A real man isn’t afraid to stand up for what is right.

A real man does not shirk from a difficult thing, if it is the right thing.

He knows that strength of character is more important than physical strength.

While a real man may be physically stronger, he only uses his strength for work, to protect, or maybe even just to impress his lady.  He never uses his brawn to intimidate those who are in his care.  If a male uses his superior strength to control a woman in any way, he is not a man.  He is a little boy with muscles.

A real man isn’t afraid to accept help.  Sometimes, he’ll even ask for it.

A real man values wise counsel.  He surrounds himself with other good men.

A real man knows that it isn’t all about him.

“I don’t understand you.  You write about sex a lot.  That’s cool.  A lot of it has really made me think.  But then you write sh*t like how awful pole dancing is, like some bible thumping prude.  Isn’t that hypocritical?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on you or what you say but honestly just don’t see how it all fits together.”

I believe you are referring to a comment I made on Facebook about the inappropriateness of having pole dancers at a local fundraiser.

Maybe this will clear any confusion.

I don’t have anything against pole dancing.  Pole dancing is great…

if it is a wife dancing for her husband.

(Or a husband dancing for his wife, if they’re into that sort of thing.)

It’s pretty simple, actually.  I think sex is designed and created to be enjoyed between two people within the context of marriage. In this sense, I encourage married couples to fully indulge sexually, and that includes wives satisfying their husband visually.

But the point of our sexuality being an awesome pleasure that is celebrated with our spouse also means that no one else is allowed, including visually.  So, no porn, or strip clubs or even stupid fundraisers with pole dancers.

When married couples completely sexually devote themselves only to one another, they can also revel in the sensual freedom that it brings.  He is faithful to her in all ways, and she therefore feels safe with him.  There is openness and complete pleasure.

As for the Bible thumping, I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

It is the Jesus freaks who have the best sex.

See, God invented sex.  And there’s a funny thing about completely embracing the purposes and plans of the One who invented sex.  It not only makes sense, it makes for greater intimacy and passion.

Besides, God also wrote about dancing for your man.  Yup, it’s in the Bible.

In the end of Song of Solomon 6 and throughout 7, a wife performs the dance of Mahanaim, an ancient strip tease, as her husband encourages her by praising every part of her body.

Now, that’s the kind of Bible thumping I dig.

“I enjoy date nights.  But there’s a problem that is starting to make me dread them.  Every time, without fail, my husband wants to end the evening with sex.  It’s like he even expects it.”

Uh…

Excuse me for a second.

*pounding head against wall*

Okay.  Help me out here.  Why the heck would you not end a great evening together with sex?

And, please.  Spare me your usual lame excuses.

If your sex life is lousy, then date night is the perfect time to work on that.  Don’t continue in the cycle of rejecting him, causing hurt feelings on both sides, and then denying there’s a problem.  Get over yourself, woman, and give your man some satisfaction.

Let’s face it, many women don’t want sex because their emotional needs aren’t being met.

BUT.

Listen, if you want evenings of conversation and time together, or at least have him take out the garbage all on his own at least once, then you damn well need to be attentive to his needs as well.  What motivation does he have to woo you when you can’t, no, you won’t, meet even his most basic desires?  Come on.  Sex is easy! He’s the one with the difficult job!

And, yes, you bet I’m calling you difficult.

If you have trouble being “in the mood”, you need a reality check.  I doubt he’s often “in the mood” to come home to your complaining.

News flash.  It’s your job to be excited about sex.  Don’t lay that impossible burden on him.

Change the way you think about sex, and it’ll change how you feel about it.   Basically, get your thoughts turned in that direction ahead of time, in an attitude of eager expectancy.  Prepare the way mentally, and it’ll be that much easier to respond physically.

I love my church.

It’s messy and honest.  It’s real.

Church is such a strange word.  It probably conjures up a different picture in everyone’s minds, good and bad.

