparable to downloading porn?  Simply put, overuse of video games is destructive.  Any use of porn is sinful. (emphasis added)

Once again, I find myself defending video game usage, even though it’s a subject I’m not very passionate about. I simply don’t like false equivalencies.

French also asks a question which I think is apropos:

What’s next?  An article proclaiming that women are ruined by adultery and Pinterest?

I think we know that the answer to the question is no. Pinterest, Facebook, and blogging aren’t addictive, or subversive at all. Nope.

Hat tip: Christian Men’s Defense Network.

Picture credits here and here.

 

 

Cindy on “Where Have the Men Gone?”

There was a fairly controversial post on Boundless titled Where Have the Men Gone?,  that examined why young men are leaving the church in greater and greater numbers. (You can find the comments offered on the post in question at this post).

I found the article largely accurate even though I didn’t agree on every point. I hesitated to post on it here mainly because 1) I am not a man, and 2) I am a mother of 5 girls. Still, the subject interests me as I have three daughters on the cusp of adulthood and possibly marriage.  I was pleased to see that Cindy, a mother of many sons, weighed in to offer her perspective. I highly suggest you click on over there to read the whole thing, but here’s a snippet I found particularly on point:

Then perhaps the most controversial thing of all in the article is this:

“God has prepared one special person for you to marry. That’s right: Jesus is our heavenly matchmaker. You don’t need to actively search for a mate; simply pray and God will plop that perfect person down in front of you one day.”

I am a reformed Christian who believes in God’s sovereignty and yet I see that this attitude causes great mischief.  The worst thing is that it keeps young homeschooled girls from trying, from showing interest or even keeping up with themselves, even to think more highly of themselves than they ought.

The truth is young men will marry girls who are accessible. One friend who used to follow the courtship model even went so far as to tell me that her son ended up marrying the Christian girl who did dress a little flirty and not so buttoned up.  She made herself attractive, not like a “insert bad girl word,” but attractive.

That is how it works whether we like it or not. It is naive to think this is a spiritual problem. We have created such confusion over these issues that often desperate young women while refusing to make themselves attractive throw themselves at young men, calling them up constantly, texting and generally making fools of themselves on Facebook. I can count on more than one hand the number of girls who have outright asked my sons if they might be interested in them.  If they were, they weren’t anymore.  Why do Christian girls do that now? It is truly pathetic, as if they have no understanding of masculinity at all. Are they so used to triumphing over boys culturally that they have failed to notice that men don’t find that triumph attractive?

I am fully prepared to take heat for betraying the holy grail of courtship and kissing dating goodbye, but that’s really not why I posted this particular excerpt. I think Cindy hits on something far more important: that men are men and expecting them to suddenly stop being men because they love and worship Jesus is costing the church dearly. Masculinity is a gift and I’m not quite sure what we expect to gain from tinkering with God’s design to make it more palatable to a culture hostile to it. Especially in the church.

Okay, what are you waiting for? Click on over and read the rest of Cindy’s excellent post.

Happy New Year

I think I mentioned last year that I have largely sworn off New Years’ Resolutions. I have found them to be more a stumbling block than a motivation in many cases. If there is something I need to do or change and I take note of it in November, then I believe I have a responsibility to make the changes I should in November. Still, I do have a few goals for myself that I hope to accomplish in 2012 even as I began working toward them in 2011:

~I already had our cable television subscription turned off. I know that’s not a major thing to most of the people who read here but Discovery, Food Network, and DIY have been the inspiration of many projects and delicacies in this house.

~I am taking a few sewing classes at the start of this year. I have been attempting to teach myself to sew for the better part of a year now and rectangular objects have long ceased to satisfy my creative bug.

~It’s no secret around these parts that I have a heart for fathers, who are largely forgotten in Western culture. I have decided this year to plan an all out bash for the men in our family and immediate circle of friends for father’s day. My daughter has already begun the planning process. We want to honor the fathers we love in a way that most men never experience on Father’s day. I’m talking about a party that yes, will take 6 months to plan. That big.

