The Husband, the Princess, and the Dragon

I've been thinking a lot lately about the wonderful analogy of a Husband with a Hero. Just like a Hero, a good Husband should be someone who let's nothing stand in the way of him rescuing his Princess, or Fair Maiden. In the fairy tales, a Hero won't stop for anything, he charges forward with nothing else on his mind. He doesn't let anything distract him from his Princess. In real life, we husbands often do let things distract us from our "Princess." Often simply because of laziness, and a lack of determination and focus. But the wonderful thing about the analogy of the story is that I think most men would love to be considered a Hero; we just don't always remember that we have opportunities to be just that, staring us in the face every day. We just need to remember that even though we've "gotten the girl," "tied the knot," and settled down, if we want to be good husbands we have to continue to pursue our wives as if they were being carried away by a dragon every day. That is how we can be their Hero. We need to make them Number One in our lives (aside from God, of course).

The Dragon is another great analogy for us men. For whatever reason, we men are hard-wired to notice women's bodies. We are programed to find them attractive. Even when we are happily married and faithful, we can find our eyes being tugged in directions that we don't really want, when we come to our senses. We may ask, "why are we created to have to fight this all the time?" "Why can't we choose to be faithful, and never find ourselves looking at another woman again?" "Why do we seem to be locked in this eternal battle?"

We may also ask, "Why do Heroes always have some Dragon, or Monster to slay?" Well, what sort of an adventure fairy tale would it be if the Hero wasn't fighting something? It would be pretty boring actually. The idea of a fairy tale in which the Hero doesn't slay some horrible monster, or defeat some other evil character or device, in order to save his Princess, doesn't make for a very interesting story. The Hero is almost defined by his life of fighting.

And so it is with Husbands.

The problem is that our natural inclination to fight is often misdirected at good people or even our wives themselves! We need to direct our desire to fight at the thing we were designed to fight: the lust for other women. This is the dragon, the horrible monster, the evil character who will destroy our Princess unless we fight it and defeat it. Perhaps an even better picture is of a wicked witch disguised as a beautiful woman. We have to be smart enough to see through the disguise.

Our lives are more about the journey than the destination. Of course we want to defeat the dragon, but that doesn't necessarily meant we won't have to fight it again. We can take pride in developing the strength to continually fight the dragon, and always be on the look-out for anything else that wants to destroy our precious marriage; the Princess. We can truly be Heroes! Complete with the action, the glory, and the happy ending.

Forever and Eternity CD

My wife and I are happy to announce that we have released an album of our own New Christian Love Songs, called "Forever and Eternity." The album features original songs based primarily around the piano and two voices, with accompanying background music in a variety of styles including: Folk, Jazz, Country and Pop.

We wrote most of these songs back when we were dating, engaged, or in the first couple years of our marriage. So these songs capture the feelings of our young, honeymoon state of life. Whatever the season of your marriage (or relationship), we hope that these songs will help you to remember your own honeymoon state, and that those memories will bring warmth to your life, and strength to your marriage.

The process of recording this album was a little like the process of marriage. On the surface it appears to be all romantic and fun, but it was also a lot of work, and even frustrating at times. Between colds, car troubles, and the chronic chaotic cacophony of life with kids, we felt like everything was trying to prevent the production of this album. (Not to mention that fact that Tirah was 5 months pregnant while trying sing!) We often had to remind ourselves to look for the fun in what we were doing. But if we hadn’t persevered, you wouldn’t be listening to this music. So don’t give up! It’s worth all the hard work! And don’t forget to ask the Lord for help. With Him, nothing is impossible!