Protecting our daughters, part 1

Recently I read an article wherein a father told a disturbing story about allowing his daughter to be subjected to continual harassment by a drunk man on a plane. Ironically, even though the father let this man persist in his unacceptable behavior, he actually believes he was protecting his daughter!

The father is Scott Brown. His daughter is Kelly Bradrick. (She was not yet married at the time this took place.) The article appears on the Vision Forum website.

"In 2003, I took my daughter with me on a mission trip to Romania. On the plane, there was a drunken man flirting with her in a very aggressive way. Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party ready to protect her. Believe me, we were exercising much Christian patience with this man who persisted throughout the entire flight. He did not realize that he was facing deadly force, if he persisted. He actually touched her once and was making bold advances. He even continued the pursuit after the plane landed. I am convinced that, if we had not been with her to protect her, she would have been in serious danger." (Read it in context.)

Really? This creep was "facing deadly force, if he persisted"? But this guy DID persist - even after the plane landed - and absolutely nothing happened! Are we really to believe that men who are too cowardly to intervene and protect a woman from such obnoxious behavior are suddenly going to use deadly force? After sitting there passively and allowing his daughter to be mistreated in this way, does Scott Brown honestly think he is capable of manning up if things exceeded even his tolerance? And what were these men patiently waiting for? For the man to get physically violent?

"Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party..." Don't make me laugh. Fortunately for him (from his perspective) these men gave him full permission to persist in his harassment of this young woman. I'm sure he had a wonderful time at Kelly's expense. I can only imagine what sort of awful ordeal the flight was for her.

From this account, I cannot help but conclude the following:

1. Mr. Brown sees no need to protect his daughter from "very aggressive" drunken flirting.

2. He saw nothing wrong with allowing this behavior to continue for the entire flight.

3. He saw no reason to intervene even when this man touched his daughter.

4. His daughter's feelings in this matter were of no concern to him. Can you imagine having to endure this while your father watched passively?

5. It was more important to exercise Christian patience with a man than protect a daughter.

6. He never taught his daughter how to behave in such situations. But, wait - maybe he did: "Exercise Christian patience and do nothing. Let the man's horrible behavior continue without challenge or protest. Here, observe my example."

7. Kelly would have been no less protected if she were traveling alone. She may actually have been safer. Perhaps, in the absence of the passive "manhood" accompanying her, someone else might have intervened - offering to trade seats with her, calling the flight attendant, and/or insisting, "Back off, buddy, and leave the young lady alone!" I know we can't count on being rescued by bystanders; at the same time, in my younger years, I benefitted from men who wouldn't tolerate a woman being treated disrespectfully. In Kelly's case, onlookers must have thought, "Well, if her father is perfectly OK with how she's being treated, why should I jump in?"

The huge irony is that Mr. Brown follows his story with these words:

"Where do we get the idea of protection from the Bible? We could make a long list, but here is a short one. Godly behavior is defined by shepherds who protect their flocks. The strong should support the weak. Women are the weaker vessels. And daughters should be protected by their fathers who are commanded to give 24/7 watch care over their children (Deuteronomy 6:1-9). This is enough for me to be convinced that women should be protected by men."

Let me respond: Please spare young women from your notions of "protection". I can't imagine any man I know allowing me to be treated as your daughter was. And if they did - out of fear perhaps - they would be ashamed. And, if they wrote of it, they would describe it truthfully - not pretending it was an example of the very thing they had so grievously failed to do.



Here are my alternate versions...how I wish things had played out...



Version 1:

In 2003, I took my daughter with me on a mission trip to Romania. On the plane, there was a drunken man flirting with her in a very aggressive way. Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party ready to protect her. Believe me, we were exercising much Christian patience with this man - apparently too much, because an elderly woman seated nearby took matters into her own hands.

"Young man!" she addressed the drunk, even though he was much older than my daughter. "I will not sit back and allow you to treat a young lady in that way. You need to stop immediately or I will ring for the stewardess! Young ladies have the right to travel alone without being molested by strangers!"

I was shamed out of my passivity. Frankly, I'd been afraid to say anything. I didn't want to cause any trouble and I'd been hoping that, if my daughter continued trying to ignore this man's bold advances, he would give up and leave her alone.

"Um..." I said, feeling my face redden, "I'm her father."

"And you see nothing wrong with this man's behavior?" The elderly woman was incredulous. "In my day, fathers protected their daughters!" She then insisted on trading seats with my daughter. The rest of the flight was peaceful...giving me plenty of time to repent and to promise to treat my daughter with far more respect in the future.

Where do we get the idea of protection from the Bible? We could make a long list, but here is a short one. Godly behavior is defined by shepherds who protect their flocks. The strong should support the weak. Women are the weaker vessels. And daughters should be protected by their fathers who are commanded to give 24/7 watch care over their children (Deuteronomy 6:1-9). This is enough for me to be convinced that women should be protected by men.

My failure to protect my daughter on the airplane was without excuse. Thank God for an old-fashioned, elderly woman who taught me by her example.



Version 2:

In 2003, I took my daughter with me on a mission trip to Romania. On the plane, there was a drunken man flirting with her in a very aggressive way. Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party ready to protect her. Even more unfortunately for him, he had no idea who he was dealing with. Kelly turned to face him and said, calmly but firmly, "I will say this once. Leave me alone. Do not speak to me. I am not interested in anything you have to say. Stop harassing me."

He responded with something I will not repeat. Mistake number one. Then he made an even more foolish mistake: he touched my daughter.

We knew what was coming next. Only he had no idea.

She caught his hand. Her hands were moving in a subtle but effective way - we could tell by his gasp of surprise and his grimace - and she kept applying pressure while saying, at twice the volume as before, "DON'T...YOU...DARE...EVER...TOUCH...ME...AGAIN!"

Then she summoned the flight attendant and explained the situation. The man was immediately moved - and this time he was seated by another man.

"You know we were ready to jump in," I assured my daughter.

She grinned. "Yeah, but I had it under control."

"That you did," I agreed.

Sometimes the best way a father can protect his daughter is by making sure she gets excellent self-defense training. Her lessons paid off. So did the hours I let her practice on me. Remembering, I rubbed my wrists, knowing exactly what the drunken man had felt, but I didn't feel sorry for him at all.



Version 3:

In 2003, I took my daughter with me on a mission trip to Romania. On the plane, there was a drunken man flirting with her in a very aggressive way. Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party ready to protect her. We love her too much to allow any man to treat her like that. In addition, we would have intervened even if she had been a complete stranger. But, since she is my daughter, I had zero patience with this man.

"Sir," I said. Once I got his attention, I went on, "That's my daughter. See these other guys here? We are going to make sure you leave her alone."

He sputtered something unrepeatable and I motioned to Kelly to change places with me. Once I was seated next to him, I turned to the drunk and said, "Listen carefully. You have a choice. Either you sit next to me the entire flight or I call the flight attendant and have her find you another seat. After the way you dared speak to my daughter, I think you would be much more comfortable sitting next to anyone but me."

He opted to change seats. I let the flight attendant know why.

Kelly thanked me. Honestly, until she told me how this guy had made her feel, and how much my protection meant to her, I'd been on auto-pilot and my actions seemed like no big deal. Really, all I'd done was trade seats with my daughter and ask some creep to leave her alone. Hardly worth mentioning...but that's not how Kelly saw it.

I learned something that day. It's the simple acts of fatherly protection, the things we do automatically without even thinking, that speak volumes to our daughters. When we are faithful in the little things, they have the confidence to trust us in the big things.




Obviously I prefer happy endings...especially when evil has been thwarted rather than tolerated.

