And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. —Philippians 4:19
Now what?
I sat in the quiet of my condo, on the porch overlooking the nature preserve. All of creation lay before me. I needed a break because I had been floundering in a pile of bills to pay and tasks to do all morning. My petition for patience and guidance grew from my new station in life—on my own.
Talking to God was easy, and I trusted that He was listening. Still, He was not forthcoming with answers. Not right then. But later in the day, the wisdom of His Spirit seemed near. I heard one word: “Simplify!”
When I questioned what I had heard, the only response was: “Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!”
D’Arcy (pronounced Darcy) and I had been married for more than fifty years when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. We prayed for healing and believed God would provide it through faith and medical treatment. So his doctors administered radiation therapy, and the tumor’s progress slowed for a little while. But then the cancer crept into his bones. Throughout the ordeal, D’Arcy continued to lead a weekly Bible study for men at a nearby prison. He had served as the leader for nearly twenty-five years and hated the thought of giving it up.
Our prayers continued, but the cancer stepped up its relentless march. It wrapped itself around his spinal column until he couldn’t walk. Soon he was dependent on a wheelchair and too tired to continue his ministry.
Then one day he could no longer get out of bed. After a period of time in the hospital, we arranged for hospice care so he could be at home. “You know,” he said, “I think the healing the Lord has in mind for me is divine and eternal restoration. He is going to take this cancer-ridden body with all its limitations and let me trade it in for a vibrant, eternal body.”
He said the words with great peace. I squeezed his hand and raised it to my lips.
Then he said, “The car needs an oil change.”
The car needs an oil change? It seemed absurd. But D’Arcy’s sense of responsibility had taken over. He was caring for me.
“Would you get something for me to write with, please?” he asked. Still numb from his oil change announcement, I walked down the hall and into our home office to grab a tablet and pen. I wondered why he wanted it. When I returned to the bedroom, he scooted himself up in bed and reached for the pen and paper. With barely enough strength to sit, he started a list.
I smoothed his rumpled hair and glanced at the pad as he wrote. Slowly and with great effort, he itemized the household bills. “These are the first ones you need to pay,” he said, pointing.
I sat on the edge of the bed with the list in my hand and faced my own denial. These were the bills I needed to pay, meaning he would not be here. His stoic acceptance helped me face the truth. Now I knew he would die.
The writing exhausted D’Arcy, and he fell asleep. I slipped the pen from his fingers and covered his bare arm. Then I picked up my Bible and turned to a New Testament verse that had so often encouraged me during rough times: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13). I prayed:
Oh, Lord, please give me strength. Give me the love and grace I need to serve D’Arcy until he goes home to You.
A few days later I told D’Arcy it was April 28. I wanted to see if the date held any significance for him. He smiled and whispered, “It’s our fifty-first anniversary, isn’t it?” I nodded and gave him a kiss.
Three days later, D’Arcy traded in his cancer-ridden body for a perfectly healed one that would serve him for eternity.
During those first difficult months after his death, I was so thankful for the times D’Arcy and I had spent together in God’s Word. Two years before his death we had studied Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. One passage in particular brought me great comfort because it describes what Christians experience when they get to heaven.
They are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. —Revelation 7:15–17
I could picture D’Arcy in heaven near the throne of the Almighty—safe and joyous under God’s protective tent. Our heavenly Father had provided for my husband, and now, in the early days after his death, I wondered how He would provide for me. That’s when the prompting of the Holy Spirit took hold with one word: “Simplify!”
All through our marriage I had done what many women of my generation did: I let my husband take care of the tasks I thought were too complicated or time-consuming. I did not know how to change the oil in the car, for example, or even how to get someone else to do it. I needed to learn how to fill the gas tank and to understand the fine points of my car insurance. I wondered whom I would call if I was in an accident. Whom should I ask about the financial affairs?
The list was daunting and went on from there. I was suddenly mired in responsibilities that I felt ill-equipped to handle.
Again I thought about that prompting from the Holy Spirit. Simplify? I would love to do that, but how? Then a thought leaped into my mind—stop balancing the checkbook.
It was not that I didn’t know how to reconcile my check register; it just never came out quite right. After hours of trying to balance my bank statement, I wanted to sweep my arm across the table and send everything flying! So I came up with a solution that worked for me. Instead of writing a check for each one of my expenses, I started using a credit card for the majority of my purchases. I am always very careful and disciplined to spend only what I know I can pay at the end of the month. Then I only need to write one check each month to pay off the credit card balance in full. It is much easier for me that way.
I also decided to set up three checking accounts from which I write only a few checks a year. One account is for tithing and charitable giving. One is for home and car insurance, the monthly credit card bill, and other large but infrequent expenses that I don’t want to automatically pay via credit card. And the third checking account is for receiving dividend payments and paying my annual tax bills. Since I write only a few checks a year from each of these accounts, balancing them is a simple task.
To provide an extra layer of protection, my son-in-law said, “Let’s go to the bank together. We’ll sign you up for the Private Client Program.” That was a great comfort. God was my spiritual advocate. Now I had a financial advocate too.
Next, my children wanted me to get a cell phone, so I went to the mall and talked with a young man at the phone kiosk. He helped me pick one out and told me how to key in the names and numbers for my contact list. I thanked him and went to sit at a nearby bench. Every few minutes I went back and asked more questions and then returned to my bench. Back and forth I went until I had a list of names and numbers.
Proud of myself and feeling bolder, I went to the kiosk one more time and asked, “Now what about those Bluetooth things?”
“Oh,” he said, with an exasperated wave of his arms. “That is way too complicated for you.”
“Never mind,” I said, knowing that complicated is not compatible with simplify.
While the emotional part of healing was not easy, I found it could be tailored to my needs. I had been active in prison ministry too, and as soon as I felt able, I joined a team of men and women who were leading a four-day Christian retreat at a local women’s prison. Supporting and encouraging others was a great way to take the focus off myself. I also joined a grief group, and learned that grieving is an individual process. Talking and listening to others’ stories was fine, but God helped me find different resources that were more helpful to me.
Mostly I relied on Scripture and a few other good books. I read a devotional called Grieving the Loss of Someone You Love.1 One of the many issues it addressed was guilt—a plaguing guilt that said, “You should have looked for alternative cancer treatments. You should have done more to help D’Arcy.” Slowly I learned not to blame myself anymore. Even my emotional clutter was simplified.
Near the end of the first year after D’Arcy died, I found another helpful resource called The Widow’s Workbook.2 This was the meat that got me through some of my toughest days. The study addressed all the issues I had stuffed away, and it got to the core of things I didn’t even know I was ignoring. Clearly I was on the mend.
God didn’t provide the kind of healing D’Arcy and I had originally prayed for, but He walked with us through the entire journey of D’Arcy’s illness. The Lord is still caring for us on a daily basis—D’Arcy is safe under His heavenly tent, and I am secure under His earthly protection. Along the way I have learned that grieving and growing are not simple. But with God’s help, they can be greatly simplified.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Radical Womanhood.
The first time you hear a boy say it, it can sting.
“You throw like a girl!”
“He screamed just like a girl!”
“Ewwww … that’s gross. It’s pink. That’s girl stuff.”
The content of these insults usually lacks any serious substance, but the implication is clear: girls are different. As in, worse. Inferior. If a boy is lacking skill, strength, or speed, he is no better than a … girl.
From deep within the feminine heart, a primordial protest erupts: That’s not fair!
I don’t know when this concept dawned on me, but it must have been during grade school. I have memories of competing in field day races and wanting to make sure the all-girl teams did well against the all-boy teams. At one point, the boys were given a few freedoms at recess that the girls didn’t get—perhaps to play some contact sport. So we girls bunched up around the teacher on recess duty and sarcastically played childish kindergarten games to make our point.
By high school, the gender divide became more threatening—and, bizarrely, more alluring. Every girl wanted the attention traditionally paid to cheerleaders or prom queens, but there was always the risk of locker-room gossip. Girls in high school were no longer accused of having cooties or just being “gross.” By this stage, masculine insults contained a threatening, disrespectful edge, often laced with sexual slander. Yet, some guys were just plain cute. We wanted their compliments and time. We just didn’t know if we could trust them .And sometimes we couldn’t.
