Sacred Influence (7 page)

What happened to the widow so long ago continues to happen in many marriages today. Elijah’s miraculous provision for this woman became commonplace. What once seemed like an extraordinary occurrence — flour and oil that never ran out — soon became a common blessing, so expected that it ceased to be noticed, much less appreciated. After a week or so, it was just the way things were.

Sadly, many women view their husbands in this very way. Their spouses’ strong points become so familiar that the women no longer see them, much less appreciate them. But when one weakness rears its ugly head, all else gets blotted from memory.

Husbands, of course, pick up on this. In a poll of a thousand men, just 10 percent of husbands — only one out of ten — believe their wives love them more than they love their wives. We think we’re much happier with you than you are with us.
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Blinded to the Blessing

On the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Lisa and I watched several interviews with women widowed as a result of those attacks. “What has changed most about your perspective in the past year?” one interviewer asked. The first widow to respond said, “The thing I can’t stand is when I hear wives complain about their husbands.” Every woman nodded her head, and then another widow added, “It would make my day if I walked into the master bathroom and saw the toilet seat left up.”

Their words have a profound ring. The little things we allow to annoy us seem trivial compared to the loss of blessings once taken for granted. In the face of their enormous loss, these women no longer cared about the little irritations; instead, they had to face the big, black hole of all that their husbands had done for them, suddenly sucked out of their lives forever.

“Sarah” lives on the East Coast. (For various reasons, I’ve made this a composite story.) She attended one of my “Sacred Marriage” conferences and had gathered with several women in a small group between sessions. One wife started boasting about the beautiful backyard rock garden her husband had built over a three-day weekend. Sarah seemed unusually quiet until she finally held up her hand and said, “Please, stop! My husband spent all last weekend on the couch, watching a golf tournament. I don’t need to hear about how your husband spent those days working in the yard!”

Later, I spoke with Sarah one-on-one.

“How large is your house?” I asked.

“A little over two thousand square feet,” she said. “And it has a nice yard.”

“Wow, that sounds great, especially with three small children. You must feel fortunate to be there.”

“I guess so,” she said.

“Where do you work?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t work,” Sarah replied. “My husband makes enough for me to stay at home with the kids.”

“That’s fantastic!” I told her. “Do you realize that 65 percent of the women in your situation have to work outside the home, whether they want to or not? You’re one in three as far as being able to choose to stay home. That’s gotta feel good.”

“I guess so,” she said.

I steered the conversation to the Monday following her husband’s lazy weekend. Unknown to Sarah, I had spoken with her husband, so I knew what had taken place on Monday. “Jim” took their son out to do a little batting practice; the young boy was preparing to start his first T-ball season and was eager to get some tips from his dad. Later that afternoon, Jim took their daughters to a movie. On the way home, he called Sarah and asked if he could get anything for her at the grocery store.

After Sarah recounted all this, I asked her, “Do you have any idea what a single mom would say if, for just one day, a man came over and took her son out for some ‘guy time,’ teaching him how to hit a baseball, or if he gave her a break by taking her daughters out in the afternoon and then called to see if he could pick up anything for her at the store on the way home? She’d feel like she had died and gone to heaven! She’d go to bed praying, ‘Thank you, Lord, for one day when it wasn’t all on my shoulders.’ ”

I watched as a light switched on in Sarah’s face. She glided over to Jim and kissed him on the forehead.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“For being you,” Sarah replied.

Sarah had forgotten Jim’s “common blessings.” Minutes before, she remained blind to what her husband did by focusing only on what he hadn’t done on one weekend. Now, she saw him in a new light.

I recently had the privilege of ministering in South Africa. Our hosts took my son and me to Soweto, a famous housing area home to the Mandelas and Bishop Desmond Tutu. Amid some nice homes lay a vast landscape of makeshift dwellings, cobbled together with scrap materials. We stopped at one place, and small children ran up to meet us, holding out their hands for free candy. Off in the distance, I saw a young mother carrying a five-gallon bucket to the group water spigot. Her neighborhood had no electricity and only a few shared faucets. Our eyes met fleetingly. While she could only imagine to what I would return, for me, there was no imagining. I could
see
how she lived. And I wished I could give every Western wife a glimpse of what this woman faces every day. You might not live like a movie star, but then again, you probably don’t have to walk a couple of blocks through muddy alleys to gather your daily water.

When did you last thank your husband for helping to make your style of life possible?

Loving the Less Than Perfect

It is the rare wife indeed who compares herself to a young mother in Soweto. Most will feel tempted to compare themselves to someone who has it just a little (or even a lot) “better.” They’re like Sarah, the wife of the golf-watching husband, who fell into the same trap as did the widow at Zarephath. Though Elijah had proven himself time and again, once a new problem arose, the widow suddenly couldn’t see all that Elijah had done. She could see only what he
hadn’t
done.

I admit that if I were talking to Jim, I’d challenge him to consider whether spending most of the weekend watching golf is the best use of time for a young husband and father. Jim certainly overdid it. Even so, it wasn’t fair of Sarah to look at Jim only in regard to this one lost weekend. Jim had provided a beautiful home. He earned enough money so Sarah could stay at home with her kids, as she wanted to. He was involved in his children’s lives. Jim wasn’t a perfect man, but there was plenty to be thankful for. As my friend Lisa Fetters says, “Wives need to look at the big picture, not isolated incidents.”

