Men Are From Mars

Yesterday was a tough day in our house. Through a long set of circumstances in which the details are irrelevant, I went to bed with the feeling that I was my husband's "second choice" that day - a feeling that topped off an otherwise already terrible day. During a long car ride together today, I opened up and tried to walk him through some choices that he made that I interpreted to mean that he was tired of hanging out with me and instead needed some "guy time" to kind of fill up.

I felt pretty dumb as I unpacked all of my insecurities in front of him. Though he probably knows me better than I even know myself, it still isn't all that fun to be gut-wrenchingly honest about my human insecurities. Worse still was the fact that all my assumptions were completely wrong. Once we started talking through it all, I soon found out that the choices that he made had nothing to do with how he felt about me and everything to do with the fact that he simply saw an opportunity to be a friend to one of his guys.

Oh, how different we women are from our men. And though it causes so much heartache sometimes, I always come back to something I read in a book by Gary Thomas (Sacred Marriage) a few years ago - something that sparked a revolution in the early years of our marriage. His question, in fact the entire premise of the book is this: "What if God intended marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" Or, in other words, what if marriage was more about finding our pleasure in God than finding our pleasure in each other or ourselves?

And what if, by some miracle, I were actually able to take a step back during the middle of marital conflict and see that - from God's holy and righteous perspective - all this conflict is actually for my good? That I am suffering for the sake of God's ultimate purpose of cultivating love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in my heart?

The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will receive a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:8-9, NIV)