Category: Respect - IRONSTRIKES

The Silent Treatment

7/3/2014

Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Ephesians 4:31

Les walked through the front door of our home this week, set a copy of the Wall Street Journal on the kitchen counter and said, “Let’s never give each other the cold shoulder again.” “Again?” I asked. “When do we ever do that?”

Les held up a section of the paper he’d just read about the damage it does to a married couple when they give each other the silent treatment – that destructive pattern where one spouse gets demanding and the other withdraws to the point of completely clamming up.

Sulking. Pouting. Shutting your spouse out. It’s a lame attempt to punish and it’s more toxic than you might imagine.

Nearly 70% of spouses admit to using the silent treatment to hurt their partner.

The study looked at more than 7,000 couples and found the demand-withdraw pattern to be one of the most damaging types of relationship patterns ever for couples.

Why? Three reasons:

it’s manipulative,
it’s disrespectful, and
it’s not productive.

"It becomes a vicious cycle," says Sean Horan, director of the study at Texas State University. "Soon you're no longer addressing the issue at hand. You start arguing about arguing."

"Spiteful words can hurt your feelings, but silence breaks your heart." --Anonymous

Here's how you can break the pattern:

Become aware of what’s really going on. The person making demands feels abandoned; the silent person is protecting himself. Each needs to ask, "Why am I behaving this way? How does my behavior make my partner feel?"
Avoid character assassination. It will do more damage to label your spouse as “selfish,” or “rude.”
Use the word “I” because the more you use “you,” the longer your squabble will last. You can say something like: “This is how I feel when you stop talking to me.”
Mutually agree to take a timeout. When the cycle emerges, both partners need to cool their heads and warm their hearts before engaging. And some people just need a bit of time to think before they speak.
Genuinely apologize as soon as you are able.

You’ve heard that "silence is golden," but when it comes to marriage, it can be a "marriage killer."

It’s time we all ban the silent treatment from our marriages. The silent treatment is lethal to love.

This post was written by Drs Les and Leslie Parrott. You can find them at: http://www.lesandleslie.com

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Forgiving our fathers

6/9/2014

Time has come for us to forgive our fathers.

Paul warns us that unforgiveness and bitterness can wreck our lives and the lives of others (Eph. 4:31; Heb. 12:15). I am sorry to think of all the years my wife endured the anger and bitterness that I redirected at her from my father.

As someone has said, forgiveness is setting a prisoner free and then discovering the prisoner was you. I found some help in Bly's experience of forgiving his own father, when he said, "I began to think of him not as someone who had deprived me of love or attention or companionship, but as someone who himself had been deprived, by his father and his mother and by the culture." My father had his own wound that no one ever offered to heal. His father was an alcoholic, too, for a time, and there were some hard years for my dad as a young man just as there were for me.

Now you must understand: Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling, but an act of the will. As Neil Anderson has written, "Don't wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving; you will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made."

We allow God to bring the hurt up from our past, for "if your forgiveness doesn't visit the emotional core of your life, it will be incomplete." We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness to our father.

This is not saying, "It didn't really matter"; it is not saying, "I probably deserved part of it anyway."

Forgiveness says, "It was wrong, it mattered, and I release you."

And then we ask God to father us, and to tell us our true name.

This blog post is excerpted from the book, Wild at Heart by John Eldredge.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Are you sabotaging your marriage?

5/15/2014

“You’re going to vacuum before they get here, right?” Leslie asked in an anxious tone as we were pulling into the garage.

“I’ve got it under control,” I murmured.

We jumped out of the car; each grabbed an arm full of groceries and hurried toward the kitchen.

“I’ll take care of these groceries so you can get started on the vacuuming,” Leslie said.

The tension was rising because in less than an hour, two other couples would be at our doorstep expecting a dinner party.

“Don’t forget to light the candles and turn on the music before they get here,” Leslie hollered from the kitchen.

