Have you ever noticed how men and women shop totally differently?
I consider myself a patient man, but when I go to the grocery store with my wife, it doesn’t take long for my patience to get up and run away.

My wife usually goes prepared, with a list in hand, and knows what she needs, but for some reason, when we get into the store, she picks up items she has purchased before and has to read the label. This amazes me. We have consumed or used these items many times before; we know what they taste like or how they work, and yet she is still reading the labels before they get put in the cart. When it comes to vitamins or supplements, it gets even worse. There are times it has taken her 10 minutes to decide on the one she wants. This is what’s amazing about it. Before she totally decides that’s what she wants, she looks at me and asks me if I think that product is OK, as if I am an expert in vitamins or supplements. I have no idea what most of the vitamins and supplements do. She lays them out for me, and I take them. After about 30 minutes of her reading every word on labels and only scratching off a few items from her long list, I become weary of being in the store. In 30 minutes of shopping, we have barely gone down 2 aisles and have only 3 or 4 items in the cart.

The other side of this is when my wife asks me to go get groceries for her. She hands me a list of what she wants. If there is a particular item to get, she describes it next on the list, like what color the packaging is or to make sure it’s the light one, not the original. So I take the list, go up and down each aisle, check off each item I find, check out, and get home in the same amount of time it takes my wife to get 3 products in her shopping cart when I’m with her.

Men and women are wired differently. Even though we have the same wants and desires, how we go about getting them is totally different. My wife explains it this way: If she and I are facing a mountain and we need to get to the other side, she says she goes through the mountain, and I go around it. I explain it the other way around. I am the one that knows exactly where we need to be, while she will go up and over the mountain, looking at everything along the way, making her journey twice as long while I am already on the other side waiting for her.

I see this as the beauty of how God made man and woman and the beauty of how God designed the family to work.

The man is driven to get to a certain point. We pick up products because that’s what we always use; we don’t know how they work, and most of the time care little about the cost. Women are also driven to get to the same point, but they also bring along wisdom and caution with them. She stops, reads labels, understands how and what they do, and then compares prices before she makes her decision.

I see God’s plan for family as follows: the man’s/father’s goal is to do whatever it takes to protect his family. He commits himself to his work, trying to secure finances; he makes sure his family is grounded in the truth of God. There are no maybes, no guesses on where or what he stands for. The woman’s/mother’s goal is the same; only she takes her commitment to work and changes it into a privilege. She explains to her family why and how they are grounded in truth. She knows exactly what her husband stands for, and she gives him her unwavering support to make the family strong.

God made no mistake in making man and woman different. He knew there needed to be a driving force to move forward. He also knew there needed to be a throttle to slow down the driving force and keep it in control.

Through 36 years of marriage with my wife, I have appreciated all the ways she has supported me, knew when to throttle me back, and has encouraged me when I felt like giving up. When she picked me off the shelf, she read my label. She knew what I would do for her, and she knew what her cost would be. This is why she is my angel sent from Heaven. All of my weaknesses, she has turned into strengths. She has taken the harshness of my driven force, and without weakening it, made it softer. Raising two teenage boys, we both had to be on the same field of play. While I pushed the values and morals of being a God-loving and fearing family, she was there to help show why those values and morals were important.

God created woman as a helpmate, not anything less. He did not create her as a doormat to be stepped on and treated like dirt. She is just as important to the family as a man is and should be treated with respect, admired, cherished, and protected. She is a special gift from God.

So men, the next time your patience runs out the door shopping with your wife, remember all the wonderful things she does for you, the joy she brings or has brought to your family. She is your special gift from God.