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I have been wrestling this past month with many issues. I guess this entry is a montage of various thoughts. EARNING SALVATION One must simply love the Lord to find heaven at the end of the road. It matters not if you die with pants on. Dresses don’t save you. Furthermore, God doesn’t cast you down if your head isn’t veiled. And, if your children are public schooled, that’s alright too. Modesty is important. But you don’t need to be in a cape dress to be modest. The Lord knows your heart. That’s all that counts. Is it resting in Him alone? Is He your one and only? Amazing, isn’t it!? God is so good! MARRIAGE Marriage is also laid out in the Bible. But a man and woman can only have a godly marriage if they BOTH die to self. For a long while I tried to make “sense” of what I lived with underneath my own roof. I did this many times, through various entries, here. On days when my husband was particularly harsh or demeaning, I wrote about the importance of loving an unloving husband. On days where I felt more anger than love, I chose to write about the task of loving when it wasn’t felt. Submission is a Biblical issue. It is a topic that touches every woman. But, I’m afraid there is indeed a form of submission that is wrong. We should not enable the ungodly individual. Someone who could very well be your husband. There are a few books on domestic abuse and Christianity that are worth mentioning: “Behind the Hedge” (a book in “story” form, telling the experiences of a woman and her children in dealing with verbal, emotional, and financial abuse), “Woman Submit” (the experiences of a Christian woman in coming to terms with the physical and mental abuse her husband incurred), and “Keeping the Faith” (a book for battered women, caregivers and church clergy). Also wonderful: “The Breakable Vow” by Clarke. When you live under an authoritarian rulership… four walls that lock you within a world of abuse… you do not experience freedom. Your only recourse is to determine to bear with extreme tension, adjust the best you can, change your thinking to match the abuser’s and tread carefully. Always, you try and make sense of what you’re enduring. You’re constantly trying to blame yourself for the agony that is your life… because you can ONLY control yourself. You cannot control an abuser. When you live with domestic abuse:
Now that I, myself, am out from under a paradigm of tyranny … I am learning that I do still have a “voice” down deep inside me. I do still have interests, opinions, and strength. I am capable, not stupid. These things were squished down inside me for so long, I find I feel weak more often than not, and push away any positivism or kindness because it feels awkward and uncomfortable. I don’t feel I deserve it. This is not right. If you are in an abusive relationship, submission is not the answer. Get help, now. DISCIPLINE Another issue that has been on my mind is that of discipline. I still hold fast to the importance of having your children nearby at all times for both training and togetherness. We need to be constantly “tying strings of fellowship”, working together as a unit as the Pearls advocate. But spanking, I feel, is not necessary. There are a myriad of other techniques that bolster and don’t tear down. There have been times I have spanked a bottom as I uttered the words, “We do not hit sister.”
Is this not a mixed message? Am I saying spanking is abusive? Not necessarily. But it isn’t exclusive. It’s not required in training. There are alternatives that work, too. WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR “HOW I LOVE THEE”
Furthermore, you might soon see some changes to this blog. When I'm given the legal "go-ahead" I would like to delete/change some of my previous articles to fit some of the mindset I've shared above. In closing… Please accept my forgiveness if I have ever caused you to feel inferior while visiting, here. And thank you for remembering I am only human and am living my life day by day the best I know how. God bless all of you as you walk in Him. |
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