It always comes back to connection.

This past week has been one of the hardest weeks of parenting that I've had in a long time. It seems that both kids hit a period of disequilibrium at the same time. It was right on time for Hayden, since she'll be having a birthday at the end of May. I'm not sure why Tristan seems to be hitting it right now too. Either it's just coming a bit late, since he's already had his birthday, or there's just something magical about reaching that three year old mark. That's a well kept secret of parenting, you know. Before you have kids, all you hear about is the "terrible twos". That's a misnomer. The twos are fun. The threes are SO difficult. The terrible twos are a big lie, not to mention a really negative way to talk about your child. But I digress.

 

 

So they've both been in disequilibrium, and it's been difficult. They've both been melting down, seem to have lost all of the maturity they gained over the past year, and have gone back to needing almost constant supervision when they're together. I've definitely been doing a lot of get-off-your-butt parenting, and have been hard to find time to get anything else done. I've particularly been struggling with Hayden. Three, while difficult, I've done before. I know a little of what to expect and that it's totally normal for that age. But I've never done going-on-five before, and so much of the time lately it's seemed like she's morphed into this angry little person that I don't recognize or have the first clue how to handle.

 

 

I've been hanging in there though. I'm experienced enough in parenting now to know that these seasons happen, and that they're not a reflection of my ability as a parent or whether or not my kids will grow up to be productive members of society. They just happen. We just have to try to get through them with as much grace and patience as we can.

 

 

Just like usually happens, I'm learning so much through this process. I've been trying to do everything right and trying to figure out what I could do to help Hayden get through this difficult patch. I thought maybe she needed more big muscle movement, so we've been spending more time than ever outside and at the park. As wonderful as that is, especially in the springtime, it didn't really help. Weird!

 

 

The whole time, I was missing the answer that was staring me in the face. Parenting is all about connection. It always, always, always comes back to connection. If you know me, you know I'm not good with connection. It's a struggle, a stretch for me. I've written before about how Tristan is the one who first taught me how to love, well into my twenties, and while that was an amazing process, it's still a process of growth for me. It's not a switch that can just be turned on, it's a daily process of learning to be vulnerable and make that connection with another human. It's difficult for me, and when I get busy I sometimes forget to focus on practicing it.

 

 

This is counter-productive, of course, because connection is one of the most basic needs of my little girl. I discovered that it was what had been missing almost by accident. Two nights ago I was tired after dinner, and decided to relax on the couch for a couple of minutes before tackling the dishes and bedtime. I turned on the tv to one of those silly cooking competition shows. Hayden snuggled in next to me and we cuddled for twenty minutes or so. It was lovely. How could I have forgotten about this?!? For all the effort I'd been putting in all week to make sure that all her needs were being met, and that I was doing everything I could to be a good parent during a difficult time, I had forgotten about actually connecting with her.

 

 

Her demeanor totally changed after that snuggle session. She seemed like she was the happy little girl that I was used to having around again. We were enjoying each other's company and she seemed to be enjoying life. Wow! And then, unfortunately, an hour later I screwed it up again. Perhaps it's my behaviour that needs more work than hers does. In a moment of frustration(it was the end of the day, remember) I yelled, and in a second's time her countenance fell again. No! I had messed it up again! At least I knew now what I was doing wrong. I apologized, and hugged her. From that next morning, I've been focusing on connecting with her, and it's making all the difference. We still have difficult moments, of course, but I'm learning to help her through them with more patience and grace now that I'm focused on connecting with her.

 

Connection, it always comes back to connection. No matter what else is going on with my kids, I'm learning to remember that connection is always the answer.

 

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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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My First Doula Experience!

I've been waiting until I could get permission from the momma to share, and now I'm free to announce- as of last weekend I've had my first official doula experience! And boy was it an experience- I was with the momma for 30 hours straight, including a planned home birth turned hospital transfer. I'm so thankful that this momma was being cared for by a super skilled midwife who puts a priority on safety. I'm also thankful that she got great care at the hospital and was able to avoid a c/section like she was hoping.


The whole process was a great learning experience for me. It's one thing to read about the challenges and experiences of being a doula, and it's another to actually experience them. (And I'm saying that after just one experience- I'm sure I'd feel even differently after more!) I definitely have a new respect for the wonderful women that are full time doulas, for the sacrifices that they make, and even a new understanding for the reasons they charge what they do!


I knew it would be challenging to be on call 24/7, and it really was. I was constantly checking my phone to make sure I hadn't missed any calls. I had to miss an event that I was wanting to go to because going to it would have put me too far away from the momma if she had needed me right away. One day, I lost my phone for about 5 minutes, and had a mini-panic attack trying to find it. (Nevermind the fact that I had given her Thad's number too as a backup, I was still frantic that I couldn't find mine!)


