Fellowshipping with the Mirror

I hear a lot of talk about likemindedness.  Some call it likeheartedness.  The theory seems to be that if you find people with the same values and convictions as you have, it will be a friendly fit for fellowship.    I understand the premise, and to a certain degree it is wise.  Spending hours at a time in close fellowship with people who hold seriously dangerous theological positions, are poor examples for your children, or who are antagonistic to your way of life is probably not the wisest way to seek fellowship.   And, I will add as well, it is logical that we seek people with whom we have things in common.  The Amish do not spend hours upon end hob nobbing with Paris Hilton.  Both would be incredibly uncomfortable and it would probably require a compromise of Biblical standards by the Amish.  The same is true of incredibly diverse friends.  They may be good for short visits but a close acquaintence who is antagonistic to your life isn’t likely.  This is only a natural course of life.  Homemakers with large families aren’t likely to have dozens of female CEO’s who are childless as ‘best friends’.   However, if you look at the disciples, you see a wide variety of people.  Just how likeminded were they?  Their occupations were diverse, their theological training hardly comparable, and they disagreed like roosters in the chicken coop.  They held basics in common but had different priorities for their lives.  (Peter and Paul are about as opposite in lifestyle as you could get!)   What if homeschooled families only interacted with other homeschooled families who use the same curriculum, were of the same ’social status’, and had the same goals for their families?  Other families would be deprived of knowing some great people, the homeschooled family might find out that there is a curriculum out there that would solve most of their homeschooling snafus, and they might just begin to understand why others believe differently.   Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for sending our three year olds off to preschool to be ’salt and light’ to their peers.  I’m not for sending our elementary students to Vacation Bible School at a church whose doctrine is so far removed from ours that it borders on heresy and will confuse our children.  I’m not for sending our teens to RAVE parties to preach to the heathen lost.  I am certainly not for sending our women to constantly be influenced by those who appear to have an easier life of no diapers, declarative sentences, or dinner.    We need encouragement by people who understand our lives, and preferrably by those who have run the same race we’re running and know how to get over the peculiar hurdles that our race holds.  I firmly believe that when we don’t look for that kind of encouragment, we get beaten down and ’grow weary in well doing’.   However, too often I hear families decrying that there is no one in their denomination that holds every one of their convictions or standards.  No one to fellowship with.  WHAT?  Must we have carbon copies of ourselves before someone is worthy of our fellowship?  How sad.  Honestly… if we want carbon copies of ourselves… one of us is redundant and unnecessary.   If you want someone to fellowship with who is just like you… perhaps you should try a mirror.  They don’t argue, they hold identical convictions, and any disagreement is immediately held by the opposing party.   Looking for someone you have something in common with or is it time to find a mirror?

Young ‘Love’

