A Good Man's Not Hard To Find
by Shellie R. Warren

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it [for death or life]." ---Proverbs 18:21

"The words of a [discreet and wise] man's mouth are like deep waters [plenteous and difficult to fathom], and the fountain of skillful and godly Wisdom is like a gushing stream [sparkling, fresh, pure, and life-giving]." ---Proverbs 18:4

A couple of days ago, I received a "thank you" email from the editor of Awareness Magazine for an article that I submitted, "A Good Man's Not Hard To Find". He told me that already he was getting a lot of positive input from men about the piece, with one man in particular stating that it needed to be copied and mailed to every woman that he knew.

Which got me to thinking. Just how many times have I read or heard anything that was praising men? Now, in all fairness, the first thing that indeed comes to mind is the somewhat recently recorded "Black Man" anthem by Angie Stone, but other than that, I am kind of stumped.

So, I decided to do some research. I went to a couple of my favorite search engines and typed in the phrase, "quotes on men". In just a moment, I will share with you several examples of what I found---they aren't complimentary. But the harder I searched, the less successful I was in finding edifying statements about men. Ironically, I also did a search on "quotes on women" and the really weird thing is that the listing that immediately popped up was "quotes by women"---and of course, most of them were complimentary. Mmm-hmm.

Which led me to a comment that I made in a class pertaining to this issue. It is no secret that many women are very uncomfortable with the state of men today, especially when it comes to relationships. Yes, there are men who cheat. Yes, there are men who lie. Yes, there are men who are egotistical. Yes, there are men who abuse and manipulate. Yes, there are men who are no good.

*NEWSFLASH*

There are also women who fall into this category as well. And unfortunately, it is more women then we may initially think---or admit.

As I reflect on the relationships that I have had with men (platonic and romantic), I must admit that many of them were not positive and more times than not that left me with negative perspectives about them. But this leads me once again to recite my favorite quote; "Crazy people are those who do thesame thing expecting a different result". If I am continuing to place myself in the same predicament with men that will cause me to have a negative aspect on men as a whole---is that every man's fault for existing or is that my fault for making poor choices?

Which led me to an immediate investigation of just what as a woman I'm supposed to do to protect the integrity of men---people who are made in the image of God---while protecting myself. So, I went to Genesis (2:18), where it all began---where a woman was first introduced to a man.

"And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him."

Although there are so many roles that we as women can hold, although we are created to birth both children and vision, although the world as we know it would cease to exist without our presence---the first idea that God had for us was to help. And although this definition varies based on the relationship a woman has with the man (i.e., wife v/s husband, brother v/s sister, father v/s daughter, employer v/s employee, platonic friend v/s romantic friend, etc), the fact that our help is needed applies to them all.

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