Beauty

Recently one of my Facebook friends made some posts about feminine beauty and how women perceive themselves. If I understood him correctly, he was saddened by the fact that not every woman thinks of herself as physically beautiful, and he had an admittedly romantic notion that each woman should/could find a husband who would affirm our beauty and find us drop-dead gorgeous. We had a bit of a dialogue back and forth, and I've found myself thinking some more about the topic since then.

The truth is that we are not all physically beautiful. If we claim all women are, we render the word "beautiful" absolutely meaningless. By insisting that, no matter what a woman sees in the mirror, it is some sort of tragedy if she does not "feel beautiful", we are making plain women believe they now have two problems: their physical plainness and their inability to conjure up feelings based on wishful thinking or pretense.

Over the years, I've read a few books and articles on dealing with a poor body image. Over and over again, the solution is some variation of, "Look in the mirror, preferrably naked. Admire all your wonderful features and say out loud everything you like about your body. Embrace those extra pounds...remember, real women have curves!"

This ignores and invalidates women who cannot bear to look in the mirror because of hideous scars from trauma, because of deformities, because the sight of their body triggers painful memories and feelings. It ignores those of us lacking in the curve department. But who cares? Apparently we are not real women.

Real women, it seems, are all beautiful. If we don't think we are, we should pretend otherwise and "feel beautiful". If we can't do that -- because we're too realistic and honest, or because what faces us in the mirror is too broken and scarred, or because we are not "womanly" enough -- we are basically invisible, as if we don't exist. We don't matter, and it's our own fault.

On the one hand, we are told that our worth is not determined by our beauty or lack thereof. On the other hand, we are told that we need to "feel beautiful". We are told that, if we are not confident in our beauty, we may never attract a husband and, if married, we will never be able to fully please him sexually. As wives, we are duty bound to be uninhibited and to act as if we were incredibly beautiful and sexy...and then somehow we will convince him.

The underlying message seems to be: It's bad enough if we are not beautiful. It's even worse if we can't pretend otherwise so convincingly that we fool ourselves and almost make people forget our crime of not being beautiful.

Christian books repeat this message. They tell us men NEED (not just want) us to be beautiful, that they need a "beautiful woman to rescue" and that we need to "reveal our beauty".

When you're not beautiful, all of this is like yet another cruel taunting reminder, a slap in the face. "Oh, but all women are beautiful," some men will blithely say...and yet these same men will make disparaging remarks like, "Even an ugly woman can find some guy somewhere if she is confident enough in her beauty and femininity." Don't they see the glaring contradiction there?

It's become somewhat popular in certain Christian circles to bemoan our society's standards of beauty. "Don't fall for the media's false messages!" we are told. We are reminded that we shouldn't feel inadequate and should not compare ourselves to media images of surgically-enhanced and airbrushed professional models and actresses. "That's not real!" we are urged to remember. We are told how tragic it is that, because of these false images and messages, teenage girls are growing up thinking they are worthless because they don't realize how beautiful they are.

At the same time, we are told that our beauty is dangerous and that we need to conceal it carefully lest we cause great damage to our brothers in Christ. Besides, "modest is hottest", so if we really want to be sexually attractive, we should wear modest yet feminine clothes that will make Christian men admire our beauty.

We are told that our value is not determined by what men think of us, yet we are urged, every time we get dressed, to prayerfully consider what every man we might encounter that day might possibly think when he sees us. How we appear to men, how they think and feel about us, is of the utmost importance. We are urged to read books and "study" men so that we can learn exactly how they think. One man might be "stumbled" by this, another by something else, and we need to keep all that in mind. A godly woman, apparently, somehow manages to walk that fine line: she is modestly hot, feminine, confident in her beauty, and appropriately attractive in every way -- yet not too sexually alluring to anyone but her husband.

The real problem is not our culture's standards of beauty. It's not that women are refusing to recognize their own beauty. It's not that women aren't realizing that, if they really want to be "hot", they should dress to appeal to certain conservative Christian men. The problem is that even Christians in America can't get it through their thick heads that a woman's worth has nothing to do with her beauty or lack thereof, or what men think of her, or whether her husband thinks she's gorgeous, or even whether she has a husband.

A woman's worth is determined in exactly the same way as a man's: she is created in the image of God, and that has nothing to do with her appearance. [Yes, I know there are some wackos who teach women were NOT created in the image of God. Read Genesis1: 27. "Man" doesn't always mean just males.]

Our worth as women is determined by God, and he doesn't look at our outward appearance the way shallow humans do. He sees the real us, who we are inside. There is no Scripture that admonishes us to be or feel beautiful. That is all a distraction, a diversion from what really matters to God.

I am as much a child of the King as any male...or as any beautiful woman. There aren't any ugly ducklings in His Kingdom. When He bought me with a price, it wasn't at some discount because of my flaws and blemishes.

When I stand before Him someday, my appearance will not matter. I doubt He will say, "If only you would have had a better body image! If only you had determined to feel beautiful!"

In fact, I prefer to think I will be so hidden in Christ that, for the very first time ever, I will be really beautiful -- because all that anyone will see is Him.

That is what really gives us our worth: Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. The only beauty that really matters -- really and truly matters because it is the only beauty that will last for eternity -- is His.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New season of life

We have entered a new exciting phase as parents. Last October, Offspring #3 was married. If I have any readers left, you may remember him as Strapping Young Man. He made a handsome groom with his beautiful bride:




In January, it was Offspring #2's turn. She took my breath away.




I danced with the love of my life at the wedding reception:




Next up: grandchildren! My daughter is expecting our first. I am so looking forward to this new adventure!!

A friend of mine once said that grandchildren are the closest we get to a "do over" in life. As young, earnest parents desiring to raise godly children, too many of us -- myself definitely one -- erred too much on the side of fear, legalism, strictness, impatience, and insensitivity. As grandparents, we can shower grace, love, compassion, and understanding on the little ones in our lives. We can lavish affection and well-deserved praise. And we can be humble enough to tell our children, "This is how I should have treated you. I can't turn back the clock but please know that when I show love to your children, I'm doing those things for you too."


-- Posted from my iPhone

Setting the record straight

As a martial arts and self-defense instructor, I am continually surprised at a number of the myths that people present as facts.

One of the newer myths that some men are attempting to perpetuate, without any sort of proof (because there is none) is that women are just as violent as men, and that women abuse their spouses as often or more often than men do. I just ran across this on the Bayly Blog:

The violence and victims literature tells us women are every bit as violent as men, and lesbian couples are the most violent of all. Even when asked to report on prior heterosexual relationships, lesbians report their present homosexual relationship to be more violent than any prior heterosexual relationship.

No footnotes, of course.

A quick Google search turned up the following:

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1998 and 2002:

• Of the almost 3.5 million violent crimes committed against family members, 49% of these were crimes against spouses.
• 84% of spouse abuse victims were females, and 86% of victims of dating partner abuse at were female.
• Males were 83% of spouse murderers and 75% of dating partner murderers
• 50% of offenders in state prison for spousal abuse had killed their victims. Wives were more likely than husbands to be killed by their spouses: wives were about half of all spouses in the population in 2002, but 81% of all persons killed by their spouse.

  Matthew R. Durose et al., U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 207846, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Family Violence Statistics: Including Statistics on Strangers and Acquaintances, at 31-32 (2005), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fvs.pdf

In a 1995-1996 study conducted in the 50 States and the District of Columbia, nearly 25% of women and 7.6% of men were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or dating partner/acquaintance at some time in their lifetime (based on survey of 16,000 participants, equally male and female).

Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 181867, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, at iii (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/181867.htm

Sexual Assault According to the National Violence Against Women Survey:

• Women are more likely to be victims of sexual violence than men: 78% of the victims of rape and sexual assault are women and 22% are men.
• Most perpetrators of sexual violence are men. Among acts of sexual violence committed against women since the age of 18, 100% of rapes, 92% of physical assaults, and 97% of stalking acts were perpetrated by men. Sexual violence against men is also mainly male violence: 70% of rapes, 86% of physical assaults, and 65% of stalking acts were perpetrated by men.
• In 8 out of 10 rape cases, the victim knows the perpetrator. Of people who report sexual violence, 64% of women and 16% of men were raped, physically assaulted, or stalked by an intimate partner. This includes a current or former spouse, cohabitating partner, boyfriend/girlfriend, or date.

  Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 183781, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, at iv (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/183781.htm

• Another national survey found that 34% of women were victims of sexual coercion by a husband or intimate partner in their lifetime.
  

  Kathleen C. Basile, Prevalence of Wife Rape and Other Intimate Partner Sexual Coercion in a Nationally Representative Sample of Women, 17 Violence and Victims 511 (2002).

The National Women's Study, a three-year longitudinal study of a national probability sample of 4,008 adult women (2,008 of whom represent a cross section of all adult women and 2,000 of whom are an over sample of younger women between the ages of 18 and 34), found:

• 13% of adult women had been victims of completed rape during their lifetime
• 22% of rape victims were assaulted by someone they had never seen before or did not know well.
• 9% of victims were raped by husbands or ex-husbands.
• 11% were raped by fathers or stepfathers.
• 10% were raped by boyfriends or ex-boyfriends.
• 16% were raped by other relatives.
• 29% were raped by other non-relatives, such as friends and neighbors.

  See Dean G. Kilpatrick et al., Rape in America: A Report to the Nation (1992); Heidi S. Resnick et al., Prevalence of Civilian Trauma and PTSD in a Representative National Sample of Women, 61 J. of Consulting and Clinical Psychol. 984 (1993); Dean G. Kilpatrick et al., A 2-Year Longitudinal Analysis of the Relationship Between Violent Assault and Substance Use in Women, 65 J. of Consulting and Clinical Psychol. 834 (1997); Kilpatrick et al., Rape, Other Violence Against Women, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Critical Issues in Assessing the Adversity-Stress-Psychopathology Relationship, in Adversity, Stress, & Psychopathology 161-176 (Bruce P. Dohrenwend ed., 1998); Dean G. Kilpatrick, Rape and Sexual Assault, Aug. 7, 2006, http://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/research/sa.shtml

11% of lesbians reported violence by their female partner and 15% of gay men who had lived with a male partner reported being victimized by a male partner.

Patricia Tjaden, Symposium on Integrating Responses to Domestic Violence: Extent and Nature of Intimate Partner Violence as measured by the National Violence Against Women Survey, 47 Loy. L. Rev. 41, 54 (2003).

• One survey found that same-sex cohabitants reported significantly more intimate partner violence than did opposite-sex cohabitants. Among women, 39.2% of the same-sex cohabitants and 21.7 of the opposite- sex cohabitants reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by a marital/cohabiting partner at some time in their lifetime.
  

  Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 181867, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, at 30 (2000), available at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/181867.htm

• 15.4% of same-sex cohabiting men reported being raped, physically assaulted and/or stalked by a male partner, but 10.8% reported such violence by a female partner.
  

  Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 181867, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, at 30 (2000), available at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/181867.htm

Physical Injury and Medical Treatment

• The U.S. Department of Justice reported that 37% of all women who sought care in hospital emergency rooms for violence-related injuries were injured by a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend.
  

  Michael R. Rand, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 156921, Violence-Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments, (1997) available at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/vrithed.txt

• Women are significantly more likely than men to be injured during an assault: 31.5% of female rape victims, compared with 16.1% of male rape victims, reported being injured during their most recent rape, and 39-42% percent of female physical assault victims, compared with 20-25% of male physical assault victims, reported being injured during their most recent physical assault.
  
• 35.6% of the women injured during their most recent rape and 30.2% of the women injured during their most recent physical assault received medical treatment. Approximately 21.5% of male victims of intimate partner physical assaults that resulted in an injury sought medical treatment.
  

  Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 183781, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, at iv (2000) available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/183781.htm; Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 181867, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, at iv (2000), available at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/181867.htm

Ninety-two percent of women who were physically abused by their partners did not discuss these incidents with their physicians; 57% did not discuss the incidents with anyone. Additionally, in four different studies of survivors of abuse, 70% to 81% of the patients studied reported that they would like their healthcare providers to ask them privately about intimate partner violence.

Panagiota V. Caralis & Regina Musialowski, Women's Experiences with Domestic Violence and Their Attitudes and Expectations Regarding Medical Care of Abuse Victims, 90 S. Med. J. 1075 (1997); Jeanne McCauley et al., Inside 'Pandora's Box': Abused Women's Experiences with Clinicians and Health Services, 13 Archives of Internal Med. 549 (1998); Lawrence S. Friedman et al., Inquiry About Victimization Experiences: A Survey of Patient Preferences and Physician Practices, 152 Archives of Internal Med. (1992); Michael Rodriguez et al., Breaking the Silence: Battered Women's Perspectives on Medical Care, 5 Archives of Fam. Med. 153 (1996).

From: "Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March, 1998"

• Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend each year to 4 million women who are physically abused by their husbands or live-in partners each year.

• While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are 5 to 8 times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner.

• Violence by an intimate partner accounts for about 21% of violent crime experienced by women and about 2 % of the violence experienced by men.

• 31,260 women were murdered by an intimate from 1976-1996.

• Females accounted for 39% of the hospital emergency department visits for violence-related injuries in 1994 but 84% of the persons treated for injuries inflicted by intimates.

Over 500,00 women are stalked by an intimate partner each year.

5.3 million women are abused each year.

1,232 women are killed each year by an intimate partner.

Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women.

Women are more likely to be attacked by someone they know rather than by a stranger.

[from the American Institute on Domestic Violence]


I have no idea what "violence and victims literature" Tim Bayly is referring to, since he does not actually cite any, but this unnamed "literature" cannot be credible if it contradicts the most reliable sources.

As for the article referenced in the Bayly Blog: What sort of man, instead of calling the police, instead of leaving his wife, would sign "a contract with his wife that entitles her to attack him once a week"? Why not sign a contract that entitling him to live free of attack from her? Why not go to her kung fu sifu and demand that she not be allowed to misuse her martial arts? Something about this story is very fishy indeed...almost as fishy as the unsubstantiated statements Tim Bayly makes about domestic violence.

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Yes, it's been a loooooong time

A quick update...

1. My husband's health is much, much better. Despite the surgeon's ominous prediction that there would be no return of pituitary function, he now has almost full function. The endocrine system is doing great, except for a slightly sluggish thyroid. This is a huge answer to prayer, and I am thankful for all of you who prayed for us.

2. Life has been busy. At times it has been both sad and stressful. I wrote, months ago, about "deep waters". While the waters are not quite as deep as they were, and we're not spending as much time in them, they're not exactly shallow yet either.

3. We are part of a wonderful fellowship of believers. I can't begin to describe what a blessing they has been. Did I mention that these people are wonderful?

4. Life has not been all stress and work. We've carved out time for fun and relaxation too, and made some hilarious family memories...and a few are even captured on video.

5. Coffee is good. Still. Always. That is yet again proof that the natural order of the universe is still intact.

6. I saved the best for last: Offspring #3 (aka, "the strapping young man") is ENGAGED!! But it gets even better. He's not just engaged to anyone; he's engaged to a terrific young woman that people can't seem to say enough good things about. We love her! Is that cool or what?

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In sickness and in health

Last October, my husband came down with a bad sinus infection that he just couldn't seem to shake. Doctors prescribed antibiotics in increasing strength. We tried to figure out what was going on in my husband's body that had compromised his immune system to such a degree, and that was rendering him weaker and weaker by the days. He was gripped with extreme fatigue and only his willpower, determination, and incredible work ethic enabled him to drag himself to work. Evenings, he would come home and collapse on the couch or in bed.

