Update: It’s 3:55 AM, and I’m wide awake. The sun will probably be up before I even finish this post, but it’s another one of those nights where I just have to talk about what’s incessantly running through my mind. I should preface this whole thing by saying that I don’t mean to offend anyone, but to encourage. I am not claiming to know everything there is to know or to have it all figured out. If I did would I be awake at 4 o’clock in the morning writing about it? I’ve learned all of this today for the most part and I’m sharing my revelation just like I did in “Glass Slippers.”
I listened to a sermon today by a really great pastor in Memphis who is my favorite person to listen to preach at this point. I’ve yet to listen to one of his sermons (all podcasts. Haven’t actually made it to his church yet) that didn’t keep me up at night thinking about what he said, what it means, and what I can take away from it. That’s all Jesus Christ working through him, because usually I don’t even remember what sermons were about by the time I get to lunch after church. This guy’s name is Bryan Loritts, lead pastor at Fellowship Memphis, and this sermon was on marriage. He called it “Let’s Stay Together” if you want to go look up the podcast on iTunes, which would be a good idea by the way. The sermon was great. He talked about things that are ripping marriages apart in our culture, what makes a good biblical marriage, how a husband and wife should treat each other and how their relationship should look in comparison to their relationship with their children, and plenty of other little things that were really great to hear but the part that has been messing with me all day was a little part kind of in the middle of the sermon where he talked about women.
He brought up 1 Peter 3 where it says that women are the weaker vessel, and taken out of context, a power hungry man or an incredibly insecure woman might run that to places it has no business going. But he compared it to two vessels he has in his house: cups and glasses. “There’s cups and who cares how you handle cups? You know, men are like cups. You can be rough with them, throw them down. Who cares? But I have another vessel in my house. They’re glasses and I don’t do to this glass what I just did to that cup. Because it’s weaker, I handle it with care, and typically in my house, the weaker vessels are the more valuable vessels. You handle with care. Men, your wife ain’t one of the boys. You’re gentle. You live with her in an understanding way. You’re sensitive to her needs…” and he went on with more elaborations on how a husband treats his wife in that way.
I do understand that outside of one couple that I’m friends with, we are not married. I don’t even think I’m anywhere near an age that I should be when I do get married. But I do understand the fragility of being female. I think that’s why this part of his sermon stuck with me for the rest of the day. I know what it’s like to be weak. You’ll notice that a glass can stand on it’s own, as can I, but it can only take so much pressure before it explodes, as I sometimes do. I’ve been blessed with a spirit that is relatively gentle and quiet and kind and confident. I don’t know why because it’s not like I did anything to deserve to be a pretty peaceful individual. But I do not have a personality that is good at understanding girls who are drastically different than I am. It’s not that I don’t want to accept them for who they are, I just have a hard time because my personality and the personality of someone who is my opposite generally clash and I end up confused and aggravated and completely unable to understand the other individual. The gentle part of me can’t take attention-starved girls, the quiet side of me can’t take some loud girls, especially when they squeak. That’s unnatural. The kind side of me cannot handle a girl who is generally rude to everyone they meet, and the normal-dose-of-confidence side of me does not understand how someone can either dramatically lack confidence or walk around with their nose in the air like they’re untouchable. I don’t hate people like that. I just don’t understand them. And if I’m very honest, underneath those tough fronts I’ve watched my friends and people I’ve been around put up, there’s a whole lot of insecurity that’s being masked. That’s where this connects to what I heard today. That insecurity a hyper-confident girl masks is because of fragility and maybe she has a few chips or cracks in the glass that adds to the weakness of it due to broken relationships or families or painful experiences. The insecurity of a low-key girl like me who feels sometimes boring compared to the huge personalities I’m always around is because of being fragile, just in another form. And though the Lord specifically, intricately, and purposely designed us all uniquely, we do share a sense of weakness because we were simply made to be the weaker vessel between men and women. So I was encouraged that sometimes when I’m just really insecure at night, like out of character insecure, or when I’m overreacting because I’m hurt by something, even though society doesn’t really accept that sort of behavior, that is the way I was made and that is perfectly normal. I know that exists in all of us girls. I know there are hard nights all the time in our rooms when everyone is asleep and our minds roam to places our hearts just can’t handle. We are strong, but we are not invincible. We, by nature, have room for a stronger vessel and Stronger Vessel to come in and care for us, but only when we really accept who we are and who we are made to be. That means that girls don’t wear the pants in the relationship and I know, especially for very insecure girls, that could be a hard one to swallow, but it’s true.
