Small Men Make Me Nervous

Actually, I should rephrase that. Small minded men make me nervous.

This feeling goes way back. I come from a tall family and was taller than almost all the boys in my junior high and high school until they started catching up about junior or senior year. There was nothing small or dainty about me. And some of the young men in my school felt threatened, and in feeling threatened, a few were not very nice to me. Looking back, I attribute that to insecurity.

Things have changed, of course. And there are several men in my world that I'm taller than, but they are more mature and aren't threatened by my amazon height. One fellow in particular, is not only quite a bit shorter than me, but he also has a baby face and soft tenor voice. But he's not small minded. He's a big hearted missionary, married with two daughters and he goes regularly to Eastern Europe to witness to the people there, including the gypsies. I love that guy. Though small in stature, he's strong and secure in his personhood and doesn't feel the least bit threatened by me. So he doesn't make me nervous.

But small statured and small minded men? They are far different than my missionary friend. They are not secure in their "manhood" and think that if I don't make myself smaller than them, somehow, that their "manhood" will leak out on the floor in a puddle of urine.

There are small minded men in high places in Christianity. These small minded men are busy at work building doctrine and structures that assure that their "manhood" will remain intact when they come around women. They build "manhood" structures for the men that lift them up and make them feel important and "womanhood" structures to make women smaller, less-powerful, and less threatening in both the home and church.

The very sad thing about all these structures is that they don't solve the real problem. They only create new problems.

The real problem is that these men are small-minded and small-hearted because of wounds or insecurities within them. And instead of dealing with those wounds and insecurities and developing into big hearted men, they try to subjugate and oppress and disempower women to compensate for their lack.

Women need to refuse to comply to the commands of these small minded men. We are not helping them to grow and mature. When we stunt ourselves for their sakes, we are really only allowing them to remain stunted in their false security of "Biblical Manhood".

I thank God that I go to a church full of strong men, not stunted men, including my big-hearted, small-framed, missionary friend.