What a Wonderful World It Would Be...

Don't much about history.

Don't know much biology.

Don't know much about a science book.

Don't know much about the French I took.

But I do know that I love you,

And I know that if you love me, too,

What a wonderful world this would be.

I have a good marriage. No, I have a great marriage. And I think it is because Brett studies me. He knows what makes me tick. He knows what makes my world go 'round.

He knows that while some chaps wear Polo, I prefer my men in eau de charcoal.

Because where there is charcoal, there is sure to be meat...

And one day last month, when I was having a grumpy day, Brett sauntered into the room and asked casually, "Do you have any chocolate?"

"Why?" I snapped.

"Oh, I guess I thought maybe you might need some today."

"Oh really?" I snarled.

"Um, yes," he smiled.

Wow. He knows that moons, tides, and his wife each have cycles, and he knows what tools help me survive. So he keeps me in chocolate as a rule.

Last week, for date night, he brought home True Grit, and I was pretty sure at that moment he had confused me with his other wife. He knows I detest westerns and mafia movies, and here was John Wayne staring at me from the dvd cover. Bummer.

"No, no, no," Brett insisted. "You will like this one. You will like the girl in here. Plus, it's Rooster Cogburn. You like Rooster Cogburn!"

Harumph.

But, you know what? He was right. I laughed out loud at the feisty female character. She was hilarious. And the movie was a delight.

Why did he know I would like it? Why did he insist, despite my protests? Why does that man keep me in chocolate? Because he is a student of me. He has majored in "NOEL," and he's passing with flying colors.

A good husband is a student of his wife. He is a servant-leader.

A few years ago, a woman published a book of tripe on being a helpmeet in which she discussed three types of men. Sadly, it was a thinly veiled attempt to justify her own knuckle-dragging, neanderthal spouse as a legitimate personality type. A 'command man' she called him. 'Caveman' would be more appropriate. And the caveman type is in serious need of a boatload of sanctification, though since the burning bed isn't a biblical option, I'm sure I don't know what that would entail.

Oh, I can hear the hen house now. Cluck, cluck! Our Noel is a feminist!

Aw, go peck your dirt.

It is precisely because I am not a feminist that I find her writing so tragic. For a woman married to a caveman must submit to her caveman. And I'll go ya' one better. If she wants to honor God, she also has to love and respect her caveman.

But I do not have to respect her caveman. Me with hands on hips, doing my cobra head. "I got five boys, and I ain't raisin' no command men, girlfriend."

[That book of nonsense, by the way, was written by a family whose parenting approach is nothing short of abuse. And if there were any justice in this world, they'd both be in jail as accessories to the murders of children who have died under this 'approach.' Seriously, I'd have no greater joy.]

A caveman is a tyrant.

And he destroys his home.

And he alienates his wife.

And he exasperates his children.

He is no student.

He is the master, the demi-god who speaks from on high, and when he speaks, his minions must shudder in obeisance.

In his warped mind, what's wrong with the Church today is that women don't submit.

He is a leader, a bad one, who misrepresents Christ both to his family and to the watching world.

A bad husband sees the final decision as his right; a good husband sees the final decision as his responsibility. And the distance between that right and that responsibility is a world of shattered women and children--in Jesus' name, of course.

What a sad state of affairs when a husband can be a student of science, technology, history, economics, politics, yea, even the Bible, and not study his own wife, for whom he is called to lay his life down.

What if men took up the call to be servant-leaders in their own homes to their own wives?

What a wonderful world it would be!