The Journey: Spiritual Abuse Awareness Week

This is my second post for Spiritual Abuse Awareness Week. The prompt for Day 2 was:

"How has your experience affected you? What has it done to you emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, etc.? What has your journey been like? How have you gotten where you are today? Do you feel you’ve healed? What do you still struggle with?"

Good questions. Let's see- how has my experience affected me? It's literally affected every area of my life. Obviously abuse is never a good thing, and there have been many struggles along the road to healing, but I'm proud to say that I've fought like hell and come out so much better and stronger. I'm a fighter, a survivor, and I'm proud of how far I've come.


So- physically. One thing I've learned through all of this is just how interconnected body, soul, and spirit are. When I first started becoming aware of the abuse, my health took an absolute nosedive. I went from being a relatively healthy person with no concerns to someone with serious health issues in a matter of months. My main issues were digestive, and while I'm a little embarrassed to go into all the details, just imagine the worst things you can imagine about IBS, and that's what I was dealing with.  I eventually figured out that I'm allergic to gluten, and my health improved somewhat after eliminating that from my diet, and then improved significantly again after a year on the GAPS diet and a parasite cleanse. The really interesting thing though is that I never had digestive problems before becoming aware of the abuse and before I started the extraordinarily stressful process of working through all of that. I do think that I'm legitimately allergic to gluten, but I also fully believe that my health issues were directly related to the stress of these experiences.


Emotionally. While going through all of it, my emotions were all over the place. Depression, anxiety, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, the whole 9 yards. As my sister pointed out after reading Monday's post, I also had some reactions that weren't unlike PTSD. I was a mess. I felt like I was going insane. I knew I wasn't crazy, but goodness, it sure felt like it some days. I had such little control over my emotions, and the depression was so constant and so crushing. Again, some of this was definitely exacerbated by the gluten and gut issues, but a lot of it was a legitimate emotional reaction to what I had been through and what I was going through processing it all(and the subsequent effect on my marriage).

But now? It's like night and day. Now I've found healing, now I've learned to set healthy boundaries and learned what it means to love myself. After learning how to love and accept myself, my heart has been opened to love others, to truly love others for the first time in my life. That nagging feeling that I wasn't really living my own life is gone. I feel freedom, hope, and joy. Yes, there are bad days and even rough seasons. But I know now that not only can I get through them, but HOW to get through them.


Mentally. I've learned that I'm strong. That I'm relentless. That I can get through just about anything. I've learned that I'm intelligent, that I'm not cut out to be a full time stay-at-home-mom(and that's okay!), and that I still love learning. I've learned that it's okay to think for myself. I basically had to start completely over, figuring out what *I* actually think and believe, and while that's a strange process to start so late in life, it's also been so much fun.


Spiritually. Like I described earlier this week, at my lowest point I couldn't even open the Bible, dreaded sitting through church services, and could hardly pray. To have so much trust shattered- to find your life in shambles because of what you'd been taught in the name of God- was just totally devastating. I honestly didn't even know where to begin, but for the first time in my life I decided to be honest with myself about how I was feeling. I gave myself permission to not want to open the Bible. I figured God would rather have me not open it out of an honest heart than to keep reading it out of obligation like I'd done for the past 15 years or so. I just didn't want to be fake anymore. I stopped opening the Bible unless I really wanted to. I didn't do anything spiritual unless I actually wanted to. It was so dark.

And yet God can be found in the darkness too, especially when there's an honest heart there. I found Him speaking to me, undeniably speaking to me. Still, even when I couldn't speak to Him, couldn't put any effort into it anymore, even when I was so hurt and so tired and so done, He still pursued me. It's been a long road, and I don't think I could even explain how, but He showed me grace and love. For the first time EVER, which is a complete and utter shame considering I grew up in CHURCH, I started to understand what grace and love look like. It's awakened and affected every part of me, every relationship that I have. I've learned to show grace to my children and my husband. I'm learning how to show grace to myself.

My spiritual walk is deeper and more real than it ever has been.