For me, I’m not just talking about the few hours each Sunday that a group of us get together, although that certainly falls under the umbrella of “church”.  I just mean the people involved as a whole.  How we worship, eat, work, play, and just be together.

AND, how we are not together.  My week is not filled up with church meetings and activities every night of the week.  At least, not in the corporate, organized meaning of the word.  While we do lots of stuff together and are actually concerned about doing real community, there’s not a constant barrage of planned things that I’m always obligated to attend.  It frees me up to actually live out my faith beyond the contained, cozy members I call my church family.  I love that.

As for our actual, regular Sunday gathering, I love that too.  We’re a new-ish group, with more single people than married couples, and we meet in a homeless shelter in downtown Flint.  So, yeah, there are more bumps in the road than most, but the authenticity and genuine care is what speaks to my heart every week.  And, even after almost 3 years, I still look forward to the preaching every single week.

We are far from perfect.  Stuff gets overlooked.  Things get done wrong.  There’s lots of hiccups, mistakes and shift-uneasily-in-your-seat moments.

But what sets these people apart from anywhere else I’ve been is the response to those things.

There’s heartfelt discussions.  There’s willingness for apology and openness to change.  There’s mindfulness of shortcomings while still experiencing the joy of being united in what’s important.

So, while I like the fact that I can wear a dressy skirt one week then jeans and flip-flops the next, the fact that some sit quietly and don’t sing at all while others stand with their hands in the air and belt out each word, the fact that there are all kinds of economic, racial and even favorite ice cream flavor differences represented, the part I like the most is the tender boldness.

Tender in loving and caring for each other and those around us.  Bold in believing and living out the Gospel.

I’ve got a good man.

I’m not just talking handsome looks and great personality, although he certainly has all that.

Let me lay it down for ya.

Make-yer-knees-weak manliness with a dose of tenderness, strong work ethic balanced by knowing how to have a good time, will talk for hours along with being a great listener, and a perfect blend of family man, provider, and lover.

*happy sigh*

But, as much as I love to talk about him, this post isn’t actually about him.  See, as much as I adore my man and thank my good-God-almighty every day for him, I’m not the only one who recognizes and appreciates him.

Pretty much every other woman out there does, too.

Sometimes I think if I witness one more waitress sticking boob-crack in his face or some airhead giggling in his direction, or, heaven help me, oh-so-innocently asking him for a light, there will be yet another charge added to my record.

(Wait. What?  Hmph, I’ll never tell.  But.  I did almost get arrested one time over mah backyard chickens.  Wild, I know.  Somebody stop me.)

Women can sniff out a man as good as mine from across the room.  I usually see them coming before he does.  If I’m in a good mood, I don’t even warn him.

Yeah, you read that right.

I said, if I’m in a good mood I don’t even warn him.  I mean, it’s almost like watching a comedy.  “Desperate hussy fawns over married man who politely tries to extricate himself from situation.”  Hilarious.

(Although I think some of these gals would flirt with a tree, if they could figure out a way it could at least buy them dinner.)

Sometimes I just snicker from a distance while he sends me S.O.S. messages with his eyes.  I do it for her, peoples.  It’s far less embarrassing for her if she takes his nice hints to heart and gets the message before I have to come and spell it out for her.

(See, I’m not the only one here who’s old-fashioned. He usually takes the gentleman route and treats a female like a lady even when she isn’t acting like one.  Me, I’m not so inclined.)

And what if I’m in a bad mood?

Well, as far as anyone knows, nothing.

But there may or may not be a chick here and there who periodically touches a scar as the memory of my face floats through her brain.

Seeing how the cats prowl, even right in front of me, I can only imagine how it is when I’m not around.  Yeesh.

(Actually, I don’t have to imagine very far, since he tells me a lot of it anyway.  Some of the lines used are still running jokes between us.)

A side of me simply says, Hey, I trust him.  And that’s part of it.  But I would be stupid to think that’s always enough.

(He’s done some really dumb stuff.)  (So have I.)

Here’s the other part of it.  The part that most people don’t get, and never will.

