On Monday I was all day in the Milwaukee airport, waiting for a flight that evening. I had plenty of time to observe people, see various types of interactions, and ponder…

Airports are places of extreme happiness (glad reunions) and extreme sadness (tearful partings). I noticed one parting in particular that gave me reason to ponder the interesting and God-created differences between men and women. There was a young couple that I figured out had spent the summer together as part of a drum and bugle corp (they both had corp T-shirts, and were with a group of friends the same age that had the same shirts). If you don’t know about drum and bugle corps, they are summer-long marching bands that compete on a very intense level. You can find plenty of video examples on Youtube (and I’ll post a video at the end of this post).

Anyway… I watched the young couple saying goodbye outside the gate… the young lady’s head was buried in the young man’s chest as she cried. He held her, gently stroking her hair from time to time and kissing her forehead. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he was obviously speaking tender words to her, trying to comfort the pain she felt at their parting.

What struck me was this… what would I feel like, or what would it seem like to other observers if the roles were reversed? What if the young man was the one crying, burying his head on the shoulder of the young woman? What if HE was the “weaker” one, the emotionally distraught one who needed consoling? What if SHE were the “stronger” one, speaking words of encouragement and consolation to him, rubbing his back, stroking his hair? Something in me would be repulsed by that scene. I’d probably feel physically ill. Really. It would be that gross to me.

God has made men and women to BE men and women… and that includes all the difficult and glorious differences between them. When each of them is what they were created to be, it feels as natural as the sunshine… to them and to everyone observing. When they are not, something is clearly wrong – and everyone knows it.

Here’s a video the Drum and Bugle Corps I mentioned…