Being
All women are different. When you get married, you don't really know what kind you are getting. The true nature of that comes out later.
Some ladies are highly motivated and driven. And organized. Like many men. These ladies make great career women. Lawyers, CEOs, realtors, doctors, business owners, and entrepreneurs. If they become homemakers, this trait remains in control. For example, they will take a vacation by the horns. If the husband submits an idea, in between shopping, kids, and exercise, this girl, made in the Creator's image, orders an entire world of plans, fares, and lodging as if she owned a travel agency. If anything needs to be purchased for the house, the least expensive and probably the best product in the universe will be found supported by a list of pros and cons as to its merit.
Other women are artistic. Musically or otherwise. High motivation usually attends this woman too. Her touch on everything is evident wherever the eyes scan. On the walls, in the kitchen, in a living room, etc.
Then there is the category of BEING.
When I started in the pastorate after marrying Linda, I was possessed. Driven and self-motivated doesn't describe this. Possession is more accurate. My preoccupation was building a church and bringing other people to Christ as a church planter in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia. Other than myself, my only helper in this effort was Linda. Together our overall objective was the same, but her immediate work was keeping the house and attending to the children as a homemaker.
As a sole church planter, I had to devise ambitious strategies to contact and attract a lot people. It has been 45 years since this particular incident took place. So I don't even remember what it was anymore. All I remember is that I came up with a scheme that I was convinced would be effective. But it required some assistance to get it all done.
There was only one person to ask. Now this was not the first time I had tried to get her into my program. So I knew by now that it was going to require some persuasion. Though we had the same goals, I usually had to become a motivational speaker to get Linda to do what I wanted because she had other things in mind. Whatever it was that I wanted her to do at the time, she expressed her usual reluctance. So this is where I usually employed my ability to light a pilot light beneath her pants, turn the knob to 160 degrees, and hear the burners explode into flame to bring up the heat of initiative. I seemed to have a knack for galvanizing the team when it was required. So I clearly explained to her what to do, how to do it, and then, like Hitler bringing the Nazis to a boil, I poured on white hot coals of Biblical inducement to inflame her passion for what we were doing.
After about 10 minutes of shouting at the team to run through the locker room door even though it was locked tight, It worked. I could see that my inspirational message had converted her insouciance into fervor. Her protestations had faded, and she was pumped to do battle. So I set her up in a work space - all fired up with my vision and goal - and turned her loose on the project. Off I went into the next room to finish up my part so that her part would complete what I needed.
About 15 minutes later, I thought I would go see how she was doing and how far down the trail she had traveled.
"So how are you doin', babe?" I asked, expecting her to be poring over her research as if she had discovered some irregularity or insight into the nuances of data that only a detective mind could deduce.
Instead, she said, "I don't want to do this."
There was a long pause.
Not even 15 minutes had gone by, and she was already deflated. Now at this point in our marriage, I was still learning about a woman. And her. I had always thought women were generally like men and that Linda was motivated like me. Almost livid with unbelief after having delivered one of the best Super Bowl locker room orations in my life, in a voice of exasperation, I half whispered and half screamed, "What?!"
The only thing I could think of next was this question, "Then what DO you want to do?"
The revelation I have today had not yet come down. Although it was only one sentence away, there were many more years of marination to go before I understood it as I do now.
"I just want to BE," said she.
Another long pause. Sometimes you hear things that stop you cold because they are so foreign to all the conventional man lore that you have ever heard or imagined before. Though we had discussed many things, this was a new state of occupation I had never heard her announce up until this time.
"You just want to BE? What in the world is THAT?"
After many years, I have learned what BEING is. I think. Most women have probably known all their lives what it is. One thing I have learned is that Linda is not driven like me. The Lord did not make her that way, and no amount of Zig Ziglar influence or aphorisms is going to change that basic part of her nature. What's good for the gander is not good for the goose.
But she IS a homemaker with all that that entails. With the kids gone and retirement here, BEING Is now in full mode and display. Starbucks and dessert midday. Lunches out. Reading. FaceBook. Washing. Cleaning. Keeping the house nice, clean, and in order. Preparing meals. Shopping. Tea and toast. Road trips. Me with her. Visiting kids and grandkids. Calling her mother and sister. Talking to her best friend Colleen. Doing what she wants without somebody like me leaning on her to do things she does not want to do. That's BEING.
If we can say that there are probably several different categories for the classification of women and that by necessity most women do things that would put them in the other categories than the one with which they would identify, it seems to me that most women are the BEING kind. Whereas I used to try and drive Linda like a team of horses, today my main occupation is doing all I can to keep her in the state of BEING, which means I am doing a lot of BEING myself.