~I need to expand my quest for good health. I was satisfied with having lost the excess weight I’d been carrying for three years after the birth of Sweetie Pie. Now I want to improve my health in ways beyond my dress size. The goal is to be stronger and have more endurance to accomplish the many tasks I have to accomplish.

~SAM and I have set a few financial goals that are going to require a level of discipline and sacrifice that we’ve never undertaken before. But we’re up to the challenge.

~Refining the homeschool schedule. This has been such an uphill battle. Balancing the needs of the older with the younger has never ceased to be a challenge. Some weeks are better than others but I’m learning to just be happy that they’re learning.

~And as always and at all times, I am striving and praying for a heart that is continuously being changed and transformed to something my heavenly Father is pleased with.

The thing about all of this is that I began planning or working on most of it during the last quarter of 2011. I did  that precisely because I knew how easy it would be to put it off until the New Year.  Or maybe because it takes me 15 months to accomplish what most of you can achieve in 12. I can be slow like that.

For those of you who have set some goals for the New Year, I’d love to hear what those are and encourage you in your quest. What are your goals for the New Year?

Oh yes, and may the Lord bless you with a healthy and Prosperous 2012!

The Forgotten part of the Equation in the Abortion Debate

I’m really not up for a fight, but this needs to be said so I’m saying it. Or at least letting the links speak for themselves.

There’s a new initiative under way by a black pro-life organization. The campaign is called “Fatherhood Begins in the Womb.” (h/t: Ann Brock). I agree with their stated aims and think that fathers are too often forgotten when this subject is discussed. However, I also think they go a bit too far in placing the problem of black fatherlessness solely at the feet of men.

I agree with Dr. Keith Ablow that men should have a say in the lives of their children from conception. If a man can object to his child being adopted out, surely he should be to object to the child being killed.

On that very serious and somber note, I wish y’all a restful, worshipful, and family-filled weekend.

Adapting To What Works In Your Marriage

Last week’s Wifey Wednesday post on what a husband’s leadership in marriage looks like has unfolded into a lengthy, conversation about the nature of male leadership. That and wifely submission, of course. Somehow it always comes back around to this. To submit, or not to submit; that is the question. The answer to the question is: submit. Practically speaking, what does that look like?

I think what it looks like depends on the individuals involved. For some women, it may mean learning how to be more quiet and with that allow her husband grow into his role as leader of the family and man of the house. For other women it may mean learning how to rise to the occasion when the situation calls for it and speak up. There are no hard and fast rules in the Bible for how we are to relate to our men except for the words “love”, “submit”, and “respect”. Beyond that, I don’t have much to offer. I can however, offer personal examples from my own marriage.

The early years of my childhood were difficult. Our family endured a lot of hard trials, and I lived in something of a survival mode. Some kids become hardened and assertive as a result of overcoming challenges.  For a naturally docile child such as I was, that manifested itself with a compliant nature. I wasn’t inclined to rock the boat, believing the best way to handle challenge was to grin and bear it. Experience had taught me that things could always be worse, particularly if I rocked the boat so it was better to let well enough alone.

SAM on the other hand, has a strong personality and a commanding presence. He prefers to cut to the chase and lay all his cards on the table. He doesn’t like ambiguity and he doesn’t want to have play mind reader to know what I feel and need. And he doesn’t want me to have to do that, either.  He doesn’t think it makes any sense not to express your feelings to the person you’re closest to. The docility that drew him to me when we began dating became something of a stumbling block as we began to build a life together. In our marriage, submitting to my husband  meant learning to speak up, not remaining silent when I am unhappy. Submission in our marriage in no way calls for me to be my husband’s doormat.

It was important that I learn to be assertive when the situation called for it, and that applied at home as much as anywhere else. Most of those who read this blog would agree that I’m quite adept at expressing and defending my convictions. I wasn’t always this way.