I feel like I've healed a lot, although this process of starting to share my story and reevaluate it has shown me that I still have a lot more healing to do. One thing I'm struggling with right now is that after so many years of trauma and going through absolute hell, I still find myself looking around every corner, expecting something horrible to happen. Sometimes, if things have been peaceful for too long, I'll find myself trying to pick a fight with Thad or subconsciously looking for a situation to be angsty about. This is obviously not healthy. I also struggle with knowing that we live in a world where patriarchy is alive and well, where gender hierarchy is the norm both inside and outside the church(but especially inside), and where women are abused every day in the name of God. I'm still trying to figure out what part I can play in helping that stop, and I think for now, sharing my story here is a good place to start.



Today I'm linking up with Joy in This Journey for Day 2 of Spiritual Abuse Awareness Week. Click over to her blog to read other stories or to share your own. 

The Secret Pain of Spiritual Abuse

I found out last week about the spiritual abuse synchroblog, and at first I thought I wouldn't participate. Sure, I have a story, but I'm much too busy to sit down and try to write a portion of it out, right? Then on Sunday, inspiration hit, and I changed my mind. I've been trying all day to get my story out. I've started and stopped. I wrote a whole post and declared it crappy, started completely over and declared that one awful too. I've agonized, grieved, prayed, and been generally grumpy. How do you do this? How do you tell a story that's so deeply painful and personal? I want to get this out, I need to get this out. Where to start? If I start at the beginning, it'd take me forever to tell. Instead, I'll start at my darkest moment.

 

She found me after church. I knew she'd sought me out and wasn't going to leave until after she'd talked to me. I wasn't talking to very many people those days- a depressed introvert will do that. She was one of the few people I trusted that I could share at least part of my heart with. She looked me in the eye, it felt like she looked straight into my soul, and said,

"If it wasn't for your kids, you wouldn't still be here, would you?"

I was too ashamed to even admit it, but she was right. I'd reached that place where ending it all seemed like the easiest answer, where life was so painful I didn't know if I wanted to keep on living. There was so much hurt, so much pain, so much confusion. I was at the end of my rope and barely hanging on. She was right, my kids- the one in my arms and the one in my belly- were the biggest reason I was hanging on.

How did I get to this place? How does the good Christian girl who grew up in the perfect Christian family, had the perfect husband and perfect baby- how does this girl get to the place of despair and wanting to end it all? Two words: spiritual abuse.

You see, that perfect Christian family that I grew up in wasn't so perfect after all. Everyone was jealous of us- of how my mom was always smiling and how my sister and I were always obedient and always got along with each other. But behind that appealing facade was a dark truth- that we were that way because we had to be.

I don't know where or how exactly it started, but somehow my family bought into the same lie that so many other families and churches buy into- the one that says that control is a good thing. Unquestioning obedience was required. It didn't matter how ridiculous or unfair the demands were, as children we were to obey. Lack of obedience to parents meant lack of obedience to the Lord.

 

 

It would be impossible to tell my whole story. And spiritual abuse- what does that even mean? To me it means using the threat of being unpleasing to the Lord to manipulate people into doing things that are unhealthy, or using the Bible to wield control or power over another.

 

 

 

In my family, it looked like things like this:

 

It looked like the time when I was 7 years old, when I stopped reading my King James Bible out loud every morning for devotional time and started reading novels instead becaue they were more interesting, how my dad spanked me 100 times for the 100 days I'd been lying (by omission) to him about it. It looked like how he then pulled out the family photo albums and pointed out to me how "the light" had gone out of my eyes when I stopped reading God's word every day.

It looked like how when I'd forget to do my chore of washing my dad's clothes, it wasn't seen as a mistake or forgetfulness, it was seen as a serious character flaw, lack of respect for my father, and selfishness that needed to be repented of.

When I was 14, spiritual abuse looked like my father, in the name of sex education, forcing me to say words like penis and vagina. When I was too embarrassed to comply, he commanded me to say them, declared that I was not too old to be spanked for disobedience, and yes, spanked me for not saying those words in front of him. At Fourteen. Years. Old.

