CHIVALRY!!!
Chivalry it's the ultimate gift every girl wants right? Chivalry, like CPR, has been romanticized into something it really is not. (If you think CPR is romantic, you've NEVERRR taken a CPR class before! Because the possibility of someone barfing in your mouth and breaking their chest bones, is not in anyway romantic unless your a total phsyco...jus sayin!!;) Females so often put chivalry into the category of being treated like a princess. The man ALWAYS has to open the door for her and the car door for her too, even when just running errands! He pumps the gas for her! He does this and that etc...
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While I don't mind, and do think its polite and courteous for anyone, male OR female, to hold the door for the person behind them, if someone happens to NOT hold the door for me, my world is NOT turned upside down, because I KNOW HOW TO OPEN A DOOR!!! I know how to pump gas!!! I know how to pull out my own chair!!! If I can lift something, that needs to be moved, I just do!!! BUUUUUUT I don't know how to change a tire or fix pretty much anything! To me, chivalry is not pampering and spoiling someone and allowing for laziness, but more about putting others before oneself.
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According to the 10 commandments of chivalry, the closest thing to what we consider chivalry today, is the third commandment: Thou shall respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them. Its to protect and defend the weaker and the poor. Chivalry can not be summed up in opening a door for a pretty girl or giving her his jacket because she is cold. To me, chivalry is a matter of a man's character and the integrity in his heart, what he does or how he treats someone, when no one else is looking. To me, chivalry is NOT defined by a man's actions alone.
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A chivalrous man doesn't do something for someone because it appeals to him, he does it because it's right! He doesn't do it to be romantic, he does it because it is needed! He doesn't do it to seek a females approval, to woo her or earn brownie points, he does it because he is an honorable man. To me, the ultimate example of chivalry; is doing for someone, what they can not do for themselves.
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When I think of chivalry, I specifically think of an incident that I witnessed one day at a Circle K gas station near my house. It happened on a hot summer day here in Phoenix Arizona. I walked in to buy a drink and as I walked towards the soda fountain, I saw an elderly lady standing there getting herself a soda. As I got closer to her, I noticed that she was very poorly kept. Her clothes were ragged and worn, her hair in a disarray, she wreaked of sweat, body odor, urine and just plain filth. As I got closer to her, I realized from the wet brown marks going down her pants that she had an accident, not making it to the toilet. There was nothing attractive or appealing about this scrawny, wrinkled old woman as she quietly, slowly, hobbled over to the line to pay for her drink.
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However, as she began to make her way to the back of the line, standing right behind me, a young man in the front of the line stepped out and said with the utmost respect, "Ma'am, you can go in front of me!" The lady hesitated not sure of what to do. So unsure of being treated with kindness and respect, after all who was she, that any young man would offer for her to go in front of him in line. She wasn't pretty and young, but the young man courteously compelled her like she was royalty, to come stand in front of him in line.
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I watched, as that poor, elderly woman hobbled to the front of the line and paid for her drink. When she was done paying, she turned to that young man, and with tears in her eyes she thanked him! "Bless you, she said to him, BLESS YOU!" Then she hobbled out the door to her bike filled with many bags holding her all her stuff. Who knows when the last time it had been, that the neighborhood bag lady had been shown respect, but it was done by a young man that I then watched walk out the door and headed to the bus stop to wait for the bus. I'm not normally checking out the guy waiting at a bus stop, but in that moment, I couldn't help but admire him. It doesn't take a rich or educated man to be chivalrous, because chivalry is a matter of character and the integrity in ones heart.
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And as I thought about all this that happened, I couldn't help but think that what this young man had done, was exactly what our savior did for us. God, our creator, put aside the splendor of heaven, humbled himself, clothed himself in flesh and came to this earth to sacrifice himself for us. And he didn't just do this for when we were at our best, when we looked good and smelled nice. He came to us while we were in our own filth and waste. When we were a mess, and wreaked of havoc, while we were wallowing in the vomit of our mistakes and failures of life, clothed in nothing but the the destructive rags of or own sins, he put us before himself and Christ died for us. He took our place in death when we were NOTHING, when it looked like we would never amount to anything, that's when Christ sacrificed himself for us.
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You don't need to look any further for chivalry, because God gave us the ultimate gift of chivalry when he came to this earth as a little baby, to do for us, what we could NEVER do for ourselves!!! A perfect God, the King of Kings, ransomed and redeemed us, sinners, failures, messed up humans, from eternal death in hell.
WE SERVE A CHIVALROUS GOD!!!
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
♥Mary Frances :)