Some ladies are highly motivated and driven. And organized. Like many men. These ladies make great career women. Lawyers, CEOs, realtors, doctors, business owners, and entrepreneurs. If they become homemakers, this trait remains in control. For example, they will take a vacation by the horns. If the husband submits an idea, in between shopping, kids, and exercise, this girl, made in the Creator's image, orders an entire world of plans, fares, and lodging as if she owned a travel agency. If anything needs to be purchased for the house, the least expensive and probably the best product in the universe will be found supported by a list of pros and cons as to its merit.
Other women are artistic. Musically or otherwise. High motivation usually attends this woman too. Her touch on everything is evident wherever the eyes scan. On the walls, in the kitchen, in a living room, etc.
Then there is the category of BEING.
When I started in the pastorate after marrying Linda, I was possessed. Driven and self-motivated doesn't describe this. Possession is more accurate. My preoccupation was building a church and bringing other people to Christ as a church planter in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia. Other than myself, my only helper in this effort was Linda. Together our overall objective was the same, but her immediate work was keeping the house and attending to the children as a homemaker.
As a sole church planter, I had to devise ambitious strategies to contact and attract a lot people. It has been 45 years since this particular incident took place. So I don't even remember what it was anymore. All I remember is that I came up with a scheme that I was convinced would be effective. But it required some assistance to get it all done.
There was only one person to ask. Now this was not the first time I had tried to get her into my program. So I knew by now that it was going to require some persuasion. Though we had the same goals, I usually had to become a motivational speaker to get Linda to do what I wanted because she had other things in mind. Whatever it was that I wanted her to do at the time, she expressed her usual reluctance. So this is where I usually employed my ability to light a pilot light beneath her pants, turn the knob to 160 degrees, and hear the burners explode into flame to bring up the heat of initiative. I seemed to have a knack for galvanizing the team when it was required. So I clearly explained to her what to do, how to do it, and then, like Hitler bringing the Nazis to a boil, I poured on white hot coals of Biblical inducement to inflame her passion for what we were doing.
After about 10 minutes of shouting at the team to run through the locker room door even though it was locked tight, It worked. I could see that my inspirational message had converted her insouciance into fervor. Her protestations had faded, and she was pumped to do battle. So I set her up in a work space - all fired up with my vision and goal - and turned her loose on the project. Off I went into the next room to finish up my part so that her part would complete what I needed.
About 15 minutes later, I thought I would go see how she was doing and how far down the trail she had traveled.
"So how are you doin', babe?" I asked, expecting her to be poring over her research as if she had discovered some irregularity or insight into the nuances of data that only a detective mind could deduce.
Instead, she said, "I don't want to do this."
There was a long pause.
Not even 15 minutes had gone by, and she was already deflated. Now at this point in our marriage, I was still learning about a woman. And her. I had always thought women were generally like men and that Linda was motivated like me. Almost livid with unbelief after having delivered one of the best Super Bowl locker room orations in my life, in a voice of exasperation, I half whispered and half screamed, "What?!"
The only thing I could think of next was this question, "Then what DO you want to do?"
The revelation I have today had not yet come down. Although it was only one sentence away, there were many more years of marination to go before I understood it as I do now.
"I just want to BE," said she.
Another long pause. Sometimes you hear things that stop you cold because they are so foreign to all the conventional man lore that you have ever heard or imagined before. Though we had discussed many things, this was a new state of occupation I had never heard her announce up until this time.
"You just want to BE? What in the world is THAT?"
After many years, I have learned what BEING is. I think. Most women have probably known all their lives what it is. One thing I have learned is that Linda is not driven like me. The Lord did not make her that way, and no amount of Zig Ziglar influence or aphorisms is going to change that basic part of her nature. What's good for the gander is not good for the goose.
But she IS a homemaker with all that that entails. With the kids gone and retirement here, BEING Is now in full mode and display. Starbucks and dessert midday. Lunches out. Reading. FaceBook. Washing. Cleaning. Keeping the house nice, clean, and in order. Preparing meals. Shopping. Tea and toast. Road trips. Me with her. Visiting kids and grandkids. Calling her mother and sister. Talking to her best friend Colleen. Doing what she wants without somebody like me leaning on her to do things she does not want to do. That's BEING.
If we can say that there are probably several different categories for the classification of women and that by necessity most women do things that would put them in the other categories than the one with which they would identify, it seems to me that most women are the BEING kind. Whereas I used to try and drive Linda like a team of horses, today my main occupation is doing all I can to keep her in the state of BEING, which means I am doing a lot of BEING myself.