This roughly summarizes my understanding of “sexual politics” until college—nothing traumatic or really even mildly dramatic. My family was intact and stable. My father was loving and active in my life, as was my mother. I was involved in lots of school activities. My parents came to every concert, marching band performance, school play, and parent-teacher conference. I floated on the fringes of the popular crowd—not part of the inner-sanctum of cheerleaders and football players, but close enough to be invited to the occasional party.
None of that really explains why I ended up in that first women’s studies class at college. It’s likely I thought it would be an easier elective than political science or economics. But the reason I took the next women’s studies class was much more purposeful: through feminism, I had been handed a worldview that addressed the covert sexism I had suspected all these years. Things were beginning to click. The problem was . . . men! “Patriarchy” and its oppression of women were the true culprits. (Um, make that womyn.) As a journalism major, I needed some topic to specialize in, a cause to champion. I found mine in feminism. I made it my life’s mission then to splash the cause of feminism across magazines and airwaves wherever I worked.
There were little skirmishes along the way. Sometime in college, as I recall, my growing feminism ruined Thanksgiving. During dinner, my uncle, a no-nonsense Naval Academy graduate, made some comment— now long forgotten and probably more benign than I recognized—to which I took great offense. I began a tirade about rape, patriarchy, the oppression of “womyn,” and the suffocating roles of wives and mothers. (None of which, with the exception of patriarchy, had I personally experienced.) Any refutation of my sweeping condemnations was met with increased volume and passion on my part. I had lived a mere two decades, but in my opinion I possessed the wisdom of the ages.
Then there was the time I stunned my father with the announcement that if I were ever to marry, I wasn’t going to change my last name. At the time, I thought it was a repressive and unnecessary tradition, and I didn’t see any reason to change my identity just because I would obtain a husband. I honestly thought my father would champion my idea because he was the father of three daughters and if we all changed our names, the family name would die with him.
But he didn’t seem pleased, which genuinely surprised me. In hindsight I honestly don’t know if it was the information or my attitude that provoked his reaction.
I learned a lot of theory in women’s studies classes, but surprisingly, I didn’t learn a lot of actual history. We learned about the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, but not anything earlier. I don’t recall studying anything written prior to Betty Friedan’s influential book from the 1960s, The Feminine Mystique … which is to say, nothing earlier than my own lifetime. It would be years before I learned about the suffrage movement that preceded modern feminism, the differing impacts of the Reformation and Enlightenment on gender roles, and, finally, what the Bible says about men and women.
Feminism taught me that men were the problem, but in the end feminist politics left me yawning. While I had no problem agreeing that men in general were the problem, individual and specific men seemed far more agreeable and even attractive to me. After awhile, the strident victimhood of feminism lost its appeal. Though one of my fellow graduates went to work for feminist political action groups—the National Organization for Women (NOW) and then the Feminist Majority—I took my journalism diploma and my women’s studies certificate and pursued a career in media.
It wasn’t long before my definition and practice of feminism became as generic as that of the next woman clutching Cosmopolitan magazine. Social constructs and gender theories were dim memories. I was left with androgynous “dress for success” fashion, a hyper perception of sexual harassment and discrimination on the job, and a caricature of masculine sexuality as a model of freedom for both sexes. Aggression at work and on dinner dates was the legacy of my education.
When I was twenty-nine, I surveyed my life and perceived the emptiness of it. A relentless self-focus hadn’t produced much happiness.
The Fractured Feminine Psyche
During this time, a friend of mine lent me a book, telling me how helpful it was for “reclaiming a whole feminine psyche.” The book’s premise was that women could be restored by studying the weaknesses and strengths of the goddesses from Greek mythology and by seeking to reconcile these archetypes into one complete woman. I took the test in the book and found out that I tested very high as Athena, the warrior goddess who sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus. This is the section of the summary that I noted in my journal at the time:
“It’s easy to spot Athena in the modern world. She’s out there in every sense of the word. Editing magazines, running women’s studies departments in colleges, hosting talk shows, making fact-finding tours to Nicaragua, producing films, challenging the local legislature.
“The Athena woman is very visible because she is an extravert, she’s practical, and she’s intelligent. Men are often a little intimidated by her at first because she doesn’t respond to the usual sexual gambits and she will push them to the wall in any intellectual argument. When they have won her respect, she can be the most loyal of companions, a lifelong friend, and a generous fund of inspiration …
“Despite her strength, brilliance, and independence, there is a paradox contained in the traditional image of a maid clad in armor. It seems to us that the more energy the Athena woman puts into developing her successful, worldly, armored self, the more she hides her maidenly vulnerability. So, with her androgyny, Athena conceals a conflict, an unresolved tension between her tough outer self and her hidden, unexpressed self that can be a source of great insecurity with regard to her finding an integral feminine identity. We call it Athena’s wound …
“She will spar with [her mate], compete with him, and often despise him because he is not as tough as she is.”
That was a fairly accurate portrait of my life then. I really didn’t know what to do with my feminine identity, but I certainly knew how to spar with men. Now, in quoting that book, I’m not endorsing it in any way. But I do look back and marvel at how creative God is when He begins to work in our hearts. Because I was nowhere near a Bible at the time, God used that book and its faulty psychological premise to jump-start my thinking. That quote was the last thing I wrote in my journal before boarding a flight to South Africa. I left for that vacation thinking that I needed to do something to address my fractured feminine psyche. I saw the problem—or at least part of it—but I wasn’t sure how to resolve it.
It was during my travels in South Africa that God revealed to me more about this dilemma and offered His priceless solution. I was going to visit my sister and brother-in-law, who were living there on a temporary basis to study at a Bible college. My plan was to enjoy an exotic holiday and nothing more. But on Easter Sunday, in a church pushing for racial reconciliation in a nation scarred by apartheid, I heard the greatest message of redemption and forgiveness that would ever reach human ears.
There, sitting among people who had once despised each other for the color of their skin, I learned that hope for change was found in the life and death of Jesus Christ. After explaining the historical evidence for the veracity of Jesus’ life, the pastor told us the significance of his death. He started with the problem of sin—our rebellion against God’s laws and holy standards. In a place like South Africa, wreaked by prejudice and bloodshed, sin is clearly evident. But even if we’ve never discriminated against anyone nor murdered anyone, we are not innocent. From the moment we screamed, “No!!” as a toddler to the times we have cheated, lied, and stolen as adults, to the innumerable hours we spend consumed about our self-image and self-assessment at the expense of others, we have accumulated a weight of guilt and sin that crushes us before a holy God.
The pastor explained to us that the Bible says that death is the consequence of sin. We each face death because of our individual sins, but we also live in a broken world because of our collective sinfulness. But God offers us a shocking solution. To break the cycle of sin and death, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our substitute—to live the perfect life that we cannot live in order to pay the punishment for our sins that we cannot pay. Jesus died on the cross so that we could live. His resurrection three days later was proof that His sacrifice was sufficient to break the curse of sin and death. God does not ignore sin or tolerate injustice. He poured all the righteous anger for our sins on His Son so that we could receive forgiveness. Sin does not go unpunished, but in the cross of Christ mercy triumphs over judgment. This is the gospel—or the good news—of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
That Easter Sunday, I finally heard and understood the gravity of this message. I saw the anger, the harsh judgment of others, and the selfishness in my life for what it was: sin against God and against others. And I broke down in tears as the good news of Jesus’ saving sacrifice was revealed and offered to me.
For the first time, I had real hope for change. But change was a process. I still straddled the fence in some areas, cynical about the evangelical subculture, televangelism scandals, faked miracles, and denominational division. Throughout the trip, I asked my sister and brother-in-law many tough questions. They responded graciously with the words of Scripture but did not try to sell me on their views. I marveled at their restraint and pondered their words as the dusty red roads of South Africa passed under our wheels.
On the third Sunday in South Africa, we visited a church in Cape Town to hear my brother-in-law’s former pastor. An American by the name of C. J. Mahaney preached a message about the honesty and range of human emotions recorded in the Psalms. C. J. alleviated my concerns about turning into a fake smiley-face button for Jesus. The Bible did not shrink back from the reality of our fluctuating feelings. It also did not leave us wallowing in them. Our emotions were designed by God to propel us toward truth and faith—a progression modeled for us in nearly every Psalm.
