W i l d
a t H e a r t
CHAPTER TEN
A BEAUTY TO RESCUE
The tower is built brick
by brick and when she's a grown woman it can be a fortress.
If her father is passive,
a little girl will suffer a silent abandonment. Stasi remembers playing
hide-and-seek in her house as a girl of five or six. She'd find a perfect
place to crawl into, full of excited anticipation of the coming pursuit.
Snuggled up in a closet, she would wait for someone to find her. No one
ever did; not even after she was missing for an hour. That picture became
the defining image of her life. No one noticed; no one pursued.
The youngest in her family,
Stasi just seemed to get lost in the shuffle. Her dad traveled a lot and
when he was home he spent most of his time in front of the TV. An older
brother and sister were trouble in their teens; Stasi got the message "Just
don't be a problem; we've already got too much to handle". So she hid some
more, hid her desires, hid her dreams, hid her heart. Sometimes she would
pretend to be sick just to get a drop or two of attention.
Like so many unloved young
women, Stasi turned to boys to try to hear what she never heard from her
father. Her high school boyfriend betrayed her on prom night, told her
he had been using her, that he really loved someone else. The man she dated
in college became verbally abusive. But when a woman never hears she's
worth fighting for, she comes to believe that's the sort of treatment she
deserves. It's a form of attention, in a twisted way; maybe it's better
than nothing.
Then we fell in love on that
magical summer night. But Stasi married a frightened, driven man who had
an affair with his work because he wouldn't risk engaging a woman he sensed
he wasn't enough for. I wasn't mean; I wasn't evil. I was nice. And let
me tell you, a hesitant
man is the last thing in the world a woman needs. She needs a lover and
a warrior, not a Really Nice
Guy. Her worst fear was realized. I will never really be loved, never
really be fought for. And so she hid some more.
Years into our marriage
I found myself blindsided
by it all. Where is the beauty I once saw? What happened to the woman I
fell in love with? I didn't really expect an answer to my question; it
was more a shout of rage than a desperate plea. But
Emmanuel
answered me anyway. She's still in there, but she's captive. Are you willing
to go in after her? I realized that I had, like so many men, married for
safety. I married a woman I thought would never challenge me as a man.
Stasi adored me; what more did I need to do? I wanted to look like the
knight, but I didn't want to bleed like one. I was deeply mistaken about
the whole arrangement. I didn't know about the tower or the dragon or what
my strength was for. The number one problem between men and their women
is that we men, when asked to truly fight for her . . . hesitate. We are
still seeking to save ourselves; we have forgotten the deep pleasure of
spilling our life for another.
OFFERING OUR STRENGTH
"There are three things
that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of
an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on
the high seas and the way of a man with a maiden."....Proverbs
30:18,19
Agur son of Jakeh.(Agur
wrote this chapter in Proverbs).is
onto something here. There is something mythic in the way a man is with
a woman. Our sexuality offers a parable of amazing depth when it comes
to being masculine and feminine. The man comes to offer his strength and
the woman invites the man into herself, an act that requires courage and
vulnerability and selflessness
for both of them. Notice first that if the man will not rise to the occasion,
nothing will happen. He must move; his strength must swell before he can
enter her. But neither will the love consummate unless the woman opens
herself in stunning vulnerability. When both are living as they were meant
to live, the man enters his woman and offers her his strength. He spills
himself there, in her, for her; she draws him in, embraces and envelopes
him. When all is over he is spent; but ah, what a sweet death it is. And
that is how life is created. The beauty of a woman arouses a man to play
the man; the strength of a man, offered tenderly to his woman, allows her
to be beautiful; it brings life to her and to many. This is far, far more
than sex and orgasm. It is a reality that extends to every aspect of our
lives. When a man withholds himself from his woman, he leaves her without
the life only he can bring. This is never more true than how a man offers—or
does not offer—his words. Life and death are in the power of the tongue
says....Proverbs
18:21. She is made for and craves words from him. I just went upstairs
to get a glass of water from the kitchen; Stasi was in there baking Christmas
cookies. The place was a mess; to be honest, so was she, covered with flour
and wearing a pair of old slippers. But there was something in her eye,
something soft and tender and I said to her "You look pretty". The tension
in her shoulders gave way; something twinkled in her spirit; she sighed
and smiled. "Thank you" she said, almost shyly.
If the man
refuses to offer himself, then his wife
will remain empty and barren. A violent man destroys with his words; a
silent man starves his wife. "She's
wilting"
a friend confessed to me about his new bride. "If she's wilting then you're
withholding something" I said. Actually, it was several things, his words,
his touch, but mostly his delight. There are so many other ways this plays
out in life. A man who leaves his wife with the children and the bills
to go and find another easier life has denied them his strength. He has
sacrificed them when he should have sacrificed his strength for them. What
makes Maximus or William Wallace so heroic is simply this: They are willing
to die to set others free.
This sort of
heroism is what we see in the life of Joseph,
the husband of Mary and the stepfather to Emmanuel the Christ. I don't
think we've fully appreciated what he did for them. Mary, an engaged young
woman, almost a girl, turns up pregnant with a pretty wild story: "I'm
carrying God's child". The situation is scandalous.
What is Joseph to think; what is he to feel? Hurt, confused, betrayed no
doubt. But he's a good man; he will not have her stoned, he will simply
'divorce her quietly'....Matthew
1:19. An angel comes to him in a dream, which shows you what it sometimes
takes to get a good man to do the right thing, to convince him that Mary
is telling the truth and he is to follow through with the marriage.
This is going to cost him. Do you know what he's going to endure if he
marries a woman the whole community thinks is an adulteress? He will be
shunned by his business associates and most of his clients. He will certainly
lose his standing in society and perhaps even his place in the synagogue.
To see the pain he's in for, notice the insult that crowds will later use
against Emmanuel.."Isn't
this Joseph and Mary's son?".They
say with a sneer and a nudge and a wink. In other words, we know who you
are, the bastard child of that slut and her foolish carpenter. Joseph will
pay bigtime for this move. Does he withhold? No, he offers Mary his strength;
he steps right between her and all of that mess and takes it on the chin.
He spends himself for her.."They
will be called oaks of righteousness"....Isaiah
61:3. There, under the shadow of a man's
strength, a woman finds rest.
The masculine journey takes
a man away from the woman so that He might return to her. He goes to find
his strength. He returns to offer it. He tears down the walls of the tower
that has held her with his words and with his actions. He speaks to her
heart's deepest question in a thousand ways. Yes, you are lovely.
Yes,
there is one who will fight for you. But because most men have not
yet fought the battle, most women are still in the tower.