It took some time to get used to expressing myself and my needs openly, but I learned. Sometimes a little too well, my husband might say. And our relationship is markedly better for it. Because of that, I am a bit leery of those who teach that wifely submission means never offering a different point of view or never expressing your needs. That would’ve been terrible advice for me to take when my husband has articulated that he prefers just the opposite. I think most husbands are open to hearing their wife’s concerns.  If he loves his wife, her concerns concern him.

I’m not referring to materialistic nonsense and petty trivialities. A wise wife knows better that to burden her husband with silly matters of no lasting importance. Issues of time, affection, being overly stressed or other emotional issues are certainly worth discussing in a calm, respectful way. At the right place and the right time, of course. Even when the issue is a valid one, it helps to weigh all considerations.

For example, there are certain times of the year when my husband works more hours than others. I miss him during those times and I don’t like to see him wear himself out. I could begin nagging him by saying things like, “You work too much.” However, that doesn’t take into consideration the fact that he is working to feed, shelter and clothe a wife and six kids, not to mention himself. A discussion about the hours he works may be valid, or it may not be valid. I’ve found that the best way to handle his busy seasons is to be extra supportive and accommodating. Asking what I can do to help him is infinitely more constructive and productive than complaining about how much of him I’m not getting.

Discernment is required to know when speaking up is constructive, and when it’s just a knee-jerk attempt to save face or earn the respect one thinks she’s not getting. That kind of outspokenness does little to enhance intimacy or build trust. I had to learn that as well.

I have a few cardinal rules for how I relate with my husband. The first is that I don’t contradict him on issues in front of other people. I’m not saying that you have to do it my way, but that’s a gesture of respect that I offer him. My husband is not very talkative anyway, so there are few times when he says anything in a group setting that I disagree with. If he does however, I wait until we’re alone to ask him to clarify his meaning or express my take on it.

Secondly, I don’t interpret every cross word or slight gesture as an opportunity to vent my frustration or have equal say. It was very easy after years of silence to start talking and not know when to shut up. I need to pray for wisdom about what issues are worth the trouble. When I don’t, my husband helps me out with that . As I have learned to measure my words, they carry more weight when I say, “We need to talk.” Besides, doesn’t the Bible admonish us to be slow to speak?

Thirdly, I do believe that submission to my husband includes a measure of  obedience and I try to act accordingly. I don’t always do it perfectly, but I make a prayerful, earnest, heartfelt attempt. I respect his veto power since he is responsible before God for the direction that our family takes. In turn, he appreciates my perspective, seeks my input when we need to make decisions, and respects my insight and intellect. One of the good things about having married so young is that we have sort of grown up and evolved in our views together. It is rare that my husband has “pulled rank” on me when a decision needs to be made.  More often than not, we agree.

Not every husband has an outwardly strong a personality like my husband. Some men are laid back and easy-going. In such cases, a wife who doesn’t weigh her words and time them carefully can seem like a nag or as if she’s usurping his position.  Her husband will withdraw and let her have it. Most wives who find themselves in the driver’s seat don’t like it all that much.

Some men may need to be encouraged to open up about what they need to way my husband had to encourage me to open up. The best way to get him to do that is to not punish him for telling the truth.  In fact, I’ve said this before and I think it bears repeating:

If there is one piece of advice that I could give any wife besides obeying Scripture with regards to your marriage, it would be this:  Make it safe for your husband to tell you the truth. I have come full circle from viewing my husband as overly opinionated, to viewing  his honesty as a gift. Listen to your husbands talk when you get together to fellowship with other couples. You’d be surprised what you hear. My husband has heard far too many men say that they could never tell their wives what they are really thinking because there would be heck to pay. Wives, however, usually feel perfectly at ease reciting a litany of complaints to their husband.

