the blessing of care
I am blessed. Let me unpack all of my meaning in that statement for you. I read a lot this last week, one of the things that I love about going on vacation is lots of time to read. Diminishing my book pile is always a continual battle (I already have four or five more to replace the ones I finished. . .oops!).
Yesterday on the plane I read Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot. I love reading her books because the tone is just beautiful. She is straight-forward and upfront with you without being in your face. She just tells it how it is, and I always find good Biblical honesty refreshing, especially when it has to do with genders.
Men and Women. We are so different, so separate, so unique. Yet we share so many things as well. There are things that as a woman I will never understand about men. I acknowledge and accept that. I just have to let men be men without trying to change them into something else. Men are beautiful in their maleness because they reflect that part of God that is specific to them. Why would I ever want to change that? In them I get to experience a completely different aspect of God.
Something that Elisabeth says that really just hit me was about a woman letting her husband care for her in little things simply because he enjoys taking care of her. Now I don't have a husband, but I still found this very eye opening and refreshing. Having grown up in a society and culture that says women don't need men to help them because we can do it ourselves hasn't left much room in my life to let men care for me in little ways. Having Superwoman for a mom probably didn't help matters either.
Living as a single woman I am used to doing things for myself. I am used to doing the cooking and cleaning, taking out the trash, unclogging the sink, airing up my car tires, fixing the things that break. If I don't do it, then who will?
However, when I read this statement in her book, I suddenly became aware of little things that have been done for me by some of the amazing men in my life. Here are just a few glimpses.
My dad makes sure that my car is taken care of (trust me, this is a big deal to me because I have yet to understand cars as well as cookies). When I dented a rim, he found a replacement and shipped it to me in less than 24 hours. He pays attention to the little things that I ask for and remembers them. He stalks my facebook friends (beware!) to make sure everything is okay because he is fiercely protective of me.
My brother-in-law does considerate little things like unloading my car trunk and pulling my car up to the door for me (without even having to be asked, what?!). He is sincere and thoughtful, and has an insane amount of patience with me and my technology problems that I always bring to him.
The flight attendant on my flight back from LA put my suitcase in the overhead bin for me. I was so blessed and relieved by this because I was not looking forward to fighting with my suitcase and honestly I was just feeling physically weak.
The gentleman who was kind enough to agree to come get me from the airport just overwhelmed me with his manners. Not only did he take my bags from me to put them in the car, he checked to see if I needed to stop and get something to drink (I managed to lose my voice on vacation), and then he also unloaded my bags and brought them all the way into my room for me, when I didn't even expect him to.
These are just a few of the little ways I have noticed lately that men have been caring for me. Men, I want you to know that the little things don't go unnoticed, but I see them and I appreciate them. I appreciate men being men so that I can be what I was made to be, a woman. I am blessed.
Yesterday on the plane I read Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot. I love reading her books because the tone is just beautiful. She is straight-forward and upfront with you without being in your face. She just tells it how it is, and I always find good Biblical honesty refreshing, especially when it has to do with genders.
Men and Women. We are so different, so separate, so unique. Yet we share so many things as well. There are things that as a woman I will never understand about men. I acknowledge and accept that. I just have to let men be men without trying to change them into something else. Men are beautiful in their maleness because they reflect that part of God that is specific to them. Why would I ever want to change that? In them I get to experience a completely different aspect of God.
Something that Elisabeth says that really just hit me was about a woman letting her husband care for her in little things simply because he enjoys taking care of her. Now I don't have a husband, but I still found this very eye opening and refreshing. Having grown up in a society and culture that says women don't need men to help them because we can do it ourselves hasn't left much room in my life to let men care for me in little ways. Having Superwoman for a mom probably didn't help matters either.
Living as a single woman I am used to doing things for myself. I am used to doing the cooking and cleaning, taking out the trash, unclogging the sink, airing up my car tires, fixing the things that break. If I don't do it, then who will?
However, when I read this statement in her book, I suddenly became aware of little things that have been done for me by some of the amazing men in my life. Here are just a few glimpses.
My dad makes sure that my car is taken care of (trust me, this is a big deal to me because I have yet to understand cars as well as cookies). When I dented a rim, he found a replacement and shipped it to me in less than 24 hours. He pays attention to the little things that I ask for and remembers them. He stalks my facebook friends (beware!) to make sure everything is okay because he is fiercely protective of me.
My brother-in-law does considerate little things like unloading my car trunk and pulling my car up to the door for me (without even having to be asked, what?!). He is sincere and thoughtful, and has an insane amount of patience with me and my technology problems that I always bring to him.
The flight attendant on my flight back from LA put my suitcase in the overhead bin for me. I was so blessed and relieved by this because I was not looking forward to fighting with my suitcase and honestly I was just feeling physically weak.
The gentleman who was kind enough to agree to come get me from the airport just overwhelmed me with his manners. Not only did he take my bags from me to put them in the car, he checked to see if I needed to stop and get something to drink (I managed to lose my voice on vacation), and then he also unloaded my bags and brought them all the way into my room for me, when I didn't even expect him to.
These are just a few of the little ways I have noticed lately that men have been caring for me. Men, I want you to know that the little things don't go unnoticed, but I see them and I appreciate them. I appreciate men being men so that I can be what I was made to be, a woman. I am blessed.
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