We tried this treatment and that. Sought an assortment of specialists in and out of mainstream medicine.

To make a long story short, we now have a diagnosis: panhypopituitarism due to a pituitary adenoma. What this means is that a rather large benign tumor has squished my husband's pituitary gland to the point that it is pretty much failing to function...which means the endocrine system is following suit.

On April 9, a skilled neurosurgeon will remove the tumor. We'd like to hope that pituitary function will return, but he has told us that this is not likely.

Through this trial, I have grown to respect and admire my husband all the more. We have actually managed, despite his exhaustion and health problems, to enjoy each other's company. In many ways, we are closer than ever. We have even found lots of things to laugh about.

Our family has faced another trial as well. As a friend of mine used to say dramtically, "we have been passing through deep waters". We have not quite yet reached the shore. It may take a long, long while.

God is faithful. Amazingly so. In extremely tangible and practical ways, as well as in secret ways that only one's heart can know.

All that stuff about Jesus never leaving us nor forsaking us, about His being made strong through our weakness, about those who wait upon the Lord renewing their strength? It's all true. More than I could have ever hoped.

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Long overdue update

Yes, it's been a long time since I've posted. Here's just a little of what's been going on:

1. I still drink coffee.

2. We've been going through some...er...interesting times in our family.

3. Jesus truly is Lord...and a faithful Friend like no other. He keeps His promise to never leave us nor forsake us.

4. My marriage is all the more precious to me during some current rough times, especially as my husband has had a season of ill health.

5. I still teach martial arts.

6. Mothering doesn't become easier when the children leave home. It's different, less hands on, but sometimes more heartbreaking.

7. Twitter can take up a lot of time, but it's also a great way to follow current events, trends, etc.

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Intimacy? Sex? Same thing? Different?

The Simple Marriage Project posed an interesting question regarding intimacy and sex. Here is what I posted in answer:

My concept of intimacy is a closeness, an emotional bond, a true knowing of one another, a deep friendship that involves openness and vulnerability. This need not at all be sexual. In fact, the people that I am most intimate with are in my extended family.

Unfortunately, many people — and I’ve found that men tend to do this more than women — equate intimacy with sex. I’m reminded of something a friend told me about her marriage. She has felt, for all her marriage, that she is married to a stranger. He is uninterested in sharing any of his deeper thoughts or feelings with her, and he is even less interested in listening to anything she says beyond what is absolutely necessary and said as factually and succinctly as possible. In other words, it’s OK for her to inform him that their child is in some sort of awful crisis, but he doesn’t want to hear that she was up all night crying or that she is tormented with guilt and anguish.

My friend once, in a fit of despair, cried that she wished their marriage was more intimate. Her husband looked at her in complete bewilderment and asked, “You really want to have sex more often? Once a day isn’t enough for you? That’s enough intimacy for me.”

Well, yes, they are an extreme case. But I’ve found that most of my women friends have had to abandon the use of the word “intimacy” with their husbands, since for most men it is simply a code word for intercourse.

Unfortunately, sex — even in a loving, committed marriage — can be a barrier to intimacy. Many men seem to believe that intercourse should act as some sort of magic substitute for any attempt at true intimacy. Why talk, why be vulnerable with one another, why share life’s ups and downs, why bear one another’s burdens when one can simply pretend intercourse is an easy shortcut for all of that?

But! many husbands claim, sex makes me feel more intimate with my wife! Sex leads to intimacy! Hogwash, said another friend of mine. She pointed out to her husband all the ways in which his pre-intercourse and post-intercourse behavior made it clear that the only “intimacy” going on was entirely physical. He had to admit, with chagrin, that he really wasn’t interested in the same level of true intimacy that she was. Physical closeness was enough for him.

Some couples manage to avoid the trap of using intercourse as a bandaid for real problems in the marriage. Others work hard to achieve true intimacy. Yet others find their needs for emotional intimacy with friends and family members, realizing that intimacy is not possible or even wanted in every marriage.

But to equate intimacy with sex? They are very different…even though they can co-exist and overlap in a good marriage…very nicely, in fact. Ideally, sex should be a symbolic act of an intimacy that already exists. But life is usually not always ideal…

Some afterthoughts.....

I have a few friends that question whether or not true and deep intimacy is possible between members of the opposite sex, even husbands and wives. Oh, sure, husbands and wives can share closeness, friendship, a strong emotional bond --- but can they be as intimate as two women friends? As vulnerable with one another? As understanding? As capable of sharing thoughts and feelings? As emotionally close? As willing to share the bad, as well as the good?

When I was a new mother, I craved friendship with other mothers, and I enjoyed a level of intimacy with women that I'd never experienced before. It was a deep fellowship, a sharing of this overwhelming new adventure that had completely captured us. It was to my friends that I was able to admit a few "dark nights of the soul". At one point, I felt that maybe it was wrong for my fairly new friends to know me, the real me, so much better than my husband did, so I attempted to let him know how profound the experience of motherhood was for me.

Unfortunately, we both ended up frustrated. He simply couldn't handle the fact that I was not only and always happy about every aspect of motherhood. He didn't want to hear about sleep deprivation, about the numbing mindlessness of many days, about changing two dozen diapers in just 24 hours. He also didn't want to hear that I sometimes went in just to see my sleeping baby (during those rare moments when he slept) and wept with joy at his beauty. He strongly suggested I needed more time with my women friends. He also wondered if my reaction to motherhood was normal. To him, it was all wacky and disturbing. Couldn't life just return to normal?

At the next park day, the more experienced moms in our group laughed at my tale. They had been there. They had learned to share mostly the sanitized version of motherhood with their husbands, and to come up with a canned, pleasant answer to "What on earth did you do all day?!"

As one mom told me, "Marriage shouldn't be a contest about who had the most stressful day. Let your husband win that one. He will be happier thinking that he is creating a wonderful life for you through his noble sacrifice. He doesn't need your stress on top of his."

Once in a while, I listen to Dr. Laura on the radio while I'm running errands. One of her recurring themes is to remind women that they are married to men, and not to their girlfriends. Hours of talking? Deep sharing? Feelings? The daily minutiae of life? Save it for your girlfriends. Your husband will never be interested in that!

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Thought on California's Proposition 8

I supported it. Frankly, I never thought I'd live to see the day when people would try to redefine the institution of marriage and would then try to impose their ideas on others, even to the point of forcing all couples getting marriage licenses to have to be identified as "Party A" or "Party B", rather than as bride and groom.

When suddenly marriage has become about something completely different than what it has always been understood to be...when it is no longer about a bride and groom, but about two "parties"...well, I finally decided enough was enough when it comes to people trying to impose their new definition of marriage on all of society and on our legal system.

This social experimentation had gone too far.

Some time back, I wrote this: Save Marriage!! Defend Marriage!! I still think that the greatest threats to marriage come from within marriage itself. We are the ones who threaten our own marriages, through all manner of sin, whether it be just plain selfishness and irresponsibility, or lust, adultery, pornography, abuse...the list goes on. I wish more of us were willing to spend our time, money and effort vocally and effectively fighting those very real threats against marriage.

But, in the meantime, I helped my son get signs put out. I spoke out where and when I could. And, sometime over the next few weeks, I hope to blog about why this issue is so crucial to me, and why it should be crucial to you as well...and why we need to speak out now.

UPDATED because I wrote it in haste and needed to re-edit at leisure so that it would make a bit more sense to my readers.

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Why do "conservatives" sound so much like feminists?

