The Plans I Have For You.

I'm still figuring out what it means to be a biblical woman, but I do understand that, while men and women are perfectly equal before God, we were designed with different roles to play and those roles complement each other. The men are to lead and the women are to support. Leading is not aggressive and supporting is not submissive. Sin and society have warped something that was supposed to be beautiful. Is supposed to be beautiful. Can still be beautiful. 

I'm not the most gung ho woman in the world, but I'm pretty sure I would fall under the "leader" category. That's fine; women can lead. I have learned that much. But in a man-woman relationship, the woman supports the leadership of the man. The church supports the leadership of Jesus. If a husband is to love his wife as Jesus loved the church... well, there's nothing vindictive and aggressive about how Jesus led. It was confident and firm and true and responsible and faithful and loving and selfless. If every man led women in the same way that Jesus leads His church, I doubt there would be such a gender role struggle today.

I'm getting off point.

Anyways...

When he started pursuing me, we each had a lot to learn. He had to learn how to lead and I had to learn how to follow, and both of us had to learn what that meant in the contexts of our personalities and relationship. He's more mellow; I'm more forward. He's steadier; I'm flighty. He weighs every option; I shoot a bit more from the hip. We both lead different things, and in those things, it's apparent how different our leadership styles are. I need to cultivate my leadership because, in teaching, I am a leader. In many of the aspects that I feel called to work in the church, I'll be leading other people, other women. How do I grow as a leader, but even more so as a follower in my relationship with him?

I thought it would be hard. I thought submitting to the leadership of another would lessen or cheapen who I was. It wasn't easy, but it actually wasn't hard. There was... I guess I'd call it a sense of freedom in coming alongside and underneath his leadership. I felt more like a woman, not less like one. We stumble and step on each other's feet from time to time as we figure it out, but we're slowly getting better at this dance, of him leading and me catching all of the signals, of feeling when he's about to spin me, of following him out of the room and on to a balcony. 

We had some disagreements and fights. Nothing major, but it all boils down to the fact that we're both stubborn and we're both opinionated. 

Lately - and by that, I mean the past week - we've been disagreeing more. This bothered me deeply. What, now that we're engaged we're going to fight all of the time? What the heck is that? The thing is, we have big things to discuss now. There's only so much two people can disagree about when it comes to date nights or things like that. Now, we're discussing careers and apartments and how finances will work out and what this first year will look like. Wedding planning actually hasn't been a problem at all. It's talking out the post wedding details, figuring out how we merge our two lives together.

This afternoon, he asked me how my family's cell phone plan was set up. Honestly, I have no idea, and I said that and asked what he thought we should do as far as setting up our own plan, and how that works with our families and the established contracts. He said that it might be best for us, while we get our feet under us, to stay on our families plans and reimburse them monthly until we have enough rein over our finances to get our own plan set up. I bristled at this. My family has been incredible and has let me be dependent on them for things like a cell phone and insurance and the like. I am incredibly appreciative of that. The fact is, though, once he and I are married, I want us to be us. I don't want to be dependent, even though we'd be paying them back and so it would all come out in the wash. I want to prove to my family that I can do it, that we can do it. No, I said. We'll get rid of the iPhones and go to some cheaper (and crappier, admittedly) no-contract company and do it ourselves. Would that really be cheaper?, he asked. After we buy two new phones and get it all set up and buy the service, would that really be cheaper? I DON'T KNOW, but we'll be doing it ourselves and that's what matters. 

Anyways, we fought. Discussed. We sharply shared our reasonings and points of view, but the sharpness hurt and nothing was helped. I blurted out that we should both just shut up until we knew something concrete and wouldn't be speculating, because we obviously weren't going to agree anyways. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I could tell I had hurt him. Why?

Because he was trying his hardest to lead and I was absolutely refusing to follow.

Like usual, we wound up talking it all out. He explained that he was simply trying to prepare for worst case scenario (meaning that I don't find a job and he doesn't pass his Boards and so all we have as far as salary is concerned is Hollywood 10). Then he looked me straight and deep in the eye and said that my points of view, my wishes, my dreams, my goals - all of those meant more to him than his own opinion when he tries to make decisions for us, when he leads me. That he doesn't discuss options and decisions based on his stubborn opinion, but on what I'd like and what will be best for us. 

He's too good for me. And I told him so, which meant that I promptly started crying because that's what I apparently do. He's leading me with as much of that Christ-like selfless and loving and faithful and confident fervor that he possibly can, and learning from every mistake he makes, and here I am throwing "You're not even considering me"s in his face. If I spent as much energy into learning how to follow him as he does in learning how to lead me... 

I'm in love with you. That's how I know we're going to make it. I'm so far gone that the only reason you can see me is because you're what I'm heading towards.

Yes, he really did say that. Be jealous, ladies. He's almost all mine.