One thing I learned is to ask for details whenever the expectant mom or dad calls to ask you to come. I just said, "Okay, I'll be there as fast as I can!", instead of asking how long and far apart contractions were, if she was still talking through them, etc. If I had known I didn't necessarily have to rush right over ASAP, I would have taken a quick shower first. My hair would have appreciated that 30 hours later. ;)


I'm not going to give details since it's not my birth to share, but like I said earlier, we did end up having to transport to the hospital. I wasn't expecting that to bring up so much emotion for me, but it did. I was definitely having flashbacks to our own hospital transport with Tristan just hours after he was born. I'm confident that my feelings didn't effect the level of support I was able to offer, so no worries there, but those are definitely things I want to take some time to process more between now and the next birth I attend.


Another big thing I learned was that it takes time to process each birth. Doulas are present for life changing moments, and even when there's a perfect outcome, birth is still a big deal and still a lot for someone to process. The day after I got home(and slept the rest of that day), I was still feeling pretty out of it emotionally. I don't know how to describe it, except that it felt a little like I had given birth too. It seems  a little creepy to me to say that, and I don't mean it in a creepy way, or in a way that would take any of the credit away from the mom for the amazing job she did. And I obviously don't have a baby to take home. But just by going through that process with her, and being present for that intense, life changing moment- it's definitely a lot to process. I don't know how you ever get used to that! The good news is that it took me less time with this birth to get back to feeling "normal" than it did with Jessica's birth in April, so maybe it is something that you can get used to, at least to some extent.


I was also able to chat with a doula friend over the phone a couple of days after the birth, and that was really helpful. I'm thankful that she took the time to do that with me. She shared some of her experiences with me, and how she's had to take some time to process birth experiences too- and even felt like she needed therapy a time or two after a rough experience! I can definitely see that. If this is something that I continue to do on a regular basis, my processing skills are going to have to get really good!


I don't mean for all of that to sound negative, and it wasn't a negative experience at all. Intense? Totally. Negative? Definitely not. It was beautiful experience- to see this woman's family rally around her in support, to see the tears from everyone as the baby was born, the fun of finding out the sex of the baby, the wonderful surprise of a homebirth transfer momma getting great care in a hospital- it was a wonderful experience. I'm so thankful, blessed, and honored to have been a part of this family's process, and to be able to help and support them through their journey. I have such a heart for empowering women and mothers, and to be able to do that in a tangible, practical way was just wonderful.

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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I'm an Egalitarian- and That Doesn't Make Me Less of a Christ-Follower.

Just a note: Today's post (and probably several to follow in the next weeks and months) takes on a completely different issue than the parenting related posts that I usually write. I apologize to my readers that have no interest in this topic, but as I have explained before, this blog is mostly an outlet for me, and because of that I'll naturally be focusing on what interests me, not necissarily on creating a cohesive blog with one type of content. Sorry! But who knows- maybe you'll find a new topic of interest that you hadn't discovered before!



I am an egalitarian. I haven't always believed this way, but my history as a complementarian is a big part of the reson I'm an egalitarian today. My personal history as a complementarian is also central to one of my biggest issues with complementarians.


You see, I don't like not being taken seriously. I don't like being told that my experiences don't matter, that I must not have been "doing it right", and that I couldn't have possibly experienced what I experienced. And unless we're talking about things that are so incredibly essential to Christianity(things like the deity of Christ, His resurrection, etc) I really don't like being told that someone's doctrine or belief is the One Right Way, The Only Way to be a true believer. I don't like when people take non-essential doctrines and treat them as essentials, and judge people as if they were essentials.

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(That's what complementarians have done with the gender/marriage issue. Egalitarians say, "This is a non-essential! Can't we agree to disagree, and walk in unity in the areas that we do agree?" And complementarians respond by saying, "Nope, sorry, because this actually is an essential doctrine to us. You see, if you misrepresent the marital relationship, you misrepresent the gospel." I believe this is a cop out- an easy way to try to avoid really engaging with the issue. I could say that about almost any non essential, but important doctrine. Do you believe in Calvinism? You've misrepresented the nature of God. Do you believe in Armenianism? You've misrepresented the nature of God. You believe in a post-trib rapture? How could the God of the Bible allow his children to experience His wrath by going through the tribulation? I could go on. The point is that gender roles are not an essential doctrine, and to elevate them to an essential doctrine requires the same kind of "theological gymnastics" that complementarians accuse egalitarians of.)


Elevating the non-essential to the essential- that's what complementarians do, you know. Not all of them, but a lot of them, especially the outspoken leaders of the movement. They make statements like this one from Nancy Leigh DeMoss:

"Before you go any further, I feel I should warn you that what you are about to read is not politically correct. It flies in the face of what we have been taught as 21 st-century, “liberated” women. It is contrary to our natural instincts. It will never be the majority position and is likely to make some women uncomfortable.

