The Marriage Waltz

When two people perform the Waltz together it can be magnificent.  A true art.  But it can also be a clumsy disaster.  For the Waltz to be executed flawlessly there must be a "Lead" and a "Follow".  If both partners choose to lead or both to follow, they will stumble and clash awkwardly throughout the number.  But...if both partners know their roles the results can be breathtaking.

Marriage is an art; a dance that people of all cultures, countries, and communities have engaged in, in some form or capacity, since the beginning of time.  Sometimes the journey is painful and awkward and sometimes it's flawless.

There is a gross misunderstanding in our culture that seems to state that it is shameful to be submissive.  Au contraire!  Nothing could be further from the truth! The one who leads is not greater than the one who submits.  They are simply different.  And within their different identities, they must work perfectly alongside each other.  The irony is that the greatest indicator of a person's success will be in the other partner: the husband's talents will be made evident by the 'performance' of his wife and the wife's abilities will be made evident by the success of her husband.  If a husband seeks to build himself up by making his wife look incapable, he himself is revealed to be incapable of leading, and vice versa.

A true leader doesn't aspire to greatness alone but seeks to share greatness with the one he leads. Does not the dance partner display as much talent and receive as much praise as the Lead?  And does not the Lead share the dance equally with her, knowing that without her the dance is wholly incomplete?

So what does this look like?
A healthy leadership/subservient model in marriage is not a blanket that covers the marriage, but more of a subtle current upon which the marriage rides.  Not the face of the marriage, but the backbone.  It's subtle.  Underlying.  It's the strength of the marriage, not the defining characteristic.  It's the, almost hidden, foundational principal upon which a lifetime of love, admiration, respect, joy, and beauty are all built.  The roles are delicate and gentle, obvious only to the couple themselves.  The outside world may catch glimpses of the husband's leadership or the wife's submission from time to time, but the couple's defining characteristics will be respect, love.....harmony.

In contrast to this description, an unhealthy leadership/subservient based marriage will be much more obviously defined by one partner of power and one of submission.  If it's obvious to people outside of the marriage relationship that the couple models these rolls, than more than likely, one of the partner's in the marriage is domineering.  If the marriage contains a domineering partner, he/she has already stepped outside of the Biblical view of marriage.

My act of submission to my husband is never about him.  It is always, only about me.  What I mean by that is, my husband has never demanded that I submit to him.  In the heat of an argument or disagreement, he has never said, "I'm your husband, I make the decisions!"  On our wedding day, I vowed to honor and submit to my husband.  When I make the choice to honor my wedding vows and submit to him, it's just that....my choice.  God granted husband's a love-based headship over their families.  He did not grant them absolute, domineering authority over their families.  My husband never makes me submit.  Never attempts to use guilt or coercive reminders. My submission to him is between me and God alone.

How does it work?
The 'How' will look vastly different in each marriage.  Each unique couple needs to find their own way of implementing these roles.  I can't give you a formula for how this works, but I can tell you how it works in my marriage.  I am a strong-willed woman.  I want my own way.  Every Time.  It's just the way I am, so naturally, submission does not come easily to me.  After nearly a decade of marriage, submission looks different for me now than it did when we were newly-weds.

In the beginning, I exercised submission only in the 'big things'.  We argued constantly.  All the time.  About everything.  Both of us willing to fight to the death on any subject, from where to put the couch, to where to go for dinner, to how warm to keep the thermostat.  But having been raised to understand the value of a wife's role of submission (and subsequently, the value of the husband's role of leadership), I, however difficult, would (eventually) submit on the 'big things' (i.e. Do we start a family now, or wait?  Should we buy a house or rent? etc.), while still always fighting to the bitter end on 'small things'.

Over the years, however, we've fine-tuned our 'dance' tremendously.  Now, I submit more easily to smaller issues.  But he also is less hasty to take a stand than he once was.  When we discuss our differing points of views on a subject, he's more likely to let me have my way than he was 10 years ago.  You could maybe even say that he actually chooses to submit to me.  He does this a lot these days.  Probably more than 75% of the time, he lets me have my way.  But when he does take a stand, I know that even a 'small thing' has suddenly become a 'big thing' and, no matter how strongly I disagree, I choose to respect his authority in those moments.  Knowing that I will submit to his decisions has, over the years, made him far more discerning about what issues he will take a stand on.  And this fine-tuning, this understanding that we've developed for each other, has become the roots to the forest of respect and harmony that we've cultivated.