Spiritual abuse looked like my entire courtship with my future husband. It was securely woven in the way that we weren't allowed to make any decisions about our relationship on our own. We couldn't decide when to talk on the phone, when to spend time alone together, when to start using the titles "boyfriend" and "girlfriend", when to hold hands, when to kiss, when to say I love you- all in the name of having a God honoring relationship. Of course, God-honoring meant parent controlled. It was damaging enough for my husband to be subjected to such inane rules, but he'd already had the experience of living an adult life and making choices for himself- something I'd never done. And even then, as I was supposed to be making the incredibly important decision about the person I'd be spending the rest of my life with, the decisions were not my own.

Spiritual abuse looked like being taught that because I was a woman, it would be sinful for me to work outside of the home, or make major decisions for myself, or try to be equal with my husband, or basically think for myself at all.

 

 

Those are glimpses of what spiritual abuse looked like for me. I lived 22 years in that world, in that box, trapped in a place where I couldn't think for myself, where I couldn't be myself, where I didn't even know that there *was* a myself that I was missing. To me, that was the worst part of it- not that I was in the box, but that I didn't know the box existed. At 22 years old, when I saw that first crack start to appear, and I got my first glimpse into the outside world, my life was changed forever.

 

 

But simply knowing and seeing the truth does not instantly make for a beautiful life, not when seeing the truth for the first time means starting over. For me it was quite literally a Matrix-like moment, as if discovering that my entire life had been a lie. And that led me deep into depression.


The Bible that I'd devoted so much time into reading, studying, and following- I couldn't even open it. I literally couldn't read it because every time I tried, reading passages that I'd read before would trigger a horrible memory, would bring back that terrible feeling like my gut had just been punched. I could barely sit through church. "What a bunch of fakes.", I'd think. "Do they realize how many people they're hurting in the name of God? Do they even care?" I couldn't sing, so I'd just stand there. I'd cringe throughout the sermon, hoping it would end soon so I could crawl back home to solitude. I could barely pray. I definitely couldn't do long, drawn out prayers on my face pouring my heart out to the Lord. All I could manage was a sentence or two. "God please help me." "Please help me make it through this." But He still heard.



And I still believed in Him. I couldn't understand how such terrible things could be done in His name, and I still don't fully understand that. But somehow, I knew it wasn't His fault, that it wasn't what he had wanted all along. I couldn't open His precious word, I could barely open my mouth and speak to Him, and yet I clung to him. I clung to hope that I would someday, somehow make it through this.



I don't remember what else that precious woman said to me after church that day, but I do remember that it encouraged me. That encounter became a bit of of a defining moment for me, a lifeline to hang onto, a confirmation that God really was still there and really did still care about me. Little did I know just how carefully He was watching me, holding me, guiding me, leading me to the place I am today.






This post was written for Spiritual Abuse Awareness Week, a synchroblog hosted by several Christian bloggers. I'm linking up with Wine and Marble today, I'll be keeping up with Rachel Held Evans' series on abuse and the church all week, and you can see the rest of the participants in the graphic below. I hope you'll read along, and find hope and healing along with me.

 

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The Dark Side of Courtship

Emotional recovery is a unique process. Just when you think you've made good progress, that you've healed and are able to move on with your life, you'll come across something that brings an old memory back to the surface, just waiting there for you to process and deal with yet again. That happened to me this morning when I ran across a blog post that I related to so much that it brought me to tears.

Photo Credit

The post was by Elizabeth Esther, and it was about her experience with fundamentalism, particularly her courtship experience and the effect it had on her. She writes,

“Follow God’s will and the feelings will follow,” my fundamentalist father often told me.
Following God’s will meant getting prior approval before doing anything. And emotional purity meant getting prior approval before feeling anything.

This was my experience too. I was given a copy of I Kissed Dating Goodbye when I turned 13, and I devoured it. It was my guideline for all things to do with relationships. God was in charge, which really meant that my dad was in charge, because that was the way God wanted it, of course. I didn't find out that Thad was interested in me from him, I found out when my dad told me. Even though we were both interested in each other, we couldn't begin an actual relationship until my dad decided we were ready, and until then we were to remain friends only- even though we were interested in each other. It was very bizarre.