I heard what she said but didn’t reply as I walked into my study to look through some “urgent” mail.

Only a couple of minutes passed, it seemed to me, when Leslie came in to my study and in exasperation asked: “What are you doing?”

“Reading my mail,” I responded defensively and with the best look of confusion I could put on my face. She didn’t buy it. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll take care of the other stuff.”

Leslie sighed and left the room.

Five minutes later I heard the sound of the vacuum in the living room. I’m almost done here and then I’ll go in and help her, I said to myself. Ten minutes later the vacuum stopped.

I bolted from my chair and walked to the living room. “I thought I was going to do this,” I said to Leslie.

“So did I,” she replied.

We’ve all weaseled our way out of our spouse’s “to do” list at one time or another. Haven’t we? After all, we’ve worked hard, we’re tired, busy, preoccupied, maxed-out, whatever.

However we defend it, subtle selfishness is a deadly for couples. It lurks just beneath the surface whenever we are tired and there’s a household chore to be done or an errand to be run. That’s when we pretend we don’t notice the chore or we “forget” about the task, hoping our spouse will take over so we don’t have to.

Subtle selfishness seeps into our marriage in a myriad of ways. I (Leslie) am the first to admit I can selfishly hoard my husband’s time, for example. I can complain to Les about his busy schedule but never consider adjusting my own calendar for his benefit.

Or, I might think nothing of spending extravagantly on a luncheon with one of my girlfriends and later snip at Les for indulging himself with another computer gadget he “doesn’t need.”

Let’s face it. In big and small ways we all squirrel away money, energy and time for our own advantage.

Here’s the problem with subtle selfishness: it cuts the heart out of marriage. We can rationalize our selfish ways all we want, but we are missing the point of our partnership when we do not pitch in with a generous spirit and help our spouse with the task at hand.

This blog post is from Drs Les & Leslie Parrott. I encourage you to order their book, Trading Places

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

By what measure do you judge others?

4/24/2014

Are we called to evaluate and judge someone by what he or she did, or by what that person does, by way of habit? After insisting that people who live wicked and impure lives will not enter heaven, as such demonstrate that they have not been born again by grace through a genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul writes: "In the past, some of you were like that, but you were washed clean. You were made holy, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11 NCV, emphasis added).

In the past, all of us have done (and said) ugly-natured, despicable acts. If one were to take a snapshot of a particular sin committed, as though that act were to encapsulate a person in his or her entirety, that would be wrong. No one who ever existed is defined by one or even a few negative or sinful acts. We all stumble in many ways (James 3:2), and none of us has yet arrived at perfection (Phil. 3:12). If we take one act, or one word, or even one unfruitful season in someone's life, and in a fit of strain force that moment to define a person, we not only falsely and unwarrantedly objectify the individual but we also incriminate ourselves because none of us has yet reached sinless perfection.

When I think of Samson, I do not necessarily think of his sin with Delilah and impose his infatuation and sin with her as the totality of his identity -- who he was as a human being. When I think of King David, I do not necessarily think of his sin with Uriah's wife Bathsheba and impose his sin with her as the totality of his identity -- who he was as a human being. I could admit the same with Solomon, whose life ended badly; and the apostle Paul, who murdered Christians prior to his conversion; or any number of people in the Bible who failed at moments in their life. Are we supposed to take snapshots of people's lives and claim, "This is who you are -- this defines you"?

I suppose the answer would be predicated upon an individual's repentance of certain failures or sins. For example, in the case of Jesus' betrayer Judas, we are never given glimpses of genuine repentance from his heart. What do we make, then, of Judas as a human being? What kind of man was he? Though called a disciple of Jesus Christ, we find his heart to be one of betrayal -- one of never really being loyal to Christ -- from the beginning.

Judas' heart and life differs significantly from that of the apostle Peter. Though Peter denied he knew Jesus on three separate occasions, he genuinely repented of his sin and was restored to a right relationship with Christ. Not so with Judas. Judas opened himself up to Satanic possession by his evil plans and motives. Instead of humbly, self-effacingly seeking repentance, he very selfishly committed suicide.

