The Blessings of Sons

Our two sons with our oldest grandson in the center. 


There are many blessings of having sons. Too many to count actually. But today I am thinking of the particular blessing of perspective. My heart's desire is to be a Proverbs 31 wife. However, sometimes I don't even see how I'm falling short. But my sons, who see things from a man's perspective, do. And I'm thankful that they point it out to me. 

There are many times when we women speak and think nothing of it, but to a man, those words cut like a knife. There are many ways we don't even realize that we are demeaning them. There have been times I think I'm saying something about myself, but what the men in my family hear is me putting down my husband. For instance:

One of our family's most famous stories is the story of the car air conditioner. I get very sick in the heat, so when I am driving I like the a/c to blast out of the dashboard onto me. My husband doesn't like that. He has sinus issues and the air blasting on him like that bothers his sinuses. Also, my husband is usually driving the car early in the morning when the windows are all fogged up from the morning cold. So, when he drives he almost always sets the vents to the defrost setting so the air blows up onto the windshield. When I get in the car and turn on the a/c it takes me sometimes as much as an hour to figure out why the air isn't blowing on me. I get frustrated and upset thinking that the air conditioner must be broken. It almost always takes me at least a half an hour to figure out the problem and by then I am not feeling well. I have to admit in the early years it has taken me as long as two or three hours of driving to realize that it is just the vent setting. I don't understand why, when I know that he always sets the vent to that position, that it takes me so long to figure this out. EVERYTIME! We've been married for 25 years, how is it that my first thought is not, "Oh I need to change the vent settings."? What in my brain has not clicked after all this time? I KNOW how he likes the vents set. I have shared a car with this man for most of 25 years, how is it that I STILL think the a/c is broken? However, when I share this story, my husband and my sons hear me saying that there is something wrong with my husband for setting the vents on the dash settings. That was never my intention in telling this humorous story. It was really my astonishment at myself and how I can go through this time after time after time! Whenever I told the story, my women friends never thought I was being disrespectful to my husband, they all understood that I was laughing at myself for not catching on after all this time. But men heard me blaming my husband. 

Was it the story itself? Partly, but for the most part it was the way I was telling the story. The way I tell it today makes it clear I am talking about myself, but in the beginning something about the way I worded it made it sound to men as if I was saying my husband was at fault for changing the settings. When my sons first pointed it out to me I was offended. But God showed me that it didn't matter what I was trying to say, if the way it came out was offensive to my husband, I was being offensive to my husband. 

Last night we were all working in the trailer to get ready to head out on a camping trip. I already had a couple of rolls of paper towels opened and two kitchen towels sitting around the kitchen area. My husband had washed his hands and not seeing any of the open paper towel rolls said, "I guess I'll just open up a new roll." I grabbed the roll from him and said, "No, there are plenty of open rolls and regular towels you don't need to open up a new roll." I didn't even realize that my words or tone were disrespectful or harsh, but our older son spoke up and said, "Ok Mom, you don't have to give him a tongue lashing over it." Wow. How differently men and women hear things. I had not meant to be disrespectful to my husband. But looking back on it, I see that I was. I didn't need to say it the way I did. Partly it was my tone, which was tired and exasperated, partly it was my words which were not honoring. I could have just softly said, let me find you a towel, or let me get you a paper towel, but I let my tired flesh get a hold of my tongue and it was dishonoring to my husband. 

Now is this one incident a huge deal? By itself no. However, if left unchecked it could quickly become a habit of how I speak to my husband. If strung together with other incidents, it would become something that tears my husband down rather than builds him up. That's not the wife I want to be. So I am thankful for my sons who are willing to lovingly point out to me how things sound to a man and offer me that different perspective. 

Lest you think my sons are being disrespectful let me assure you they are not. They work hard to live a life that is obedient to the Fifth Commandment. They also know how important it is to me to be a woman who builds up her home and family and does not tear it down, so we have carefully cultivated a relationship of accountability with one another and I am thankful for that. 

Be Blessed! 

Colleen

Linking to:

A Wise Woman Builds Her Home

Wholehearted Home

http://wholehearted-home.blogspot.com

Walking Redeemed
http://walkingredeemed.org/2013/03/wednesday-link-party-13/