The White Papers

For me, this is probably one of the hardest things in my faith that I struggle with understanding. And I freely admit that it is very possible I have this wrong. But I have asked God to help me understand what His intention is with this topic and I have to believe that He will always lead me in the right direction.

I believe that God has specific purposes for everyone in the family. A man has a specific role, a woman has a specific role as do the children. I believe that God does hold the man responsible for his family. But in no way, do I believe that puts the man above and over the woman.

When a man and a woman get married, they become one, which is also described in the Bible. So while the man may be held accountable for his family, he has the absolute best thing in the world available to help him and that is his wife. He has a partner that can provide input, support, advice, whatever is needed. And the husband who ignores that is a fool and does so at his peril.

My wife complements me in a wide variety of ways. She has a great deal more common sense than I do, she’s smarter in some things, and she has a kinder heart than I will ever have. She’s good with our kids in ways I’m not just like I’m good with them in ways that she’s not. I very rarely make decisions without consulting her.

It’s not a power trip for me. I look at my wife as an equal and I rely on her a great deal. But I do believe that there are things God will hold me personally accountable for. So on those things, when the situation arises where my wife and I disagree, ultimately the decision is mine to make. I do believe that. But when I do disagree with her and make a decision that is not something she would do, I try my best to do so with as much thought and reflection as possible. I’m not perfect at this and neither is she, but we both try our best to fulfill what we see our roles in this marriage to be to the best of our abilities.

The reason I struggle with this, is because I see too many men look at this as some type of pecking order, where the wife is to just sit there and listen to his rules and decisions. I hate that and find that such an atypical behavior for a Christian to have. I have two wonderful daughters and the idea of them meeting someone like that and marrying them fills me with dread. So I teach them now what I believe, and hope that when they meet their perspective spouses, they make sure that they understand where he stands on this and if he is one of those power-hungry gentlemen, they can show him the door.

The title of this hub is my attempt at a little irony. I do not believe that God’s Word or His intent with His Word changes. It’s the same now as it was when His Word was written. But, I do believe the society we live in now has possibly opened up our eyes to what His real intent would be. I may be wrong, and I’m sure there are many who think I take being the role of “leader of the house” too literally, or maybe not literal enough, but I believe that I am doing what God expects of me. Right or wrong, the one who will let me know someday will be Him.

NOTE: This was originally published by myself on my old HubPages account on 12/30/2008.

I have always wondered how someone handles phobophobia – the fear of being afraid. I mean, after all, wouldn’t that fact that you have the fear be a problem for the fear itself?

Well, my fear is not that unique. I happen to have arachnophobia. Yes, I, a former Marine, a 2nd degree black belt in TaeKwonDo, who is 6 foot 2 and weighs 260 pounds, have a fear of a little tiny insect. And while I am not 100% sure where it started, I have a sneaky suspicion that the blame lies with my little sister.

When I was a young boy, my sister and I were outside playing with some friends when we had come across a daddy longleg. My sister has always had little fear and an intensely evil wicked sense of humor and she grabbed the spider and put it on my leg. I freaked out and my fear of the little critters was born.

Well, at least I think that’s how it happened. My memory of this is vague and of course as the years go by that daddy longleg gets bigger in my mind and my sister becomes more and more mischievous.

My fear intensified as a young adult when I did an extremely stupid thing (of which I am infamous for doing from time to time). I was a new Marine, and had some time to kill so I went to see a movie called – wait for it – Arachnophobia. Now, why in the world would someone who has Arachnophobia go see a movie such as this? Because the previews made this terrifying movie out like it was a COMEDY! Well, some people may have laughed but I had my eyes closed through about 50%, no 60, uh, well 98% of this flick! After the movie was over, I had gone to a convience store and was looking for something to drink when a bug flew by me and I nearly dropped to the ground in fear!

Move on several years, and I’m a newly married man with a beautiful bride who begrudingly puts up with my irrational fear. One night we were asleep and I had a horrible dream. In this dream, my father had moved down south to study, pink spiders. (Why pink? I don’t know. Ask Freud.) Anyways, I come down to visit him and see all these spiders and I jump onto his bed. This boy appears out of nowhere, grabs a spider and puts it — in my mouth.