Submission Impossible
When I returned home, I knew God had done something in my life. Real faith was budding in my life, but I didn’t know what this meant for me. I was different—but I still needed personal mentoring and instruction. I knew I needed to quit some obvious sin patterns, go to church, and read my Bible, but I wasn’t convinced that a whole lot else needed to change. Little did I know that the Holy Spirit was in the process of turning me upside down and shaking loose all my prior beliefs and ideas like so much pocket change.
Point by point, the Holy Spirit used the Bible and the church to renew my mind. I conceded nearly every aspect until I reached one passage in Ephesians: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything” (5:22–24 NIV).
Submission?! Surely that was one ancient concept that no one practiced anymore! There was no way on God’s green earth that I would ever concede that women are inferior and must live as second-class to men. That passage was just wrong, wrong, wrong. All my feminist offenses roused themselves in objection.
But I kept going to church.
That’s when I began to hear my pastor and other people talking about another foreign concept: servant-leadership. The awkward phrasing of this concept demanded an explanation. Once again, I was pointed to Ephesians, chapter five. This time, I read the rest of the offending passage. Though the first part was for wives, the verses that followed for husbands were far more challenging and provided a definition of leadership that was not for self-glory but for the benefit of another.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (5:25–31 NIV).
This was not autocratic, self-glorifying leadership. This was leadership to serve God’s purposes for the benefit of others. Submission. Servant-leadership. Until that point in my life, these were foreign concepts to me. But before that Easter Sunday in South Africa, so was the third concept: sin. Though I was familiar with the word, it was one I applied to other people. Until I heard the gospel, I didn’t see sin very clearly in myself. If I saw weaknesses, shortcomings, or failures in myself, I was good at blaming other people for them or minimizing them in me. I was blind to the sins of envy, anger, self-righteousness, judgment, greed, and pride that coursed through my daily actions.
The word I did know how to apply to myself was “self.” I was all about myself and maximizing my own comfort, opportunity, and pleasure.
God’s Wisdom for Women
Slowly it began to dawn on me that the Bible was not presenting just a new set of rules for successful relationships or a peaceful life. It was presenting an entirely new game—with radically different goals for victory. Winning was living a life that glorified God. Winning was growing in humility. Winning was trusting God and serving others. Winning was cultivating the fruit of the Spirit: peace, love, joy, patience, faithfulness, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22).Winning was growing in Christ-likeness.
All my previous feminist philosophies resulted in merely kicking at the darkness, expecting it would bleed daylight. But Scripture says that it is by God’s light that we see light (Psalm 36:9). The light of God’s Word showed me truth. What I thought was right and true didn’t hold up to Scripture. Human observation and psychology could only point out the problem—proud women spar with men they deem to be weaker and not worthy of respect—but offered no credible solution to the tension between the sexes.
I didn’t need to reconcile my pantheon of inner goddesses. I needed to repent of my sin.
As do men.
The kicker is that feminism is partially right. Men do sin. They can diminish women’s accomplishments and limit women’s freedoms for self-centered reasons. Some men sexually assault women. Some men abuse their wives and children. Many men degrade women through pornography. Feminism didn’t rise up because of fabricated offenses. As one theologian said, it is understandable, humanly speaking, why this movement did emerge:
“When you realize that men have subjugated women for thousands of years, you can only wonder how it took so long for the feminist movement to form. It is unfortunately rare to find a marriage in which the husband recognizes that he bears the responsibility of headship and exercises it in humility and love rather than force and authoritarianism. While I too am against so much of what the feminist movement advocates, I understand why it has emerged. I believe that if Christian men had been the servant leaders in the home, rather than conceited chauvinists, the feminist movement would have died a quick and easy death. If men had sought ways to see the gifts and talents of their wives developed and utilized rather than taking a beautiful person and making her into little more than a personal slave, if men had not twisted this doctrine of headship, we would not have the current problems between men and women in our society. . . . I am tired of hearing that feminists are responsible for the breakdown of the family. We need to put the responsibility where it belongs—on the heads of homes.”
I agree, but as this book is for women and not men, I’ll leave it to the guys to challenge each other. My concern is what we’ve absorbed from our culture about being women. Feminism (like most other “isms”) points a finger at other people for the problems of life. But I learned that Scripture tells us that other people are not the real problem. Our sinful nature (James 4:1–3), spiritual forces of evil (Ephesians 6:12), and the lure of this present world (1 John 2:15–17) are our real problems. But for me—and many women in this present age—the definition, practices, and contours of femininity are where the battles rage. What does it mean to be a woman and not a man? What is the significance of our ability to bear children? How should we handle our sexuality? Should we structure our careers just like men do? What’s the purpose of being a wife?
There are competing answers out there. More than forty years after “women’s lib” began, pundits claim that we now live in a post-feminist age. Feminism is a given. We breathe it, think it, watch it, read it. Whenever a concept so thoroughly permeates a culture, it’s hard to step back and notice it at work. Feminism has profoundly altered our culture’s concept of what it means to be a woman. We need to understand how this movement came about and what its goals have been because these are now our culture’s assumptions. We also need to acknowledge that there has been some good that has come out of it. There were some serious inequities that were changed by the feminist movement. I’m grateful for the short-term gains, but the long-term consequences are profound and need to be examined in light of feminism’s worldview.
My personal history is no doubt different from yours. You may not identify yourself as a current or former feminist. You may not identify yourself as a Christian—or, conversely, you may have grown up in the church. But chances are there are aspects of your femininity that have been negatively impacted by feminism, no matter how you identify yourself now. That’s why I believe it is important to examine the history of feminism, how it has affected our culture and our churches, and how its claims stand up to the teaching of Scripture.
This is the book I wished I had as a new believer. Over the years, I’ve tried to retain the impressions and memories I had as a new believer regarding the church, God, the Bible, masculinity, and femininity, just in case I had the opportunity to write it. When I first encountered these concepts as a new Christian, I wanted someone to explain to me how feminism came about, how it influenced my thinking, and why femininity as defined by the Bible wasn’t a throwback to some horrible era. No one around me in the church looked unhappy, constricted, or oppressed by the gender roles described in the Bible. In fact, they were surprisingly joyful. The men treated me respectfully. The women smiled and laughed. The children were friendly and generally obedient. No one seemed lobotomized and I never did find any secret cult meetings. So after awhile, I accepted that this was genuine behavior and not a conspiracy to brainwash me into backwoods thinking. That left me free to examine the claims of Scripture without suspicion.
Fifteen years later, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to write the book I looked for as a new believer—a book that examines the history of the feminist movement and its major philosophies and gives an explanation of what the Bible teaches about women, our worth, and our roles. If you are a new believer, or even if you are not a Christian, I pray that when you are finished with this book you will put it down with a better understanding of why God made men and women in His image—two sexes, equal in worth and dignity—and why He assigns different roles to us in order to accomplish His purposes in His kingdom.
If you are a long-time Christian, I pray you will be refreshed in your commitment to these godly principles. Biblical womanhood is not a one-size-fits-all mold. It’s not about certain dress styles, Jane Austen movies, tea parties, quiet voices, and exploding floral patterns … whatever stereotype you are picturing right now. To live according to biblical principles today requires women be bold enough to stand against philosophies and strongholds that seek to undermine God’s Word and His authority.
You’ve read part of my story already. In future chapters, you’ll meet other women from different churches, backgrounds, and ethnicities—in other words, this book is not just drawn from my experience. I know all of these women, some for more than a decade. These are real women who have trusted God in joy and in sorrow. They join me in celebrating feminine faith in a feminist world.
Culled
“You throw like a girl!”
“He screamed just like a girl!”
“Ewwww … that’s gross. It’s pink. That’s girl stuff.”
The content of these insults usually lacks any serious substance, but the implication is clear: girls are different. As in, worse. Inferior. If a boy is lacking skill, strength, or speed, he is no better than a … girl.
From deep within the feminine heart, a primordial protest erupts: That’s not fair!