We weren't allowed to go anywhere by ourselves. I couldn't even ride in his car unless my little sister came with us. We had strict guidelines about when we were allowed to talk on the phone, and for how long. As far as physical contact, there was to be none. Any conversations about the state of the relationship(once we could actually start a relationship) were held with my parents present, and were actually probably initiated by my dad.

It was enough to make anyone crazy.

One of the saddest things that came out of this highly regulated environment was what should have been one of the happiest parts of our budding relationship- the moment that he told me he loved me. I'll leave out the details for privacy's sake, but the gist is that one night(about 2 years into our relationship), Thad told me that he loved me for the first time- and I said nothing back. Oh, I knew I loved him. I had known that for about 6 months. But I hadn't been allowed to do or say anything about it. So when Thad told me that night that he loved me, I reacted with an intense mixture of elation and terror. He loved me too! But- could I respond? Could I verbalize to him that I loved him as well? Was it time for that? Was it appropriate? I'd have to talk to my dad first, of course, and oh- my dad! What would his reaction be when I told him that Thad loved me?!?! I was terrified. Of course, not telling him was not an option. Dad had told me from the beginning that if I kept any part of our relationship from him that he'd shut the whole thing down in an instant.

My life was not my own. The choices were not mine to make. The experiences were not mine to experience, at least not without discussion and approval first- and how much of the experience is left at that point?

Remember when I said that for years I had the nagging feeling that I wasn't really living my life, that it wasn't really me that was experiencing all the events in my own life? Elizabeth explains that so well:

This is dehumanizing because it shames a woman for experiencing normal, human feelings during normal, human development.

So, how do girls in strict, courtship environments cope? We shut down our emotions.

The bad news is that you can’t shut down one feeling without shutting down them all. I thought that by ignoring, denying, shaming and shunning my romantic feelings for Matt I was preserving my “emotional purity” and “guarding my heart.” Instead, I ended up completely numb.

Yep. I had no idea that was what was happening to me, but it was. I couldn't really feel or experience anything. Years later, after we'd been married for a while, I started to come alive and started feeling all those feelings I never had before. I became a completely new person. And then I realized I'd been really ripped off. I was married to a wonderful person, and we'd built a wonderful life together, but all those wonderful, lovey-dovey new love feelings and experiences? I'd missed those. I didn't get to choose those- they were hand picked and approved for me. That spontaneity of finding out that the person you liked has feelings for you too- never had that. The wonderful feeling of being told "I love you" for the first time, and being able to fully, completely, wholeheartedly respond, "I love you too" was stolen from me. Even the genuine moments that we did have, and there were some of those too, were clouded by that ever present feeling that I wasn't really there, that I wasn't really living my own life. I'll never be able to get those moments back. I feel like I missed all the really fun parts getting to know my husband for the first time, and I'll never be able to experience those again.


Sarah Bessey wrote a post recently in which she quotes Brené Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection:

“In another very unexpected discovery, my research also taught me that there’s no such thing as selective emotional numbing. There is a full spectrum of human emotions and when we numb the dark, we numb the light. While I was “taking the edge off” of the pain and vulnerability, I was also unintentionally dulling my experiences of good feelings, like joy. … Joy is as thorny and sharp as any of the dark emotions. To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees – these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain…. We can’t make a list of the “bad” emotions and say, “I’m going to numb these” and then make a list of the positive emotions and say, “I’m going to fully engage in these!”

This is why I felt like I wasn't really present in my life. I felt that way until right before Tristan was born- that's one of the reasons his birth was so transformative for me- it was one of the first big moments in my life that I was actually fully there to FEEL and experience.

I've grown, I've grieved, and I've processed, but I'm realizing that I'm not done yet.

Near the end of her post, Elizabeth writes:

It is nothing short of a miracle that my husband and I are still together. What saved us? Getting OUT of that environment, leaving intense holiness behind, feeling our feelings.

Us too, Elizabeth. Us too.

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Resentment, or How The Church Opened the Door to Getting Sucked into a Cult.

I'm feeling resentful today. (Oh noes! Not a negative emotion, especially not resentment! Run away!!!)