Let's make it really concrete with two examples.  The first will be a 'small thing' - just a silly argument that could crop up at any time.  The second will be a 'big thing'.

1.  The 'Small Thing' -  It's Friday night and neither of us feel like cooking, so we decide to go out for dinner.  My husband loves Chinese Buffets, and would chose to go to one every time we go out for dinner, if I didn't clearly voice my opinion about it.  I don't really care for Chinese Buffets, I'd rather get Chinese take-out...but what I really want is Italian.  We argue back and forth for a bit and he doesn't back down.  So I say (rather heated), 'Dude!  Why does it always gotta be about you?!"  At this point, one of two things happens...  99% of the time, I get my way ;)  But let's suppose that he's having a bad day and he snaps back, "Look!  I had a rough week.  I make the money.  I want to go to the Chinese Buffet.  Period." (Note, again, my husband never plays the 'husband card').  At this point, a little thing has become a big thing and I will choose to submit.  Will I say to him, "Are you kidding me!?  I had a rough week too!  You try being home with 3 kids by yourself all week!"? You bet I will!  (I have not yet learned the art of controlling my tongue. ha!).  Then I make the decision that will set the tone for the rest of the night.  I will either stew about his attitude and my submission, and ruin our evening.  Or I will (on days marked by grace), realize that I made the choice to submit to him, and cover him with grace by understanding that he's just in a bad mood (it happens to me too.  Shocking, right!?) and choose to have a good attitude throughout dinner.  The latter usually results in an apology from him later in the evening after the kids are in bed.  And then he dotes on me the whole next day.  Win!

2.  The 'Big Thing' - We have the opportunity to invest a large sum of money into something that I really believe in.  My husband....does not.  I present this opportunity to him and his immediate response is, "No."

"But wait" I say, "just hear me out.  I think this is really important."  We sit and talk about the pros and cons for 2 hours.  We just don't see eye to eye on this. It might even get a little heated.  But I know that my input is valuable to him and I know he's listening to my arguments.  Probably 65% of the time he will end up agreeing with me or, at the very least, decide to humor me.  But if he still feels strongly enough about it to say "No."  I choose to submit to his leadership.

My voice is rarely, if ever, not heard.  My opinion is always valued.  I am never the weaker partner, I simply choose to give him the authority.

Why does it work?
Why does it work between dance partners?

Because two people simply cannot live in such close proximity to one another and not have clearly defined roles.  Even between business partners, it is always recommended that one partner hold 51% of the business.  Although both partners have equal value, both cannot have equal authority.  It just won't work.

When I joyfully give that extra 2% authority over to my husband, we eliminate gridlocks without one partner feeling defeated.  He didn't win. I didn't lose....I chose to give him the final decision.  When he can predict, based off of history, that I will submit to him if he pushes an issue, he becomes more gentle and discerning about which issues he will push.  Knowing that I love and value him enough to submit to him, causes him to love me with more tenderness and appreciation.  And as his love for me becomes more perfect, the automatic response of my heart is to honor and value him more.  It's a beautiful, harmonious cycle of love, respect, value, and peace.  Instead of life issues dividing us, they strengthen us because we've learned how to dance together.  We've learned how to 'feed' love and respect to make them grow, instead of getting hung up on the things that have potential to divide us.

Remember the Waltzing Couple?
As we, together,  imagine this couple dancing...they know that one is the Lead and the other, the Follow.  But to the spectator, are they not so perfectly in sync that it's almost impossible to tell one body from the next, let alone the Lead from the Follow?  Yet, between themselves, they know that these roles exist.  And if they act within their positions, one leading...one following...understanding each other's hearts, dreams, attitudes, and goals, they will deliver the most spectacular performance the world has ever known.  Not a dance to music, but a dance from which the music flows.

Does Your Love For Your Children Interfere With Your Love For Your God?