Crushes.  Hormones.  Emotions.  Heart Flutters.  Attraction.  It happens you know.  I’d like to think it happens younger these days than it did a hundred years ago but Tom Sawyer wasn’t very old when he got ‘engaged’ to Becky Sharp now was he?   I hear many mothers (and I know I was one myself) who think that if you pretend that girls and boys will be uninterested in each other… they just WILL.  If you keep them ‘asleep’ they won’t have hormonal and emotional responses.  Just tell them to say ‘no’ to their interest in the opposite sex and it’ll all go away.  If only it was that easy.   You see, even if your children show no interest or have self-control over their interest in the opposite sex, that doesn’t mean that they won’t be bothered by others who are less self controlled or who do not hold a standard of ‘wait until you’re older’ for these kinds of relationships.  Your sons and daughters may find them on the receiving end of ’shadows’ and even ‘propositions’ to ‘go out’.   My daughters know the boys exist.  They know what they find attractive and what they find repulsive.  They’ve learned, by the boys who have shown interest in them, what kind of guys they AREN’T interested in as well as those they are.  They know that a relationship is futile and foolish and they work on guarding their hearts but I’d be foolish to pretend that because they don’t have a boyfriend that they are immune to boys.    Sometimes, I think we as mothers are more interested in fairy tales than reality… and I think that we somehow think reality is BAD.  I’m glad to know that my girls find boys attractive… in general anyway!  I don’t want them to become emotionally attached to boys and I don’t want them mooning over them or, God forbid, lusting after them!  Please don’t misunderstand me.  But in this age of society SCREAMING from the rooftops that homosexuality and lesbianism are viable options for our teens, I’m glad to know that my girls are attracted to the gender that God intended!  This is a good thing.   However, because I’m not overly prudish about the possibility of my daughter being attracted to someone, they talk to me.  They know I won’t mock them, dismiss them, or be embarrassed myself.  They know that I’m not going to give them a sermon everytime they mention what kind of boys they don’t like or do like… and that I’m not going to cut off all contact with family friends just because the son of this family appears to have a crush on my girls.  My girls are learning how to deal with those issues while under our care and protection.  Rather than them being confused, ashamed, or even secretly harboring inappropriate (however innocent) fantasies about some boy, they just talk.  I know who they feel sorry for, who they respect, and I like hearing it.    I noticed one of my daughters has a Miss Galahadaline complex.  She feels sorry for certain guys and doesn’t like to think of them as being hurt.  I was able to point out that many times girls like under dogs.  Their mothering instinct comes out and they want to ‘make it all better’.  I was able to casually mention how sad it is for those guys when they enter serious relationships… sometimes marriage… with someone who doesn’t appreciate them for who they ARE… rather than who they are not!  I’ve noticed that the sympathy in her voice is less personal and more general lately.  I think the point went home.  And at little embarrassment to herself!   Now honestly, I’m not done with this season.  My eldest will be married next month.  Almost to the day!  My second eldest is only 16.  So far, however, this openness is working.  I may be singing a different tune when Jenna and Andra come around.  Who knows.  But right now, I am not too concerned.  I’m enjoying having a relationship with my girls that gives them the freedom to tell me what they’re thinking… in spite of the fact that in some ways I’d like their lives focused solely on dolls and dogs again!