 

Why am I feeling resentful? I'm feeling resentful because so much of the church, including the church environments in which I grew up, does not talk about gender issues, marriage issues, and inequality issues beyond their comfortable little complementarian box. So much of the church is so busy pushing the man as leader/woman as follower message that so many churchgoers have no idea there's an alternative(and when the alternative is mentioned, it's in such a ridiculed, straw-manned, misrepresented way that no one could be expected to give it a second thought anyway). Why is this an issue? Because it removes choice. Because I was well into my twenties(and many years married) before I even heard the word egalitarian, or even had a concept of what an egalitarian marriage looks like. Because so many women are miserable within that system, not even knowing that there's another option.

 

I'm feeling resentful because when I first started to question the status quo, I wasted a couple of years of my life, and had my marriage nearly destroyed in the process, because I didn't know that there was an alternative to complementarianism. Let me explain.

 

I always had this nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right. More concerning, I always had a feeling that I wasn't completely living my life, that I was somehow an outsider to my own existence. I hardly allowed myself to acknowledge these feelings. After all, what could be wrong? I grew up in a loving Christian home, I married the first and only boyfriend I'd ever had, we did the whole "courtship" thing, didn't have sex until we were married, and I was trying as hard as I could to be a Good Christian Submissive Wife.

 

So when I caught my first EVER glimpse of something that said that I didn't have to be subordinate to my husband, that I was an equal to him and should be treated as such, and that I could and should think for myself, I was ALL OVER IT. It felt like a light had been switched on, like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when it switches from black and white to color. It felt like I had been living in a cage that I didn't even know existed, and then the door had been swung open to a wide, amazing world.

 

Photo credit

There was one small problem. That glimpse I caught? It was from a book that was written by some people whose "ministry" is just one step shy(or maybe not, I'm trying to be generous) of being a cult. Without going into all the details, it was bat-poo crazy. You know all the red flags for a cultish mindset- the intense pressure to study their books, visit their web forums, sign up for the crazy emails, the phone calls, and ultimately pay and attend the week long intensive in Florida where you could get one on one help from the authors of the book(how awesome!). Oh, and I can't forget to mention the warnings not to read any other books written by anyone else(except for these two or three other ones that they've hand selected and approved), because those authors just don't know what they're talking about, and could mess up your progress in their system. Yep, the red flags were all there.

 

Their theology wasn't right either, far from it. They weren't even teaching healthy, mutually submissive egalitarianism. They had rejected the typical hierarchical model that most of the church teaches, sure. But what they were teaching was their own special brand of crazy that was different enough from what everyone else teaches that they could conveniently isolate themselves, their followers, and make a lot of money preying on women and families that had been hurt by the church's damaging teachings about marriage.

 

I'm going to let your imagination fill in the blanks as to how well that went over in my marriage. Like I said, nearly destroyed.

 

So why would I feel resentment for the church because of that? Because the fact that I literally had NO IDEA that there was an alternative to hierarchal marriage, which made it incredibly easy for me to fall prey to this "ministry"- the first thing that had ever opened my eyes and offered me a little bit of freedom. OF COURSE I clung to it for dear life. Of course I did! The concept that I could think for myself and that it wasn't Biblical for me to be subordinate to my husband was like a wellspring of life to my parched soul! That feeling that I wasn't really living my own life was starting to go away, and it was one of the most wonderful things in the world. It's amazing what a little taste of the truth can do for you. It's just so, so unfortunate that in my case, that nugget of truth came tied to so many lies.

 

I'm not excusing my actions, or refusing to take responsibility for my choices. One one hand, I deeply regret many of the things I did and said in that season of my life. On the other hand, I know that I was only doing the best I could with the information that I had, and that I never intended to get caught up in a cult or purposefully damage my marriage(who would?!). The truth is, I never got to make an informed choice about the type of marriage I wanted to have.

 

Like we say in the birth world, in order for a mother to make an informed choice about her birth options, two things have to be true- she must be both informed, and she must actually have a choice. That applies to marriage as well, and I was neither informed nor aware of a choice. I grew up in a hierarchal home, went to churches that promoted hierarchy, read books and magazines that promoted it, got married when I was still just a kid with next to no life experience(19, FTR), and was never introduced to the concept that there was another Biblically based concept of marriage(in fact, even the slightest hint of that concept was strongly ridiculed)- I was neither informed, nor presented with a choice.