But I can assure you that it is the only path to true joy, peace, and fulfillment as a woman. You see, God made us, He loves us, and we can only be whole when we function according to His design for our lives." (emphasis mine)

 Did you catch what she said there? Not, "in my opinion, this is the only way." Not, "as far as I know", or "what I've concluded". Nope, just "this is the only way". Do you know what that infuriates me so much? Because not only is the bolded statement completely false, but it totally invalidates my experiences. It tells me that what I've experienced is somehow wrong, that I'm somehow out of God's will and not fulfilling my full potential as a Christian woman.

(I'm not even going to go into DeMoss' "True Woman Campaign" today. The title alone is exclusive and elitist- as if anyone who doesn't believe that way is not a true woman- whatever that even means.)

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How do I know that DeMoss' statement is false? I know because I've lived it. I grew up in a complementarian home. I can't even count the number of times my mother would exclaim how great it was that she was supposed to let my dad make all the big decisions, because then she didn't have to take any of the responsibility for them. It was the whole complementarian package- men were the leaders and women were the followers. Men were to make the big decisions and women were to submit. Women shouldn't be leaders in religion or politics(their pesky menstrual cycles rendered them too unstable for such things, obviously), and in most cases, women shouldn't work outside of the home- don't you know that the reason so many working mothers are unhappy is because they're not following God's prescription for their lives? My mom dropped out of college to marry my dad when she was just a couple credit hours short of her associates degree, and never went back.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that complementarianism played a huge role in literally destroying my family of origin. I'm not going to tell the whole story today(though more of that is coming soon), so for now you'll just have to take my word for it.  By the time I reached adolescence, the marriage and family that looked so perfect on the outside was literally falling apart. My parents were on the brink of divorce, and I was confused and depressed. Even when my parents reconciled, their relationship still wasnt anywhere near healthy, and my mom wasn't happy or fulfilled(and neither was I). My dad passed away shortly after that.


Less than a year after my dad passed away, my mom remarried the most controlling, abusive man she could find, less than 6 weeks after meeting him. I belive with all my heart that this decision was a direct result of the fact that complementarianism had not allowed her to create her own identity outside of my father's. She didn't know who she was or how to function without a man to "lead" her. Her decision to marry this man has alienated her from the rest of her family, as he is so incredibly toxic it would be dangerous for any of us to be exposed to him.


I married shortly before my mother remarried, and complementarianism didn't do any favors to my marriage either. I was unhappy, unfulfilled, and oh-so confused- not because of my wonderful husband, but because of my perceived role as a Christian Wife, and because no matter how hard I tried(and I honestly believed at that point that it was the Right and Godly way for me to function as a woman) I just couldn't make it work for me. Thankfully, I was able to discover that there was a different way, my husband and I learned how to communicate and relate in a healthy way, and we now have a (mostly-we're not perfect)healthy and happy marriage. Not because of complementarianism. Oh no. Because I rejected complementarianism and found a healthy freedom in Christ, and in egalitarianism.


I have never felt more alive. I have never felt more peace, more contentment, more fulfillment. I have never felt closer to my husband, in every way. I have never felt closer to God or more dedicated to serving him with my life. I have never felt like I truly understood the heart of God in the way I'm beginning to now. It's been such a life altering, complete transformation that it's hard to describe in words- and it all started when I started questioning complementarianism. So how in the world could complementarianism be the key to a Christian woman's life?


This is why it makes me so angry when complementarians and much of the evangelical church at large shouts from the mountaintops that this is The Only Way. It's impossible for me to believe that way anymore. I simply can't believe that complementarianism is the only way, not when it destroyed my family, continues to rob my children of a grandmother, and nearly destroyed my own marriage. Don't tell me that's the only way when the only true fulfillment and purpose that I've been able to find has come after I rejected the teachings of complementarianism.


If it's working for you, I'm happy for you, really. I'm not going to tell you that you're misrepresenting the gospel, that you're a Jezebel, that you're corrupting the church, or that God is displeased with you(all things that egalitarians hear from complementarians on a daily basis). Don't I deserve the same respect? It's a different viewpoint, not the end of the world or the gospel, I promise. If complementarianism is working for your marriage, I'm so glad. But please, don't get angry when I point out the inconsistencies and warn you that it caused and continues to cause heartache for me. Don't tell me that I did it wrong, that I probably misunderstood something, and that I should probably just repent and try again. Please don't completely dismiss my experiences as irrelevant, because they're not.


Complementarianism is NOT the only way to live a fulfilled, Godly life as a Christian woman, and I stand every day, with so many others, as living proof of that.



