Special and Secure

Some years ago, a woman said to me that I was going to require a very special man. Now, I’m confident she wasn’t being insulting: she was intimating that many men would be intimidated by my strengths. (And I would add, intolerant of my weaknesses, but she wasn’t talking about those.)

I was reminded of this recently because—I think I’m getting the modern terminology right—I got hit on over the weekend. Fortunately, the man in question doesn’t live in the area, but it added to the overall discomfort of the situation that until his recent visit to the area, I have known his wife and kids as well as I’ve known him—which, incidentally, isn’t well. I’ve found myself surprisingly disturbed by this for a surprising length of time, which I suspect wouldn’t be the case if he’d been a stranger.

When I mentioned the incident briefly to a friend, she said, "Flattering? Or …?" Perhaps that is the source of my disturbance. It wasn’t flattering; it was insulting.

I’d been having a conversation with this man about some of the amazing things that the Lord has done in my life, and in the course of that, it had come into the conversation that these things had taken place without a permanent male presence in my life. On a couple of occasions, his expression had hinted that he didn’t entirely approve of that absence. There had most definitely been a facial reaction when I’d relayed what the Lord had spoken to me: that He had to give me a house before he gave me a husband, otherwise I’d say "my husband has given me this." I gathered that he’d have preferred to have me say that my husband, not God, had given me my house.

So he wasn’t being flattering; he wasn’t struck with admiration; he wasn’t offering some area of his strength to some area of my weakness. Instead, he was pretending a weakness I didn’t have, so that he could prove his superiority. Assuming a need I didn’t have, so he could meet it. It was a subtle put-down, so I didn’t immediately recognize it as such, but it was when I did recognize it that I thought of that woman’s comment, from all those years ago. What I’m seeing is that it requires substantial security to accept both the strengths and the weaknesses of other people. This man’s masculine ego couldn’t accept the absence of a man at the helm of my life, while God was doing all this awesome stuff for me. I suspect he knew that he couldn’t verbally convince me to get back into the "female" box, so he attempted to use physical strength and sex to make his point.

So I’m all the more convinced: a special man is what it’ll take for me. I don’t just have a surprising pile of strengths and giftings, I also have a surprising pile of weaknesses. Clearly, not just "anyone" could accept either one.

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