Eschewing the Adam moment

Imagine a young man holding a toddler up on his muscular hip.  Okay, let's say this is, overall, a muscular, bulked up guy.  He's in his mid-twenties.  The baby is a girl.  You know this because she's wearing a pink bonnet.  They're cooing at each other and simply enjoying each others' company.  There's a warmth there that's passing between the two of them.

And then he drops her.

His arm, which was supporting her tiny body, goes limp and instantly falls to his side.  Gravity takes over and the toddler hits the floor instantly.  The young man ignores the screams of terror and pain, never looking down, and turns to walk away.

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This is the image I'm faced with when I think about many women in my life.  Some of these individuals are neighbors or co-workers.  Some are friend's parents.  Ultimately, they're women who've been dumped.  Passed over.  Hung out to dry.

Perhaps they started out in a marriage, reproduced, and then ended up divorced.  Many of them were victims of infidelity or some form of abuse.  Like Eve (when she was tempted by the serpent), their man stood by them but only in the physical realm.  Emotionally / spiritually, he was completely checked out at her greatest time of need.

What happens to women like this?  How do they cope?  How do they survive financially?  Did their spouses stop to consider this prior to walking away? 

And I realize that it can happen in reverse.  I know that wives' cheat as much if not more than husbands.  I assume women do this assuming their new stud will ultimately take care of them moreso than their husband is / can.  But for a husband to cheat, or simply walk away, is to abandon or to release his spousal support completely.  That has to occur on some emotional level prior to committing adultery no matter how intense the sexual attraction between himself and the new honey.

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I had a friend ask me if Ang and I had an open marriage.  It's an interesting question.  To me, it's one solution to avoiding the risk of abandonment by simply making the assumption that it will occur.  It's like never getting married to begin with but rather living together until you're ready to move on (shacking up).  This would proactively lessen the pain.  Proactively lesson the pain.  The pain of being left behind, must be assumed to eventually occur.

It's no wonder there are so many women who choose to embrace the lesbian lifestyle with open arms.  It's no wonder there are women who walk out of their marriages on a whim when they decide they've "had enough".  It's no wonder they'd want to opt out of the risk of abandonment by removing it completely.

But, what really happens to these women?  What happens when they get old and gray?  What happens when they're tired of watching the same television shows over and over again?  Where do they go when there aren't any men left in their lives?

Have you ever read the book of Ruth?  It's only 4 chapters long.  You should read it.  It is incredibly erotic and paints a picture of what true masculine / feminine relations are as defined by God within marriage.

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When we first mortgaged our house 11 years ago, one of our neighbors were elderly italian immigrants who'd moved to Mississippi from New York to be close to their daughter.  Their house had a dramatically sloped backyard.  The woman was feeble and on a few occasions, she'd wander slowly off of the backporch, slip on the steep turf beyond, and subsequently roll down the hill to the street.  I watched on numerous occasions as her husband would stand on the porch and laugh at her predicament.  He was an able bodied man with a black heart.

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Early on in our marriage, Ang and I went through a study program at our church which taught us basic evangelism skills one night a week.  After class, we were then sent out to proselytize.  Usually, we'd visit guests who'd attended our church the previous Sunday.  Since we were attending a protestant mega-church here in town, these individuals were usually upper to upper-middle class white people.

On one particular visit, we met a recently abandoned woman who was in the process of divorcing her husband.  She was really attractive thirtysomething living in a posh home, in an upscale part of town.  I believe she had two or three boys under the age of 9.  The boys were there that night ransacking the house as she attended to us quietly in the living room.

I imagined her husband being a successful attorney or physician.  A good looking guy who had a nice ride and a lot of potential.

We asked her point blank, what she was going to do.  She explained to us that her husband would be forced to provide for her and her children per the court's ruling.  As she said this, she looked completely broken and scared.  I can still remember the sadness that hung in the air during that conversation.

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Blacks don't usually get married.  More often than not, black women get pregnant, have their children, and their sons and daughters are raised by them exclusively.  Black men aren't expected to do anything more than impregnate.  Here in Mississippi, there's little to no education relative to sex, therefore the process of reproduction is often fallen into unexpectedly as a ramification of lust.  Lust that's fueled by boredom and societal pressures and intense feelings of inadequacy.

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And I think that's what it comes down to:  intense feelings of inadequacy on one hand as well as working to proactively lessen the pain on the other.  But, in all truthfulness, these two are the same.  

Perhaps it kept Adam from speaking up to Eve on that fateful day.  Perhaps it fuels the continued abandonment of women all around the globe.  Perhaps it fuels the settling that women so often choose to adhere to when choosing a man (or even a homosexual lifestyle) to either have sex with or marry.  Perhaps it fuels the laziness that so often occurs in marriages between both parties.  

I quit.  I give up.  Nothing's good enough for anybody else.  

Until, someone else comes along who pays you "the attention you deserve".

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Ang and I have three small children.  My hope for them is God's will.  Perhaps that will involve marriage.  I don't know.

I do know that I can encourage / teach them by how our marriage functions within our home AND by exposing them to other marriages that do the same.

I'm speaking of church. 

To go back to my reference to the mega-church Ang and I used to be involved within.  That church is where we both "grew up".  Notice my use of the word "grew".  It was intentional.  We were exposed to countless marriages that impressed us immensely.  I'm convinced that it's one of the main reasons I'm not involved in a gay lifestyle today.  I was encouraged by what I was exposed to, and therefore chose to pursue marriage as I believe God had ordained for me.  Not to mention, she and I both made first contact there at First Baptist Church in our youth group.  It's highly unlikely we would have ever met each other otherwise.

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I hope to God that my children (both biological and by marriage) will never allow feelings of inadequacy or lazy shortsightedness to convince them to give up the fight relative to their (supposed) marriages, or worse that they would be the victims of such lies / foolishness by their (supposed) spouses. 

I don't want them to be abandoned.  That's what it comes down to.

May God have mercy on them as they grow and become.  Let's hope their own Kinsman-Redeemer(s) are out there even now, growing and becoming as God wills.

But if not, may God allow me to live out my days as I continue to work towards holding them close and enjoying their company.