It's really starting to both annoy and amuse me. In all the hooplah about the Palin nomination (and now the teen pregnancy) coming from the conservative side, I'm noticing something startling: they sound a lot like feminists. Oh, of course, they wouldn't admit it. And they certainly don't sound like feminists when they are saying that Governor Palin should stay home full time, and/or that her daughter's pregnancy is a result of the mother being outside of the home.

How do they sound like feminists?

They really don't act as if the role of the father is at all important. They ignore Governor Palin's husband entirely, unless it is to feel sorry for him for having an "unsubmissive" wife. His presence in the home, or his absence from it, seems to have --- at least based on what they are writing --- no influence on the children at all. Or at least it's not even significant enough to mention. He's not even significant enough to mention.

No one asks, where was the father? No one asks, should he have been more involved in his daughter's life? Could her pregnancy be a sign that he has failed her in some way?

No one asks these questions because...well, despite giving the rare lip service to the contrary, no one really thinks the role of the father is that important in the home. Most complementarians and patriarchalists really don't think that marriage and the raising of children is that tremendously important. Oh, sure, it is very important for women --- for them, it is their highest (and should be only) calling. But men have far more important work, dominion work, grand vision work. Being a husband and father is not a calling. It is something to be done as a sideline, almost like a hobby. Of course, the husband/father had better make sure he is "in charge", but no one really expects a father to make all that significant of a difference. Oh, sure, they'll tell women that they need to get married and that children need fathers, and that everyone needs to submit to the husband/father, but when they place blame for things wrong in the family, it's the wife/mother who gets blamed. That's where the buck almost always seems to stop. The husband/father escapes their notice.

And that's very telling.

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Let's be honest...and humble...

Edited to add this introduction to my post:

Yes, this is my response --- as a conservative, Christian mother --- to the announcement that the single, teenage daughter of Governor Palin (McCain's choice for vice president) is currently pregnant and planning to marry the father of her child.

I am open to suggestions that a Christian response should be something different...and Biblical reasons as to why.

I'd also like to hear from those, especially conservative Christian mothers, who either agree or disagree with the substance of my "confession". Do you relate? Why or why not?

I am freely confessing the following to my half-a-dozen or so readers, and urging that other mothers join me in being both honest and humble. Let us not rush to judgment. Let us not hold other mothers to impossible standards. Let us realize how much we all need Jesus, how much we all benefit from His grace.

So, on to the confessions:

1. I am not a better parent than God. Beginning with Adam and Eve, all of His children have sinned. Every single one, except for Jesus. So have mine. While at times I wish we didn't have free choice and sinful natures, I am so thankful for the remedy for sin that God provided through His Son Jesus. I stand in desperate need of that remedy. So do my children.

2. Like every mother of many who has neither been born to privilege, nor been able to afford household help, nor has had a husband who enjoyed paternity leave, nor has had the luxury of extended family/church members with no other responsibilities, I have had to return to work fairly soon after the births of my babies. Meals needed preparing, children needed tending, raising, and feeding, babies and toddlers needed changing, the house needed cleaning, and my host of responsibilities to my husband and children didn't abruptly end just because I had a newborn. That's life, especially for the middle-class and working class. Sitting in an office doing paperwork and answering phones, with my baby in a sling, would have seemed like a welcome break on many days. But envy should not make me attack a mother who ventures to her office, just like it should not make me attack mothers whose husbands are able to wait on them hand and foot for six weeks post-partum. God chose my path for me. It's one I don't regret.

3. I have ignored doctors' advice and even direct orders. I willingly, no eagerly, got pregnant with my first child. I have refused pre-natal testing. I have had more than two children. I have breastfed my children. I have given birth in my late 30's. I have not hired a nanny. Etc., etc. While many viewed me reckless and irresponsible for these choices, they were made after much prayerful research. I don't regret any of them. In fact, they all turned out to be, even more so in hindsight, the best choices in our particular situation.

4. I have sinned. Yes, even today. Without the grace of God, I am ruined. Utterly without hope. Not only am I a sinner but, even when I mean well, I am not all wise. I don't have perfect understanding. I make mistakes. I fail. I fall down. But...God still loves me. Someday, when I get to Heaven, it will not be because my theology was correct, or because I wasn't a feminist, or because I stayed home with my babies. It will not be because of my own efforts. It will not be because I meant well or was sincere. It will not be because my good deeds outweighed my bad. It will not be because I am basically a good person, because I'm really not. It will be only because of Jesus.

5. And the few good things about me? The few good things I may accomplish along the way? Jesus deserves all the credit for that as well. I am weak; He is strong. The right things I do are only through Him Who strengthens me.

What about you?

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The two shall become one

And, as the old joke goes, "But which one?"

I believe it is a new one, a one which never existed before. Some say this mystery speaks only of the fact that the married couple has sex. I've written about this elsewhere.

I believe it speaks of unity.

The two become one, and that one is a sum greater than its parts. No one dies; no one disappears. In fact, you become more. You become completed in this other person. In Christ, you become the three-chord strand that is not easily broken.

It's a good thing.

Yes, because we are sinful creatures, there are struggles along the way. Sometimes we want selfishness, power, laziness --- whatever --- over unity. Sometimes our natural inclinations make us seek out friends and advisers who encourage us to set other things ahead of unity. Marriage is not so much about unity, they will say. It's really about who is the boss. It's about a CEO and a plant manager and a bunch of employees-in-training. It's about a commanding officer, an enlisted soldier, and a bunch of raw recruits in boot camp. It's about getting what you want. It's about manipulating your husband into doing whatever you don't want to do, and being all self-righteous about how submissive you are. It's about the fact that men and women are so different that they can't possibly be one in any way other than through sexual intercourse. It's about having babies and little else. It's about the superiority of all males over all females. It's about winning in the culture wars. It's about providing men with an alternative to prostitutes and pornography, with the added benefit of a live-in cook and maid. It's about providing women with a free ticket to easy street, so they'll never have to work at a real job again. It's about me, me, me, and whether I am fulfilled and whether my needs are met and whether my spouse does what I want.

And, if it is about being one, let's make sure that I am THE ONE. I won't see beyond me. When I look at my spouse, all I see is me. It's all about me, me, me, me, me...

You know what? I don't get any of that when I read the Bible and see what it actually says about marriage. I don't read about business plans and military conquests and husbands wielding swords against their wives. I don't read about selfishness becoming sanctified and acceptable in marriage. I don't read that it's suddenly OK to seize authority and to ignore Christ's example of coming to serve rather than to be served. I don't read that passivity and weakness and manipulativeness and guile are wifely virtues.

Instead, I read about unity. I read about love, the sort of love that is described in 1 Corinthians 13. I read about living together in understanding. I read about respect. I read about submission. I read about being one. Not being one person or the other. Being one, both together in unity.

Recently I heard a husband who said that, no, he didn't submit to his wife. He didn't believe that was Biblical. But he did submit to the Lord and to his marriage. Specifically, he submitted himself to maintaining and increasing unity and intimacy with his wife. His wife submitted to him and, since that was his goal for their marriage, she was happy that it was her goal as well. In fact, that is a big factor in why she married him. They both believed that, in unity with Christ and with each other, they could serve Him far better than they could separately.

I've worked in the business world. I really am not looking to pretend to be a plant manager and to have a respectful, professional relationship with the CEO of the company. Because, the truth of the matter is that I know this is, at best, a distant relationship. I never wanted to have sexual relations with any of my bosses. It would have been unseemly and inappropriate and an abuse of his power. So why pretend this is a model for marriage? I don't want a business arrangement. I want a real marriage --- a Biblical marriage. The corporate world holds no appeal for me.

