Messy Beautiful Love (7 page)

Time has taught me that people are just as different from each other as one fabric is from another. The days, the hours, and the minutes of our lives have been woven together in their own way. This process of knitting and weaving started before we were born and will continue throughout our lives. The psalmist summed it up: “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13
NIV
).

We all know that we were created differently and that we’ve lived differently, and yet we tend to hold on to these ideals of what the perfect husband should look like, comparing one to the other. Comparison can be a slippery slope that leads to envy and strife. It’s also something that tends to grow if left unchecked.

Have you ever gone shopping for off-white paint? I have a few times, and it certainly messed with my eyes. The chips looked the same until I held them up against a pure white sample. That’s when I saw the differences between eggshell,
seashell, and bird shell and realized that not one of them is pure white. A few years ago we went home with several gallons of white paint only to later discover that it was light purple. Yuck. Our master bedroom was mauve, and we were not happy campers. When we start comparing our husbands to what we view as perfection, it’s like we’re holding them up against a white paint chip. We begin to notice their flaws, and the closer we look, the more flaws we see.

Before you begin to compare or if you’re already in the process of comparing your husband to others, take a step back and choose a better path that is paved with compassion and grace. In 1 Corinthians 13:7 we’re told that love
“
beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” Isn’t love beautiful? When you truly love someone, you look for the best in him, and you hope for the best. That’s when you begin to see him in the light of God’s grace.

The world is doing a great job of making your husband feel like a failure already; he doesn’t need to hear it from you. What he
does
need to hear is that he is valued, loved, appreciated, and respected for the man that he is.

Our society tends to depict men as lazy, thoughtless slobs. When did this start, and why do we let it continue? I know of so many husbands who are sensitive, caring men, including my own. It’s time for this world to stop believing that men can’t be anything more than obnoxious, insensitive boys and start looking at them as men who were woven together by the hands
of an almighty God, created in
His
image and for
His
pleasure. We have an opportunity to build up our husbands and to support them as they are growing in grace.

Several years ago, a couple came over to our house for the evening. We got to talking about our jobs, and after about five minutes the woman piped up and said to her husband, “Why can’t you support your family like Michael does? Why does your wife have to go off to work?”

You could have cut the silence with a knife, but thankfully we didn’t have one handy, or he might have used it on her. Their family situation was much different from ours. We’re several years older than they are, and they have more children. Not to mention the fact that I’m a writer who
works
from home. She didn’t realize that while one husband is denim, the other is knit. No two are the same.

Recently, a reader asked, “How can a woman compliment her husband if all the man does is come home grumpy and mean to his children and wife every day?” She had a good question, and I know that some of you might be thinking the very same thing:
All this advice sounds good in theory, but what about those marriages that are one-sided? Would we be lying if we tell grumpy husbands that they are awesome?

My answer is that we can find good in anyone if we are willing to look for it. We’re talking about human beings who are made in the image of God. And yes, they might be grumpy at times, but if we ever hope to turn that situation around, we
must be willing to offer them
grace.
What is grace exactly? It’s
undeserved
mercy.

I get letters from men who ask me to pray for their marriages. These men are constantly under pressure. They carry the weight of spiritual leadership on their shoulders, and they’re under financial pressure as well. Many are concerned that they could lose their jobs at any moment and then lose their houses and their cars. And what are they craving? A little praise from their wives.

Other men tell me that they can’t shake the feeling that they are complete failures. Things could be going well in their businesses. They’re at the top of their game, and the future is bright, but a voice inside them whispers, “It’s not enough.”

Unfortunately, it’s not always a whisper, and it’s not always inside. Sometimes it’s the wife who’s gotten so used to nagging that she doesn’t realize the message she’s sending with each cutting remark.

It breaks my heart when I hear these comments from men. What’s making them feel like losers? If we don’t remind them that they are winners, who will? Men like affection, men like respect, and men like good food; we all know that. But we tend to forget that they also need encouragement. They need to be reminded that they are incredible men and that we love them unconditionally. When we follow the pattern of marriage as God intended us to, we honor our spouses with our thoughts as well as our words.

All praise to God if you don’t compare your husband to others. But if you do, even if it’s an unspoken meditation of the heart, carefully consider your thoughts. Could it be that you don’t realize the gift that he is? Consider this passage:

I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Fools fold their hands
and ruin themselves.

Better one handful with tranquillity
than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind. (Eccl. 4:4–6
NIV
)

Reading this passage of Scripture, I got to wondering how often I’m chasing the wind. Am I the kind of wife who appreciates Michael, or am I too busy counting the blessings of others to notice my own?

Last month I went to IKEA with a friend, and I picked up a gadget that resembles a towel rack. You fasten it to the kitchen wall and hang cups and utensils on it. I’m sure it would look great in my kitchen if it wasn’t still in the package.

Four weekends have passed, and every Saturday I’ve asked Michael to hang it up for me. I asked him again today, and he
said that he left his drill at work so he wouldn’t be able to get to it for a few days.

I could do it myself, and if it called for a hammer and a nail I would. But when it comes to fastening screws, I just can’t seem to get it quite right. I’m really clumsy, and I suspect that I’d make a mess of the wall. So it waits.

By the fourth weekend, I start thinking about all of my friends with gadgets that their husbands have put together. I start thinking about how pretty their kitchens are and the work that must have gone into making them so.

