The CBE Scroll

Comment by Liz

April 4, 2008 @ 7:00 pm

Thanks for sharing your experience Ashleigh. It is a timely reminder to us all, women and men, that we are all on a journey through life and need to appreciate the efforts made by people toward us even if they were not what we really wanted. You really have hit on the deeper issues about reconciliation where it’s about ‘us’ and not ‘them’.

Comment by Will

April 5, 2008 @ 2:22 am

Thank you for this post. I agree with you that many of us on one level have trouble ‘receiving grace’, not only because it isn’t the grace we want, but we have trouble being in debt to another (we still live in a culture that expects reciprocity). Yet, I think there is something we need to hear when you say others are not ‘giving grace’ to you that you don’t need. I wonder if some of the gender issues come about in how men learn to treat (and therefore give grace to) women. I am talking here about what can be condescending ways in which we learn that some behaviour toward women is acceptable and other behaviour is not. (E.g., the ‘rule’ that one should ‘never hit a woman’. OK, but why is it appropriate to hit another man? That’s what I mean by some of the condescending attitudes.) Attitudes will only become more and more ingrained if there is never a discussion on asking each other what grace one needs. This points also to the same attitude that causes us not want to be in debt to one another - telling someone else our needs means we make ourselves vulnerable to each other, and from a man’s perspective (or perhaps only my own), it’s easier to stand behind the old notion of what it means to give grace to women, standing in the position of one who gives rather than needs to receive.

Comment by jlp

April 6, 2008 @ 3:05 pm

Good to have you back, Will. I hope everything is going smoothly for you, although I know that in real life that doesn’t happen much.

Comment by Hubert Edgar

April 10, 2008 @ 12:17 pm

As I give gifts to my wife throughout the year, particularly our anniversary, birthday, and Christmas, I try to give her largely things she doesn’t know I’ve gotten for her because she likes surprises. As she gives me gifts, she generally gets thinks I’ve mentioned. She knows that, to me, “surprise” and “shock” are all too often the same thing.

I, too, think you’ve given us a great view into a deep and difficult area of Christian life and service. Each of us has things we want and things we want to give to others. The challenges are to accept the things we get and give the things desired by the recipient. That involves getting to know the individual.

Giving a group something is exponentially harder. The more people in the group, the more diverse their needs, wants, and levels of acceptance. I think part of our male/female relationship problems are that we try to give the other party what we want and/or need.

My wife and I shared some pretty inappropriate gifts to each other for the first decade or so of our marriage. We’ve gotten much better at picking things now. But even that requires constant updating because, as we grow, we change. Our needs and interests change.

To give and/or receive grace requires taking enough interest in the other party/parties to get past our gifts to their empty pockets so we gift them with something filling; pudding on pudding day, hugs on hugs day.

Comment by Ashleigh

April 11, 2008 @ 8:26 pm

I appreciated what all of you have said about learning to understand and respect each other more, trying to give and receive good gifts appropriately. People’s needs vary individually, as well as by gender, so as you are saying, it’s so important to be patient with others and interested in them so that we can both offer and accept grace more freely.

I think perhaps the key in all of this is an attitude of humility. In any relationship, especially with someone different from you in a significant way (gender, ethnicity, economic background, etc.), it’s important to expect some level of miscommunication at points and to expect a need to repeatedly confront and confess to one another. If we are expecting to hit these bumps and handle them with humility rather than taking offense at them, our relationships with be much smoother in the long run.

Comment by Judy

April 15, 2008 @ 6:45 pm

I like what Tony Evans wrote… something about, if she’s not your wife, she’s your sister in Christ, treat her like it. I very seldom enjoy situations where people are split by gender, and expected to perform within their ‘gender role.’ (Somehow the women always end up in the kitchen… or if the men do dishes it is a once a year way to honor women. -So are we honoring them every church event?) I was not made to fit well into the traditional female gender role. I get bored scrap booking and ruin pies. I am, however, a good administrator, and hold a doctorate. Why can’t we just all work together, using the gifts God gave us, rather than assigning roles to each sex that are seen nowhere in scripture? In many Christian circles I end up feeling inadequate because I don’t fit, even though I love the Lord and work hard to use and share what I do well. I have been reading a few books on why men hate church, and I think it goes further than that. I think it should be: why people with leadership skills hate church. This is an issue that crosses the gender gap, but is most noticable with men ( I believe) because they do not experience the pressures to be something they are not in many other areas.