No other woman can offer what he already has in abundance.

I’m not just talking about what he gets from me.  Yeah, sure, fantastic sex, respect and deep friendship have something to do with it.  But what I’m referring to is more than that.

1.  Jesus  and   2. Commitment.

He’s committed to God, therefore committed to his vows, therefore committed to me, and our children, and all that WE are.  It goes beyond him, and me, and any person.  It’s something that is not easily broken or tossed aside, because it’s bigger than the two of us.

(One last deep, profound thought to all the shameless flirts out there, from the depths of my heart.)

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, bitch.

Today is our anniversary.  Which is amazing and wonderful and makes me feel all giddy inside.

But as much as I love the fact we’re celebrating 17 years of marriage, I’d like to take this occasion to talk about something that bugs me.

Weddings.

Actually, that’s not exactly right.  Weddings are great.

In theory.

Here’s what would make a great wedding:  A man and woman joining together as one, uniting two lives and two families, as their families and friends share in the celebration of a new family, dedicated to supporting and strengthening the marriage as long as they both live.

But, that’s not what most weddings are.

What usually always ends up happening is that somewhere along the way, the bride, buying into the whole “it’s my day” garbage, starts acting as if the mountains will crash into the sea if the flowers aren’t the exact shade of the cummerbunds.

Seriously, the fonts on the invitations are just not worth sobbing over.

(Okay, it’s usually one of the mothers that starts the whole “I’ll scream and hold my breath if I don’t get my way” attitude.  But, we won’t go there.)

I have a hunch that if people spent half the time preparing for marriage as they did for a wedding, there would be a heck of a lot more happily married couples out there.

What so many ladies forget is that it isn’t about being a princess for a day.  It’s about being a bride, not only that day, but every single day that you are married, for the rest of your life.

The whole obsession we have with the meaningless details, like whether or not to have lace trim on the bridal veil, just shows how much we completely miss what the point of the day actually should be.

Two becoming one?  What does that even mean nowadays?  Something needs to give for that equation to take place.  Sounds like hard words like sacrifice and serving.  How much does that come up when couples are planning the “big day”?

Unfortunately, we often take a day that should be about giving and rejoicing, and turn it into pure selfishness.

But, hey.  What do I know.

(I’m just someone who looked at the foreboding task of having a simple, meaningful wedding that went against the flow of all the weird traditions and knee-jerk assumptions we have surrounding weddings here in America, decided that the fight probably wouldn’t be worth it, and took the easy route.   As in, just the two of us went to the courthouse.)

I don’t have anything against weddings.  Weddings are wonderful.  They make me cry.  In a good way.

But it’s not the decorations I remember, or what her shoes were like.  It’s the way the groom looked at his bride, and touched her waist, and how she leaned into him when they laughed, and if they truly smiled at each other.

Plan for a marriage, dear brides.  Not just your wedding.

We try not to argue, um.. discuss, in front of the kids.

First of all, it’s none of their business.  Secondly, they choose the craziest, most inopportune times to bring it up later.  And lastly? I know how some “sensitive” (manipulative) children can hear their parents passionately debate… um, work through an issue and suddenly think we all hate each other, and one of us will move out and we’ll all split up, and they’ll all be sent to an orphanage where they’ll wear rags and sing Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow!

But we’re also real.  Real people.  With real responses and reactions and feelings and emotions and, yes, real messed up flaws. So, sometimes we do “discuss” in front of the kids.

But here’s how it can be a good thing.  If kids never, ever hear their parents arguing… um, doing the real work of relationship, then they’ll have unreasonable and unnatural expectations of how married people have to work through crappy situations and struggles.  I’ll end up raising a paranoid, easily offended daughter who, when her husband scowls at her, will burst into tears and think, surely, her marriage is just a huge farce.

Or, even WORSE, a mamby-pamby, complete beast of a boy who thinks it’s more manly to leave than to stay put and work things out.

