Men v. Women

Chris and I were listening to a piece of music he performed in the Clavinova Festival his senior year of high school. That year, he and his childhood best friend, Jamin, pretty much made a clean sweep of the awards. Our conversation went as follows:

"Jamin and I wrote this one together."

"Oh, cool. Is that the year that you..."

"...DESTROYED EVERYTHING? Yes."

"Uh, I was going to say, 'took the cake.'" *pause* "That was such a guy answer."

Intriguing Little Poison

While jamming out to various songs in my head today as I am wont to do, my mental radio tuned to that old song by the Pussycat Dolls, "Don't Cha." Now, it's really bugging me.

"Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?...don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me? Don't cha?" the lyrics taunt. The song paints a picture of the singer blatantly flaunting her charms in front of a guy who's "taken," filling him with doubt and discontent about the woman he's with.

The thing that disturbs me is how true to life such an attitude is. Why was the song so popular awhile back? It resonates with people, because most women (and men) have probably had a "don't cha" moment where they wanted to strut their stuff and say, "Look at me! I'm sooo much better!"

There's something fun about sinning -- otherwise, we wouldn't do it. That's true here. The element of competition makes the theme of the song titillating, which makes it all the more perfidious.

Dating people, engaged people, married people, comparison is poison. Once you allow yourself to start looking at others in order to find areas where your significant other falls short, trust me, you will find areas where they do -- endless areas, in fact. The seemingly innocent little "if only he/she..." game will become a perilously slippery slope, creating unrealistic expectations for the person that he/she will not be able to live up to! As they begin to fail you in those expectations, bitterness and discontent will grow, as surely as a seed will sprout when planted and watered under the right conditions.

Do your significant other a favor, and evaluate them by the Word and wise counsel on their own merit. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has annoying attributes. Any ideal you have you've made up in a fantasy world, trust me. Slap someone on a chart of those ideals and they are doomed to fail the test.

When the "don't cha" thoughts arise, stop. Reject the thought, taking it captive in the power and for the sake of Christ. Replace the thought with meditations on what is good and admirable.

Nobody -- that is, nobody I know -- likes poison! It may smell good, but do yourself a favor -- after you waft the scent over to your nose with your hand like your good chemistry teacher taught you to do, take note of what the smell indicates, put down the vial, and walk away.

Contemplations of a Young Wife, Tenth Part

It's okay for me to want to be found beautiful. It's not okay for me to want to impress anyone but my husband.

The awesome conviction of the Holy Spirit, juxtaposed with relevant circumstances, made me revisit a subject I hadn't thought of much since the days of middle school puberty: modesty.

I was always the good girl growing up, and I mean always. I followed dress code. I wore one-piece bathing suits. You name it, I did it--I could've been the cover girl for "Stuff Christians Like". At the same time, I longed for the boys to think I was pretty. I wanted to  steal breaths at "Junior-Senior Banquet" (our equivalent of prom) armed with an elegant, long red dress as much as I did walking down the hallway armed with shining eyes and a smile.

Thus began the Freudian suppression of the insuppressible desire to be desired. Confused and warring values created prudishness, since I didn't know a way to emulate beauty (a healthy want) other than the "bad" way. Fear and legalism--that dastardly pair that almost always go together--gnawed at me. 

During my junior and senior year of high school, the legalism began to break down. By sophomore year of college, I recognized that God had given me a good face and body, and started to appreciate the ways he made me beautiful, which is what I wanted all along. However, the revelation meant I had power in my hands that I didn't know I had. Forgive me the quote, but as Uncle Ben tells Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility!"

I conclude that beauty is a power that all women have--when we wield it, relationships change on all sides, for better or for worse. 

My personal struggles didn't present a problem until this year. Immodesty (even "subtle" immodesty) was just another form of my age-old search for affirmation in all the wrong places. As I tried to figure out my value by looking through the eyes of man, my subconscious remembered I would be admired if I wore shorter shorts and lower shirts, which I did, which became increasingly shorter and lower as I pushed the boundaries. Sin is a lovely lure, you know.

Finally, after a conversation with one of my best friends, Katie, and my mentor Ann (both women I admire and want to imitate), I decided it was time to deal with the fact that while I've always maintained purity of body, I have not maintained purity of mind.

Chris didn't know my underlying motivations for my actions; even so, God would not allow me to get by with a mere show of godly wifehood. The fact that I would dress to impress any man but Chris had to go. I want to honor my husband--I want to be for his eyes only, something inherent in the vows I spoke that is a means of showing my faithfulness and desire for him. 

Most importantly, though, I want to honor God. Immodesty is symptomatic of my disrespect for myself as God's creation ("Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?"), as well as dependence on man and out and out idolatry.

I am memorizing Psalm 24:1-4 this week, and the last portion echoed in my mind as I contemplated these things: "Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false..."

Why do modesty and purity matter? For crying out loud, what's the point? 

The point is that no one can serve the idol of one's body or human opinion, and serve God and represent Christ at the same time. 

There's just no room for two great loves.

My song to anyone once shafted by love.

I pulled out my 6th grade journal yesterday--a detailed chronicle of my life from 2001 to 2005. It laughed hysterically at my melodramatic accounts of the rambunctious boys who called me "cutie" and put crickets in my locker to the girls I code-named because they were my tacit enemies or who drew comic strips with me and loved me like a faithful sister.