I was 13 the year that I nearly burnt the house down.  My parents had left me home alone for the first time, and in an age before cell phones, I had no way to reach them.  The Five fire companies that had responded to my call for help had all left before my parents returned that evening.  The street, which had been closed due to my "emergency", had been reopened.  The front yards and driveways of 3 consecutive homes no longer showed any trace of the fire trucks, ambulance, or police officers that had been present, save the tire tracks that remained through the yards that had been used as parking lots only hours before.  I had clung to a neighbor and cried, with horror, as I realized that I had left my dinner on the stove top, on high, for 3 hours while I had been outside talking to a friend on the phone.  That's why my home had filled with a terrible dense black smoke.   The firemen had opened all the windows and doors and used their industrial fans to suck most of the smoke out of the house.  Then everybody went home and I curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and shivering with all the windows and doors still open on that cool, crisp night.  And that's how my parents found me when they returned around 11:00pm.

The next day, my mom wept as she watched a hen frantically clucking at her babies who had wandered outside of a fence that she was too large to pass through.  Those tiny chicks where just beyond her reach.  She could see the danger that her little babies were in but she could do nothing to protect them.  This mama hen's panicked squawking broke my own mama's heart as she realized that, in reality, she was no more capable of keeping me safe while allowing me to grow up and experience moments of freedom.  She had to begin letting go of a child who was gaining and craving independence, but there was danger in that, and it terrified her.  "Mommmmm!" I whined, as the tears fell from her cheeks.  Usually rational and collected, my mother did not often succumb to emotion and I hated seeing those tears.  I didn't understand her fear or her internal struggle.  And then I became a mother....

12 years later, at 25, I welcomed my first child into the world.  A beautiful baby girl, perfect and healthy in every way.  But amidst the baby showers and birthing classes that went into preparing for that precious first child, there was something that no one ever told me about motherhood.  No one ever told me that from the moment that child left the safety of my womb, I would live in a perpetual state of fear.   The fear of having this child taken from my arms was overwhelming at first, despite her perfect health.  The fear of her spitting up and choking while I slept peacefully beside her made me unable to sleep at night.  I feared tripping and dropping her down the stairs.  I feared car accidents in a way I never had before.  I felt like a mama hen who's baby was sometimes just out of reach.  No matter how well I cared for and protected her, I was (and still am) incapable of complete and flawless protection over my child.  I would clutch her and beg God not to take this beautiful gift away from me.  My heart broke at just the thought.  On the day my daughter was born I learned that the greatest of all loves will produce the greatest of all fear.

There's a place where the God-created beauty of maternal love and instinct collides with the fallen-ness of a world that was originally designed for perfection. In my life, this collision reflects itself as fear and this reality has made me even more keenly aware of the sinfulness of the human heart.  We live in a world so desperately tainted with sin that something as beautiful as a mother's love for her child can be wrought with a fear so intense as to damage a woman's faith in her God. His perfect gift of motherhood can be the very thing that begins to divide the recipient and the Giver.  How can we be in harmony with a God we can't trust?  And how can we trust our God when we're clinging to our babies in utter terror of losing them?

I have been a mother for 5 years now and in that time I have welcomed 2 more precious babies to my brood of little ones.  These 5 years have been a journey; a balancing act of executing my God-given responsibility to protect my little ones in every way possible while still ultimately trusting their lives to Him.  It has been a continual process of opening my hands to Him and saying "Here Lord, they are yours and I will make the choice to trust you."  When I peek in their bedrooms after they are asleep at night and I see their sweet sleeping faces illuminated by a soft light; the rays falling across their delicate and impossibly beautiful cheeks, I still beg God to not ever take them from me. And I believe we're supposed to do that. But, day by day, I'm learning to let go, one heartstring at a time. It's a pain I pray I will never have to know. But beyond that, God is teaching me to pray that if the day were to come that he allows that trial to come into my life, my faith in Him would be so complete that my broken heart could simply rest in the trust that I have in His wisdom.  It's knowing and BELIEVING that "...in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28.  It's knowing that The Artist sees the complete picture, while I see only a tiny brush stroke.  It's being willing to suffer to allow God's glory to be shown, because it is God's glory that allowed me to experience the gift of motherhood in the first place.  It's finding that beautiful, and completely terrifying place of total submission to the God I serve.

My mother wept as she watched a mama hen clucking at her stray babies that day.  Realizing that she was no more capable of keeping her own children safe, she felt the weight of an impossible task upon her shoulders.  It was a burden she was never meant to bear.  "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?"  Matthew 6:26. Open your hands and your hearts to the Lord, sweet mother.  Allow yourself to live at peace with this world by trusting in the God who orchestrates it.  The responsibility is yours but the burden was never meant to be.  The "letting go" will be a process, but determine to make that journey, one delicate heartstring at a time.