Godly Pairing-off for Life for Conservative Couples

Ok, so I know it’s kind of verbose.  The title.  Up there *points up*.  The problem is that there are terms in our vocabulary these days that we use for ‘getting together’.  Unfortunately we also have preconceived ideas about what the words dating, courting, betrothing, friendshipping, specialshipping, or even ‘dorting’ mean.   In our desperate struggle to fight the failure of the world’s system for pairing off (Scripturally for life), we have determined that there is a better way and given that way a new label.  Sometimes, we seem more interested in labels, formulas, and appearances than we do in those who’s lives we are toying with.  Our little ‘plans’ are often little more than experiments in human psychology.   Mention courting in mainstream America and they imagine the nineteenth century with a young man sitting on the porch swing holding a bouquet of flowers and the girl demurely stitching at some ‘fancy work’.  Some may think of the Amish and snicker at the concept of bundling.  The idea that people, in today’s society, would use the term courting to describe a pairing off process would not cross most minds.   In smaller American circles, the word ‘date’ has joined the ranks of other foul four letter words.  Dating is considered to be nothing more than a license to sin.  It is the highway to licentiousness.  Dating is nothing more than two people without a smidgeon of concern for the purity of the person they’ll be pawing with abandon as soon as the pair excapes the prying eyes of those around them.   Then there is that marvelous word betrothal.  Both of the aforementioned groups see this as an archaic Biblical term for an engagement that is so serious it requires a divorce.  They don’t happen today… or so most people think.  Those who practice this process can be very certain of the superiority of their approach.   I say that there are good and bad elements to all of these things.  You see, my problem is that once again, we are trying to legistlate what Christ has not.  Christ calls single people to purity, not to lack of passion.  Scripture calls us to love, not to courtship.  We’re called to modesty and defference, not to a superior method of choosing a mate.   I am seriously concerned at the idea that people are being taught that it is right for parents to pick out a spouse for their daughters and the daughters are given little if any veto power.  I know it sounds shocking in our day and age of liberality and feminism, but this is happening.  Daughters, whether by direction or unwillingness to protest, are marrying men because mom and dad think that they should.    I am not a feminist.  I am against most of the feminist agenda.  I revel in the position God has given me in my home.  I believe in daughters remaining under the authority and protection of their fathers as they grow up.  What I don’t believe in, is fathers not rearing daughters capable of knowing their own preferences, having discernment, and knowing when to ask dad to make a decision and when to weigh his advice and make their own.   My daughter is getting married next month.  I remember well the long conversations we had about the whole courtship process.  “How do I know if it is God’s will for me to marry him?”  “What if I don’t make a good wife?”  She looked at things from every angle.  I was thrilled.  The questions he asked her were pointed and difficult.  “Are you willing to move away from your family if we need to?”  “Are you prepared to live very frugally?”   I was glad to see them both asking difficult and often abiguous questions.  I also asked difficult ones myself.  “Are you sure this is what you want?”  I tried to put doubt in her head.  Part of that is her youth.  She’s young.  She’s making a decision for life.  That isn’t an easy thing to do.  However, I made the same decision, at the same age, and I’ve never regretted that.  I didn’t want to make her confused or treat her as if she was incapable of the right decision, I just wanted her to really have to consider the question rather than give the impression that I was pushing for this.   My daughter is getting married.  She’s marrying a wonderful man.  She’s making an adult decision that is permanent.  We’ve counseled her.  We’ve discussed what will be hard about it and we’ve discussed the blessings.  We’ve made it clear that we are 100% behind her… whatever she chooses.    We would have been just as happy to keep her here with us for the next 20 years… but only if that is what SHE wants for her life based upon what she believes the LORD wants for her life.   She’s marrying her only ‘boyfriend’.  She’ll walk through life knowing he’s the only man she’s ever kissed.  She’s escaped one of the worst pitfalls of America’s dating process.  She’s pure.  She’s marrying because of her own decision.  We didn’t make it for her.  We didn’t push, pressure, or prevent.  She got to know him away from our prying eyes and ears but without compromising propriety or reputation.  He took her out alone to public places.  The grocery store, the feed store, to pay a bill, to his parents house, to work on his yard, or to a local play or concert.  She knows him.  She doesn’t know a facade put on for public show.  Too many women marry the facade and get stuck with the man.  Challice is marrying the man.   We didn’t do everything ‘right’ in this situation.  I think there are things we would have done differently if we had it to do over again.  Nothing serious and it wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but we still would have made some changes.    The problem is, I don’t think it’ll matter for our next daughter.  She’s a different person.  She’ll be marrying someone vitally different.  She’ll most likely be much older.  She’ll also have different areas of weakness and strengths.  He’ll have different areas of weakness and strength.    We learned a lot from this process but the one thing I think I’ll take away more than anything else, is that I am now more firmly convinced than ever that I don’t want a list of formulas and high-sounding terms.  I want a memory of godliness, surety and trust.  I want to be a month away from my next daughter’s wedding and know with the certainty that I have now, that all is well and that we all did the right thing.   I no longer fear the future in regards to my daughters.  God has proven Himself faithful (as if He needed to.  oh me of little faith).  He has wonderful husbands for my girls… and I pray I am given the wisdom to teach them all discernment in choosing their spouses.