Portraying Judas as a betrayer can be derived not from a single event or a certain string of events but from the overall consistent attitude of his life. Portraying Peter as a betrayer, however, should not be derived from the three separate events of his having denied knowing Christ because his overall attitude was one of love for Christ in spite of his inconsistencies.

The reality is, however, that I no more want to be thought of as "that one who did this or that" than the apostle Peter wanted to always be thought of as "that guy who denied Christ," or David as "that guy who committed adultery and had her husband killed in battle." I remember someone's statement to another person who had committed a terrible act: "This is what you did -- this is not who you are; this does not define you."

When someone's sins and failures become public knowledge there is a temptation to take a snapshot and define him or her by that event. But there exists a type of deception within the hearts of those who take snapshots and define others by them. They tend to think that because their struggles and failures and sins are private then they are not or should not be defined by them.They are not willing to be as stringent with themselves as they are with others. But Jesus said that you "will be judged in the same way that you judge others, and the amount you give to others will be given to you" (Matt. 7:2 NCV).

The apostle Paul adds, "Make allowance for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others" (Col. 3:13 NLT). Since "it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it" (James 4:17), and "the person who keeps all the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God's laws" (James 2:10), then I think we need to extend a bit more grace to each other, not defining each other by any failure(s) but by the grace of God in Christ.

This post was written anonymously. You can find the original at: http://credendum.weebly.com/1/post/2014/04/by-what-measure-do-you-judge-others.html

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Why 8 in 10 do not attend church

4/14/2014

Eighty percent of families with children who have disabilities do not attend church.

There are several reasons why these families don't attend church. Here are some of their reasons:

My child is not welcomed in any of the children’s activities, they said he is too disruptive.

I took my child to Sunday School class, but they wheeled him to the corner and he sat there until I came to pick him up.

They said I had to keep my child with me because they had nobody that could help care for her during Children’s church. I tried, but she can be noisy, so an usher asked us to please leave the sanctuary because she was disrupting the service.

I asked the pastor if we could possibly have someone help my child during Sunday School, they told me they were not responsible to find me babysitters.

It’s not worth it, my child cannot handle the sensory overload.

When my child is loud, people stare at us and shake their heads. I even had people tell me that my child needs discipline, my child has autism and they know it! I’m not going back.

My child is welcomed, but almost very Sunday they call me and I have to go get her from her class. Why bother.

I tried starting a special needs class for kids, the church leadership did not support me, they said there was no need.

For 20 years my wife and I took turns going to church. One Sunday she would go and I stayed home with our son, the next one we switched.

So isn’t it sad, isn’t it puzzling, that the only classroom where our kids with special needs are fully included is the public school classroom rather than the Sunday School class? Isn’t there something wrong when the public school setting is more accepting, loving, and supportive to kids with disabilities rather than the church?

Did you know that 80% of marriages end up in divorce when there is a child with a disability in the family? So shouldn’t the church support these families?

Did you know that special needs families feel isolated? So shouldn’t the church be the place where they feel included?

Did you know that special needs families feel constantly judged? So shouldn’t the church be a place where there is no judgement?

Did you know that people with disabilities are the largest minority in the world? Yes, the largest minority!!

Disability is a part of life. It has nothing to do with faith, it has nothing to do with healing. It has everything to do with being human, it has everything to do with being the body of Christ. People with disabilities are part of the Body, and we need them. We need them just as much as they need us. We are all connected in this journey, all of us. All of us!

We have an unreached people group in our own backyard. A people group that has been marginalized by society for too long. It is time that as a Church, we embrace them, we accept them, we celebrate them!

Instead of praying for healing, let’s pray for God to open our hearts and our eyes to the needs of people and children living with disability. Let’s figure out how to do life together. And let’s embrace, forgive, celebrate, accept, and love unconditionally.