 This post is just the first of many to come on this topic. I hope that no matter which side of the issue you fall on, or if this post was your first exposure to the debate, that you'll continue to read as I share more of my story and my thoughts on this issue. There's so much more to my story than just what I shared in this post, and while I'll be sharing more of that in the future, for now I'll just hope you can do exactly what I argued for in this post- take me seriously, even without knowing all the details.

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San Antonio and How I'm Letting Go of Must-Do-It-All Guilt.

We're back! We had such a great time on our mini vacation in San Antonio! We:

 

Took goofy pictures

Did an obscene amount of walking along the riverwalk

Slept in every morning(not pictured)

Ate a ridiculously amazing steak dinner topped off with a perfect creme brulee(also not pictured- I felt a little awkward busting out the camera in such a fancy restaurant)

Visited the Guenther House, which had an incredible gingerbread replica of itself inside

 

Saw Les Miserables(incredible! Go see it right away!)

 

I'm thankful for:

The fact that my gut is healed enough to handle things like corn and sugar occasionally, and that I didn't have to obsess over my food except to make sure that it was gluten free

The afternoon at the mall that I got all to myself, dressing up

shopping,

 

 

and finding the Alamo.

Also thankful for the quiet breakfasts I got to myself,

and the fact that we're secure enough in our relationship to not have to spend every minute together. Thad wants to stay in the room and watch football while I go shopping and explore the town? Sounds like a win/win to me!

 

 

We had a great time, and we were so happy to get back home to see the kids.

 

But WOW. I was NOT expecting reintigration to be so hard. Apparently just three days apart was long enough for the kids to forget all the boundaries that we've been setting for forever, and for me to forget just how HARD this parenting thing is! We were back to snatching toys away from each other, forgetting to use words to talk to each other, and forgetting to ask mommy for help when the words aren't working. (They don't normally do these things perfectly, of course, but we've made some good progress and they're learning well.) There has been lots of boundary testing since we got back. I'm sure that's normal, but it sure isn't fun! Lots of patience required.

 

Even though I knew that the first day back was a little harder than my average day at home with the kids, I found myself thinking, "No wonder I'm so tired all the time! No wonder I always feel like I can't get anything done! No wonder!" Parenting these two is a non-stop job, from the time they wake up until the time they go to sleep. NON- STOP. Even when I am able to step away and get something done, I always have to be ready to drop everything to help a child, and that by itself is exhausting, at least for me. I don't know how I let myself forget that, and how I let myself feel guilty for not doing more, but I'm stopping with the guilt.

 

Parenting is a really difficult job. I think I need to give myself a little more credit. Even on days where I don't get anything else done besides care for the kids, I've done something awesome and I don't need to feel any guilt over that. On days when I'm able to get other things done as well(which is most days), I need to celebrate that, not feel guilty that I wasn't able to do more. I'll be able to do more when the kids are older, but for this season that requires non-stop attention, I think I'm doing pretty darn good, and I'm going to start giving myself credit for it.

 

Less guilt. More being proud of myself. More encouraging myself. I think that's the big lesson this vacation taught me.

 

 

Do you ever find yourself feeling guilty for not doing more? Do you have a hard time remembering that simply parenting small children day to day is a big accomplishment on its own? What helps you keep these things in perspective?

 

 

 

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On Resolutions.

I love the new year. New Year's is probably my favorite holiday. For me it feels like a fresh start, the turning of a new page, a new chapter. I love that. Another chance to do better, to grow, to accomplish. A chance to PLAN! I have an entire year ahead of me to plan!

 

I know a lot of people don't like doing resolutions. Something about living in the moment, January 1 not being any different than any other day, and the fact that a person can make a change at any time of the year. I see that angle. But I DO live in the moment. And I choose to seize the moment on January 1, at the beginning of the year, to make a fresh new awesome start for the year. Can I improve myself at any time during the year? Of course- and I do. But I also love taking the opportunity at the turn of the year to look back on everything I've accomplished in the past year, and set goals for the things I want to accomplish in the next year.

 

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This January, I had a whole list of resolutions. I had goals, I had things I wanted to accomplish, and I had a plan to make them happen. Looking back now at the end of the year, I'm proud of how well I did. I am not the same person I was at this time last year. I've grown and improved in many ways. Isn't that what it's all about- not perfection, but moving forward?

 

This time last year, I hadn't even had the lightbulb moment that I should go ahead and start studying to be a doula while I was waiting for our circumstances to open up and allow me to purse that dream. Next month, or perhaps early in February, I'll be supporting a laboring momma for the first time as her birth doula. I have another prospective client due in June, and if that works out, I'll have the two births I need to get certified through CBI. There's a good chance I could be a certified birth doula by this time next year! So exciting!

