This week didn’t unfold like I planned. Monday morning I got a text letting me know our college daughter was very sick. Events moved quickly as she went to the ER and ended up with a mono diagnosis. The doctor later told me every college student eventually gets mono, but some never know it.  Our girl definitely knows it. Prayer and discussion quickly led to a plan for me to head north to care for her off campus. Friends offered to let us stay in their guest apartment while Jo recovered. The rest of the week was spent quietly, enjoying the privilege of caring for our oldest.  Hospitable hosts made it possible, and in between temperature checks, making tea, foot rubs, naps, and chats with my girl, I was blessed by conversation with a couple who will mark their 50th wedding anniversary this summer.

If a couple has stayed married for half a century, through war, raising sons, fighting cancer, moving homes, changing jobs, and facing heartache, you can bet the wife knows nuggets of wisdom about the men in her life. As I packed the car to head home to my two guys on Friday, my mentor-host laced a “him lesson” into our conversation. I tuned in to soak up the final nugget of my stay in her home.

“A man’s home is the only safe place he has.”

The drive home gave me time, space and quiet to ponder her words. When a man steps out of his home, he enters a world that evaluates, judges, and challenges him. Even as a boy, he faces competition from a world driven by a need to rank and categorize him, to label and quantify him. Everywhere he goes for school, play, work, and responsibility, people watch to see if he will “be the man.” There’s a lot of truth in Dorothy’s mantra when she said, “There’s no place like home.”  Only when he comes “home” does a man  close the door and enter a place to be fully accepted, securely loved, and intimately known.

A marriage lesson reveals a secret about men in general.  When we read “let the wife see that she respects her husband,” (Ephesians 5:33) the word “respect” has the idea of deferring to someone else, showing courteous regard for another person. Only in his home can a boy/man be fully known and intimately accepted for who he is, without being evaluated by a set of conditions that qualify his worth. In his home he can expect to be treated with courteous regard as a man of value, with his strengths and weaknesses laid bare and fully known. When a guy fails to find unconditional affirmation at home, he lacks the strong foundation that gives him confidence and clarity to engage the world.

Start to know him

• Does the boy or man in your life find safety with you?
• Does he feel safe to be known by you?
• Does he find your  acceptance for who he is?
• Does he believe you want to know him?
• Does he experience courteous regard from you?
• Does he feel evaluated or analyzed by you?
• Does he think of your home as a safe place?

The only place in the world a man is safe is at home. To be safe, he must be known and accepted for who he is. Let’s know “him” fully and accept him as we find him, giving him the gift of a safe place in a world that isn’t. Before we know it, years will pass and we will celebrate the sweetness of relationships that comes with knowing.

If you’ve been reading this 28 Days About Him series, you must want to be a safe place for the fellas in your world. God knows your heart and will hear your prayers as you ask Him to help you learn to KNOW Him (the Lord) so you can know him (your fella).

Press on, dear friend, because the guy in your life is going to be so grateful to have a safe place in you as you know him.

How sweet to give the gift of safety that comes with knowing.