 

Again, I'm not blame shifting or excusing my actions- if I was into that I'd still be stuck in that cult and almost certainly divorced by now. I'm simply pointing out a dynamic that removes choice from so many women, and makes it easy for them to fall prey to those that are waiting to take advantage of their weaknesses.

 

I thank God that I was able to get out. I thank God that we got some counseling and it actually helped. I thank God that he made me resilient and determined- that once I caught a glimpse of truth and freedom, I knew I could never live without it. I never stopped digging, and found that there's an entire world of egalitarians out there- ones that aren't culty, actually have healthy, balanced, God-honoring relationships, and aren't looking to take advantage of people. I thank God that my husband was patient enough to stick it out, to go to counseling with me, and ultimately to give egalitarianism a second look even after being SO badly burned by our experiences with that cult.

 

 

It's a miracle that we are where we are today.

 

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This is Not the Life I Wanted- Or Is It?

Growing up in a fundie-lite home, I heard lots of interesting things about women. I was taught that women were subordinate to men, and that a woman's place was at home, with the children, preferably homeschooling them. ("Woman! Make me a sammich!") My mom dropped out of college 4 credits short of her associates degree to marry my dad. There were not many (any?) messages about strong, confident women or how women could choose careers and have a life outside the home. My mom even went so far as to tell me that women that work in the corporate world are unhappy because God's will is for them to be at home with their families, not working. (!!!)  I was never given the freedom to explore my options and choose which one was best for me. I was never told that it was an option to be something instead of or in addition to being a wife and a mother.

So, needless to say, I didn't have any grand dreams or aspirations for my future. When someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd say that I wanted to be a mother. By the time I graduated high school, I was pretty deeply involved with my boyfriend at the time, who would later be my husband. I had no interest at all in going to college. I didn't see the point! I loved Thad, and I knew we were going to get married. If we were going to get married, and I was going to be a wife and mom at some point in the near future, why did I need to go to college??? My dad basically forced me to go- he said that if I wanted to continue to live under his roof, I'd at least need to take some courses at the community college. I'm SO glad that he did. It was just a couple of courses at the local college, but I absolutely loved it. I thrive on learning, and I had no idea that college could be so fun and empowering! That was my first experience in a classroom setting- up until then I'd been exclusively homeschooled, from day one all the way until my high school graduation. I got A's in every class but one(and could have gotten an A in that class too, but I was distracted by grieving my dad's death while planning my wedding- I'm going to give myself a pass on that one.) and felt so proud of myself.





I completed two semesters at the community college, and then got married. Ah, yes- that's what I had been waiting for! Now my dreams of being a wife and mom could come true! I didn't go back to school that next semester- there was no need now that I was a wife. I threw myself into the marriage- to "submitting and supporting". When the kids came along, I then became a full time mother. And you know what? I was miserable. This wonderful dream that had been placed in my head since the day I was a child wasn't so dreamy after all. I felt stuck. Stifled. My husband is an idea man, and is constantly coming up with new ideas and schemes that he gets really excited about. And as a "good wife", it was my job to support him- no questions asked! I tried to do my best, but deep down I really didn't like a lot of his ideas. (Sorry, honey!) And even though I was trying really hard, because I knew it was the "right" thing to do, I wasn't very good at supporting him.





Same thing with motherhood. I knew it was right and "Godly" for me to be at home with my kids. But I wondered why, if that was true, did I feel so miserable? Why did I feel so stuck? Why wasn't I enjoying the time that I was spending with them? Why did I find myself dreaming of using my brain again, and doing something that challenged me intellectually? If what I was doing was exactly what God wanted me to do, then why did I feel so miserable in the very core of my being?





