Let Me Be a Woman (By Elisabeth Elliot) - Part VI

Let Me Be a Woman: Notes on Womanhood for Valerie

* Who is it you marry?
* What is marriage?
* What makes marriage work?

Chapter 28 Dynamic, not Static

* It is a dynamic, not a static, relationship. It gets either better or worse. ... It's been said that if a couple doesn't grow together they grow apart. But for the couple who have in all seriousness said their vows before God and in the presence of witnesses the possibility of growing apart need not be allowed. It need never be something, which "happens to" them, as though they were bystanders injured by some force which they were powerless to protect themselves from. They have willed to love and live together. They stand, not helpless, but in relation to God, each responsible to fulfill his vows to the other. Each determines to do the will of God so that together they move toward "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." And, if God is viewed as the apex of a triangle of which they are the two base points, movement toward Him necessarily decreases the distance between them. Drawing near to God means drawing nearer to each other, and this means growth and change. They are being changed into the same image from glory to glory. There is no such thing as stagnation, or that relatively innocent-sounding word incompatibility.

* There are tensions. ... This is the way I see the dynamics of a good marriage. It is not strength pitted against weakness. It is two kinds of strength, each meant to fortify the other in special ways. ... It is not a weakness for the boat to submit itself to the rules of sailing. That submission is her strength. It is the rules that enable the boat to utilize her full strength, to harness the wind and thus take to herself the wind's strength. It was not weakness in the Son of God that made Him obey the will of the Father. It was power - the power of His own will to will the Father's will.

* There is in a good marriage both dependence and independence on both sides. Your husband needs you to be different from him, to be what you are alone, to be what he can never be and what he needs and wants. Only in this way can you be what you are in relation to him. Only in this way can you complement him. He depends on you to be his complement, you depend on him to be yours. He is independent of you in his differences - you are woman, distinct, wholly other, opposite.

* Men and women cannot and must not try to live life without reference to the opposite sex. They are interdependent and are meant to acknowledge and confront one another. It is this confrontation - most clearly realized in marriage - that makes it of enormous importance that the sexes not be confused, ignored, played down or played off against each other. We need each other. A husband and wife need to be husband and wife, not buddies. The dynamics must be maintained as the Architect intended.

* Friend, lover, husband. In your life together he will be many things to you. Confidant, companion, provider, strength, playmate, listener, teacher, pupil, leader, comforter, and, as Sarah saw Abraham, "lord." Each role has its glories and its limitations, each requires a different kind of response from you and this takes resilience, adaptability, maturity. Life is made exciting and interest in sustained by these dynamics so long as all are undergirded by love.

* Your provider may someday lose his job. Your strength may show unexpected weakness. Your knight in armor may experience a public defeat. Your teacher may make a serious mistake that you tried to warn him about. Your lover may become a helpless patient, sick, sore, and sad, needing your presence and care every minute of the day and night. "This isn't the man I married," you will say, and it will be true. But you married him for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and those tremendous promises took into account the possibility of radical change. That was why promises were necessary.

* There are things in life which can make what seems to be a mockery out of the solemn promises. "To love, honor, and obey" your husband can seem the last ironies in the face of the unspeakable humiliation and indignities of illness. Love, honor, and obey this beaten, anguished, angry man who will not take his pill? The vows are serious. Staggeringly serious. But you did not take them trusting in your own strength to perform. The grace that enabled you to take those vows will be there to draw on when the performance of them seems impossible.