I believe in the order of creation. I take it literally. All six days. I honestly believe that it all happened in just that order. God can set me straight when we get to Heaven, and He can chuckle at my naive simplicity. But, in the meantime, I'll take His Words at face value. I also believe Him when He declared it all good.

That's not all I believe. I also believe that the husband should leave his parents and that he should become one with his wife. For some men, that has meant giving up their dreams, their entitlements, their friends --- all for the sake of unity with their wives. All for the sake of loving their wives as Christ loved the Church, giving up His life for it.

I also believe that God meant what He said when He declared that a man who finds a wife finds what is good, and finds favor with God. And I believe His warnings against husbands dealing treacherously with their wives. And I believe that a man's poor relationship with His wife can directly hinder his prayer life.

There is so much more that I believe...

I also believe that we are to die to ourselves, take up our crosses daily, and live for Christ.

And I believe that there is only one God, and that He is a jealous God.

I believe that, as wives, our desire for our husband can be so strong, so overwhelming, that we are tempted to make an idol of this man. Even though the Bible teaches us to be one with our husbands, it does not teach us to put this unity, this intimacy, ahead of God. God is a jealous God. He does not take kindly to idolatry, whether it is self or another that we worship.

I believe that husbands are tempted to rule over their wives, and that too many of them far prefer this over intimacy and unity. It is safer for them, more comfortable, and gets them what they want. Very few want true servanthood. They especially do not want to serve a woman.

But I believe that Christian marriage is different --- or should be different --- from what so many are stridently claiming marriage should be.

It's so much better. So much better. On the day I was married, I thought my father-in-law sweet but quaint and idealistic when he prayed a prayer over us that included the word "bliss" to describe marriage. Yes, he was sweet. Perhaps a bit quaint and idealistic as well. But not so much as I thought at the time. He knew. He grew into being a good husband. He laid down his own life. He gave much and served much, especially in his later years. He knew. He had experienced that bliss first hand --- the rewards of his obedience to Christ.

May we give up on the world's ideas of marriage, even if they are trumpeted forth loudly and eloquently and convincingly by those claiming to be Christian. May we instead submit to Christ and follow Him in all things, especially in our marriages. May we discover the bliss, the good thing, that God has always intended marriage to be.

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Response to the infamous poem

Read my previous post, for this to make sense.

This response, in the form of an open letter, is well worth reading, especially the comments.

Edited to add:

For more responses, read the comments under my previous post: What is a wife?

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What is a wife?

OK, I know I'm giving a certain blog way too much space than it deserves on my blog, but I was alerted to an interesting post and discussion over there. And I discovered one of the saddest, most haunting poems I've read in a long time. I'm not sure how the author intended it. If I'd read this poem in any other context, I would have assumed it was an extremely feminist poem, meant to point out what is wrong with the worst of "traditional" marriages. But I have to assume that this woman actually...well, meant what she said, and that she wasn't trying to make a shocking political statement against marriage. Maybe I'm missing something and misinterpreting her words.

So I'm asking my readers (all 5 of you) to read the poem "I Think You Want a Wife" and let me know what you think.

I am not ashamed to say that I do not worship my husband. He would be appalled if I did. He is godly enough not to want to be married to an idolater, even if he would be elevated to idol status.

I did not climb into a casket when I married. I die to Christ, imperfectly, but I do not die to mere mortals. Marriage, despite what the most extreme radical feminists (and Mr. Bayly's daughter-in-law) say, did not rob me of dignity. It did not make me disappear. Marriage has, by the grace of God, made me stronger, not weaker.

It is this bleak picture of marriage that makes some young women afraid to marry. Who wants to be forced to worship someone? Who wants to disappear, to be robbed of dignity, to purposefully weaken oneself, to cease to have any sort of ambition --- and then, in this helpless, hopeless state, to try to undergo the demanding task of raising children to the glory of God?

When I was warned, by a few radical feminists, but even more so by women in the church, that marriage would rob me of my person-hood, I was understandably a bit alarmed. My parents only laughed. "Does your mother seem to have lost her identity?" my father chuckled.

My parents, you see, are truly godly people who love Jesus with a great passion and who immerse themselves in the Word of God...and who live it out, humbly and without fanfare. My father loves my mother far too much to rob her of anything, especially her identity in Christ. He loves Jesus too much to want marriage to be anything less than what God intends it to be. Of course, my parents are human. They fall short. They sin. They would be the first to admit it. But rob each other of worth and dignity? Demand worship? Never.

I discovered that, in my mother's case and in my case, because we married men who attempt to love us in a way that will hopefully reflect Christ's love for the church, we lost nothing upon marriage. Oh, sure, for the last 24 years, I've hardly had what I used to consider a decent night's sleep. I've set aside what used to be my ambitions and dreams. I've done things I never wanted to do. My life has been turned topsy-turvy. But...oh, what I've gained. I've really lost nothing.

It's similar to coming to Christ. New converts are sometimes overwhelmed at what they are asked to "give up". Their focus is all on their dying and renouncing and sacrificing and losing. We are so eager to cram our idea of "take up your cross daily" down their throats that we forget to tell them the whole glorious truth.

We really don't give up anything. Not anything worthwhile anyway. Sure, a lot of garbage and rubbish gets thrown away. Some of it, in our foolishness, we are rather attached to. But, oh what we gain. We go from death to life. We get Jesus.

And sometimes a good marriage is a tiny, imperfect and smudged picture of that. We don't die. We aren't robbed of our dignity. We aren't forced to become idol-worshipers. Life does not become an endless drudgery of standing by someone's side,

"affirming, affirming, affirming, affirming, affirming, affirming
affirming, affirming, adoring, affirming, affirming, affirming"

No, if we marry well, we get a wonderful husband, a lifelong friend and companion, a father to our children, a protector and provider --- and we get a relationship that is full and intimate and life-giving, a relationship that is our haven in the storm. In that marriage, we discover a dignity and identity and purpose and strength that we never thought possible.

We become, with Christ at the center of our marriage, that three-strand cord that is not easily broken. Oh, what we gain.

If only all Christian marriage were like that. If only women would cease to make idols of their husbands. If only women were more willing to die to Christ and be made alive in Him, rather than feeling they had to die --- and stay dead --- on the altar of marriage. If only men were more willing to be humble servants of Christ, rather than usurping His role of prophet, priest, and king. If only men were less selfish, less willing to say, "When I look at my wife, I see myself". If only men would learn to better love their wives with the sacrificial love of Christ.

Then we would, as a Church, be telling the truth of the gospel in our marriages...marriages that would be joyous and long-lasting.

And the poems we would write! Joyous, triumphant, thankful, God-glorifying poems!

Updated to add:

Back when I got married (24 years ago this Sunday) it seems that most people were, in general, less negative about marriage than they are now. But I do recall that, although men in our church pretended that it was only with great reluctance that they married and though they made many jokes about the "ball and chain", it was pretty much understood that men tended to get the better deal in marriage. So there was a lot of "grin and bear it", "marriage isn't about you", "you need to be the grown-up" sort of advice given to young brides-to-be.

But what everyone definitely agreed upon is how awful it was to have children. Maybe "awful" is too strong a word, but everyone outside of our extended family had only negative things to say. The general consensus from non-relatives was that we should postpone the misery for as long as possible. Children were a detriment to marriage. I would lose all my freedom. My body would be destroyed and my husband would find it icky to get romantic with "someone's mother". Babies would scream constantly. It was all negative and bleak.

Of course, since I was significantly older than my younger brother, I remembered his early years vividly. No one's life was ruined. In fact, we were all tremendously enriched and agreed that he was pretty much the best thing that ever happened to our family. (When he got older, we older siblings felt a need to pretend otherwise at times...)

Life with a baby was wonderful! My parents actually believed that children were a gift from God --- a delightful, wonderful, joyous gift. So having my baby brother seemed like having Christmas all year round!