To move a man, you have to learn to appreciate him for who he is and for what he has done. I’ve talked to wives who, in the abstract, know their husbands can’t be perfect; but in reality, they resent the fact that they’re not. As author and marriage counselor Leslie Ver-nick states, “They’re looking for their Prince Charming. When he turns out to be just a regular guy, they’re disappointed.”
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James 3:2 has revolutionized the way I look at family life: “We all stumble in many ways.” Notice the words “all” and “many.” No spouse avoids this reality. We
all —
including your husband — stumble in
many
ways. To live with a man is to live with someone who is certain to let you down — not just once or twice, but in many ways. Even Dr. James Dobson and Pastor Rick Warren stumble in
many
ways. That “Mr. Perfect Husband” you see so graciously open the door for his wife every Sunday, who always seems so kind and thoughtful and who provides a wonderful income? Somewhere, in some concrete expression, that man stumbles in many ways. If you were to divorce your husband and spend five years interviewing potential second husbands, if you gave them psychological tests and interviewed their closest friends and family members, if you found a man who seemed to match you emotionally and spiritually and recreationally — you’d still end up with a husband who would stumble in many ways.

Only one perfect man ever walked this earth, and he never married. Since every wife is married to an imperfect man, every wife will have legitimate disappointments in her marriage. Are you going to define your husband by these disappointments, or will you pray that God will open your eyes to the common blessings that your husband provides and to which you often become blinded?

Think about this carefully and honestly: as soon as you marry a real man, you’re going to have to learn to let go of certain expectations. A real man
will
be a sinner. A real man
will
have rough edges. A real man comes with real weaknesses and with gaps in his knowledge or ability. If you don’t want to be married to a real man — or if you’re going to resent the unpleasant fact that your husband is real, not perfect — then don’t get married. When you marry a real person, you’re going to be sinned against; you’re going to be disappointed; you’re going to be frustrated. That’s real life.

My wife and I once met a woman married to a marvelous handyman, the type of guy who can fix anything. If he builds a tree house for his children, it has working doors and windows. He keeps his wife’s SUV in perfect running condition. Nothing in their house stays broken for longer than forty-eight hours. But he isn’t particularly “deep,” in his wife’s view. He doesn’t favor long, soulful talks. He’s a good listener, but you won’t hear him sharing a lot of personal feelings. And he never cracks open a book.

My wife immediately liked the sound of this man because she lives with the constant frustration of having a mechanical klutz for a husband. She has to endure toilets that keep running, doors that stick, and projects that get put off until we save up enough money to pay a professional to do them. When I try to fix something, the problem invariably gets worse, costing us even more to fix it in the long run.

And yet this other wife made it pretty clear that she wished her husband would be available to talk things out. She wondered aloud to my wife what it would be like to be married to a writer who deals with concepts and who regularly talks to people and who likes to discuss books with his wife. I’m pretty sure my wife may have felt tempted to wonder whether this woman had a much better thing going, particularly when Lisa had to get up in the middle of the night (for the umpteenth time) to jiggle the handle on the toilet to get the water to stop running!

No husband comes in a perfect package. No husband can do it all. Your job as a wife is to fight to stay sensitive to your husband’s strengths. Resist the temptation to compare his weaknesses to another husband’s strengths, while forgetting your husband’s strengths and that other husband’s weaknesses. Don’t resent your husband for being less than perfect; he can’t be anything else.

Disappointment Detectors

Why is this perspective crucial if you are going to provide a sacred influence? Husbands detect disappointment with uncanny accuracy. Because we so deeply value affirmation, whenever we don’t get it, it feels like living with one long, loud, psychic scream. And we tend to react like this: “If I can’t please her by trying my hardest, then why should I try at all?” I’m not saying we
should
react this way; I’m just saying that’s how we usually
do
react.

If you want to move your husband in a positive direction, then you need to appreciate him from your heart.

In her book
Capture His Heart
, Lysa TerKeurst tells of boarding a shuttle bus at the airport, where she met a sixty-year-old man who said something very simple but astonishing. Lysa commented that people must love to see the shuttle bus pull up, because it means they’re going home. The driver laughed. “Yeah, everyone is excited to see me pull up to the curb. That’s why I like my job so much. People get on the bus and smile so big. They’ve just been waiting for me, and when I finally arrive, they are happy I’m here. I’ve often wished I had a video camera to tape people as they get on my bus with the smiling faces and glad-to-see-ya comments. I’d love for my wife to see a tape like that. That’s the way I’ve always wanted her to look when I come home from work.”
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That’s the way I’ve always wanted her to look when I come home from
work.

I doubt there’s a guy alive who doesn’t feel this way. Whether we’re a shuttle bus driver, a CEO, a world-class athlete, or an assistant manager at a grocery store, it does something to a man’s heart when his wife and kids look happy to see him. I know — sometimes with our surly moods and our air of entitlement, we can make it very difficult for you to feel happy to see us. But that’s what we need.

My friend Dave Deur, a pastor at Central Wesleyan Church in Holland, Michigan, taught a class on marriage, during which he asked all the men to list five ways they love to be loved. Virtually
all
the lists included acts or words of appreciation — and many men listed affirmation several times, using different words. I was struck by how many men used at least two (or often even three) of their five answers to describe affirmation. In fact, one man’s list of five things could all be summarized as affirmation!