“Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances,” said wise King Solomon in Proverbs. With hundreds of wives, I bet Solomon learned the hard way that the opposite is just as true – a word spoken in wrong circumstances can make you wish you’d had your lips sewn together. With that in mind, let me suggest to you husbands some things NOT to say to your wives, gleaned from my own experiences and those of friends …
When I was expecting our second son, Andy, I felt like a balloon being slowly inflated to fly in the Macy’s Parade. That’s why when my husband began calling me the “S.S. Crum” and making boat-horn noises as I lumbered around, it didn’t exactly feel like I was being blessed with “apples of gold.”
A friend’s husband said it looked like God took two blobs of Play-Doh and rolled them vigorously in His hands to form her legs. Another friend said she once tried to seriously converse with her husband while he was watching a football coach being interviewed on T.V. As she poured out her heart, she noticed that her beloved was mindlessly saying, “Uh huh … uh huh,” while steadily turning up the volume on the T.V. Bet you won’t find that move in the “Handbook for Blissful Marriages.”
Another husband, in a misguided effort to be encouraging, told his wife that her fat didn’t jiggle around as much as she thought it did. “Your fat must be so tightly compacted in there, it can’t jiggle,” he said. Methinks that verbal love arrow missed its mark.
I don’t know who 10-year-old Ricky is, but I got an email that quoted Ricky as follows: “Tell your wife she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck.” Maybe Ricky should travel the country doing “Be Suave” seminars for conversationally-retarded males.
Men, you might want to check out the Song of Solomon in the Bible for some sweet-talking tips: “Your hair is like a flock of goats that have descended from Mount Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn ewes which have come up from their washing … Your temples are like a slice of pomegranate … Your neck is like the tower of David built with rows of stones, on which are hung a thousand shields… Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, which feed among the lilies.”
Okay, so you might want to update those goat and sheep analogies, and I’m not real sure about the pomegranate thing, but I think Solomon was on the right track.
Or if your neck is just a bit red, perhaps you could borrow a few lines from this quaint poem I received via email: “Yo’re as satisfy’n as okry jist a fryin’ in the pan; yo’re as fragrant as snuff right out of the can … On special occasions, when you shave under yore arms, well I’m in hawg heaven, and awed by your charms … Me’n you’s like a Moon Pie with a RC cold drank, we go together like a skunk goes with stank.”
Guys, please don’t tell us our legs look like strands of rolled Play-Doh, we look like a Carnival Cruise ship, or that our fat is packed so tightly it can’t jiggle. And try to steer clear of comments like the one I received the other night from my beloved when he was trying to encourage me about some recent weight loss and announced, “Hey, I didn’t know you had ribs.”
Keep it sincere and simple, like God does. “For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, but My lovingkindness will not be removed from you (Isaiah 54:10) … I have loved you with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3) … Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you … (Isaiah 43:1-2) … For God so loved the world that He gave … (John 3:16)”
Ah, now there are some “apples of gold” worth savoring.