There really  is no “one size fits all” approach to working out the Bible’s guidelines for how we relate in our marriages. Yes, we are to submit to our husbands. But personalities, backgrounds, and perspectives are too diverse for any one person to insist that what works for them can work for me, and vice versa. In fact, I really like the way the Amplified Bible translates Ephesians chapter 5, verse 22:

Wives, be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a service] to the Lord.

Adapt to your own husband. Good words.

This post is a part of Wifey Wednesday hosted by Sheila at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

Husbands Are People, Too

Women can do anything a man can do.  Men can wear pink and still be masculine. Gender roles are obsolete. Leadership is for tyrants and women with no brains. A real man knows that all you need is love, love. Love is all you need. Truth is whatever each couple determines it to be.

In this corner of the ‘net, we often decry the androgyny that our culture has embraced in an effort mask the innate differences between men and women. There is an increasing backlash here against that type of foolishness, and rightly so.  In our zeal however, we have to be careful not to box men into the same rigid corner that those who hate complementary marriage claim women need to be liberated from. Our men are called to lead, but not to sacrifice their humanity in some misguided attempt to “be the man” at all costs. They need to be able to lean on us, and we need be able to let them without challenging their manhood when they do.

Maybe I’m an odd duck, but I rather enjoy being married to a strong, authoritative man. I like feeling protected and I find his decisiveness rather sexy. I like that he has an opinion about what I look like. At least I know he’s looking. I think it a credit to his resourcefulness that we rarely have to call someone with something breaks, even something major. He works well with his hands, and his hands often bear the scars of hard work.

I love that, but beneath all of that armor is a man with a heart, and sometimes he needs to be able to be vulnerable enough to reveal that heart to me without worrying that I will view it as a weakness. One of the things I learned early on in my relationship with my SAM was to appreciate that my husband, who is very overtly masculine, has feelings. He gets sad. He has fears, hopes, and dreams just like me. Not to mention tear ducts. I’ve known my husband for 19 years and I’ve only seen him shed a tear twice, but I’ve seen it.

It’s very easy for a woman married to a harder man to forget that a man’s reluctance to express his vulnerability doesn’t make him invulnerable. Sometimes it takes a bit longer for him to trust his heart to anyone, and marriage won’t automatically make him comfortable doing that. But when he does,  his wife should do all she can to make it clear that his vulnerability doesn’t make him weak in her eyes.

The church’s swinging pendulums in reaction to the culture are actually dangerous and detrimental, in my opinion, and I see this as one area where we need to tread lightly. We should be able to stand on the truth as revealed in Scripture and work out how that looks in each family. We can do that without having to discard the truth just to function, which is what far too many “believers” have decided to do.

We seem incapable of being balanced, don’t we? We react to henpecked men by encouraging them to seize their authority or attempting to browbeat wives into becoming boring and docile. Isn’t it better if married believers can just trust that God’s ideas of masculinity and femininity are light years better than anything we can come up with and live that out? When we do that, our men can rest in the knowledge that we trust them to lead not only because it makes us feel secure, but because we trust that God knows best. He commands us to submit to our husbands, and we’ll do that to honor Him, and we’ll do it for better or worse, in sickness and in health.

A while back I alluded to some care repairs that SAM walked me through when he was injured and couldn’t do them himself. His injury was actually quite serious creating a scenario where I had to step up and do a whole host of things I wasn’t used to doing for well over a month. I was  relieved when he got better but I was thankful for the opportunity to learn to do something new and surprised at how quickly I picked up the skill in a few instances. My husband’s temporary period of injury didn’t make him any less strong or capable than he was before. He was still the same person; he just needed a little help from his helpmeet. That’s what I’m supposed to do.

During a season of economic turmoil, when many men (particularly those skilled  in male dominated fields of work) are attempting to reset and start over, it’s more important than ever that wives not undermine their authority in the family. To do that while allowing them to share their vulnerability is a delicate balancing act, but one that every wife, regardless of her husband’s personality, needs to strike.

This post is a part of Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Click on over there for more wifely encouragement.