I woke up my lovely wife with a scream as I ran from our bedroom into the bathroom and started splashing water in my mouth. I have no idea what a spider tastes like, but that taste in my mouth is one I will never forget.

I am sure there are many others who have to put up with this fear in a much more crippling manner than myself. But I’m sure my embarrassment is right up there with the worst. Because of this fear, I have a wife who has to kill all spiders we come across and I have two beautiful little girls who look up to me for all other things but mock me by playing with toy spiders, drawing spiders for me to look at, etc, etc. My shame knows no bounds.

And all because of my evil little sister…

NOTE: This was originally published by myself on my old HubPages account on 12/25/2008.

As Americans, we are told a lot we live in the best country in the world. And I believe that to be the truth. There has never been, nor ever will be a country that is as phenomenally great as the one we live in.

We have the freedom to live where we want, pursue whatever career we want, get married (or stay single), raise a family, join whatever church we want, vote for our leaders and our policies and the list goes on and on.

We also have the freedom to form our own opinions on things and to express those in a variety of ways. That’s a prized freedom that we have and one that nobody should take for granted. But sometimes I wonder if that very freedom is paralyzing us as a nation.

It seems today that it is almost impossible for any two people of differening opinions to discuss things openly without there being a feeling of intense antagonism between the two. I see this (and even experienced it) in my day to day life and I watch it on all the TV news shows and I hear about it with our political leaders and I am curious if we are going to ever be able to meet in the middle on some things and get anything accomplished.

I have very strong opinions on a wide variety of subjects, some of which I’ve mentioned in previous hubs. I believe abortion is wrong, I believe in the right to own guns, I do not agree with homosexual marriage. I don’t believe in evolution, nor do I believe in everything that is being said about global warming.

But I am okay with discussing these issues with people who totally disagree with me. Some of these issues I will probably never concede the points of the other side, but I have no problem hearing those points. And I want to hear those points. It helps me think through my own opinions and ideas and reaffirm whether or not I really believe the way I think I do.

This is kind of a weird story, but it illustrates my point. A lady I work with takes care of abandoned animals and she was asking us for our opinon on something. She had brought a couple dogs home that had “accidentally” mated and now the female was pregnant. She wasn’t sure if she should let the puppy give birth and if she did, then what should she do with the puppies (she is not fond of breeders and if she sold the puppies, then she’d feel like a breeder).

Well, I half-jokingly commented that I don’t like the idea of aborting a life and started to go into how I thought she should just give the puppies away…when she cut me off and said, “I don’t want to hear about your ideas on abortion, because I’m right and you’re wrong.”

I was surprised into silence. Her and I had never discussed abortion at all, in fact other than indicating I was pro-life when asked, the subject had never came up. So I was dumbfounded by the harshness of her words.

I know two other people, one who believes that the Iraqi war was a horrible thing for us to do, and the other who believes that we absolutely had to go over there and do what we did. I’ve had discussions with both and my thoughts on the war are this; at the time I thought we should have gone over because all evidence sure seemed to indicate that it was the right thing to do. Now, several years later, when there have been no weapons of mass destruction found, I no longer feel as strongly that we did the right thing. But I think we can’t leave until we are sure that Iraq is a safe place to live (as safe as possible for that part of the world).

When I discuss my thoughts with either individual it is so funny, both of seem to think that I either need to believe the war was right or it was wrong. There’s no room for a middle ground with these guys. When did the war become a Republican/Democratic issue for goodness sake?

It seems like this type of mentality permeates so much of our society. I watch some of the shenanigans with our Senators and Representatives and it’s a wonder that they ever get anything done or passed. No one can find a middle ground, everyone’s determined it must be their way.

Our freedoms are the envy of the world and one of our most precious gifts given to us by our founding fathers. I just hope that the freedoms we have and cherish so much don’t completely paralyze our country into inaction.

NOTE: This was originally published by myself on my old HubPages account on 12/13/2008.