After a weekend at the camper with Dan, an interesting phone call with the ex, and an evening with an old friend, I'm thinking about relationships. During the evening last night, some interesting conversation came up about biblical relationships, and how the bible, itself, has been translated from the Ancient Aramic, and Ancient Greek, and how there are 7 words for love in Greek, but only one word for love in English. So, it got me thinking about how much in Scripture could be misinterpreted.
This thought always brings me back to one verse that is ALWAYS misued by humans, and men in general. It's in Ephesians, chapter 5, and it's where the men in my life have ALWAYS misquoted it..."Wives, OBEY your husbands". Ok...let's look at that word OBEY...first off, the original Greek word was RESPECT, so it should read "Wives, RESPECT your husbands". OK...I'm good with that....but what gets me is that most men forget the verses BEFORE that one, which say "Husbands, LOVE your wives, as Christ loved the church, even giving his own life for her".
Now, what is so interesting to me about that, is that women need LOVE...We NEED LOVE! The way to show a woman that you love her is to spend time with her, tell her that you love her, share your feelings and thoughts with her, enjoy her company, touch her, and make her KNOW that SHE is yours, and that YOU will always protect her, and be there for her.
Men need RESPECT. They NEED RESPECT. A man needs to know that his wife respects him. Blindly obeying him is NOT respect. It's FEAR. A woman who blindly obeys her husband is terrified of him. I don't know of a single man who truly wants his wife to be afraid of him. A woman who doesn't feel loved by her husband will not respect him.
I also find it VERY interesting that when Paul wrote that letter to the Ephesians, that he specifically started with the husbands....in telling them how to relate to their wives, because I think Paul knew that a woman who is loved, and KNOWS that she is loved, WILL go to the ends of the earth for that man who loves her like that. I think that Paul knew that if he didn't start with the men, that the women would never follow. I think that Paul knew more about men and women than he even realized he knew. He started with the man, just as God did when he created the Earth, and man.
So, now, this gets me thinking A LOT...As y'all know, thinking, for me, can be a very dangerous thing. There have been very few relationships that I've been in where I truly felt LOVED like that, and then it's no wonder that I stopped respecting the man I was involved with. No wonder those relationships failed. I didn't respect them, and they didn't love me...or if they did love me, they didn't know how to show it, or they allowed something else to be more important in their lives. Women need to be the first priority in their husband's lives...I know that I need to be the first priority in my husband's life.
I also know that in both of my marriages, I was not that first priority, and was told by husband #2 that my standards were too high, and unattainable. WOW! Everything that I wanted him to do, I was already doing, and I KNOW for a fact that I am NOT perfect, nor am I some kind of super-woman, who can do everything and be everything for everyone, even though I tried...God knows that I tried. But it comes down to the fact that he wasn't WILLING to do what I needed in the relationship. That, it turns out, is the highest in selfishness. Maybe, just maybe, my wanting that was also very selfish of me. I am not sure about that yet....am leaning to NO, it wasn't selfish of me, especially since I was doing everything that he needed me to do, so, no, I don't think that I was selfish in the relationship when it came to my needs in it. I also think that maybe, just maybe, I didn't make my needs stated clearly enough. Maybe, I was selfish in doing for others, making myself feel better, but in the long run, it made me feel worse, because no one was doing for me. I took care of everyone else, but no one took care of me. At least not emotionally...and that also could have been because I don't allow too many people into my emotions. That's a scary place for me.
I'm changing that, by the way, and am allowing my feelings to be known to the people in my life, and am allowing myself to be vulnerable. That's an extremely scary place for me to be. It means that I'm allowing other people into my protected space, and am giving them the ability to hurt me, but it also means that I'm giving them the ability to love me too. And truly, isn't that what we all want...to be loved and accepted for who we are? It's what I want.
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