But interwoven with all of these feminine thoughts today have been some thoughts about the guys I’ve noticed around me, around my friends, on social networks, in public. Few are willing to take the responsibility that the Lord requires in being the stronger vessel. I’m not saying that everyone has to go get married and have this superiority/servant relationship immediately, but I am saying that I don’t think many guys I see take anything seriously outside of their fantasy football/baseball team, their real football/baseball team, their Cole Haan’s, their tweets, or my favorite- their Affliction shirts. I see guys who don’t have a clue what’s going on in anyone around them’s head or heart because they never take the time to ask because no one else matters. I see boys who think that alcohol and sex and drugs and living young, wild, and free is the only thing that they should be doing at this stage in their lives and soon, they’re in jail, or in the delivery room with their girlfriend who they knocked up because they thought they were invincible. Or worse, they’re in jail while the ex-girlfriend, who they knocked up, is delivering the baby who she will raise on her own. I also see boys who even put up a Christian front to get girls who just want to hear the boy say he was saved so they can check that off the list of necessities and have a happy “Christian” relationship, but really the boy’s life shows anything but a transformed life and if she doesn’t notice that, so does hers. And I see boys who are great spiritual leaders among their friends, family, classmates, whoever and are actually actively pursuing Jesus, but they think it’s okay to mess with a girl’s heart just for funzies because we’re young and not serious yet, or they just settle for any girl and end up compromising the relationship with Jesus that they were striving for before this distraction of a girl came along and all the sudden that boy who was on the path to being a man is right back where all his buddies are. I can’t say I’d do any differently because I know that the male brain is so different than the female brain. I don’t know what I would be like as a boy at all so maybe I’m out of place. But I’m saying that as a girl who won’t just date anyone who comes my way because I’m holding out for a boy, or rather young man, who will treat me like he is commanded to and as I deserve to be treated, the male population I see right now is discouraging. I’m not saying there are no exceptions. I’m close to two guys who I would say are exceptions, and they know who they are, because they actively strive to be different so they break the standard. I just want guys to step it up a little bit and note that girls are fragile. We get hurt easier than you think we should and we hold onto it longer because it cuts really deep when it happens and I’m sorry if that frustrates you or makes your life harder. Guess what.. it’s not easy on this side either sometimes. I know that’s got to be frustrating, but that’s how we are, and whether you do it out of obligation because the Bible says so or just because you respect girls enough to not say things that might make a crack in the glass, I want to see some sort of change. I want to have a reason to be excited about marrying someone, not to have to be scared I’ll be treated like dirt that you just run over on your way to the next girl or the next football game or the next nap. I want to be treasured, and I know every single girl reading this does too. And since the two guys I mentioned are off limits, I’ll settle for a single life before I would marry any of the rest of the guys I’m in contact with at this point because I’m setting myself up for a disaster and that’s not something that I think I, or any other girl should have to go through just because watching Sports Center is more fun than figuring out why I had a bad day.
I guess that’s all I got. Girls, again- it’s okay to not be the strongest, most over-confident, crude, sassy individual on the face of the earth. I don’t even think you can act that way and be true to who you are when you really get down to it. Guys, give me a reason to believe that 80% of our generation isn’t going to end up in divorce. I know we’ve both got a lot of growing up to do. I’m not jumping any guns or anything and I know a lot of maturing will happen between now and when our church doors swing open and we walk down the aisle. I just see brokenness in the heart of so many people around me even if it’s not recognized that way and it makes me sad.
The sun is up now, so that’s cool. I should probably go take a nap before my day starts. Have a good day all.
**sorry if I offended anyone.. didn’t mean to. You’re allowed to hate me for being too opinionated. I don’t really mind.