 

To do the GAPS diet was a big goal of mine last January. Even after a year of being gluten free, my health was still not where I wanted it to be, and I knew my gut was pretty damaged. The GAPS diet looked really daunting, but with some good support and a little determination, I was able to start on GAPS early last year. I've seen so many improvements in my health, and my gut has healed enough now to allow me to VERY slowly transition off of GAPS. After an entire year chocolate free, I'm excited to try a little dark chocolate next year and see if I can tolerate it! I never thought I'd make it an entire year without chocolate, but I did!

 

Exercising more regularly was also one of my goals for this year- isn't it for everyone? I'm proud to report that I'm about 10 lbs lighter than I was last year, and since I've been doing Crossfit regularly at a local gym, I now have actual visible arm muscles! I'm so proud of them.

 

I had a couple of other goals that are too personal to share, but I've seen growth there too. My relationships are better, I'm more content, more confident, and I feel like I have a better handle on life in general now than I did last year. It feels good.

 

So after all that, I have one simple goal for next year. This goes against much of my personality(although I'm going to try to do this in a way that also honors my personality, or I'll go crazy) to only have one goal/resolution. I'd love to have a neat, bullet pointed list like last year. But after the bullet pointed list of last year, after working so hard to improve myself from so many different angles, I'm exhausted. I'm bordering on burnout. It's not all the list's fault. Last year's list was really good for me, but we also live really busy lives, and my personality can also tend towards perfectionism.

 

So for this year, my resolution is simple: to relax. To chill out a little bit and not take myself so seriously. Now, of course, I'm not going to stop improving myself in other ways. I couldn't stop doing that if I tried(and why would I want to?). But I'm not going to focus on it. I'm not going to allow myself to make a list. My list last year was great, it was needed, and it was a valuable tool for me. But if I don't take time this year to learn to not take myself too seriously, I think I could very easily fall out of balance and start bordering on obsession. I don't want to do that.

 

So. Relax. Chill out. Calm down.

 

 

This is going to be hard for me, but so, so good for me at the same time.

 

 

I'm getting off to a good start though. Next week, Thad and I are taking our first vacation as a couple in 6 years. The last time we went on a trip by ourselves was for our 1 year anniversary, 6.5 years ago. Needless to say, this is WAY overdue, and I'm so excited. Thad will come back to a big renovation to be done at our church's new building(yay!), and I'll come back to a baby due, a new study I'm leading for our women's group, and spring cleaning, but for 4.5 days we'll have nothing to do but relax and enjoy each other. I CAN'T WAIT!

 

I might need help when I get back though. What are some of your favorite ways to relax and not take life so seriously? I'm trying to chill out a little, but I just might need to make a list of how to accomplish that!

 

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The Pieces Were Always There.

Twenty six years ago, I was born unassisted at home in a little second floor apartment in Largo, Florida. Yeah, my parents were a little crazy. My mom didn't even decide that she wanted to have me at home until labor had already started. One of my parents' paramedic friends dropped off an emergency childbirth kit, but he couldn't stay because he'd lose his job if he did and something went wrong. But of course, nothing went wrong. I was born just fine into my daddy's hands. They even took pictures, actual birth photos of me crowning and everything- but I'll spare you the graphic ones.

 

 

Twenty two years ago, I was a four year old little girl who had just become a big sister. I came super close to being in the room when she was born, but I chickened out at the last minute and decided to spend my time in the waiting room, coloring and playing with my brand new Lite Brite- the one that I had picked out during a rushed pit stop at Toys-R-Us before we headed to the hospital. Yep- the same mom that chose to have an unassisted homebirth with me chose to birth my sister at the hospital- and said afterwards that she much preferred the homebirth. Go figure. After my sister came home, I loved to pretend I was a little mommy. I even nursed my baby dolls.

 

Eighteen years ago, I was an eight year old little girl that was totally fascinated with pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and infant care. I'd spend hours reading the books that my mother had collected during her pregnancy with my sister. There was While Waiting, with the fascinating diagrams in the front showing the position of the baby and the growth of the uterus through the months of pregnancy. Then there was the baby book that shall remain unnamed- because it was used so much that it broke into 4 different pieces and the cover went missing. I learned how to bathe a newborn, breastfeeding basics, how to sterilize bottles, and basic developmental milestones.

 

 

Five years ago, I was newly pregnant with my first and starting to look into birth options. Little did I know the world that I would soon become completely immersed in. I thought I was just researching my options for my upcoming birth, but what I was really doing was uncovering a passion. I soaked up as much information as I could, and I continue to do that until this day.