I don’t know when this concept dawned on me, but it must have been during grade school. I have memories of competing in field day races and wanting to make sure the all-girl teams did well against the all-boy teams. At one point, the boys were given a few freedoms at recess that the girls didn’t get—perhaps to play some contact sport. So we girls bunched up around the teacher on recess duty and sarcastically played childish kindergarten games to make our point.
By high school, the gender divide became more threatening—and, bizarrely, more alluring. Every girl wanted the attention traditionally paid to cheerleaders or prom queens, but there was always the risk of locker-room gossip. Girls in high school were no longer accused of having cooties or just being “gross.” By this stage, masculine insults contained a threatening, disrespectful edge, often laced with sexual slander. Yet, some guys were just plain cute. We wanted their compliments and time. We just didn’t know if we could trust them .And sometimes we couldn’t.
This roughly summarizes my understanding of “sexual politics” until college—nothing traumatic or really even mildly dramatic. My family was intact and stable. My father was loving and active in my life, as was my mother. I was involved in lots of school activities. My parents came to every concert, marching band performance, school play, and parent-teacher conference. I floated on the fringes of the popular crowd—not part of the inner-sanctum of cheerleaders and football players, but close enough to be invited to the occasional party.
None of that really explains why I ended up in that first women’s studies class at college. It’s likely I thought it would be an easier elective than political science or economics. But the reason I took the next women’s studies class was much more purposeful: through feminism, I had been handed a worldview that addressed the covert sexism I had suspected all these years. Things were beginning to click. The problem was . . . men! “Patriarchy” and its oppression of women were the true culprits. (Um, make that womyn.) As a journalism major, I needed some topic to specialize in, a cause to champion. I found mine in feminism. I made it my life’s mission then to splash the cause of feminism across magazines and airwaves wherever I worked.
There were little skirmishes along the way. Sometime in college, as I recall, my growing feminism ruined Thanksgiving. During dinner, my uncle, a no-nonsense Naval Academy graduate, made some comment— now long forgotten and probably more benign than I recognized—to which I took great offense. I began a tirade about rape, patriarchy, the oppression of “womyn,” and the suffocating roles of wives and mothers. (None of which, with the exception of patriarchy, had I personally experienced.) Any refutation of my sweeping condemnations was met with increased volume and passion on my part. I had lived a mere two decades, but in my opinion I possessed the wisdom of the ages.
Then there was the time I stunned my father with the announcement that if I were ever to marry, I wasn’t going to change my last name. At the time, I thought it was a repressive and unnecessary tradition, and I didn’t see any reason to change my identity just because I would obtain a husband. I honestly thought my father would champion my idea because he was the father of three daughters and if we all changed our names, the family name would die with him.
But he didn’t seem pleased, which genuinely surprised me. In hindsight I honestly don’t know if it was the information or my attitude that provoked his reaction.
I learned a lot of theory in women’s studies classes, but surprisingly, I didn’t learn a lot of actual history. We learned about the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, but not anything earlier. I don’t recall studying anything written prior to Betty Friedan’s influential book from the 1960s, The Feminine Mystique … which is to say, nothing earlier than my own lifetime. It would be years before I learned about the suffrage movement that preceded modern feminism, the differing impacts of the Reformation and Enlightenment on gender roles, and, finally, what the Bible says about men and women.
Feminism taught me that men were the problem, but in the end feminist politics left me yawning. While I had no problem agreeing that men in general were the problem, individual and specific men seemed far more agreeable and even attractive to me. After awhile, the strident victimhood of feminism lost its appeal. Though one of my fellow graduates went to work for feminist political action groups—the National Organization for Women (NOW) and then the Feminist Majority—I took my journalism diploma and my women’s studies certificate and pursued a career in media.
It wasn’t long before my definition and practice of feminism became as generic as that of the next woman clutching Cosmopolitan magazine. Social constructs and gender theories were dim memories. I was left with androgynous “dress for success” fashion, a hyper perception of sexual harassment and discrimination on the job, and a caricature of masculine sexuality as a model of freedom for both sexes. Aggression at work and on dinner dates was the legacy of my education.
When I was twenty-nine, I surveyed my life and perceived the emptiness of it. A relentless self-focus hadn’t produced much happiness.
The Fractured Feminine Psyche
During this time, a friend of mine lent me a book, telling me how helpful it was for “reclaiming a whole feminine psyche.” The book’s premise was that women could be restored by studying the weaknesses and strengths of the goddesses from Greek mythology and by seeking to reconcile these archetypes into one complete woman. I took the test in the book and found out that I tested very high as Athena, the warrior goddess who sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus. This is the section of the summary that I noted in my journal at the time:
“It’s easy to spot Athena in the modern world. She’s out there in every sense of the word. Editing magazines, running women’s studies departments in colleges, hosting talk shows, making fact-finding tours to Nicaragua, producing films, challenging the local legislature.
“The Athena woman is very visible because she is an extravert, she’s practical, and she’s intelligent. Men are often a little intimidated by her at first because she doesn’t respond to the usual sexual gambits and she will push them to the wall in any intellectual argument. When they have won her respect, she can be the most loyal of companions, a lifelong friend, and a generous fund of inspiration …
“Despite her strength, brilliance, and independence, there is a paradox contained in the traditional image of a maid clad in armor. It seems to us that the more energy the Athena woman puts into developing her successful, worldly, armored self, the more she hides her maidenly vulnerability. So, with her androgyny, Athena conceals a conflict, an unresolved tension between her tough outer self and her hidden, unexpressed self that can be a source of great insecurity with regard to her finding an integral feminine identity. We call it Athena’s wound …
“She will spar with [her mate], compete with him, and often despise him because he is not as tough as she is.”
That was a fairly accurate portrait of my life then. I really didn’t know what to do with my feminine identity, but I certainly knew how to spar with men. Now, in quoting that book, I’m not endorsing it in any way. But I do look back and marvel at how creative God is when He begins to work in our hearts. Because I was nowhere near a Bible at the time, God used that book and its faulty psychological premise to jump-start my thinking. That quote was the last thing I wrote in my journal before boarding a flight to South Africa. I left for that vacation thinking that I needed to do something to address my fractured feminine psyche. I saw the problem—or at least part of it—but I wasn’t sure how to resolve it.
It was during my travels in South Africa that God revealed to me more about this dilemma and offered His priceless solution. I was going to visit my sister and brother-in-law, who were living there on a temporary basis to study at a Bible college. My plan was to enjoy an exotic holiday and nothing more. But on Easter Sunday, in a church pushing for racial reconciliation in a nation scarred by apartheid, I heard the greatest message of redemption and forgiveness that would ever reach human ears.
There, sitting among people who had once despised each other for the color of their skin, I learned that hope for change was found in the life and death of Jesus Christ. After explaining the historical evidence for the veracity of Jesus’ life, the pastor told us the significance of his death. He started with the problem of sin—our rebellion against God’s laws and holy standards. In a place like South Africa, wreaked by prejudice and bloodshed, sin is clearly evident. But even if we’ve never discriminated against anyone nor murdered anyone, we are not innocent. From the moment we screamed, “No!!” as a toddler to the times we have cheated, lied, and stolen as adults, to the innumerable hours we spend consumed about our self-image and self-assessment at the expense of others, we have accumulated a weight of guilt and sin that crushes us before a holy God.
The pastor explained to us that the Bible says that death is the consequence of sin. We each face death because of our individual sins, but we also live in a broken world because of our collective sinfulness. But God offers us a shocking solution. To break the cycle of sin and death, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our substitute—to live the perfect life that we cannot live in order to pay the punishment for our sins that we cannot pay. Jesus died on the cross so that we could live. His resurrection three days later was proof that His sacrifice was sufficient to break the curse of sin and death. God does not ignore sin or tolerate injustice. He poured all the righteous anger for our sins on His Son so that we could receive forgiveness. Sin does not go unpunished, but in the cross of Christ mercy triumphs over judgment. This is the gospel—or the good news—of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
That Easter Sunday, I finally heard and understood the gravity of this message. I saw the anger, the harsh judgment of others, and the selfishness in my life for what it was: sin against God and against others. And I broke down in tears as the good news of Jesus’ saving sacrifice was revealed and offered to me.
