What I learned this weekend

This weekend, as I was dying of a head cold (thanks new friends and co-workers…haha) I read For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn.  Some of what I read was pretty common-sense.  I’ve lived with my father for a long time, and I’ve worked with quite a few men over the years.  

The author’s goal was not to give women the tools that we need to understand the men in our lives.  I left the book feeling very convicted.  There are a few behaviors I need to unlearn while I’m learning new behaviors.  

I have to learn to depend on and be provided for by men.  I like to give the air of being independent.  My father has always done a great job of providing for me and my family.  However, I’ve usually taken care of myself.  When I am sick, I get my own tea, fill up the vaporizer, get my own water.  Today, my car had an issue.  Instead of asking for help, I showed up to work, told the girls I had to get my car serviced.  I called the dealer and told them I was coming.  Then I officially called out of work.  Instead of showing that I really needed help, I handled everything so that I couldn’t accept help.

The truth is that my deepest desire is to have someone to depend on and to have someone provide for me.  I’d like to think that there is a man who wants me to depend on him and who wants to provide for me.  I have to fix the brokenness in me that does not allow me to depend on him.  Frankly–this is a part that is broken in my relationship with God as well.  I say with my mouth that I depend on him while my actions show that I depend on myself first and him fifth or sixth.

Another thing about which I was convicted was respect.  Men receive love through being respected in public and behind closed doors.  That one should’ve been more obvious.  

Behind every great man is a great woman.  I want to be a woman who builds the man in her life up rather than tear him down.  I’ve seen so many men who are absolutely amazing, smart, talented who have nagging women in their lives.  The nagging, disrespectful woman drags the man in her life down.  I don’t want to be that woman.