 

 

Three years ago, I was on a family vacation in Oregon and pregnant with my second, when I had a divine dream. I was trying to survive my way through life, knowing that my husband was called to ministry within the church, and thinking that that's what I was supposed to do as well. As much as I loved birth, I didn't think that birth work could be a calling- and didn't I want to serve God with my life? (ha!) Then as we were on this trip, I had a dream that I believe was truly from God. I was helping a friend of mine through labor. I was praying over her, supporting her, encouraging her. I was the only one there that knew how to help her, and I confidently stepped in like I knew exactly what I was doing(and I did!). I was still just barely starting to figure out who I was at that point in my life, so to have a dream where I was so totally confident and comfortable in who I was and what I was doing was incredibly inspiring. The revelation that birth work could be a calling, a gifting, a ministry? Wow. From that moment on I began to explore the idea that maybe this was what I was supposed to do. All the pieces had been there, I just needed to put them together.

 

 

Two and a half years ago, I gave birth to my son in my own bed, in my own home, with the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the three huge windows in my bedroom. That experience changed me forever. It was the start of something amazing. It empowered me, and I knew I had to help other women have a chance at that same experience.

 

 

Eleven and a half months ago, I decided to stop just waiting around until circumstances allowed me to start doing birth work, and actually DO something with the time while I was waiting. I saved up for a couple of months, and then enrolled in the Childbirth International birth doula course. I started scouring Half Price Books and the library bookstore for childbirth and breastfeeding books, and built a pretty decent start to a lending library.

 

 

Seven months ago, I had the incredible honor of attending Jessica The Leaky B@@b's homebirth of her precious Arden. Oh wow. If there was any doubt how I felt about birth, about feeling called to this, about absolutely loving birth and everything to do with it, that was all wiped away in one night. It was incredible, simply incredible.

 

 

Two months ago, I offered to chat with a mom who was expecting for the first time, just mom-to-mom from someone with a little experience to someone doing this for the first time. I answered questions, validated concerns, and let her borrow some of my books. A couple of weeks later she called back and asked me if I wanted to be her doula. Did I?!?! Of course!!!

 

 

Just two days ago, the expectant momma and her husband sat in my living room for my first prenatal visit ever, and we talked about birth plans and options and what she wanted. Then she paid me. Two days ago, I made actual money doing this. It wasn't a lot, and it's a super small start, but it's still a milestone for me. For the first time, I've made money doing what I've dreamed about doing for so long. And next month, I'll have the incredible honor of being with this family as they welcome a brand new human being into their family. I can't imagine loving any job more.

 

 

 

 

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The Proverbs 31 Woman You Never Knew

This week, I read Half the Church by Carolyn Custis James. I'm not going to go into details about what a total game changer this book is, how much it changed my outlook and inspired me, or how much you should really, really go read it. (Psst- the Kindle edition is still only $1.99.) No, I'm not getting paid to talk about this book- it's just that good.

 


Instead of talking about all that, today I just want to talk about one tiny little point that was mentioned in the book- something that totally grabbed me and inspired me. Today I want to talk about the elusive "Proverbs 31 woman". You know, the famed "Virtuous Woman". Virtuous woman- what does that even mean?

 

 

Dictionary.com says that virtuous means "conforming to moral and ethical principles; morally excellent; upright". I asked the "likers" on the blog's Facebook page what the word "virtuous" made them think of. They came up with words like, honorable, integrity, noble, kind, just, and principled. Two people said that it made them think of someone that has strong convictions and lives up to them. One person said that the word virtuous made her think of the Proverbs 31 woman. Not surprising, considering that most of us know Proverbs 31:10 to say this:


 

"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies."

 


That's something we all want to be, right? All of those words listed above are definitely things that I want to be true of my life. But what if I told you that the Proverbs 31 woman wasn't actually a "virtuous woman"? What if I told you that when you look at the actual Hebrew words, and not the translator's interpretation of the Hebrew words, this scripture means something totally different?

 

 

The Hebrew word for the word virtuous in Proverbs 31:10 is the word chayil. While virtue is a very good thing, something that we all want to have, and surely even a word that could have been used to describe the Proverbs 31 woman, it's not the word that was used to describe the Proverbs 31 woman. Chayil means something totally different.

 


According to my Blue Letter Bible concordance, the word chayil means strength, might, efficiency, wealth, army, ability, and force. Wow- that's a bit different from the picture I get when I think "virtuous". Chayil is a battle word, used most often to describe the strength of an army in battle. It's most often translated as "army", and is also translated as the words man of valor, host, forces, valiant, strength, riches, wealth, power, and so on.