For the first time, I had real hope for change. But change was a process. I still straddled the fence in some areas, cynical about the evangelical subculture, televangelism scandals, faked miracles, and denominational division. Throughout the trip, I asked my sister and brother-in-law many tough questions. They responded graciously with the words of Scripture but did not try to sell me on their views. I marveled at their restraint and pondered their words as the dusty red roads of South Africa passed under our wheels.
On the third Sunday in South Africa, we visited a church in Cape Town to hear my brother-in-law’s former pastor. An American by the name of C. J. Mahaney preached a message about the honesty and range of human emotions recorded in the Psalms. C. J. alleviated my concerns about turning into a fake smiley-face button for Jesus. The Bible did not shrink back from the reality of our fluctuating feelings. It also did not leave us wallowing in them. Our emotions were designed by God to propel us toward truth and faith—a progression modeled for us in nearly every Psalm.
Submission Impossible
When I returned home, I knew God had done something in my life. Real faith was budding in my life, but I didn’t know what this meant for me. I was different—but I still needed personal mentoring and instruction. I knew I needed to quit some obvious sin patterns, go to church, and read my Bible, but I wasn’t convinced that a whole lot else needed to change. Little did I know that the Holy Spirit was in the process of turning me upside down and shaking loose all my prior beliefs and ideas like so much pocket change.
Point by point, the Holy Spirit used the Bible and the church to renew my mind. I conceded nearly every aspect until I reached one passage in Ephesians: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything” (5:22–24 NIV).
Submission?! Surely that was one ancient concept that no one practiced anymore! There was no way on God’s green earth that I would ever concede that women are inferior and must live as second-class to men. That passage was just wrong, wrong, wrong. All my feminist offenses roused themselves in objection.
But I kept going to church.
That’s when I began to hear my pastor and other people talking about another foreign concept: servant-leadership. The awkward phrasing of this concept demanded an explanation. Once again, I was pointed to Ephesians, chapter five. This time, I read the rest of the offending passage. Though the first part was for wives, the verses that followed for husbands were far more challenging and provided a definition of leadership that was not for self-glory but for the benefit of another.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (5:25–31 NIV).
This was not autocratic, self-glorifying leadership. This was leadership to serve God’s purposes for the benefit of others. Submission. Servant-leadership. Until that point in my life, these were foreign concepts to me. But before that Easter Sunday in South Africa, so was the third concept: sin. Though I was familiar with the word, it was one I applied to other people. Until I heard the gospel, I didn’t see sin very clearly in myself. If I saw weaknesses, shortcomings, or failures in myself, I was good at blaming other people for them or minimizing them in me. I was blind to the sins of envy, anger, self-righteousness, judgment, greed, and pride that coursed through my daily actions.
The word I did know how to apply to myself was “self.” I was all about myself and maximizing my own comfort, opportunity, and pleasure.
God’s Wisdom for Women
Slowly it began to dawn on me that the Bible was not presenting just a new set of rules for successful relationships or a peaceful life. It was presenting an entirely new game—with radically different goals for victory. Winning was living a life that glorified God. Winning was growing in humility. Winning was trusting God and serving others. Winning was cultivating the fruit of the Spirit: peace, love, joy, patience, faithfulness, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22).Winning was growing in Christ-likeness.
All my previous feminist philosophies resulted in merely kicking at the darkness, expecting it would bleed daylight. But Scripture says that it is by God’s light that we see light (Psalm 36:9). The light of God’s Word showed me truth. What I thought was right and true didn’t hold up to Scripture. Human observation and psychology could only point out the problem—proud women spar with men they deem to be weaker and not worthy of respect—but offered no credible solution to the tension between the sexes.
I didn’t need to reconcile my pantheon of inner goddesses. I needed to repent of my sin.
As do men.
The kicker is that feminism is partially right. Men do sin. They can diminish women’s accomplishments and limit women’s freedoms for self-centered reasons. Some men sexually assault women. Some men abuse their wives and children. Many men degrade women through pornography. Feminism didn’t rise up because of fabricated offenses. As one theologian said, it is understandable, humanly speaking, why this movement did emerge:
“When you realize that men have subjugated women for thousands of years, you can only wonder how it took so long for the feminist movement to form. It is unfortunately rare to find a marriage in which the husband recognizes that he bears the responsibility of headship and exercises it in humility and love rather than force and authoritarianism. While I too am against so much of what the feminist movement advocates, I understand why it has emerged. I believe that if Christian men had been the servant leaders in the home, rather than conceited chauvinists, the feminist movement would have died a quick and easy death. If men had sought ways to see the gifts and talents of their wives developed and utilized rather than taking a beautiful person and making her into little more than a personal slave, if men had not twisted this doctrine of headship, we would not have the current problems between men and women in our society. . . . I am tired of hearing that feminists are responsible for the breakdown of the family. We need to put the responsibility where it belongs—on the heads of homes.”
I agree, but as this book is for women and not men, I’ll leave it to the guys to challenge each other. My concern is what we’ve absorbed from our culture about being women. Feminism (like most other “isms”) points a finger at other people for the problems of life. But I learned that Scripture tells us that other people are not the real problem. Our sinful nature (James 4:1–3), spiritual forces of evil (Ephesians 6:12), and the lure of this present world (1 John 2:15–17) are our real problems. But for me—and many women in this present age—the definition, practices, and contours of femininity are where the battles rage. What does it mean to be a woman and not a man? What is the significance of our ability to bear children? How should we handle our sexuality? Should we structure our careers just like men do? What’s the purpose of being a wife?
There are competing answers out there. More than forty years after “women’s lib” began, pundits claim that we now live in a post-feminist age. Feminism is a given. We breathe it, think it, watch it, read it. Whenever a concept so thoroughly permeates a culture, it’s hard to step back and notice it at work. Feminism has profoundly altered our culture’s concept of what it means to be a woman. We need to understand how this movement came about and what its goals have been because these are now our culture’s assumptions. We also need to acknowledge that there has been some good that has come out of it. There were some serious inequities that were changed by the feminist movement. I’m grateful for the short-term gains, but the long-term consequences are profound and need to be examined in light of feminism’s worldview.
My personal history is no doubt different from yours. You may not identify yourself as a current or former feminist. You may not identify yourself as a Christian—or, conversely, you may have grown up in the church. But chances are there are aspects of your femininity that have been negatively impacted by feminism, no matter how you identify yourself now. That’s why I believe it is important to examine the history of feminism, how it has affected our culture and our churches, and how its claims stand up to the teaching of Scripture.
This is the book I wished I had as a new believer. Over the years, I’ve tried to retain the impressions and memories I had as a new believer regarding the church, God, the Bible, masculinity, and femininity, just in case I had the opportunity to write it. When I first encountered these concepts as a new Christian, I wanted someone to explain to me how feminism came about, how it influenced my thinking, and why femininity as defined by the Bible wasn’t a throwback to some horrible era. No one around me in the church looked unhappy, constricted, or oppressed by the gender roles described in the Bible. In fact, they were surprisingly joyful. The men treated me respectfully. The women smiled and laughed. The children were friendly and generally obedient. No one seemed lobotomized and I never did find any secret cult meetings. So after awhile, I accepted that this was genuine behavior and not a conspiracy to brainwash me into backwoods thinking. That left me free to examine the claims of Scripture without suspicion.
Fifteen years later, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to write the book I looked for as a new believer—a book that examines the history of the feminist movement and its major philosophies and gives an explanation of what the Bible teaches about women, our worth, and our roles. If you are a new believer, or even if you are not a Christian, I pray that when you are finished with this book you will put it down with a better understanding of why God made men and women in His image—two sexes, equal in worth and dignity—and why He assigns different roles to us in order to accomplish His purposes in His kingdom.
If you are a long-time Christian, I pray you will be refreshed in your commitment to these godly principles. Biblical womanhood is not a one-size-fits-all mold. It’s not about certain dress styles, Jane Austen movies, tea parties, quiet voices, and exploding floral patterns … whatever stereotype you are picturing right now. To live according to biblical principles today requires women be bold enough to stand against philosophies and strongholds that seek to undermine God’s Word and His authority.
