Saturday Sweethearts: Valuing your Husband through Gentleness

Valuing your Husband through Gentleness
Gentleness is showing tender consideration for the feelings of others.
Dr. Gary Smalley
05/09/05
While I was visiting with a friend, we began talking about one of the most unusual couples either of us had ever known. What made them unique was that in their eighteen years of marriage they had never yelled at each other. I know this sounds hard to believe, and you might assume that the husband, Herb, is a Caspar Milquetoast kind of guy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Herb is an excellent athlete with engineering degrees and a very successful business. The fact that he has never yelled at Helen doesn't mean he hasn't yelled at anyone else.

The question is: How can a man who is as aggressive and self-motivated as Herb go eighteen years without yelling at his wife? As my friend and I thought about this, we looked at each other, smiled, and blurted out the answer in unison, "How could anyone ever yell at Helen?" Helen is a living picture of gentleness.

Have you ever noticed the difference between the way a father handles a newborn baby and the way he plays with a three-year-old? The first time I held my newborn son I was extremely careful and was so concerned I might hurt him that I handed him back to my wife rather quickly. By the time he was three, we were roughhousing almost nightly. Why was I less gentle with a three-year-old that I was with a newborn? When he was a newborn, I was convinced that he was very fragile and that I needed to exercise the utmost care just to keep from hurting him.

The key motivation for gentleness is maintaining an awareness of the extreme fragility of other people's feelings. It was only natural for me to become less gentle physically with my son as he grew stronger. Unfortunately as time went on, I also became more calloused to my son's feelings because my busy schedule distracted my attention. Basically, I did what most of us do—I began to take Mike for granted. The more we take others for granted, the less gentle we tend to be in our relationship with them. We lose sight of their precious value and fragile inner person.

In other words, "The more we value something, the more gentle we will be in handling it." If I handed you a three-thousand-year-old, paper-thin Oriental case worth $50,000 and asked you to take it to the bank, would you handle it any differently than if I gave you a 59 cent plastic vase and asked you to take it down the street?

Something happened to Mike that completely renewed my awareness of his priceless value and the fragility of his life. We were staying at a large motel, and I was swimming with my three children. While I was roughhousing with Kari and Greg, Mike was floating around in his Donald Duck inner tube. I turned around and saw the inner tube was floating by itself in the deep end of the pool. Down in the water I saw Mike lying on the bottom of the pool—motionless, except for his soft blond hair moving back and forth with the motion of the water. My heart was gripped with grief and feat as I dived down and brought him to the surface. After he recovered, I knew it would be a long time before I would take him for granted again.

There may be times when it is difficult for you to fully appreciate the priceless value of your husband, but the fact remains that he is a very special creation of God with needs, disappointments, hurts, and feelings just like anyone else.

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Remember, THESE ARE IDEAS FOR YOU (not your husband). YOU are to romance your husband! I was inspired to do these Saturday Sweethearts based on a book called Romancing Your Husband by Debra White Smith. PLEASE get a hold of this book and read it. It is a really good book and will really change your life. :)