My Entertainment is Holier Than Your Entertainment!

A couple of months ago Pastor Mark Driscoll, with whom I have no serious doctrinal disagreements that I’m aware of, decided to weigh in on the subject of video games with a blog and accompanying video entitled, Video Games Aren’t Sinful, They’re Just Stupid. His passion for men being real men was laudable, but I have never been able to relate to the attitude of disdain that seems to characterize many Christians’ thoughts on the subject of video games.

It occurs to me as I write this that I may be giving some the impression that I, my husband, or my children are video game junkies since this isn’t the first time I’ve broached this subject. We are not. Almost any Floridian can relate to this parallel. You pay an extra $10,000 for a house with a pool, or worse pay $20,000 to have a pool installed. At first your family enjoys the pool a great deal, and you wonder how you ever lived with out it. After a while, however, the pool sits largely unused unless the family is having a summertime party. After a  few years many pool owners will tell you that the cost of maintaining their pool far outstrips the enjoyment their family gets from it. The pool isn’t as big a deal anymore. They could take it or leave it.

That’s how we view our video game. We could take it or leave it. It’s used maybe twice a month; making exceptions for when another family with kids is over to visit. Video gaming is not a major part of our life or lifestyle. The girls and I play the occasional game of bowling, Jeopardy, or Wheel of Fortune. Secret Agent Man plays maybe a couple of days every three or four weeks, and I’ve discovered that you can almost set a calendar date for when he’ll play because it’s usually on the heels of a month when he’s worked 13 days straight.

In other words, my defense of adults who play video games is not a knee-jerk defense of the way our family lives. Rather, it is based on the fact that I hate the way Christians get on a bandwagon about a particular thing and make it seem so much worse than other things simply because it’s the thing that every one seems to be into at the moment. Particularly whatever men seem to be into at the moment.

While we certainly need to take extreme care not to take on the values of the culture, we also need to take extreme care to focus our energy on issues of eternal and doctrinal significance. Unless we’re talking about a person who spends most of their waking hours glued to the screen with remote in hand, video gaming does not, in my opinion, meet that standard. We live in an entertainment saturated culture, and when we decide to pick out one area of entertainment on which to focus our disapproval, we give a false sense of security to those who are equally disconnected from real life by other forms of entertainment.

For example, Americans love athletics. People get antsy in church if the service goes long and cuts into the first football game being broadcast on Sunday afternoon. Many churches cancel Sunday evening services on Superbowl Sunday. I admit to being pretty engaged in the NBA Eastern Conference playoffs myself right now. Not to mention MLB, NHL, PGA and the sports with slightly smaller but equally devoted followings. But it’s not just the sports junkies.

There’s also blogs, Facebook, magazines, movies, frivolous Christian romance novels (!) and television. How many Americans were enamored with the royal nuptials, following every detail leading up to the fairy tale wedding of a couple on another continent? We are constantly connected via cell phones and texting to the point where most of us can barely enjoy a few minutes alone with our own thoughts. There’s always something clamoring for our attention, inviting us to engage in passive forms entertainment, and there are few of us, Christian and non alike, who don’t succumb to the temptation in one way or another.

Not all entertainment is without merit, and some have great benefits. Reading a book feeds the mind. Playing a game of pickup basketball is more beneficial than watching Lebron James’ athletic prowess on television. A hike through the woods beats watching the Discovery channel any day. We can enjoy leisure time in a host of productive ways. This is not a condemnation of entertainment, but rather a call to balance in the way we entertain ourselves. More than that, it’s a reminder to be careful about condemning others for doing the same things we do, albeit it in a slightly different way.

Entertainment of all kinds is something we all need to approach in a deliberate and balanced way. If we take a good look at ourselves, we might find we have more in common with the video gamers than we realize.

Did I mention that the things we set our laser-like judgmental focus on are most often forms of entertainment likely to be enjoyed by men.? Or am I the only one who notices that?