You’ve read part of my story already. In future chapters, you’ll meet other women from different churches, backgrounds, and ethnicities—in other words, this book is not just drawn from my experience. I know all of these women, some for more than a decade. These are real women who have trusted God in joy and in sorrow. They join me in celebrating feminine faith in a feminist world.
Culled
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
5 Lies That Lead to an Affair
My life had become a nightmare. Practically overnight, since I’d admitted having an affair to my husband, I’d lost everything. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t get off the treadmill of fear, shame, and despair. The hours, days and weeks dragged on as I waited for the pain of colossal regret to subside.
I was the last person anyone would have expected, including myself, to commit such a life-shattering sin. I’d been educated in a Christian school, memorized hundreds of scriptures, and had been involved in ministry for years. I had an earnest desire to please God, and I continuously sought to develop my personal relationship with Him. Having an affair, in my opinion, was one of the worst things a believer could do.
My experience taught me that no matter how sincere our faith or how pure our intentions, an affair can happen to any of us. None of us will ever reach a level of spiritual maturity where we can relax and trust our flesh. Scripture warns us that “the flesh is weak” (Mt. 26:41) and that Satan lies in wait to trip us up (1 Pet. 5:8). If King David, the “man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14), fell into adultery, can we consider ourselves immune to the temptation?
Fortunately, there are ways we can guard ourselves against an affair. The first step is to recognize the lies Satan plants in our minds that may propel us in that direction. Here are five falsehoods that Satan used to lead me down the path toward adultery …and the truths that eventually set me free.
Lie #1: What I think about doesn’t matter as long as don’t act on it.
My life seemed too ordinary, especially compared to the movies and romance novels I took in. To escape the monotony, I began indulging in private fantasies. Passion, mystery, and physical beauty were at my beck and call—I just needed to use a little imagination.
Although these fantasies charged me up emotionally and fed the fire of lust with exhilarating and forbidden pleasures, I did not believe they were a threat to my spiritual growth, relationships, and ministry. No one knew. No one would get hurt …or so I thought.
The Truth: Our thoughts become our actions.
Few people fall into adultery overnight. As with other “big” sins, having an affair is usually the result of a series of small compromises in our thoughts, choices, and behaviors.
At first, my thoughts about the fantasy men I encountered in books, magazines, and movies seemed harmless. But these thoughts soon became a trap. Like a forest fire, the lust they stirred up required more and more fuel until feeding it consumed most of my time and energy. When I wasn’t fantasizing, my life was colorless. I became more self-centered, detached from my family, and cold toward my husband. Pretty soon, other little compromises in my behavior didn’t seem so bad.
It took many years before my conscience was desensitized enough for me to give in to an affair. But it did eventually happen. From the ashes that remained, I learned the truth of Jas. 1:15: “After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Ultimately, my fantasies about other men led me into an affair that contributed to the death of a marriage.
Lie #2: I would be happier with someone else.
Because of his job, recreational activities, and the time he spent with “the guys,” my husband wasn’t home much. When he was home, his attention was riveted to the TV. I was extremely lonely, and I resented his lack of attention to our family and me. We had married at a young age, and I wondered if I had missed something better.
I frequently dwelled upon my dissatisfaction with my marriage. Constantly comparing my spouse to fictional men gave me a deeply critical spirit, so that nothing he did was good enough. I expected him to make me happy, and I felt sorry for myself when he disappointed me. Surely other men would treat me better, I thought. To soothe my self-pity, I escaped deeper into inappropriate thoughts, relishing attention from other men.
The Truth: Only Jesus can satisfy me.
As I got to know these men, I discovered that they weren’t the Hollywood lovers I had envisioned. Each had his own set of weaknesses and character flaws (just like me). I was searching for satisfaction in the wrong place.
Jesus conversed once with a woman who had gone through five husbands and was living with a boyfriend. Apparently she was still looking for that “perfect someone” to fill the void in her life. Jesus told her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” (Jn. 4:13-14). He knew that human relationships—emotional or sexual—would never satisfy her longings. True satisfaction was only found in the love that He offered.
I’ve finally landed on the truth: I would be happier with Someone other than my earthly mate. I’m happiest when I cultivate a relationship with the One who made me—heart longings and all. As I have basked consistently in the verses about Jesus’ love for me and my unexplainable worth to Him, I have discovered true soul satisfaction for the first time in my life. Jesus is everything I was really looking for all along.
Lie #3: Life is passing me by; I deserve something better.
When I sensed my youth waving good-bye in my late 20s, I panicked. I deserve more than this, I thought, and pretty soon it’s going to be too late to find it! I was sure that I was a much better wife than my husband deserved, and I believed that some more compatible guy would jump at the chance to love me. I couldn’t stand the thought that I might never be happy and fulfilled (by my own definition) in this life. All the people in the movies found their perfect matches; I wanted to discover the “happily ever after” I deserved too.
The Truth: I’ve already received more than I deserve.
My affair showed me how wrong I was about myself. I wasn’t good. I didn’t deserve better. I didn’t even deserve a second chance. The good news is that God “does not treat us as our sins deserve” (Ps. 103:10). He offers me second chances not because I deserve them, but because of the amazing grace of Jesus.
Through Christ, I will experience happily ever after, but it won’t come until heaven. In the meantime He wants me to choose something better than earthly pleasure—intimacy with Him (see Lk. 10:38-42). Now the only time I feel that life is passing me by is when I am not pursuing a daily love relationship with Jesus. This relationship sparks passion and adventure as I discover His purpose for my life.
Lie #4: When others pay attention to me, it’s because they think I’m special.
Getting attention from men has intoxicated me since youth. I craved the sense of power and self-worth it gave me. When I felt discouraged or neglected by my husband, I turned to other men for comfort and reassurance. I knew how to lure the attention of almost any guy—single or married. The more men who showed interest in me, the better I felt about myself. In my mind they only flattered and admired me because I was special.
The Truth: People often use flattery to get what they want.
After my divorce, this fascination with men clung to me like a pesky bug. I feared that it would accompany me to the grave. As I had done many times before, I asked God to take this temptation away. But this time I meant it—I lived in the wake of its destruction.
Then I met a man—a gorgeous, smooth, successful man, the kind I would normally find irresistible—while on vacation. He pursued me with the most romantic words and behaviors a woman could stand without melting. It was just like Hollywood.
Suddenly it dawned on me: The attention he was giving me wasn’t about me. It was about sex and lust and greed. I wasn’t special to him: I was just another potential conquest. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, using attention and flattery to get what he wanted from me. The Apostle Paul described similar men in Ro. 16:18: “For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people” (emphasis mine).
I began to realize that someone who truly valued me would uphold my spiritual health, not feed my vanity or take advantage of my emotional holes. There is nothing wrong with sincere compliments, but the admiration I find most meaningful now is when someone notices that I am developing Christlikeness.
Lie #5: I can get away with sin.
During my affair, I thought I could avoid the consequences of my sin. Since the “axe” I was expecting from heaven didn’t drop right away, I figured my sin must not be that big of a deal to God. He would forgive me when I decided to repent, so what was the hurry? I would just live out my fantasies for a while, and when I was ready, I would get my life back on track. No one—including my husband—would have to know what I’d done.
The Truth: God will expose my sin.
I may have concealed my affair from others for a time, but I was only kidding myself if I thought God wasn’t paying attention.
Scripture tells us, “You may be sure that your sin will find you out” (Num. 32:23). God orchestrated some amazing events to expose my sin because He loved me too much to leave me on a path of destruction. He knew that if my sin remained hidden I would never see how ugly it was to Him, and I would never understand how much it hurt my husband, my children, and myself. Fear that someone would discover this repugnant, rotting sin in my spiritual closet would keep me from experiencing true freedom. Any relationship with my spouse (or a future spouse) would be hindered, and a wall would stand between me and God.
Bringing my adultery into the light hurt initially. God showed me that true repentance meant confessing my affair to my husband, whom I had wronged (see Mt. 5:23-24). I was humiliated and ashamed. But when I owned up to my sin, God began to turn the ashes of my life into beauty. He taught me that the only sins Satan can use against me are the ones I hide. Now I’m free to experience the peace that comes from being honest with other believers.