Besides, sometimes it’s just really, really inconvenient to take the time to go aaaallllll the way up to our bedroom, shut the door, turn on the fan for white noise and THEN duke it out.  I just want to say something snarky… um, offer my thoughtful commentary on a pressing issue right then and there.

So.

You might know that we had a week-long family vacay a few weeks ago.  (Or, maybe you don’t know, and that’s perfectly okay, you weird stalker person.)  We made it through 8 entire days of being with each other non-stop without any major eruptions.

Well, there was this one time that we were trying to squeeze our long, big, ugly brown van (no, I refuse to call it tan.  It’s just brown.)  into this ridiculously tiny parking lot.  There were wide, easy to reach parking places in the lot right next door, but they had BIG signs warning to NOT park there or they would puncture your tires and throw your children into the lake. Something like that.  So, I insisted we obey and park in the actual lot we were supposed to park in.  Because I’m a rule-follower.

Baby Daddy, who we all know is a authority-questioning big rebel, chose to humor me.  So there we were, stuck sideways in this tiny lot while some lady in a SUV behind us was bent on blocking us in entirely.  But, instead of admitting that the situation was likely impossible, I just laughed my head off from the passenger’s seat, AND took a picture of Baby Daddy as he tried to maneuver us out of there.  We all know how great it is to be slightly pissed and have someone take a picture of us, right?  I’m so helpful, I know.

But that was hardly an eruption.  I’m getting to that.

It was the very last day, and we were still about 3 hours from home.  Everyone was extremely hot (the long, big, ugly brown van does not have air conditioning, unless you count having the windows all the way down even on the expressways) and also extremely hungry.  We had a cooler full of yummy food, but decided to look for a park to stop and eat at.  I mean, we were on a pretty, two-lane highway that meandered through little towns.  Much better than baking to crisps on a blacktop parking lot, right?

Except that Baby Daddy has this thing where, once he begins driving, just… drives.  I swear he ceases to see anything in particular except for the road ahead of him.

So, we’re driving along and whenever I noticed a suitable place to stop, I’d read the sign aloud and point to it.  We passed one.  Then two.  Then three and four… I squirmed from the sheer exertion that comes when I’m refraining myself from grabbing the steering wheel.

“What are you going to do?”  I demanded.  “Drive all the way home and then say you just never saw a place to stop???!!  We’re starving!!”

He calmly replied, “Just tell me where to stop, and I’ll stop.”

“AaAhH!!!”  I yelled.  (With much grace and class, of course.)  “We’ve already passed four places!!!  You’re not even looking!! OR listening!!!  WILL you just PULL over so we can EAT!!!!”

(I’m sure I was the picture of sweetness.  I’ve perfected the art of shrieking while still looking darling.)  And so he pulled over.

Right there, in the middle of nowhere, he slammed on the brakes and pulled off to the shoulder, gravel and dust flying up in a cloud behind us.

And, while he sat there calmly with a smug expression, I totally lost it.  “AARGH! You can be SUCH a JERK!!”

The kids, who had been bickering loudly the last fifteen miles, were suddenly silent.  I refused to look back, but I could imagine their big, round eyes all looking up at me.  And, even more so, their big ears soaking up every word between us.

Anyways, we ended up finding a nice picnic spot beside a pretty lake where we laid out sand-encrusted beach towels and destroyed what was left of our cooler stash.  All was peaceful and right with the world again.

Then out of nowhere, Angel Imp looked at me with a smile and said, “You called Daddy a jerk.”

Ahem.  What can a mom do but take the opportunity to say, yes, I had said that and it was wrong for me to say and I was sorry.  And, for good measure, I leaned over and smooched Baby Daddy while we both laughed.  The kids looked relieved.

Actually, that’s not true.  They mostly just looked bored with the whole thing.

The end.

Well, kind of.  I cut out the part where I added after my sweet apology, “You really can be a jerk sometimes.”

