Courageous

I recently watched this movie, Courageous, portraying ideals men should follow in order to be good fathers and in order to be the kind of leaders God wants them to be.  I started thinking about what kind of woman God wants me to be.  What kind of a woman am I?  What is my God-given role?

I came to realize that women of today have assumed the responsibility and try to fill the gap many men have left.  I am talking about the women that are single mothers that work full time plus some.  They still go to the soccer games, bake the cookies and pass around school fundraiser sign up sheets to everyone they know.  They are grandmothers that become mothers.  They are aunts, neighbors and friends that try to fill the void men have left.  They try to give children what is absent, but a woman just cannot give what a father can--no matter how hard they try.  The chasm left when a father does not fill his role is heartbreaking and takes much time and effort to allow the love of the heavenly father to fill.

Women see this pain, and as natural nurturers, want to make it better.  Some are women whose children may have a father present in the body but not in mind and spirit.  They grieve the loss their children feel and try to hold the family together-a job they were never intended to do. This makes them angry at their spouse.  This makes them resent the man that he is not. 

God sent me a husband that is fully capable of leading and directing our family, but I still try to control the reins and drive.  I watched my mother when I was young.  She was like some sort of super hero.  She would leave wearing her nicest clothes and red lipstick.  I wasn't quite sure where she went.  I would long for her return, and when she did, I would always meet her outside no matter how late it was.  I thought she must have done some very important things that day and still managed to go to the grocery store and run the errands.  It had to be important if it took so long. 

She was an important person.  She was an executive secretary at the first BB&T.  When I entered the workforce, I came to appreciate how she worked several jobs at times so that I could say I never felt hungry.  I never slept on the streets or outside.  She took care of the needs an absent father did not, and she never took anything from the government.  We survived.  For that, I will always be indebted.  Yet, I fear that my understanding of what a mother is became distorted.

I am upset.  I am grieved that though I do not have to do the job of my husband, I still feel this urge, even to the point of anxiety, to do the holding up of the family-to lead and take control when that is not what God wants for me.  I think this is due to my womanly need for a stable family life.  My method of having stability however, is not God's.  I do not need to step in and do the job as my mother did.  I often try to take the role of husband when it's not my place. 

It is not looked upon negatively for women to be more like men these days.  If anything, it is applauded.  But do we realize we are emasculating our men?  We are leaving no room for them to rise to the occasion.  We are not encouraging them or spurring them on to be Godly leaders.  We are making fun of them, telling them what to do and rolling our eyes.  We seem to live with them, but we are not one with them anymore.  We use them to fulfill our fairy tales.  We want the beautiful wedding, the big house and the babies.  We expect him to fit into his role as we have always imagined and get angry when he's not perfect (conveniently overlooking our own faults).  Many of our men have been raised by women and have no idea how to be the man God wants him to be.  Many of our men have only known men that hurt them, were selfish, didn't take care of their families, and didn't fear God.  Why can't we give him a break?

I think many of us women who didn't have a good male in our lives or had a lot of inconsistencies really want the man we marry to be that honorable man, a knight in shining armor that we have no problem listening to.  The thing is, our man is not going to be perfect.  He may be a good man, but he will have flaws.  A man that has flaws is not necessarily going to scar us as others have, but I think we often make him out to be a monster when he is merely human.  Minor flaws become magnified since we have been damaged by men before.  We really believe deep down that he will devastate us as well.  So, we try to control him.  We don't really know how to let him lead since we have never really seen how that works, and we don't trust him to.

We need to take a step back and read Scripture.  We need to get healing as individuals so that we can be the person God intended and who our spouse deserves.  Gender roles described in the Bible are not just antiquated and outdated musings.  They apply today.  God made men to protect, lead and take care of his family.  He made women to help, nurture and care for them.  He knows the power of a unified front when a man and woman accept their roles in the relationship.  He knows the power a couple that is of one mind can have.  He knows that whatever may befall them, they can handle it if they work together.  Two is better than one, and the two unified by the bond of God is unbreakable.