And let’s never forget that people/children with disabilities are people first, fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139

We need to create awareness and educate our leaders, and in doing so, it is important that we extend grace and forgiveness. You and I can be a part of the solution. Grace and forgiveness…we all need it.

This post was adapted by a post written by E Stumbo.

Relationships built on equality

4/4/2014

This diagram is taken from the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. It is often called The Duluth Model. Even though it is not blatantly from a Christian or other faith tradition, it offers much for how men, in particular Christian men, should view marriage. I encourage you to download the pdf for this diagram. Just click on the wheel and you will receive that file.

A messed up marriage is based on power and control. However, if you notice, a marvelous marriage is one of equality and respect. A Christian man will have a marriage that involves these eight factors:

1. Non-threatening behavior - your wife is comfortable in expressing herself
2. Respect - valuing your wife's opinion and being emotionally affirming
3. Trust & support - supporting your wife's goals
4. Honesty & accountability - communicating openly and truthfully to your wife
5. Responsible parenting - sharing parental responsibility
6. Shared responsibility - making family decisions together
7. Economic partnership - making financial decisions together
8. Negotiation & fairness - seeking mutually satisfactory compromises

What does the Bible say about marriage?
- Marriage should be honored
- God instituted and blessed marriage
- A man who loves his wife loves himself
- There is no fear in love
- If we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us
- Love is patient and kind

So, how does your marriage stack up to what the Bible says?
Do you honor your marriage?
Do you present a marital atmosphere of love and respect?
Are you patient and kind?

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Ten Principles for successful fathering

2/19/2014

While practices help us learn the how's of successful fatherhood, principles provide the framework for our fathering. Principles are the underlying philosophy, the way we think about our important role. And we way we think and feel about fatherhood frames our behavior, our responses and our attitudes.

The Emotional Bank Account. Dr. Stephen Covey, one of the professors in my graduate school program many years ago and now one of the most influential leadership gurus in the world, taught me the principle of the Emotional Bank Account before I was ever a father. The basics of the emotional bank account involve making deposits of trust and faith in the lives of our children. The emotional bank account is about communication, love, loyalty and integrity.

The Most Important Gift is Time. We can give our children things that money can buy: video games, iPod's, designer clothes and the hottest mountain bike. But nothing substitutes for our time and attention. Every father struggles with keeping work, self and family in balance; some seem to be able to strike that balance and avoid challenges like workaholism. We have also found that not all time is equal. There is a difference between quality time and quantity time. But my experience suggests that it is tough to have quality time without enough quantity.

Teaching Responsibility. Fathers are in a unique position in a child's life to teach responsibility and the value of work. We teach it by example by keeping our commitments, by putting family first and by enduring hard times. We also teach by giving children stewardship and demanding accountability, whether it is with chores, school work or other aspects of their young lives. Helping children learn to be responsible as children and later as adults is among our most critical roles.

Use your Golden Sword. Family relationship expert Gary Smalley teaches the analogy of the two swords. The silver sword reflects our positional power, of the power we use in our workday world. The golden sword is the sword of personal power, that works best at home. Trying to use positional power with the children is dangerous and often has unintended negative results. But using the gold sword of personal power, described with words like "warmth, sensitivity, dependability, determination, genuine compassion, affection, and caring" has great application at home. So take off the silver sword and strap on the golden sword when you walk through the front door at home.

Walk the Talk. A father who is a "Do as I say, not as I do" kind of dad will never have the respect of his children, or anyone else for that matter. Walking the talk--being what you want your children to be--is a symbol of integrity. But it requires personal discipline and sacrifice. Being a man of principle and living congruently with those principles is an essential element of successful fatherhood.

Consistency. Fathers are best when their approach is predictable and consistent. Children get a strong message when fathers are firm and solid in their approach. Being a "marshmallow" with your children is easier, but it hurts them in the long run. Being fair and consistent in discipline is important. When a father makes a rule, it should be enforced. Limits that are set and then moved are not limits at all, with either a child or with a parent.