I open Facebook, and sure enough I see more. One of my friends has posted a photo of the swinging bed that her husband is making for their son—a platform that’s suspended from the ceiling by lag bolts and cables. I think about it for a minute and realize that this is the same woman who just had hardwood floors put in her home. She also had the kitchen remodeled along with the cutest pot rack fastened to the ceiling above the new island.

It’s hard not to compare myself to them when my thirteen-dollar project is sitting on the counter collecting dust while the rest of the world races past. But the one thing I know about envy is that it takes our eyes away from the blessings at hand.

Would I love my husband any more than I do right now if he hung up that rack today? Or could it be that I’d be too busy thinking about the next project and watching what others are doing to realize the blessing he is?

Just typing that sentence reminds me that he recently finished remodeling a room in the basement, and last summer he built the most incredible wooden sidewalk as well as installed beautiful lights in the backyard. The truth is that I was too focused on the rack to consider it—at least until now.

Jealousy and comparison are dangerous things that can creep up unnoticed in any area of life, including marriage. They bring on stress and a feeling of inadequacy and take our eyes off our Father’s will for us. That’s why it’s so important to always keep them in check.

Today it might be a small thing like a rack in the kitchen, but what will it be tomorrow?

The Lord cautions us: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Ex. 20:17
NIV
). We are warned against coveting for a reason. It’s sinful, and it’s consuming. It’s the polar opposite of contentment and leads us to look outside our marriages for happiness.

I know what coveting did to my life, and I see what it did to my heart. But here’s the thing that’s not talked about enough—it’s becoming an epidemic. Social media has opened an all-too-convenient door between the sexes. Flirting has never been easier. It’s private, it’s convenient, and it’s instantly gratifying. All you have to do is open your chat box while your husband’s at work, and you’re instantly connected with anyone
you choose. And of course the men we meet on the Net are seemingly perfect. Aren’t we all?

We all put our best images forward, but behind doors we live in the real world where Photoshop doesn’t exist, Google isn’t our voices, and a backspace button can’t undo a bad day. Fantasy is hard to compete with. What does it tell us when we see other husbands doing the things that our husbands don’t do?

What it should tell us is that God is blessing our marriages in a unique way. By following His lead and keeping our eyes focused on the path before us, we find contentment and peace.

Consider horses. Have you ever been to the races? I’ve only been once, but I’ve also watched the movie
Seabiscuit
, if that counts. I used to wonder what the shades on their eyes were all about until Michael explained their significance. One of the biggest distractions in a race can be the crowd; another is the other contestants. Many trainers believe that blinders (also known as winkers) are beneficial to racehorses because they encourage the animals to pay attention to the race ahead. In much the same way, we are far more productive when we focus on the plan ahead rather than check out the competition and the crowds that they draw.

Comparing our husbands or our marriages to those of others is pointless because we’re all walking different paths. We haven’t come from the same places, we’re not dealing with the same circumstances, and—here’s my seamstress voice talking again—we’re not cut from the same cloth. Let’s face it.
Some of us are fuzzy dice material, and some of us are suede, but every one of us has a story of her or his own that unfolds with each passing day.

God gifts men in numerous ways: intelligence, strength, talent, skill, wisdom, courage, sensitivity, humor, financial success, and the list goes on. Men might have one or several of these gifts, but I have yet to meet a man who possesses all of them.

God didn’t create perfect human beings. You, me, our husbands—we’re all sinners saved by grace. Every one of us comes complete with flaws that we struggle to overcome. Even the apostle Paul struggled with the flesh, and he wrote about his struggles so we’d understand our need for grace.

You have expectations of a man on the one hand and your husband on the other, who you’ve come to realize isn’t all that you expected. You wanted fun on Friday nights, not sluggish on Saturdays. You wanted courageous, not weak. And you wanted a man who’d walk through the door with a dozen roses after work, but instead you get a dozen reasons why he’s too tired to take you out.

The problem here isn’t your husband; it’s that your level of expectation for him is outshining his character. When you measure him against the weight of expectation, you are left with an unbalanced scale.

Accepting a person for who he or she is doesn’t mean that you excuse sin. I’d never ask or want you to do that. What I am asking you to do is to look past the human frailty of a man to
seek his beauty by removing the weight of expectation you hold. I’m asking that you walk in the grace of messy, beautiful love.

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SIX
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Step Back and Allow Him to Lead

L
AST NIGHT, MY DAUGHTER,
M
ADISON
, made tacos for dinner. After the meal she spent the evening in the kitchen cutting up veggies and frying beef for a pot of stew. Not bad for a fifteen-year-old, huh? She worked in the kitchen from the time she got home from school until it was time for bed. Well, sort of. I let her work at the dining room table so she could watch television while peeling potatoes, cutting carrots, and slicing celery.

You know what she said to me around 10:00 p.m.? “Thanks for letting me make the stew, Mom.”

Thank me? Uh, thank
you
for spending your evening serving your family! How in the world did I ever get such an incredible daughter? My only answer is that this is a
God
thing.

The thing about God is that while He gives us incredible gifts, He also gives us the opportunity to nurture those gifts, otherwise known as being a good steward of what we have.

I’ve never loved cooking. You wouldn’t know it if you saw my apron collection, though. Four of them are hanging in the kitchen right now, my favorite being the Grace & Gratitude apron. It’s one of the prettiest things my kitchen has ever seen next to the vintage pay phone. The skirt is ruffled with layers of colorful fabric, complete with the words,
A grateful soul is truly blessed
. Madison and I get along well for the most part, but we love to fight over who gets that apron. She usually wins.