 


That's quite a different meaning than the meaning of "virtuous", wouldn't you say? I also asked the readers on my Facebook page what things the word valiant brought to their minds, and while some of the answers were similar to what they said for virtuous, they also said things like courageous and fearless. One person said that they thought that a valiant person wouldn't be afraid to be a voice for those that can't advocate for themselves. Another person said the word brought to mind an animated film about a pigeon in a war(fitting, since Biblically this is a battle word), and another told an inspiring story about how her grandmother overcame many hardships in her life. Cool stuff! Dictionary.com says that valiant means "boldly courageous; brave; stout-hearted; marked by or showing bravery or valor; heroic".

 

 

Maybe you're wondering if chayil can't mean both things- maybe it could mean virtuous and valiant/strong/powerful? Not only does chayil's definition not have anything to do with the word virtuous, but get this- chayil is only translated as virtuous when it's being used to describe women. Now I'm no Hebrew expert, but even I know that's awful translating- and it also shows the male bias of the people doing the translating. You don't get to change the meaning of a Hebrew word just because it's being used to describe a woman and not a man. If the original author of this passage, inspired by the Holy Spirit, had wanted to describe the Proverbs 31 woman as virtuous, he could have used a word that meant virtuous. But he didn't! He used a word that means strong, valiant, powerful like an army, and he used it to describe not only a woman, but one of the most esteemed women in the entire Bible.

 

 

So lets read that scripture again, but this time with the proper understanding of the word chayil. I'll try it a couple of different ways, and you can see how these hit you.

"Who can find a valiant woman? for her value is far above rubies."

"Who can find a woman as strong as an army? for her value is above rubies."

"Who can find a mighty woman? for her value is above rubies."

Wow! That's such a different picture! This is definitely the kind of woman that I want to be. This translation brings to mind the famous saying, "Well behaved women seldom make history." It takes a valiant, strong, courageous woman to make history- and those women are to be celebrated!

 

 

The sad thing, of course, is that people, especially church people, tend to be afraid of powerful women. But God says that a valiant, powerful woman is someone to be praised! What if we stopped being afraid of powerful women, and actually started embracing the good that they can bring to the world and the church? What if Godly Christian men accepted, encouraged, supported, and learned from their strong Christian sisters instead of being intimidated by them? What if we raised our daughters with these qualities in mind for their future? What if we stopped telling half the church that they're just supposed to be virtuous, and not also valiant? How much more could be done for the kingdom?

 

 

Women have so much to offer the world and the church. I think it's high time for the church to stop telling women that their only callings and giftings lie in the home and with their children. We're not called to only be virtuous, gentle women- we're also called to be valiant in battle.


 

 

"God is shaking his daughters awake and summoning us to engage. His vision for us is affirming and raises the bar for all of us. We cannot settle for less. We have work to do. There's a kingdom to build, and what we do truly matters. Our compass is fixed on Jesus. We can no longer listen to those who call on us to love him with less than all our heart and soul and strength and mind."

~ Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church, p192.

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To the Boy Who Taught Me How to Love.

Dear son:

When you were born, I had already been married for 4 years and 8 months. I had already been a mother for 21 months. Yet somehow, I had not learned how to love. You were the one that taught me that.

 

Your birth was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was one of the most real experiences of my life. I had said that I wanted to be truly present for your birth, truly in the moment, and I was. I can't even explain how incredible your birth was for me- to go through the pain, the struggle, the agony, while fully experiencing all of it, knowing that you were waiting for me at the end. When that pain finally ended, and then you were there- all 8 pounds, 11 ounces, 15 inch head of you- and I had done it! I had never felt so joyful, so accomplished, so empowered. Your birth was the beginning of something wonderful, and not just because you had entered the world, but also because your presence in it would change me forever.

 

Just 6 hours after you were born, we had to take you in to the hospital. Your lungs didn't assimilate the small amount of fluid like they should have, and you were having trouble breathing. They stuck you with a needle several times, put an iv in your head, and put you in a bassinet in the NICU. I was scared. I was disappointed. But I was also numb. I didn't feel bonded to you yet. I would have done anything to protect you, but not because of the bond that we have now, more because I knew in my head that you were my baby and I'd someday fall in love. The bonding that we should have had right after birth was cut short. When they told me that we had to leave you in the NICU, that we weren't allowed in the room with you from 7-8AM, that everyone had to leave, I didn't fight to stay with you. You weren't even 24 hours old yet, and I left you. I regret that, and I'm forever thankful that nothing happened to you while I was gone.

 

When we got to take you home 2 days later, you and I made up for lost time. My midwife told me to climb into bed with you and stay skin to skin for the next week or two, and we did. Those were beautiful days. Oh, the cuddles. I couldn't stop examining you all over. I couldn't stop taking pictures of you. And we bonded.