I'm an emotional person, so the stories resurrected vivid memories. It won't surprise you to know that the memories about disappointed love were most clear.

I revel in the love of my husband now. It's a more beautiful love than I had a concept of at age 12, that's for sure! Finding him wasn't the ending of a fairy tale like I thought it would be. Instead, it was the opening of an adventure more grand and awesome than any story my writer's mind ever contrived.

I have a background of heartbreak, but look where God has taken me.
This song is an example of where I used to be.
Hopefully, it will encourage anyone who is disillusioned and ready to give up on a God-sent love story.

This was penned in my journal after the final sentence of the entry: "Perhaps, one goodbye isn't good enough..."

What Went Wrong
written June 16, 2004

I thought that for sure all the wounds had healed up/and nothing would disturb me anymore
But I opened up my journal yesterday/finding that your name was written on the cover
I turn the page, and a picture that I drew/traces lines of adoration in your smile
I turn the radio on and music floods my mind/and it just happens to be our song!

Oh, quit haunting me, baby!/What have I ever done to you?
I'm dying to retrace our steps and find out
where we went wrong!
Oh, quit haunting me, baby!/Your eyes are more than I can bear
I'm dying to retrace our steps and find out
if you miss me!/Oh, where did we go wrong?
Where did we go wrong?

Viewing running commentaries everywhere that I alight/of lovers who are on the path we took
A passage strangely familiar to me as I read at night/is turning up in every single book
I close my eyes, maybe sleep will kill the pain/but I only get a vision of our stars
And when I open them, I daydream for an hour/of running into warm and open arms!

Oh, quit haunting me, baby!/What have I ever done to you?
I'm dying to retrace our steps and find out
where we went wrong!
Oh, quit haunting me, baby!/Your eyes are more than I can bear
I'm dying to retrace our steps and find out
if you miss me!/Oh, where did we go wrong?
Where did we go wrong?

Contemplations of a Young Wife, Ninth Part

In some ways, I don't think marriage differs that much from dating. Before you married people say, "That's not true!," see what I mean:

When I first began dating, I--like many other dreamy-eyed middle school girls--had a problem with idolizing the guys I was into. My thoughts were consumed with fantasies: what would we talk about the next day, would he ask me out, where would we go if he did, would he be my first kiss?

My first "long-term relationship" was plagued by an ongoing battle between devotion to God and devotion to my boyfriend. Though I definitely loved and served God, I pushed him to the wayside, knowing deep down that my boyfriend was the one thing I would hesitate--or maybe refuse--to give up if God asked.

So, as the story goes, I learned the hard way, and the boy fell out of my life, and I fell into God's arms. That was the first step toward a new understanding of his lordship over me (not to mention everything else).

My freshman year of college, my world was rocked when I met Chris, little knowing I would marry him not very long afterward. We went through many spiritual ups and downs together during our dating and engagement, and by the time things had settled down a bit, I concluded that I had man-idolatry out of my system, and that's why God was allowed me meet Chris and have the love story I always dreamed of.

Well, I found out, it doesn't actually work that way.

Dating, engagement, marriage - these things aren't the rewards for completely arriving at the place where we never depend on our significant other to fulfill needs and give peace where only God can.

Even now, there are days I feel a strong wave of emotion: I talk to Chris, I try to get his help. Sometimes we get frustrated with each other. Sometimes we sympathize and cry together. And many times, those things were what was appropriate and needed. However, I still find myself playing the middle school game: I'm running to him, asking him to do the impossible, while Father God--our "jealous" God--desires to be my all in all and to take perfect care of me.

Women: your future/now husband cannot give you the kind of love that will emotionally fulfill you at all times and in the all the right ways. Only God loves perfectly.

Men: you cannot fix all the problems in and for your future/now wife, even if she brings them to you with that expectation. Only God "fixes" perfectly. :)

How good is our God.

Contemplations of Young Wife, Third Part

Apparently, I thought all my misconceptions about and bitterness against men would go away when I found the exceptional man who would be my husband. However, I've discovered that just because I don't apply my stereotypes to Chris doesn't mean I don't still own them.

Yesterday I broke down in a hate-filled fit about how angry guys make me. The spate came out of left field, believe me; I think it scared Chris about as much as it did myself. I felt justified in ranting, at the moment. A few minutes of a clear head and a clear-headed spouse, though, reminded me of an important principle: Though I have been burnt by men in the past, I am not excused from bringing both my hurt and my poor attitude concerning them before a gracious heavenly Father.

Unforgiveness is not exactly a debatable sin (see Matthew 6:14-15), and unforgiveness is my problem, here. I distill the situation, of course; there's much that happened in the whole process involving the wrongs of other people, but unforgiveness is something that I can, and must, personally face. It's cancerous; it causes me to take personal offenses and project them onto the entirety of the opposite sex. For example:

-All guys care about is sex.
-All men are pigs.
-Men can't be trusted.

Horrible! I know hordes of godly young (and old) men who are so respectable as to be, well, an overwhelmingly refreshing refutation to all of the above (Any unmarried ladies reading this, I promise you, they're out there in abundance. Don't give up, don't lower your standards and keep trusting God's sovereignty and love!).

God, grant me both the desire and ability to forgive, and thank you, more than I can ever fully express, for blessing me with a man who is anything but deserving of contempt. Catch me in bad patterns of thinking about men. Teach me how to love all as you do.