Comments may be sparse on tryspiritfood, but I know who my regular check-backers are. Thank you, guys, for being patient with me. Thank you for your understanding. By now you would have learnt that I am more emotional than I am intellectual, although I wish I wasn't made that way. I am also only just coherent enough in my writing to have you listen and get the jist of whatever I'm writing about. Sentences are challenges in themselves for me. When I speak to you in person you have probably noticed I take a while to find words. I'm sorry. I'm going to keep working on these skills. Praise God for this weakness, for there is no temptation for me to take pride in any other goal of writing, except for his glory.!
I also make a lot of lists. I titled this entry "Masculinity" after having read bits and pieces of John Eldredge's Wild at Heart: Unleashing the Secret of the Man's Soul (or something along those lines). I have this eerie fascination with men. They are intriguing characters. Eldredge's book talks about the masculine wound, the integral role of every man's father, the role of femininity in a man's life and how they are, in essence, dangerous creatures.
As a woman reading Eldredge's book, I have come away with these things:
1. I want to be the kind of sister/girlfriend/wife who lets her brother/boyfriend/husband be a man, even if it will scare me.
2. I have the power to validate my future husband's masculinity, but I don't want him to give it to me. He should already have it from God.
3. There are 2 outcomes for the masculine wound (referring to the deficit created in a man's character when he doesn't receive validation from his earthly father that he is a man): the violent man and the passive man. I don't want either. I have been in close connection with both types in my life. For a husband, I want a strong, passionate, fierce-hearted man of God...
4. ...and I want to be his beauty.
5. Women have the power to trample all over their men, to emasculate them, to make them beg and be submissive. Please read 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Realising feminine power helped me understand why Paul gave these instructions on worship - we women are too strong. If we abuse our power, God will not be glorified.
6. Also, while women have these attributes, they also desire, deep down, that men take the lead instead. We need to encourage our men.
7. Whatever you do, don't emasculate a man by trying to tame him down. He will become a shell of what he once was.
Let him offer you his strength.