My affair has also opened doors for ministry. Hearing my testimony has given many people the courage to share their struggles with me so that I might help them overcome the lies of Satan.
The process back to wholeness was long and hard, but God’s life-changing truth has totally healed me. The woman I see in the mirror today is a new person—peaceful, satisfied, and more aware of the lies Satan may use to lead me astray. Now, whenever I am tempted by errant thoughts, I stop and replace them with truth. I have also given a few close friends permission to ask me questions and hold me accountable to living out these truths. Above all, I seek to remember that only Jesus, the living water, can fill my deepest longings to be loved and valued.
Culled
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
BROKEN COURTSHIP IS BETTER THAN BROKEN MARRIAGE
A successful marriage is created by two people, a man and a woman who loves each other and is prepared to work hard to preserve and protect their marriage. The keyword here is, two people, it takes two to make marriage work.
No man or woman can love an unwilling spouse enough to make him/her commit to their marriage.the love, commitment, loyalty, fidelity etc must be given willingly and this is the lesson that can be derived from courtship.
Courtship is not the same as marriage, no matter how long the courtship last. The sole reason for courtship is to find out whether you are compatible with the person you are dating and if you find out that the two of you are incompatible, you must break up the relationship immediately. The fact that a courtship ends in marriage does not mean that it is successful.
A courtship is successful if you find out that you are compatible and then marry each other or if you find out that two of you are incompatible, you break up the relationship, thereby freeing each other to continue the search for the right partner.
If during courtship, a couple discovers that they are incompatible and one partner cajoles the other person not to break up the relationship or one person decides to manage the other person, it will be extremely difficult for them to have a good marriage. Marriage will not erase incompatibility rather it will magnify it!
The same reasons why courtship should have ended are the same reasons why the marriage will end.
I also want to advice that people should not go into marriage with a desire to change the other person. Before marriage, you have to accept the other person for whom he/she is and if you honestly have to change the person before you can have a good marriage, then he/she is not the right one for you. Also, while it is very important that the family of the person you are dating likes you, you must remember that you are not marrying his/her family. If his/her family loves you but the person does not, the marriage will not work, is as good as a dead rat.
No man or woman can love an unwilling spouse enough to make him/her commit to their marriage.the love, commitment, loyalty, fidelity etc must be given willingly and this is the lesson that can be derived from courtship.
Courtship is not the same as marriage, no matter how long the courtship last. The sole reason for courtship is to find out whether you are compatible with the person you are dating and if you find out that the two of you are incompatible, you must break up the relationship immediately. The fact that a courtship ends in marriage does not mean that it is successful.
A courtship is successful if you find out that you are compatible and then marry each other or if you find out that two of you are incompatible, you break up the relationship, thereby freeing each other to continue the search for the right partner.
If during courtship, a couple discovers that they are incompatible and one partner cajoles the other person not to break up the relationship or one person decides to manage the other person, it will be extremely difficult for them to have a good marriage. Marriage will not erase incompatibility rather it will magnify it!
The same reasons why courtship should have ended are the same reasons why the marriage will end.
I also want to advice that people should not go into marriage with a desire to change the other person. Before marriage, you have to accept the other person for whom he/she is and if you honestly have to change the person before you can have a good marriage, then he/she is not the right one for you. Also, while it is very important that the family of the person you are dating likes you, you must remember that you are not marrying his/her family. If his/her family loves you but the person does not, the marriage will not work, is as good as a dead rat.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
LOVE TERMINATION AT CHRISTMAS 3
For many people the worst part of dating is having to decide whether the potential exists for a brilliant relationship. A person who is dating and looking for a partner to share the rest of their life is caught between the rock (not wanting to continue a relationship that has no chance for success) and the hard place (not wanting to miss a great partner because of a rocky start in their relationship).
In this five part series we're examining:
When is long enough long enough?
How do you know when you've given your relationship all the chances it deserves?
In the first two installments we looked at how six months is generally a good exploration period, and when the six month rule does not apply.
Idea Number Three
How about if the chemistry between you and the other person doesn't appear in the first six months? Should you then say that that chemistry is probably not going to appear?
I believe that chemistry between two people is absolutely essential to the success of their eventual marriage. You must not get married to someone with whom you don't have that strong desire to touch them, to hold their hand, to have your arm around them, to kiss them, to whatever with them. You need to have that passion and that chemistry.
People say sometimes, "This is the perfect person, but we just don't have that much chemistry in relation to each other. What should we do?" Well you can do one of two things. You can wait longer and see if it develops or you can call it quits now. They always say, "How long should we wait?" My suggestion to them is you can wait as long as you have time to wait, but there's always a risk in the longer you wait.
In this five part series we're examining:
When is long enough long enough?
How do you know when you've given your relationship all the chances it deserves?
In the first two installments we looked at how six months is generally a good exploration period, and when the six month rule does not apply.
Idea Number Three
How about if the chemistry between you and the other person doesn't appear in the first six months? Should you then say that that chemistry is probably not going to appear?
I believe that chemistry between two people is absolutely essential to the success of their eventual marriage. You must not get married to someone with whom you don't have that strong desire to touch them, to hold their hand, to have your arm around them, to kiss them, to whatever with them. You need to have that passion and that chemistry.
People say sometimes, "This is the perfect person, but we just don't have that much chemistry in relation to each other. What should we do?" Well you can do one of two things. You can wait longer and see if it develops or you can call it quits now. They always say, "How long should we wait?" My suggestion to them is you can wait as long as you have time to wait, but there's always a risk in the longer you wait.
LOVE TERMINATION AT CHRISTMAS 2
Terminating a relationship—a romantic relationship—successfully requires enormous skill. Unfortunately both people usually do not agree on how or when this should be done. This is a big part of problem-that they don't agree.
There are several considerations that relate to successful termination. One of the most important ones has to do with feeling confident that you have waited long enough—that you have given the relationship every chance to demonstrate its long-term quality—that you won't look back and wish like everything that you had waited just a little longer.
In the first part of this five part series we talked about using six months as a general guide for determining how long to work on a new relationship. I believe that, after six months, if things aren't working they probably never will.
Idea Number Two
If the two of you have had some very stormy times you probably don't even need to wait six months. Long enough is long enough when indeed something very unacceptable has happened between the two of you. And what is this unacceptable thing?
First of all, if physical abuse has taken place between the two of you in a dating relationship, think about how much more likely then physical abuse is going to be a part of any future relationship. About the time there is physical abuse between you and a person you are dating, I say back away from that relationship. That's long enough.
I don't condone any kind of physical abuse. In fact, I do a lot of work on radio and television having to do with anger mismanagement and I say to spouses all the time, "If your spouse abuses you, you call 911 and report your spouse." Report this person you're dating.
I don't care if it's a woman or a man because what we know is that the likelihood of repeating abuse in the future is great if indeed there is no intervention by a legal authority. If there is intervention by a legal authority we have so much better chance of rectifying the situation and making it unlikely it will happen again.
If between you and the other person there is loud yelling, I say, I don't like that. As a matter of fact, if I got into a situation with someone in which yelling got out of control, I would wonder if long enough is already long enough. Belligerent behavior of any kind is unacceptable, like intimidation: "If you don't do that, I promise you I'm going to do this to you." I mean, I don't like intimidation like that. That might make me think, "This marriage is going to have a lot of trouble should we ever get married." I might want to back away from that relationship pretty fast.
While I believe that anger mismanagement can be significantly changed, experiences of this mismanagement usually do tremendous damage to a couple's trust level, and repeated experiences are nearly impossible to overcome.
So, if you're in a relationship right now in which there is any physical abuse, in which there is this kind of loud yelling, or in which you feel fearful for your own safety at times and the other person is intimidating, I say it has been long enough. I just want you to move away from that situation as quickly and as well as you can. There's so much likelihood that not only will it continue, but also it will continue on a more frequent basis should you get married.
CULLED
There are several considerations that relate to successful termination. One of the most important ones has to do with feeling confident that you have waited long enough—that you have given the relationship every chance to demonstrate its long-term quality—that you won't look back and wish like everything that you had waited just a little longer.
In the first part of this five part series we talked about using six months as a general guide for determining how long to work on a new relationship. I believe that, after six months, if things aren't working they probably never will.
