A man's man...

We drove along in the car together, my friend and I talking about our husbands. Her husband is the one my husband calls "best friend". Those two, much alike in some ways, both strong-willed, opinionated, out-spoken, sports-lovers, what some would call a "man's man". As we talk, my friend, 12 years younger than I, mentors me with her words. "Some women struggle with my husband's strong personality," she says, "they don't have husbands who will stand up TO them or FOR them. So, I just tell them, at least I have a husband who will stand up for me."

That conversation took place almost two weeks ago, and the words still convict me. For 33 plus years times 365 days a year times 24 hours a day, how many hours have I wasted picking at the speck in his eye, this man's man that God gave me. Me, in my flesh, am too prone to compromise in order to keep peace. I want everyone to like me, to like us. (I'm afraid that if I was one of Jesus follower's when He lived on this earth, I would have tried to correct the Son of God when he called the Pharisees vipers or whitewashed tombs, or when he violently overturned the tables of the money changers in His House. I would have said, "Now Jesus. That is not the way to make friends and influence people!") Why wasn't my focus, like my friend's, on the fact that God gave us protective fighters for husbands as a blessing...men who would fight for us and our children to the death.

But don't be fooled, my husband is not all tough without the tender. It's amazing how much he has laid aside his own rights for me, for our three girls, and now our grandbabies. Me, I have a tendency to be self-focused, selfish. He is generous to a fault. A man's man, and yet when we had one, two, three daughters, to this day he says how glad he is to have girls...never once making me or them feel bad that he had no sons. On Saturday mornings when the girls were small, I heard the banging of pots and pans as he made, not one, but four trays of breakfast in bed. Not just once, but almost every Saturday. So the kitchen was a disaster zone...why was my focus on that and not on the wonder of a Daddy so kind to his little girls? And now, the tradition continues...grandbabies eating plates of sticky syrup covered pancakes in bed when they have a sleepover at our house.

On our day off, his first words are, "Where do you want to go? What do you want to eat?" This man's man has spent more hours in shopping malls than any man should ever have to, pleasing me, pleasing his girls...adapting to us, our interests, our needs. Now he has a grandson to play catch with, to take to football games. And yet, like an old dog who finds it difficult to learn new tricks, Papa, trained over the years of life in a house full of girls, takes oldest grandaughter to ooo and ahh over her favorite sparkly sequined covered shoes and hats at the local mall.

Sitting to the right of my small computer desk, is a wooden desk where I can spread out my Bible, books, study notes. Last week I commented to my husband that I needed more room for study...commented that the small computer desk has no room to spread out my books. The very next day, he disassembled his desk, from his office, and put it in my office. He is the pastor, the one who really needs room to study, and now his computer sits on top of a file cabinet...no desk at all in his office, while I have two. "I didn't mean for you to do that!" I cried. "You need a desk more than me!" He shrugs nonchalantly, "that's okay, I wanted you to have room to study." The amazing thing is, he means it. It literally does not bother him to give like that. He sacrifices, while I keep score of socks on the floor, and spilled coffee not wiped up.

A tough man's man, yet tender in the right places. In God's presence in worship, he really grasps that he is the Bride, worshipping a Bridegroom lover God. How hard is that for any man, yet alone a man's man. And when we're alone, he's sensitive, giving, loving. I used to weigh 50 pounds more than I do now. That's almost another half of a person! Yet when I talk about how I used to be fat, he says "I don't remember you ever being fat." I look in his eyes, and I see that he's not joking! He doesn't remember??? He thinks I'm beautiful and he always has, literally through thick and thin.

Is he perfect? Absolutely not. Are there things in his life that God needs to change. I'm sure there are. But my friend, her words made me see, the log in my eye, instead of the speck in his. A man who will stand up TO me, (did I mention that I can be highly opinionated and stubborn?), and FOR me...a tough/tender man's man. A man who has sacrificed his own interests for me and our girls, and who has chosen to overlook my faults. Thanks honey. I love you forever.