Let him be a man

One of the surprising keys to contentment in femininity is simply making peace with masculinity

Last weekend, my husband and sons took a three-day canoe trip down a wild stretch of river in our area with very little cell service, no road access, and grand promises of adventure.

I have to admit, I was slightly terrified at the prospect at first.

It’s all well and good to want to be married to or raise a “real man” when this means being protected, provided for, and treated like a lady, but it can be a bit daunting when our manly men set out into the (literal) wilderness to test the full breadth of their masculinity.

This can often happen at a very basic level in our relationships or interactions with men, where we might abstractly desire for them embody masculinity but struggle to make peace with what this means in the ways that they are different from us.

Because, let’s be real, men are indeed simply different.

As we embrace our own inherent femininity and the ways we are beautifully unique from men, it is important to remember to equally cherish the ways they are different from us. And this often means they face danger in a very different way, and that’s OK. We need men to do this.

Our husbands and sons were made to be men.

And perhaps the worst way a woman can try to usurp God’s design for man not to simply to try to be like him. It is to try to stop him from being a man.

Making peace with our menfolk’s inherent design is a very bold act of surrender, particularly when we surrender that deeply-affectionate-but misguided tendency to worry, mother, nag, and try to control.

I want to be very clear that you’re not a bad, terrible mother or wife for worrying about your husband and sons. It’s only natural, and I wholly understand simply wanting them to be safe.

Yet trusting in their ability to fend for themselves is a critical — and rarely mentioned — component to practicing respect for men.

After all, are we as women the ones who are going to keep them safe with our worrying and tut-tutting at their mannish displays?

Hardly.

Men can and want to take care of women, and this means they must receive the message that we trust them to take care of themselves.

What I have found most liberating about this mentality change in my own experience as a wife and boy mom is that it ultimately boils down to surrendering to the soft, still voice of the Holy Spirit reminding me in my moment of anxiety Whom I ought rather to place my fear.

That is, in the Lord, and not the factors that might threaten the safety of my men.

Turns out, the rain, thunder, and lightning I was afraid of before the guys set out on their trip did come crashing down after all.

And my boys, in all their young, manly determination to prove themselves on their wilderness adventure, displayed spectacularly good attitudes and rose above and beyond what was needed for the occasion.

My husband said they didn’t complain one single time, not even when they had to abandon camp in the middle of a storm and huddle under their canoe for shelter all night.

Their very proud dad couldn’t stop commending them for what great attitudes they’d displayed and how well they’d done under very difficult circumstances.

Imagine if I’d been too fearful to give them this unique opportunity to grow as young men, as future providers, protectors, and warriors?

Imagine if they message I conveyed to them as boys was to let fear get in the way of aiming for greatness? And to my husband, that I didn’t trust him to keep them safe?

I do not want to raise fearful little boys. I want to raise strong, brave men who would show the same fortitude in the face of adversity, particularly when young lives are threatened.

I want to raise boys whose mother knows that their father will keep them safe and protect them even at the cost of his own life, as he did when he scrambled to keep them safe in the storm and navigating their canoe, as he has countless times when our family has faced trials or even real danger and he’s risen to the occasion without stopping to think.

As it happens, his lightning-quick reaction might have saved our dogs’ life yesterday when he ran to grab a shotgun upon discovering a massive, 5’ rattlesnake preparing to strike outside our house!

What if I had been the kind of woman who begged him to stay away and call Game and Fish to come remove the snake instead, what would that have conveyed to my husband?

A deep-seated lack of trust in his abilities as a man.

When we discuss femininity and submission, it can be so easy to anxiously focus on our own attitude, behavior, and even appearance as the mark of a supposedly biblical woman.

But the woman who is content with her design as a woman is the woman who can be content with her husband and sons’ design as men.

Many a woman has inspired many a man to greatness simply by trusting him to behave as God intended men to, for the sake of keeping women and children safe and defending home and countrymen.

Don’t underestimate your power to inspire greatness in the hearts of the men in your life.

Let him be a man, and he’ll love you for being a woman.