High Expectations. Successful fathers set high but realistic expectations for themselves and for their children. And then they work together to achieve those expectations. They read together so that they learn how to learn. They work together to achieve important ends. And they celebrate their accomplishments and learn from their mistakes.

Expressions of Love. Fathers who have great relationships with their children have learned to express love in meaningful ways. They tailor their expressions to the way each child receives love. They are gentle but firm even when disciplining, and then show afterward an increase in love. They find little ways to express love, and they do it every day when the kids are living at home.

Mutual Respect. When a father shows respect for his children and others, they are more likely to respect him. Keeping expectations clear, being even handed and level headed, and respecting children's self-worth all help breed an atmosphere of mutual respect. And when a father respects their child's mother, regardless of whether they are married or divorced, children learn to respect him more completely.

Making Values Count. It is not enough for a father to teach behavior; successful fathers also teach values. They have a rich spiritual life (however they define that) and connect to nature and timeless values. They respect womanhood, they are honest, the live by standards of moral integrity. Great fathers help pass on these values to their children rather than leaving them valueless in a world where values seem to shift with the sands of time.

This post was written by Wayne Parker. The original post can be found here: http://fatherhood.about.com/od/succeedingasafather/a/principles.htm?nl=1

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

A dad's job: Teaching respect

2/12/2014

Perhaps I’m just a curmudgeonly old guy now, but it seems to me that people are just not as respectful as they used to be. Much of our culture believes that you do not have any obligation to respect someone unless or until they respect you first. It is a twisted vision of biblical respect. First Peter 2:17 says, “Show proper respect to everyone.” It doesn’t say show proper respect if and only if they respect you in the way you think you deserve to be respected. It says to respect everyone because everyone was created in the image of God.

Maybe I’m the only one outraged and deeply disturbed by this downward shift in our cultural value system. But it does seem that young people are less respectful than my generation was. They seem to have a perverted concept of what constitutes respect. Many young men today believe they should be respected before they will offer respect. The fallacy in this philosophy is that true respect is earned, not bestowed. When I was young, I would not have even considered being disrespectful to an adult, especially one in a position of authority. Additionally, if I had gotten in trouble in school, I would have suffered not only disciplinary actions from the school, but I would have been punished twice as bad when I got home. I can tell you from talking to and working with teachers, coaches, police officers, and parents that our children are for the most part very disrespectful toward any kind of authority.

This disrespect for authority (parents, teachers, police, etc.) creates a lack of integrity because they have no accountability in their lives. Young men without accountability have no need to be dependable, honest, or trustworthy in their words or actions. Why should they? No one else seems to care.

Teaching boys proper manners is a good start to teaching them to respect themselves and others. Manners and politeness are really just showing respect for other people, even those you do not know. Teach your son the dictionary definition of respect, than look for opportunities help him be respectful in a variety of settings. Most of all, remember that a son best learns respect by observing his father show respect. And a son whose father respects him is more likely to want to respect his father. Boys who’s mothers respect them learn to respect all women.

This post was written by Rick Johnson. You can find the original post here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/afewgrownmen/2014/02/is-respect-earned-or-given/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN

The Bible: "It's only for church....not school!"

2/5/2014

DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. – A mother in the Detroit area is alleging that school officials told her 8-year-old autistic son to stop bringing his Bible to class.

Jessica Cross of Dearborn Heights told WJBK that her autistic son, Jason, would frequently take his Bible to Highview Elementary. According to his mother, Jason enjoyed reading his Bible during free times at school.

However, as reported by WJBK, school officials reprimanded Jason for bringing the Bible to school, telling him, “it’s only for church—not school.” Jason was then told not to bring his Bible to class anymore.

Cross said that she was shocked by the school’s censure of her son’s Bible, but told reporters that it was not the first time she has been disappointed with how school officials have treated Jason.