Idea Number Two
If the two of you have had some very stormy times you probably don't even need to wait six months. Long enough is long enough when indeed something very unacceptable has happened between the two of you. And what is this unacceptable thing?
First of all, if physical abuse has taken place between the two of you in a dating relationship, think about how much more likely then physical abuse is going to be a part of any future relationship. About the time there is physical abuse between you and a person you are dating, I say back away from that relationship. That's long enough.
I don't condone any kind of physical abuse. In fact, I do a lot of work on radio and television having to do with anger mismanagement and I say to spouses all the time, "If your spouse abuses you, you call 911 and report your spouse." Report this person you're dating.
I don't care if it's a woman or a man because what we know is that the likelihood of repeating abuse in the future is great if indeed there is no intervention by a legal authority. If there is intervention by a legal authority we have so much better chance of rectifying the situation and making it unlikely it will happen again.
If between you and the other person there is loud yelling, I say, I don't like that. As a matter of fact, if I got into a situation with someone in which yelling got out of control, I would wonder if long enough is already long enough. Belligerent behavior of any kind is unacceptable, like intimidation: "If you don't do that, I promise you I'm going to do this to you." I mean, I don't like intimidation like that. That might make me think, "This marriage is going to have a lot of trouble should we ever get married." I might want to back away from that relationship pretty fast.
While I believe that anger mismanagement can be significantly changed, experiences of this mismanagement usually do tremendous damage to a couple's trust level, and repeated experiences are nearly impossible to overcome.
So, if you're in a relationship right now in which there is any physical abuse, in which there is this kind of loud yelling, or in which you feel fearful for your own safety at times and the other person is intimidating, I say it has been long enough. I just want you to move away from that situation as quickly and as well as you can. There's so much likelihood that not only will it continue, but also it will continue on a more frequent basis should you get married.
CULLED
Friday, October 17, 2008
LOVE TERMINATION AT CHRISTMAS
THE BEST TIME TO SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR RELATIONSHIP &
¤ IS ON A CHRISTMAS DAY.
You've been going with someone for a long time and you're wondering how long you need to continue going with them before you can have enough information to make a real decision, a tough decision, maybe a decision not to continue the relationship at all.
When is long enough long enough?
How do you know when you've given your relationship all the chances it deserves?
I want to tell you that terminating a relationship-a romantic relationship-successfully requires enormous skill. Unfortunately both people usually do not agree on how or when this should be done. This is a big part of the problem-that they don't agree.
There are several considerations that relate to successful termination. One of the most important ones has to do with feeling confident that you have waited long enough, that you have given the relationship every chance to demonstrate its long-term quality, that you won't look back and wish like everything that you had waited just a little longer.
I have developed five ideas about this over the course of my years of seeing people in psychotherapy. Five ideas that may help you know when long enough is indeed long enough to hold on to a dating relationship.
Idea Number One
When you or your dating partner or both of you have been unhappy in your relationship for six months or longer, and you have tried your hardest to work on the specific problems you have identified and there has simply been no progress and you are still very unhappy with each other, I would say you should be pretty certain that you have waited long enough.
Terminate it on a Christmas day and go with the joy that follows.
It all depends on a lot of variables of course, like:
How outstanding you think this relationship could be?
How dependent are you on this other person?
How important it is for you to keep trying to make this relationship everything you need it to be?
If one or both of you have been unhappy with each other for six months or longer, and you've tried your hardest to work on the problems you have and you're still really unhappy with each other because you've seen little or no progress, then I want to tell you that maybe you need to say, "Well, that's long enough. I've given it my best shot. I've tried my hardest."
People around the country say to me all the time, "Neil, be very careful about telling us to terminate a relationship because we don't have all kinds of candidates in the wings. It isn't like I can say, 'That's long enough for this one. I'll go on to the next one.' There may not be a next one."
I understand that the pool of candidates is too small for a lot of people around the United States today. As a matter of fact, that's exactly what we're going to try to change in the next few years with eharmony, the online relationship service that started as a part of my desire to see my children marry well.
One of the founding principles of eharmony is that the older a person becomes, the less single people they have in their lives. We want to beat this dating pool problem.
Right now I want you to understand one other thing: A bad marriage is a thousand times worse than no marriage at all.
I don't want you getting yourself in a bad marriage, and if time is of the essence, I don't want you to take too much time making the decision. Six months in which you've really tried to do the job of correcting or remediating a relationship may well be enough. That's enough, I think, for you to be able to look back and say, "I gave it my very best effort."
Now, what about this one other thing? What about your looking back and wishing like everything that you would've waited just a little longer? There's always the possibility that you will do that, too.
There's also the possibility that this other person will "shape up" and become the perfect person after you leave. But I have to tell you something: If you've tried for six months and that person hasn't tried to "shape up" and become the perfect person, the odds are very, very high that they won't in the next six months, or the six months after that, or any six-month period for the rest of their lives, because six months is a long time for people to demonstrate their consistency in not doing what is necessary in order to make the relationship work.
REMEMBER THE BEST TIME TO DO THAT BUT LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOUR SELF
(Culled)
¤ IS ON A CHRISTMAS DAY.
You've been going with someone for a long time and you're wondering how long you need to continue going with them before you can have enough information to make a real decision, a tough decision, maybe a decision not to continue the relationship at all.
When is long enough long enough?
How do you know when you've given your relationship all the chances it deserves?
I want to tell you that terminating a relationship-a romantic relationship-successfully requires enormous skill. Unfortunately both people usually do not agree on how or when this should be done. This is a big part of the problem-that they don't agree.
There are several considerations that relate to successful termination. One of the most important ones has to do with feeling confident that you have waited long enough, that you have given the relationship every chance to demonstrate its long-term quality, that you won't look back and wish like everything that you had waited just a little longer.
I have developed five ideas about this over the course of my years of seeing people in psychotherapy. Five ideas that may help you know when long enough is indeed long enough to hold on to a dating relationship.
Idea Number One
When you or your dating partner or both of you have been unhappy in your relationship for six months or longer, and you have tried your hardest to work on the specific problems you have identified and there has simply been no progress and you are still very unhappy with each other, I would say you should be pretty certain that you have waited long enough.
Terminate it on a Christmas day and go with the joy that follows.
It all depends on a lot of variables of course, like:
How outstanding you think this relationship could be?
How dependent are you on this other person?
How important it is for you to keep trying to make this relationship everything you need it to be?
If one or both of you have been unhappy with each other for six months or longer, and you've tried your hardest to work on the problems you have and you're still really unhappy with each other because you've seen little or no progress, then I want to tell you that maybe you need to say, "Well, that's long enough. I've given it my best shot. I've tried my hardest."
People around the country say to me all the time, "Neil, be very careful about telling us to terminate a relationship because we don't have all kinds of candidates in the wings. It isn't like I can say, 'That's long enough for this one. I'll go on to the next one.' There may not be a next one."
I understand that the pool of candidates is too small for a lot of people around the United States today. As a matter of fact, that's exactly what we're going to try to change in the next few years with eharmony, the online relationship service that started as a part of my desire to see my children marry well.
One of the founding principles of eharmony is that the older a person becomes, the less single people they have in their lives. We want to beat this dating pool problem.
Right now I want you to understand one other thing: A bad marriage is a thousand times worse than no marriage at all.
I don't want you getting yourself in a bad marriage, and if time is of the essence, I don't want you to take too much time making the decision. Six months in which you've really tried to do the job of correcting or remediating a relationship may well be enough. That's enough, I think, for you to be able to look back and say, "I gave it my very best effort."
Now, what about this one other thing? What about your looking back and wishing like everything that you would've waited just a little longer? There's always the possibility that you will do that, too.
There's also the possibility that this other person will "shape up" and become the perfect person after you leave. But I have to tell you something: If you've tried for six months and that person hasn't tried to "shape up" and become the perfect person, the odds are very, very high that they won't in the next six months, or the six months after that, or any six-month period for the rest of their lives, because six months is a long time for people to demonstrate their consistency in not doing what is necessary in order to make the relationship work.
REMEMBER THE BEST TIME TO DO THAT BUT LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOUR SELF
(Culled)
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