I’ve been sick for ten days now. It started with a cold,
then laryngitis, then some nausea and general fatigue. As Penny keeps asking
me, “Do you still feel yucky, Mom?” And the answer is, yes. Still yucky.

William says, “I hope you feel better!” and he loves opening
up the cough drops for me. That’s about it. But Penny’s empathy has risen to new heights. She pats my
shoulder and hugs me and brings me anything I ask. Her first question when she
gets off the bus or sees me emerge in the morning is, “Feel better, Mom?” Last
night she sobbed because she didn’t want me to sing her a song (and usually I
sing her three songs). I finally figured it out. She was afraid it would hurt
my voice for me to sing.

Peter has borne far more than his fair share of the
parenting burden. He’s given countless hours, starting by driving me to a
speaking engagement four hours away and being prepared to speak in my stead if
the laryngitis was too much (I made it through two sermons and a talk. It
wasn’t pretty, but I got all the words out). He skipped classes and rescheduled
a long-awaited dinner with his brother and took the kids to school and got up
with them in the night.

And I cried with frustration that I couldn’t do more. So it was a fitting reminder to listen to a sermon on Ephesians 5, a classic Biblical text about marriage. It’s a passage that gives rise to accusations that Christianity is misogynistic and patriarchal. And this week, it is a passage that has also given me much comfort. It begins: “Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.” (The part that gets all the bad press comes next: “Wives, submit to your husbands… for the husband is the head of the wife.”)

As I looked at it again this week, I realized that the passage is really all about husbands. Here’s a summary: “Husbands love your wives… love your wives as your own bodies… Love your wife as you love yourself…” Note the common theme? It’s not that wives have nothing to do, but the emphasis here is on the sacrificial love husbands must show to their wives. The emphasis isn’t upon wives submitting, although certainly that clause deserves attention. The emphasis is upon love, the type of love that gets up in the middle of the night and finds a pacifier, the type of love that puts aside a paper for graduate school and eats a picnic with a four-year old, the type of love that sacrifices sleep and comfort and self. The type of love that reminds me of the love God shows us through Jesus.

I don’t want to be sick. I don’t want to be needy. I don’t want to be in bed instead of at the playground with our kids this morning. But I do want to understand the nature of love, so I guess there’s some good that comes from feeling yucky.