“Putting my son in time outs for 13 hours a week and refusing him lunch, and just absurd things,” she stated. “If I did something like that, I’d lose my kids!”

Cross has repeatedly met with school officials in recent months to discuss their treatment of her son, but she claims that officials have not been helpful.

“We’ve done meetings. We’ve met together, and whenever we all get in the same room together, then they just lie,” Cross says.

According to Highview Elementary’s Code of Conduct manual, discrimination on the basis of religion is unacceptable.

“[I]t is the policy of [the school district],” the manual states, “that no person shall, on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, age, gender, martial [sic] status, disability, or limited English proficiency be discriminated against, excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or otherwise subjected to, discrimination in any program, activity, [or] service.”

This is not the first time public schools in the Detroit area have drawn criticism for controversial handling of religious activities. In 2009, school officials in nearby Roseville heeded the advice of an Islamic advocacy group by forbidding the distribution of Bible study permission slips to students.

But as previously reported, Dearborn Public Schools announced last year that Muslim students would be allowed private prayer times during school hours and weekly unexcused absences to observe Friday prayers.

“So Muslims can conduct religious activities within a public school,” one education expert weighed in, “but Christians can’t go off-site to receive voluntary Bible lessons? What’s wrong with this picture? Is political correctness accommodating such hypocrisy?”

Following a public furor over Highview Elementary’s treatment of Jason’s Bible, the school district superintendent, Dr. Laurine VanValkenburg, told reporters that she understands Cross’s frustration and promised to not ban Bible reading again.

“If a child wants to bring a Bible to school, they may,” she said.

However, despite the superintendent’s statement, many still argued that the school’s handling of the situation was outrageous.

“That crosses the line when they tell you what you or your child can or can’t read,” one commenter stated.

“I remember being in public high school and the Bible as literature was offered as a class,” another recalled. “So much for it being ‘for church and not for school.’ It looks like this autistic student is able to read above his grade level if he’s reading the Bible, and his teacher isn’t encouraging him.”

This post was written by Garrett Haley. The original post can be found here: http://christiannews.net/2014/01/27/school-officials-tell-8-year-old-to-not-bring-bible-to-class-its-only-for-church-not-school/

Boring guys: Women love them

11/29/2013

So not every guy proposes with lip syncing, rolling cameras, and a choreographed entourage.

Yeah — so what if your Dad didn’t?

He just pulled that beat-up Volkswagon Rabbit of his over in front of Murray Reesor’s hundred acre farm right there where Grey Township meets Elma Township, pulled out a little red velvet box, and whispered it in the snowy dark: “Marry me?”
“He didn’t even get down on one knee or anything?”

You boys ask it incredulous, like there’s some kind of manual for this kind of holy.

And I’ve got no qualms in telling you no. No, he didn’t even get down on one knee – it was just a box, a glint of gold in the dark, two hallowed words and a question mark.

“Boring.”

I know. When you’ve watched a few dozen mastermind proposals on youtube, shared them with their rolling credits on Facebook, marvelling at how real romance has an imagination like that.

Can I tell you something, sons?

Romance isn’t measured by how viral your proposal goes. The internet age may try to sell you something different, but don’t ever forget that viral is closely associated with sickness – so don’t ever make being viral your goal.

Your goal is always to make your Christ-focus contagious – to just one person.

It’s more than just imagining some romantic proposal.

It’s a man who imagines washing puked-on sheets at 2:30 am, plunging out a full and plugged toilet for the third time this week, and then scraping out the crud in the bottom screen of the dishwasher — every single night for the next 37 years without any cameras rolling or soundtrack playing -- that’s imagining true romance.

The man who imagines slipping his arm around his wife’s soft, thickening middle age waistline and whispering that he couldn’t love her more…. who imagines the manliness of standing bold and unashamed in the express checkout line with only maxi pads and tampons because someone he loves is having an unexpected Saturday morning emergency.