It took a while, but I finally found the answers to those questions. My value does not lie exclusively in my wifehood or motherhood. I have purpose and meaning outside of those relationships. God did not give me a brain and intend for me not to use it. God did not command women to exclusively stay at home and raise children. As I learned these things and my mind and heart were opened, I got so excited!!! I could do and be so much more than I had anticipated! I could go back to school if I wanted to! I could work outside the home if I wanted to! I could do or be whatever I wanted to be! For the first time in my life, I realized that I could dream outside of the home, outside of the box I had been placed in when I was born and they discovered that I was a girl.





And I do have dreams. The one that I'm closest to right now is to become a doula, and be with women as they give birth- and I'm slowly working towards that goal, and it's so exciting! I have other dreams too, although they're in the more distant future. But it makes my heart happy just to have them there, and to know that they're possible. Just to know that I can dream, and that it's okay for me to dream of someday doing big things is so empowering for me. But for right now, I'm still at home, raising my babies and supporting my husband as he plants a church. That's right, I'm doing exactly the same thing that I was doing before. As much as it sounds appealing to me, I don't have a job outside the home. I'm not going to school. My children need me at home right now, while they're young, and my husband needs me at home supporting him while he's working endless hours planting a church.





I'm doing exactly what I was doing before, but now I'm content, because I'm living a life that I intentionally chose for myself.







I'm not at home because someone told me that I had to be. You see, family and motherhood was always truly a part of my heart- and always will be. Much of the things that I apsire to have to do with helping mothers and families, and I'm excited about that. The problem wasn't that I didn't want to be a wife or mother- it was that I was never given the opportunity to choose between that and something else, or that AND something else. Because of the messages I received as a girl, I belived that family was the only acceptable path for me. I believed that God didn't want me to do anything more than be a wife or mom, and that's why I made the "choices" that I made- and really, they weren't even choices. I didn't see any other options- not if I wanted to be pleasing to God.




Now, I'm home because I've chosen to be. I've looked at the situation, at my dreams and goals, at my husband's dreams and goals, and the needs of our family, and I've made the decision that makes the most sense for all of us. We're a team, and we work together. I love being home with my kids- because that's where I've chosen to be. I'm choosing a season of sacrifice because I know it's best for them, and I truly am enjoying it. It's an honor to be the person that cares for and raises my children, and I know that the way that I treat them will have a lifelong impact on them. That's something I take very seriously! If by giving selflessly I can have a positive impact on the rest of their lives, then I am more than happy to make that my focus. I love them with all of my heart and I want what's best for them! Of course, there are hard days and I need breaks every once in a while, but that's true of any job. But in the big picture, and in the bottom of my heart, I'm so thankful to be staying home and enjoying this time with my kids.

Now, I'm supporting my husband not because I feel like I have to, but because I love him and believe in him! He is an amazing pastor and preacher, and I believe in him 100%. I know that he's called to do what he's doing, and it's so amazing to see how many lives he's been able to influence for good. Our church celebrated our first year this week, and you should have heard the sermon that he preached. He totally knocked it out of the park, and I was so, so proud of him. I'm happy to do what I do so that he can focus on what he's really good at. I'm now supporting him because I believe in him, not because I have to. And isn't that so much better in the end? Who would want love and support out of obligation? True love isn't possible unless you also have a choice not to love. Isn't that why God gave us free will- because He wanted us to choose to love him? The same thing applies in our earthly relationships too. God didn't intend for any of us to be stuck, without a choice in our own lives.

I've made a choice to love. I've made a choice to sacrifice. And even though from an outsider's perspective it might look like I'm doing exactly the same things, for me it's so much different now. My love for my family is so much more genuine now. When I give of myself to them, I'm truly giving of myself- because I now know that I have a choice not to. I feel so much more content in this season of being a stay at home mom now that it's something I've chosen to do, instead of something that someone told me that I had to do. 








Have you ever found yourself living a life that someone else chose for you? What did you do about it? 

Does birth matter? My story.

Does birth matter? The baby matters, of course. But is the way we welcome the child into the world really of importance? Is there something to be gained or lost, for the mother or child, in the act of giving birth?

Although these questions evoke some strong thoughts feelings for me, I'm not going to attempt to answer these questions all-encompassingly, at least not in this post. Instead I want to share something more personal: a different side to my birth story, my answers to these questions.