As soon as my husband and I became parents (days before our first anniversary) we discovered the closely guarded secret that few people want non-parents to know: babies are incredible. We couldn't get enough of our little guy. In the evenings, we were tempted to fight over who would get to hold him. "Who would have thought holding a baby would feel so good?" my husband would repeat with amazement.

Having a baby was just way too much fun, we decided. If people had any idea, they would all marry at 18 and have babies right away.

Oh, sure, I was incredibly sleep-deprived the first three months. I sometimes felt as if my life revolved around, as I called it, "input and output". (I tried to convince my husband that he should take over the output duties, but he refused.) There were many days of feeling overwhelmed, especially as we had more children. We were not footloose and fancy-free, able to flit about doing frivolous things at a moment's notice. Life was never the same again.

It was much better.

Because, you see, we had children! We didn't lose anything. We gained! In fact, we often felt as if we made out like bandits. All the horrible, dire predictions of misery and doom? Nope.

But...

Some people, especially women, seem afraid of joy. As my father jokes, they aren't happy unless they are miserable. They believe in embracing a life of martyrdom, and letting others know how difficult life is.

Marriage must be a path of death and sorrow and despair and loss, or how can it be godly? (These women usually will not marry well, but will prefer someone who will not disabuse them of the notion that marriage, for wives, is mostly a trial requiring great loss and sacrifice.)

Motherhood must be drudgery and meaninglessness and endless suffering and even more loss, or how can it be godly?

I'll admit that I sometimes have felt that life is unfair. I haven't suffered enough. I haven't been miserable enough. All the horrible things that people predicted when we were newlyweds have not come to pass. Sure, the years haven't been completely painless. I could tell labor and birth horror stories, for example. We've experienced loss and tragedy and disappointment and anguish. Many tears have been shed.

But all in all...have we lost anything? Have we given up anything of meaning? Have we been robbed of anything? No. We have gained. We have been blessed beyond comprehension, behind my wildest dreams.

God has been so good.

And that poem? I don't believe it. Oh, I'm almost sure that the woman who wrote it meant every word. But I don't believe that this is what God intended for marriage. I've tasted a tiny bit of what He intends. And it's beautiful and joyous and life-giving and...and...if people had any idea how wonderful marriage can be, everyone would be marrying at 18. Every man would want a wife and every woman would want a husband. And people would look on the writers of such poems with tearful pity...if only she had married well...if only she knew...

Edited slightly for clarity.

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The mysterious one-fleshness of marriage

Over on the Bayly Blog, they are getting their knickers all in a twist, as usual, but since I've written about that elsewhere, I really wanted input from my readers about one of the comments:

This two-for-one sort of talk sounds remarkably like the press for Denver Seminary's new president when he was hired.

Must be an egal thing, right?

One of the great mysteries of marriage is that the "two become one". What does that really mean?

Yes, yes, I know that I sometimes am far too idealistic, too romantic, too head-up-in-the-clouds. Over the years, I've been told that it's "obvious" that all that is meant by the "one flesh" union of marriage is (pick one):

• Married people have sex. Having sex makes you one flesh. Sheesh, Rebecca, you are so dense. Either that, or you're a prude. All God meant is that married people have sex. Why do you have to try to make a big deal out of everything? There is no mystery here. It's just simple biology.
• The husband is the head and the wife is the body. Good grief, Rebecca, can't you read? This is so plain. What God is saying here is that women need to obey their husbands.
• Married people have babies. Do I really have to explain this to you, Rebecca? The DNA from the husband and the wife combines and "creates" a new person --- the two literally become one flesh! Maybe if you hadn't been writing poems in Algebra class, you wouldn't be such a doofus at science and you would be able to understand the obvious!
• It means something mysterious and profound. It speaks of a deep spiritual truth, and is a picture of our unity with Christ. It's hard for us selfish individuals to understand this, Rebecca. Sin gets in the way of our comprehending how complete, how mysterious, this truth is --- and we all fail at living out the unity we are supposed to have in marriage.
  

One flesh...I've known a few married couples who seemed so...so one. My parents are much like that. Oh, sure --- they don't always agree on everything. But their unity is truly amazing to me. (Sometimes, as a child, it annoyed me that they were so united in everything. Play one off the other? Impossible! It seems as if they were always acting and thinking in one accord.)

So...if we are supposed to be living out this wonderful unity in our marriages, acting as one flesh, and if the wife is supposed to be the "suitable helper" for her husband, why do people get all bent out of shape when someone acknowledges publicly that his wife is his helper in more than just domestic chores, and that she ministers with him, in unity, at his side? Isn't it more Biblical to get "two for one"?

So, gentle readers, what do you think?

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What is godly womanhood?

Recently I read an article titled "Becoming a Godly Woman" by Candace Watters. In it, she responds to a an interesting letter that says, in part:

Would you throw in your thoughts on becoming a biblical woman?

I have trouble with this topic because it seems to me that manhood is "earned," whereas womanhood is just a fact about myself — if anything, my womanhood is something that I may need to transcend (these are observations from the wider culture, but I do not think they are always countered by the church). In other words, I feel like manhood is a trophy to be won, and womanhood is like a prize you get for participation.

Candace Watters answers mainly by quoting and referencing Barbara Mouser's Five Aspects of Woman. While I had some concerns about other parts of the response, this especially struck me:

Glory of Man (1 Corinthians 11, Ephesians 5) — As created, woman "glorifies her husband and her heavenly King with submission, adornment, purity and love. She emulates the Church's membership, as her husband emulates Christ's headship." In her fallen state, woman makes her beauty an end in itself, leading ultimately to ugliness (shame, lust, pride and sexual perversion, for examples; see Isaiah 3 and Ezekiel 16). Once redeemed, a woman is free to use her beauty for the benefit of her heavenly father and when married, for her husband.

Because this trait is so interdependent on created man, a godly woman must "find a man who commands her respect and wins her love; to please, be beautiful for, desired and cherished by such a man."

This raises so many questions, but I want to address two of them:

1. What about women who are not beautiful? I realize that, in our culture's way of thinking, it is as if these women do not exist. Or, perhaps more properly, our culture acts as if these women should not exist and therefore, their actual existence should not even be acknowledged. For example, I recall reading of an experiment conducted by a beautiful young woman who had a professional make-up artist "turn" her into an elderly woman. She then went around for a day, doing the sort of chores she usually did in her city. She was shocked --- it was as if she had suddenly become invisible. Those who did acknowledge her were often dismissive and impatient. The church should not be like the world. Taunting plain, elderly, or disfigured women with "you are free to use your beauty for the Lord" and "you should be beautiful for your husband" is dismissive, demeaning, and somewhat cruel. Not all of us are beautiful. Please stop pretending that we don't exist, that only the beautiful women matter, or that we are failing God and our husbands by not being beautiful.
2. What about single women? Apparently, if they are to be godly, they "must find a man" because this trait of godly womanhood is "so interdependent on created man". What if they can't find a man to marry them? Are they less godly? Less womanly? Or, do they simply not exist in the mind of these authors, just as plain women do not exist?
   

The smugness of these sorts of articles, which are legion, never ceases to irritate me. There was one woman who wrote, "Your husband didn't marry a wrinkled old prune, so why look like one?" I thought that either she was young or could afford plastic surgery. But what about elderly women? Are they sinning by having wrinkles? I recall another woman who turned the verse about husbands delighting in their wives' breasts into a command that wives were to make sure the appearance of their breasts was delightful! While I was happy for her and her delightful, perky breasts, I thought it was a bit unseemly for her to rub her good fortune (and perhaps financial ability to pay for cosmetic surgery) into the faces of those of us whose breasts, perhaps never delightful to begin with, now show the ravages of age, pregnancy, breastfeeding, breast biopsies, cancer surgeries, etc. Are we supposed to all run out and get surgery in order to "obey God's clear command"? What on earth did women of yesteryear do --- or were they all in sin because they didn't have the good sense to be born in our modern era?