The man who imagines the coming decades of a fluid life – her leaking milky circles through a dress at Aunt Ruth’s birthday party, her wearing thick diaper-like Depends for soggy weeks after pushing a whole human being out through her inch-wide cervix, her bleeding through sheets and gushing amniotic oceans across the bathroom floor and the unexpected beauty of her crossing her legs everytime she jumps on the trampoline with the kids.

The real romantics imagine greying and sagging and wrinkling as the deepening of something sacred.

Because get this, kids — How a man proposes isn’t what makes him romantic. It’s how a man purposes to lay down his life that makes him romantic.

And a man begins being romantic years before any ring – romance begins with only having eyes for one woman now – so you don’t go giving your eyes away to cheap porn. Your dad will say it sometimes to me, a leaning over – “I am glad that there’s always only been you.” Not some bare, plastic-surgeon-scalpel-enhanced pixels ballooning on a screen, not some tempting flesh clicked on in the dark, not some photo-shopped figment of cultural beauty that’s basically a lie.

The real romantics know that stretchmarks are beauty marks and that different shaped women fit into the different shapes of men souls and that real romance is really sacrifice.

I know – you’re thinking, “Boring.”

Can you see it again – how your grandfather stood over your grandmother’s grave and brushed away his heart leaking without a sound down his cheeks?

50 boring years. 50 unfilmed years of milking 70 cows, raising 6 boys and 3 girls, getting ready for sermon every Sunday morning, him helping her with her zipper. 50 boring years of arguing in Dutch and making up in touching in the dark, 50 boring years of planting potatoes and weeding rows on humid July afternoons, 50 boring years of washing the white Corel dishes and turning out the light on the mess – till he finally carried her in and out of the tub and helped her pull up her Depends.

Don’t ever forget it:

The real romantics are the boring ones — they let another heart bore a hole deep into theirs.

Be one of the boring ones. Pray to be one who get 50 boring years of marriage – 50 years to let her heart bore a hole deep into yours.

Let everyone do their talking about 50 shades of grey, but don’t let anyone talk you out of it: committment is pretty much black and white. Because the truth is, real love will always make you suffer. Simply commit: Who am I willing to suffer for?

Who am I willing to take the reeking garbage out for and clean out the gross muck ponding at the bottom of the fridge? Who am I willing to listen to instead of talk at? Who am I willing to hold as they grow older and realer? Who am I willing to die a bit more for every day? Who am I willing to make heart-boring years with? Who am I willing to let bore a hole into my heart?

Get it: Life – and marriage proposals — isn’t not about one up-manship — it’s about one down-manship. It’s about the heart-boring years of sacrifice and going lower and serving. It’s not about how well you perform your proposal. It’s about how well you let Christ perform your life.

Sure, go ahead, have fun, make a ridiculously good memory and we’ll cheer loud: propose creatively — but never forget that what wows a woman and woos her is you how you purpose to live your life.

I’m praying, boys — be Men. Be one of the ‘boring” men – and let your heart be bore into. And know there are women who love that kind of man.

The kind of man whose romance isn’t flashy – because love is gritty.
The kind of man whose romance isn’t about cameras — because it’s about Christ.
The kind of man whose romance doesn’t have to go viral — because it’s going eternal.

No, your dad did not get down on one knee when he proposed – because the romantic men know it’s about living your whole life on your knees.

There are Fridays. And the quiet romantics who will take out the garbage without fanfare. There will be the unimaginative calendar by the fridge, with all it’s scribbled squares of two lives being made one. The toilet seat will be left predictably up. The sink will be resigned to its load of last night’s dishes.

And there is now and the beautiful boring, the way two lives touch and go deeper into time with each other.

The clock ticking passionately into decades.

This post was written by A. Voskamp. You can find the original post here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/11/the-real-truth-about-boring-men-and-the-women-who-live-with-them-redefining-boring/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.