“Men, you get your standard of beauty from your wife,” was my favorite line at church today. It’s something that Pastor Mark brings up often in his sermons when speaking of husbands and wives. “If she’s a brunette, you like brunettes. If she’s think, you like thin. If she’s formerly thin, you like formerly thin. Whatever your wife is, that is where you get your standard of beauty.” Part of his point here is, don’t compare your wife to other women you see. She is who you chose to marry and she is who you will respect, love, and find attractive for the rest of your life.
I love this. I love that my husband is going to see me through my ups and downs, weight gain and weight loss, freckles and wrinkles, tattoos and piercings, weird hair cuts and color, and still think of me as the most beautiful woman because I am his standard of beauty. This takes a lot of fear out of a marriage situation. It means his eye won’t be wandering and he won’t be lusting after other women. It isn’t a punishment for him either. It’s something he can be glad to do. Heck yes! I’m soooo on this band wagon.
Aaaaand here comes my Ms. Contrary side. How in the world can I expect that he won’t look at other women? That’s impossible! Have you seen the women that are out there?! I can’t go anywhere without finding at least a handful of women that I’d gladly give my right leg (it’s my good one) to look like! And those are real women, not just air-brushed models and actresses. Oh wait, and I have to compete with those women too!
Oh dear...what if I hate my hair and think I look like I was attacked by a 3-year old with a blender? What if I gain a million gazillion pounds and end up going out like the mother in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? Or heaven help me if I get even more stretch-marks if I’m ever pregnant! There’s no way he’d still think I was attractive. That’s total bull!
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| 3-year-old with a blender |
Ok, ok. So I take things a little to far. I kind of get something in my head and run with it, but life is full of so many surprises! Let’s get back to the sermon.
You may be wondering why my pastor would bring standard of beauty up in a sermon. Well, we were in the first chapter of the book of Esther where King Xerxes calls on his wife, Queen Vashti, to come to him in a room of men who had been partying HARD for six straight months. He wanted her to walk in front of them either naked with just a crown on, or nearly naked. He asked her to do so because she was known to be beautiful and he wanted to show her off to his buddies. She was the ultimate trophy wife and he wanted to share. Yeah, she said no.
So here, we stopped on the role of a wife. If wives are to be obedient and submissive to their husbands as the Bible says, how could she say no? Was she doing the wrong thing? I happen to agree with Pastor Mark in that she did the brave and Godly thing by telling King Xerxes no.
Here’s the thing. It’s pretty awesome that Xerxes found Vashti so beautiful, I guess. Husbands should find their wives beautiful. But she wasn’t his only wife. Not only was she not his only wife but he had a huge harem of women! Each woman was taken because of her beauty so he could be with any of them whenever he wanted to. This in and of itself is cruel and offensive for a husband to do. Then on top of that, he wanted his beautiful wife to come parade herself in front of thousands of men who had been in a drunken stupor for six months. Not only were these men drunk the entire time, but they were entertained by prostitutes to their heart’s content. Would this be a situation you’d like to be in? Well sure! Heck, I’d love to walk naked in front of thousands of drunk men who’ve been having their every sexual and sinful desires met for the past six months so my husband can show what a big man he is! That sounds great!
I kind of doubt that any one of the ladies reading this would think that. So where can we take this from here? Well, for a husband to be obeyed, he must be honorable. He must act in a way a loving husband should.
But confound it, I had to ask here, what’s so wrong with being a trophy wife? I mean, yeah, Vashti’s situation sucked. Xerxes was being a jerk, but why would it be bad for my husband to want to show me off to his friends? It would actually make me feel pretty good!
Luckily, Pastor Mark had something to say about that situation. He explained that your husband should love you more than that. You should be his standard of beauty to the point of not having to show you off to his friends. It is disrespectful to treat your wife as an object that you use to make yourself feel like a big man. To show others how well you’re doing for yourself.
Now, is it wrong or sinful for a husband to want to introduce his wife to his friends? No, not at all! But the reason should be respectful. It should be because he wants them to meet the love of his life, not see his arm candy. There is a difference and one is far more respectful and loving than the other.
Ok! Women’s rights! Woo!
Ah, but here’s my crazy brain again, reminding me about something that has often come to my mind. I’m actually embarrassed for my husband when he introduces me to his friends. If I meet his friend’s wives, I’ll compare myself to them. I’ve told him more than once that I’ve felt sorry for him that all of his best friend’s wives are much more attractive than me. I feel he got the short end of the stick.
Aaron has never agreed with me on this way of thinking and it makes him upset, which really is the best response, I have to say. But I really can’t shake it. I’d love to be a trophy wife! No matter how incredibly stupid it would be for someone to think, “poor Aaron, he got stuck with that?!” or anything along those lines, I still don’t want people to even come close to thinking that.
So what do I do now? I agree with Pastor Mark that your spouse is your standard of beauty, but I still want people to think that he did well with me. Yet in this, aren’t I wanting men who are most often married to be attracted to me when their standard of beauty should be their own wives? How horrible is that?! Does my self esteem need such a boost that I want someone besides my husband to lust after me? Gross! I don’t want to be that person!
So...what should I do? How do I keep myself from not caring? How can I break this sinful behavior so that the way my husband looks at me should be the only thing I care about?
Ummm...Jesus. I see this sin, now I need to repent. Not only to Jesus, but to Aaron. I don’t think that this is something that’s going to be easy to change, but I do have faith that I can be lead through it.
I thank Pastor Mark for preaching on the book of Esther the way he is. I thank him for caring so much about women in general and his wife and daughters specifically, enough to be bold and vehement about treating women respectfully. I thank Jesus for moving him in his sermons. I thank the Holy Spirit for working in me so that I can see this tendency of mine as the sin that it is. I pray that He continues to move me and helps me in my repentance to truly change. I thank Aaron for letting me be his standard of beauty and for not feeling cheated in the slightest.
Man, what a sermon! What a husband! What a God!