Then there is the smugness that comes across like, "I am so much more godly because I am married. Neener, neener to you, single gal. If you were really godly, like me, you would have found a man!"

Please spare me the smug bragging about how godly and beautiful you are, and how much better you are than those who are not blessed with your beauty or your husband. That's really nice for you, but --- and this may put your pretty little head in a spin --- beauty is not next to godliness. And, even more shocking --- some of the most godly women I've known were plain, even disfigured...and a few were --- gasp!---single.

Oh, but how they glorified God! Much more so than your focus on fleeting externals.

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Old folks & life experience

When we're young, immature, and inexperienced, we tend not to value those things that we don't think we need. One of those is life experience.

Back in my single days, I worked for a specialized employment agency. I would interview lots of college grads who, despite their lack of work experience, would grow almost angry that I couldn't place them with any of our client companies. "Our clients want us to provide them with experienced people," I would explain, only to have the interviewee argue with me about how work experience wasn't necessary.

One time I actually read out loud the job description for the position one young grad was applying for and asked, point by point, "Have you actually done this?"

"Well, no," was the answer, "but it shouldn't really matter. Here, let me show you my college transcript. I got excellent grades!"

"That's wonderful, and I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding work elsewhere, but our clients want someone who has actual experience and who already possesses these important skills. Otherwise, you won't be able to do this particular job. It's not a trainee position."

I had more than one college grad throw a bit of a tizzy fit at me for not letting them interview with the prospective employer. They thought I was being unreasonable. They were convinced that they knew more than I did! Their knowledge and their diploma, they told me again and again, was far more valuable than work experience --- why couldn't I see that?

A number of our clients specifically asked us that we not ever send them anyone "fresh out of school". The lack of experience, coupled with a youthful arrogance, made for poor employees --- or at least that's what I was told over and over.

Often, when we don't know much about a particular thing, we tend to think that thing is much simpler than it really is. We tend to think we know more about it than we do. That's where the expression, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing", comes from. Or, as an old friend of mine used to say, "I was too stupid to know how stupid I was."

There are some things you simply cannot learn from a book, or from observing others. It is always unwise to attempt to teach something we ourselves have never actually done.

Unfortunately, when we old folks try to explain this to young folks, the young 'uns often don't get it. They think they know more than they do. They have no experience, so they don't value the experience of others.

Many of us more experienced parents will often joke that we were "parenting experts" before we had children, but now we realize how little we know! My sister-in-law was once rebuked for her choice in strollers by a man who told her haughtily, "I am a parenting expert." When asked how many children he had raised, he had to confess that he didn't have any children --- but that didn't matter! He was an expert because he had written several books!

Lack of experience doesn't stop some people from giving advice. I've actually been given breastfeeding advice by bottle-feeders and homeschooling advice by public schoolers! While I've listened politely, I've often had to suppress the urge to giggle at how silly their advice was. They literally had no idea what they were talking about, but they were so sure of themselves.

And now, egged on by the internet and a culture that values youth over experience, we have children thinking that they can give marriage advice. Sigh...we have children thinking that we old folks are doing such a terrible job in following Jesus that the children need to step in and take over.

The only thing we can hope for these brash young things is that they become teachable very quickly. Some people only learn from painful experience. May these zealous youth be humble enough to learn from every day experience, lest God have to discipline them more severely.

This post, along with my entire blog, is copyrighted. Please read and honor the copyright notice on the bottom of this page. Thank you.

Do not get weary...

For more on this topic, look in the sidebar under "gluttony" or "weight loss".

Many mornings, as I force myself to get out of bed and head off for my morning exercise, it is a huge struggle. Huge. I am weary. I am lazy. I want my bed. I want a life of easiness, indulgence, sloth...

So I remind myself of the healthy weight range for someone of my size and bone structure: 114-127 pounds. I'm not there. Yes, I could make all sorts of excuses. Those are just numbers on a scale! I'm athletic, and muscles weigh more. All the women in my family have thyroid problems (two have had to have thyroid surgery) and I'm sure my thyroid is probably out of whack, so who can blame me for extra pounds?

But the truth is right in front of me...and right behind me. I've indulged myself too much this past year in food and in laziness. The extra weight is there for a reason --- my gluttony and my sloth put it there.

I remind myself of my tiny bird bones and of how I don't want to end up with a broken hip in a few years. I can still add to my bone density, but it will take work. Hard work. But, at my age, should I really risk doing less than what it takes?

I remind myself of diabetes. I'm a ticking time bomb. I know what I need to do to make myself healthier and less at risk.

I remind myself of my children. None of them are married yet. Some are still quite young. I don't want to be one of those grandmas who is too feeble from years of unhealthy living to play an active role in the lives of my future grandchildren. I don't want to continue setting a bad example for my children. If I am someday dependent on them for care due to my own physical limitations, I don't want it to be for diseases and health conditions that I brought upon myself.

I remind myself of my husband. Yes, his example in this area is not one to follow. No, he doesn't support and encourage me in exercising good stewardship over the body God has given me. In his perfect world, I could be as gluttonous as the day is long and, without doing a thing, somehow be transformed into a delightful person who is fit and trim and movie-star-gorgeous. I know it will not happen. I also know, realistically, that at my age and with my looks, it is really not good for my marriage for me not to be in the best possible shape that I can. I can't be movie star gorgeous, even if I went to the best plastic surgeons of the bunch. Then there is my age --- I'm turning 50 next month. The best I can do is to age well and the best way that I can do that is to be healthy and fit. And that takes work. Constant work. But how can I do anything less for a husband who does so much for me and overlooks so many of my faults?

I remind myself of God. He made me. He gave me this body. Yes, he looks at my inward heart, and I don't think the numbers on the scale matter as much to Him as they do to me. But...if He looks at the inward heart...that means He sees my laziness, my gluttony, my desire to indulge my appetites, the way I've used food to avoid turning to Him...that is so much uglier than any amount of fat my body could possibly carry.

So I drag myself out of bed. I force myself to exercise. I pray for God's help in overcoming temptation. I keep track of what I eat. I do it so that I will be healthy and more energetic. I do it for the children I teach, so that I may lead by example. I do it for my own children. I do it for my husband. I do it for God.

But I still have to do it.

A life well lived

Billy Graham described her as the best example of a Christian he had ever met. She was a wife and mother, a gifted writer, and a woman with a deep passion for Jesus. She's with Him now.

Her life is an example for us to follow. Her tribute can be found here.

Double standards?

My posts on "purity balls" can be found here.

It seems that some of the same people behind the "purity balls" for fathers and daughters thought it would be a good thing to have "integrity balls" for mothers and sons. A cursory google search on "integrity balls" highlighted a few significant differences:

• While fathers made pledges to guard their daughter's purity, mothers made no pledges whatsoever.
• Daughters pledged to their fathers; sons pledged to God.
  
• Daughters pledged to remain "sexually pure"; sons pledged about a vague "purity of lifestyle".
• Daughters were encouraged to view their purity as a gift they would give their husbands; sons were encouraged not to damage the purity of another man's future wife or another man's daughter. (At the "integrity ball", girls were likened to used cars; no one wants one with too high mileage.)
• Press coverage of "purity balls" showed lots of pictures of father-daughter "couples", who were encouraged to pose for prom-like pictures. Press coverage of "integrity balls" --- at least what I read --- only showed pictures of two male speakers and did not show a single picture of a mother or son attendee. No mention was made of pseudo-prom pictures.