Sacred Influence by Gary Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

outside the home, whether they want to or not? You’re one in three as far as being able to choose to stay home. That’s gotta feel good.”
    “I guess so,” she said.
    I steered the conversation to the Monday following her husband’s lazy weekend. Unknown to Sarah, I had spoken with her husband, so I knew what had taken place on Monday. “Jim” took their son out to do a little batting practice; the young boy was preparing to start his first T-ball season and was eager to get some tips from his dad. Later that afternoon, Jim took their daughters to a movie. On the way home, he called Sarah and asked if he could get anything for her at the grocery store.
    After Sarah recounted all this, I asked her, “Do you have any idea what a single mom would say if, for just one day, a man came over and took her son out for some ‘guy time,’ teaching him how to hit a baseball, or if he gave her a break by taking her daughters out in the afternoon and then called to see if he could pick up anything for her at the store on the way home? She’d feel like she had died and gone to heaven! She’d go to bed praying, ‘Thank you, Lord, for one day when it wasn’t all on my shoulders.’ ”
    I watched as a light switched on in Sarah’s face. She glided over to Jim and kissed him on the forehead.
    “What was that for?” he asked.
    “For being you,” Sarah replied.
    Sarah had forgotten Jim’s “common blessings.” Minutes before, she remained blind to what her husband did by focusing only on what he hadn’t done on one weekend. Now, she saw him in a new light.
    I recently had the privilege of ministering in South Africa. Our hosts took my son and me to Soweto, a famous housing area home to the Mandelas and Bishop Desmond Tutu. Amid some nice homes lay a vast landscape of makeshift dwellings, cobbled together with scrap materials. We stopped at one place, and small children ran up to meet us, holding out their hands for free candy. Off in the distance, I saw a young mother carrying a five-gallon bucket to the group water spigot. Her neighborhood had no electricity and only a few shared faucets. Our eyes met fleetingly. While she could only imagine to what I would return, for me, there was no imagining. I could see how she lived. And I wished I could give every Western wife a glimpse of what this woman faces every day. You might not live like a movie star, but then again, you probably don’t have to walk a couple of blocks through muddy alleys to gather your daily water.
    When did you last thank your husband for helping to make your style of life possible?
    Loving the Less Than Perfect
     
    It is the rare wife indeed who compares herself to a young mother in Soweto. Most will feel tempted to compare themselves to someone who has it just a little (or even a lot) “better.” They’re like Sarah, the wife of the golf-watching husband, who fell into the same trap as did the widow at Zarephath. Though Elijah had proven himself time and again, once a new problem arose, the widow suddenly couldn’t see all that Elijah had done. She could see only what he hadn’t done.
    I admit that if I were talking to Jim, I’d challenge him to consider whether spending most of the weekend watching golf is the best use of time for a young husband and father. Jim certainly overdid it. Even so, it wasn’t fair of Sarah to look at Jim only in regard to this one lost weekend. Jim had provided a beautiful home. He earned enough money so Sarah could stay at home with her kids, as she wanted to. He was involved in his children’s lives. Jim wasn’t a perfect man, but there was plenty to be thankful for. As my friend Lisa Fetters says, “Wives need to look at the big picture, not isolated incidents.”
    To move a man, you have to learn to appreciate him for who he is and for what he has done. I’ve talked to wives who, in the abstract, know their husbands can’t be perfect; but in reality, they resent the fact that they’re not. As author and