“You wrote before about guys who don’t talk on date night.  That’s not my problem, exactly.  It’s just that my husband isn’t really talking to me. In fact, he spends more time texting and talking on his phone than paying attention to me.”

What a jerk.

No, I’m kidding.  Kind of.

Actually, this is really common.  That doesn’t make it right, but at least you know you aren’t alone and that he may not be the absolute highest level of creep that you suspect.

More and more articles are popping up about how technology is affecting us on a physiological level.  I don’t mean the cancer-causing electronic waves that are eating our brains and testicles.  I just mean the frequent, short bursts of information (emails, statuses, text messaging) is changing the way we communicate.  At least, that’s what the experts are saying.

This really sucks for marriages.  Guys are already known for their extremely short attention spans.  Seriously, you’re going to argue with me?  Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of wives who have learned to accept the stupidity of non-stop t.v. channel flipping, or if they refused to accept it, finally put an end to the misery by breaking his fingers.

Oh, and the rubber-necking.  Even if “she” is far less pretty than the wife sitting right next to him.  It’s the lure of different. The sway of unfamiliarity that piques his interest.  Erg.

So now there’s also this constant barrage of non-stop information that is interesting, relevant, and always fresh.  It’s addictive.

Taking into consideration the subconscious but undeniable fact that most men assume they have already learned all there is to know about their wife, when faced with the decision to woo their wife or check their Facebook feed, the choice is unfortunately automatic.

So what is a wife to do?

Gently bring up that when “people” are continually disrupting conversations by “such things” as checking their phones or responding to texts, it sends a message that the person they are face to face with is less important.  Less worthy of their attention.

Mention how “many people” have found it helpful, even necessary, to limit computers and phones, either by turning them off every so often or setting up specific times to surf or answer emails.

Try to make it his idea to be proactive in this.  Yeah, it’s like that.  Think “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” where the women had to make everything the Dad’s idea.  Seriously, you’re going to argue with me about that too?  Have fun with the resentment, then.  Or try not to laugh when he actually thinks you won’t notice him glancing every three seconds at the phone he’s holding under the table.  Sneaky.

Hopefully this’ll solve most of the problem.  Beyond this, you may want to try to be at least a fraction of the level of interesting you were way back when you were dating.

Lighten up.  Think of engaging conversation topics.  Stimulate his brain waves.  In a good way.  Try to be as attractive in spirit as much as you probably tried to be attractive in appearance.

And if he still won’t put down his phone, then make use of yours.  Go to the ladies restroom and text him a, um, thought-provoking photo.

I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames I see my beautiful wife
Always smiling
But on the inside, I can hear her saying…

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?

Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They’re just children from the outside
I’m working hard, I tell myself they’ll be fine
They’re in independent
But on the inside, I can hear them saying…

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, but what about us?

Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I’m called to be
Oh, Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won’t You lead me?

To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can’t
Don’t want to leave them hungry for love,
Chasing things that I could give up

I’ll show them I’m willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, ’cause I can’t do this alone

Father, lead me, ’cause I can’t do this alone

~ Lead Me by Sanctus Real

Listen to Lead Me

The story behind Lead Me

I’m out of the dating/courting/flirting stage, but some things never change.

Girls, leave the pursuing to the fellas.  Really.  It just makes you look desperate.

Even if he’s initially flattered by your attention, it won’t be long before the compliment turns into an annoyance. Besides, in my not-so-humble opinion, a guy that you have to chase isn’t really worth having.

You can let him know you’re interested.  But clutching his ankle while he drags you along is just distasteful.

In other words, don’t call him every day.  Don’t even text him every day.  You’re not fooling anyone showing up to every. single. place. he’s at.  Stop stalking him on Facebook.

And, by all that is holy, stop writing your first name with his last name amidst hearts and flowers on everything you own.

I know, I know.  Guys can be dolts sometimes, and it hurts to watch him be taken in by some other bimbo’s bolder advances.  But, trust me.  If he’s actually of any value, he’ll come to his senses.

And he’ll appreciate and respect the girl who respected herself.