I had a strange dream a while back. It was so real, I couldn’t get it off my mind. So, I decided to share it with my good friend “Kathy,” who had recently sent me a Tony Gaskins article titled, “What A Real Man’s Love Looks Like.”

In my dream, I and several others were preparing for some sort of event. I noticed our swimming pool (the one we don’t actually have) needed cleaning and was covered with fallen leaves and twigs. As I waited for instructions on what to do about that…

I looked up and saw SUPERMAN flying across the sky at tremendous speed.  His face was heavenward, as he lay on something like a large fiery bullet. Flames surrounded his neck at the tip of the object.

The voice of a news broadcaster was reporting, “Superman is removing the object at the risk of his own life. He will not let it go, even as his head and neck are in the fire!”

Suddenly the dream changed…

My husband was driving our car, his brow creased with concern, as I rode silently beside him. He had managed to cut a cantaloupe in thirds, and as he drove on, he held a piece of it on the back of his neck to cool the burn. I commented about how “clever” it was of him to think to do that. But he just turned and looked at me with obvious pain in his eyes and said, “It really hurts, Susan!”

I woke up, startled.

Some Kind of Superman

As I lay there thinking about my dream, I was reminded just how hard men like my husband work to show love for their wives. And yet, how fragile men can be in some ways.  So much is expected of them. And real men, who really love and take responsibility for their role as men, bear it well, if we women would only stop to recognize it.

I looked at my still-sleeping husband in the dim light of the room and wanted to say, “Forgive me, for looking to you sometimes to be some kind of Superman.  All the pressures of a business owner; enduring health issues the past few years that would best most people.  Yet always concerned for me; always the go-to guy for another need or repair in our daily lives.

A Dreamy Reminder

I believe my dream was the Lord reminding me that my “Superman,” committed and loving as a man can be to our life together, is really only human, and that life and duty “really hurts” for him too, at times.

As his wife, it’s important for me to encourage him more, and be ever more attentive to his needs. It’s important to help share the weight of things from which we women can tend to abdicate, just expecting our men to handle them. There’s a balance, of course!  Men LIKE doing certain things—and they are happiest if we women just let them do those things without our “expert” directives.

After sharing my dream with my friend Kathy, she responded, “We all should be reminded of this! I have a husband who is healing from a broken back, yet he still rides fiery bullets for me.”

The dream was a reminder for me to also be the “real woman” who loves her real man in deeper ways.  That’s when a woman is able to realize what a real man’s love looks like!