 

When you were 6 months old, you taught me that not only was this Attachment Parenting stuff healthy for you, but that they were right about babies being people too. You were playing in the playroom, and I wanted you in the living room where I could keep an eye on you. I picked you up to carry you into the living room, and you started to cry! I froze- surely you couldn't be crying because I was taking you out of the playroom? Sure enough- as soon as I put you back, you stopped crying. I was amazed! You were a little person, and even though you couldn't talk or move around much yet, you had your own opinions and desires. From that day, I started to think about what things were like from your perspective, and how I could show you that your perspective was valuable to me too.

 

When you were about 18 months old you taught me even more about that, about respecting your needs and communicating with you. You still couldn't talk much, but you could understand almost everything I said, and I was learning that very quickly. I learned that I could get you to easily go along with things that were unpleasant for you, but necessary, if I would just explain them to you beforehand and coach you through them. It seems so simple to me now, to just treat you with the same consideration that I would anyone else, but at the time that was a very novel concept to me. Your nearly instant positive responses were an excellent teacher.

 

All of these things helped us to form an amazing bond. I knew what made you tick, and like any baby, you were crazy about your momma. But what I never expected was for that bond to grow even deeper as you made your way through your second year. I had chosen to nurse you, of course, just like I had nursed your sister. She and I had a wonderful 15 months of nursing, and the first 15 months of nursing you were much the same. I never expected a surprise to come along after all the experience I already had. I knew from the beginning I wanted to nurse you for longer, to let you self wean when you were ready, but it totally caught me off guard that it was so very much different than what I had already experienced, both with you and your sister.

 

With Hayden, and at first with you, nursing was a bonding experience, but it was also a functional one. You were hungry; I fed you. Simple as that. Yes, it was wonderful, and of course I treasured it, but at the core it was still an act of necessity. Not so as you got older. You tried food for the first time at 9 months old, but by the time you were 18 months you were crazy about it. You were eating everything you could get your hands on! Even so, your favorite thing in the world was still your num nums, and like I had planned, I continued to nurse you. It was so different for me now though. You weren't a baby anymore- you were growing into a boy! You were walking, talking, playing, interacting! You were eating food, and not just bites here and there, but a regular diet! I knew you didn't need to nurse for sustainment anymore. Our nursing relationship was no longer a mainly functional one, but had become an emotional one.

 

It was both strange and exciting for me at first. I had never experienced anything like it before. Not only did I love you as part of my family, as my child, but I was willingly sharing my body with you- not because you needed it to survive, but just because I loved you. That realization, that sharing of such a deeply tangible part of me with another human being began to open my heart in a way that it never had before. I had never shared myself so freely, so deeply before. It was revolutionary for me!

 

 

And then, as things started to fall apart, you taught me once again how to love. You see, as I was growing closer to you, your sister and I were pulling farther and farther apart. We became enemies. I didn't enjoy being around her. I didn't know how to handle her. I didn't know what to do with the angry feelings inside of me when she did something I didn't approve of. They scared me. I started to hate motherhood. That really scared me. I knew something was really, really wrong. I was starting to suspect that it had to do with the discipline method and mindset that I had. Your sister was getting lots of spankings back then.

 

One day I was looking at you and thought about how someday you would get bigger, and I'd have to spank you just like I spanked your sister. I had barely finished the thought when I felt my heart breaking into a million pieces- just at the thought of doing that to you, of violating your trust in me like that! I knew I could never strike you. Then the sobering, life changing truth dropped into my heart- How could I feel that way about you, while at the same time hitting your sister just about every day, sometimes multiple times a day? What had I done?

 

That thought led me on a journey- to grace, to love, to relearning what I knew about parenting, about grace, and about myself. It ultimately led me to gentle discipline, to learning to disciple the two of you, instead of punishing. I began to change the way I interacted with your sister, and the way that I thought about her. I stopped spanking, and started connecting. I learned how to set boundaries without punishing. I learned to start letting go of my fears and my need for control. Just how I had learned to open my heart with you, I began learning how to open it to others too. The bond that I had lost with your sister is being restored. The bond between your dad and me is more real than ever before.

 

Amazingly, as my heart began to open to love, I began to feel God's love more deeply, and in a more real way than I ever had before. For the first time, and after 26 years of following Him, I truly began to understand just how much He truly loves me. I began to truly follow Him, to long for Him, to love Him and allow Him to love me too. Then I understood that this was His plan all along- that He sent you to me to teach me how to love, to teach me how to draw closer to Him. You were just a baby- of course you didn't know what you were doing, how deeply you were changing me. But He knew, and He used you. Because of Him, and because of you, I'm learning how to truly love, and I feel more alive, more real than I ever have before.

 

I don't know if you'll ever understand this impact that you've had on my life, but I'll always be thankful. Thankful for you, the boy that taught me how to love.

 

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

~ C.S. Lewis

 

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