The phrase, “Behind every good man is a great woman,” was a phrase that met a groan of disdain when I heard it.  C’mon why is the woman letting the man get all the attention.  Of course there were a couple that couldn’t be hidden in the spotlight, like Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton. But, what about all the other great women?

 Then it happened. “It” happens alot in our house.  I’ll make a strong conclusion and then be proven wrong in such a strong way I have to admit the error in my thinking.  This is how “it” went. Mr. B. wanted to change the seats or something like that in our shower faucet.  I do not do plumbing.  Somewhere over the course of our marriage, the realization that my husband has to be good at some things so I can ooooh with authenticity, led me to not learn about that facet of homecare.  Plumbing seemed like it was as good as anything else, so my solution to a plumbing issue is to call Mr. B. or Roto Rooter.  We’ve only called the plumber twice.  He charged us $120 bucks each time to be in our home for fifteen minutes. That really helped the ooooh factor.  Every time Mr. B fixes it I think “ooh we saved lots of money.”

So, Mr. B is going to fix the seat.  Except last time he did it, he forgot to put the silver thing that hides the plumbling hole.  I didn’t want to ooh and complain so I just oohed, let it go and prayed that something didn’t come out of the hole while I showered. Now, is the time to complain if I want it fixed.  “Uhm, Babe (I call him babe sometimes) can you put the silver thing back on this time.” He knows what I’m talking about and tried to say it was a task that required a level of experience that went beyond him.  That’s big for saying he tried to whine.

Luckily, this summer I was in a Bible study with my friend Pastor Bryan.  He did a compelling job of convincing me that sometimes it is best to hold ones tongue.  So when my husband whined, I resisted the urge to say, “Let’s just call a plumber.” I let hime whine and I just smiled, practiced my soft loving face and breathed.  I wonder what it looked like from his perspective?

End of the day, he came out of the bathroom: 1-the seats were fixed and 2-he invented something to cover the holes in the walls. My husband, took a bath mat with the suction cup things and cut them into cute shapes and covered the hole.  He was soooo pleased with himself.  Which was a triple oooh for me.  He was creative and he met my expectation and he liked it.  It was easy to gush.  He took it in and told me that he tried harder because he didn’t want to disappoint me. This greatness came out of him, because he didn’t want to disappoint me?

That’s when I believed.  There really is a woman behind a lot of those men with good ideas!  And, I have to give kudos to that Bible study. Fortunately, we’ll never know the outcome if, I hadn’t kept my tongue.  Which is why I’m not saying a word about the cold water faucet in the shower leaking so much I have to mop the floor after I take a shower.   Hey, At least my bathroom will be really clean for quite some time.