Thunder Puppies

I’m sure many of us remember our younger days with both affection and chagrin.  Surely I’m not the only one who was bold and firm in my convictions of what is true and right.  I can’t be the only one who spoke truth barely tempered with any love or affection for the recipient or mercy for their humanness.   I will say, I was right.  Truth is truth regardless of circumstance.  There are many truths that I spouted with absolute certainty and little tact.   1.  Children do not have to be brats. 2.  Children who are brats are that way because their parents have not trained them properly. 3.  If we don’t seem to have enough time in our day, it is because we are doing things we shouldn’t. 4.  Emotions try to rule us and we need to suck it up and deal with life.   I had a lot of other opinions.  I was loaded with them.  I carried them in my pistol and was able to shoot them with remarkable accuracy.  I still hold most of my opinions.  Most were, and are, rooted in truth.   For example.  I once knew a young mother who had a thousand theories on how children should be reared.  I used to smile at those theories.  I remembered my theoretical parenting days.  It’s easy to be a know it all when you don’t have to live it at all.  A mutual friend and I spoke about this woman and her very condemning comments about our parenting.  My friend said… “She’ll get a rude awakening about things when her son can crawl or walk.”    I remember thinking that what the woman said wasn’t so wrong.  Children should obey.  They should stay nearby so we can hear them.  It was the attitude that because they should do these things, if they didn’t happen automatically, it was because the parents had already failed that was the problem.  No… if that is how children came, we wouldn’t be instructed to TRAIN them.  And when a mother is already down for the count, had a horrible day fighting her flesh to make sure she does what is right, the last thing she needs to hear is that she’s a parenting failure.  If she has just been lounging on the couch eating romances and reading bon bons… that’d be another story.    Judgmentalism isn’t a word I like to use.  It’s often overused and ill used.  It is prevalent amongst thunder puppies.   However, they say we mellow with age?  I don’t think that’s always true.  I think with age we learn discernment, grace, tact, mercy, and a host of other social skills that are usually in short supply when we’re young.   When we’re young, bold, and daring, we feel free to lower the boom on anyone who doesn’t march to the appropriate drumbeat.  Failure is not an option.  Stumbling is not an option.  HICCOUGHS are not an option.  Get it done, get it done right, and get it done right NOW.   Message boards are fun places to spot maturity.  Thunder puppies often have a LOT of correct information but little maturity.  Because their information is correct, they often sound wiser than their years.  People often like them and respect them for their incredibly wise and accurate posts.  Then, inevitably, it happens.  Someone has a bad day, their child has a bad day, their mother does or says something wrong… they take something in a way that it was never intended to be… something happens.  The thunder puppy lowers his or her boom.  What they say is correct.  The timing and method in what they say often is not.  There is a time and a place for strictness.  This rarely is the time.  The other board members scratch their heads before rallying around the wounded member who now has a kick to their gut to deal with.    The sad thing is, it doesn’t have to happen.  It’s not necessary at all.  See, what thunder puppies eventually learn (unless they grow into arrogant jerks!) is discretion, mercy, and timing.  They learn to wait… give people space… let them fix their own flubs without suffering the humiliation of a public or even private dressing down.   I was fortunate.  I learned of my thunder puppiness at a young age.  Several of us were congregated at our local park for a ‘Park Day’.  Official socialization of homeschoolers the world over.  Gotta get that socialization in… for mom!  One lady and I began debating theology.  We were having an absolute blast.  She was almost as animated as I was and was beyond her thunder puppy years.  However, I guess I appeared to be angry in my discussion.  I wasn’t.  I was excited, enjoying myself and eager.  I was a thunder puppy and TRUTH MUST BE SPOKEN!   One woman left very upset.  I learned from a third party that this woman thought I was angry and that the park days were an inappropriate time to debate theology.  I immediately called her.  I thought it was only right that I assure her I wasn’t angry (don’t want to give the appearance of sin you know!… can you say PRIDE)… but also I wanted to apologize.  I owed her an apology for making her uncomfortable around me.  Her response was disheartening and puzzling at first.  She said, “When I found out how old you were I just thought, ‘oh she’s young’.”   What she meant was… “Oh, she’s still a thunder puppy”.  She excused my blundering eagerness because of my youth and inexperience.  My pride was hurt.  I was accustomed to people considering me quite mature!  After all, I was 21, married, and pregnant with my fourth child.  I usually impressed people… not amused them!   I walked away from that experience a wiser person.  I’d love to say that I learned not to blunder after that…. I didn’t.  Just like most thunder puppies, I was easily excited about new and dogmatic sounding theories.  Fortunately, I have enough logical thinking ability to see fallacies in theories or suggestions before it totally holds me ensnared… as a general rule.   Yes.  I confess.  I was a thunder puppy.  I hope I am now a wiser and more reliable hound dog.  Maybe a lovely collie?  I’d take a smart and hard working German Shepherd… Just don’t tell me I’m a Yorkshire Terrier.  BLECH.

Inspirations!

Why is it that I need lovely surroundings to work!  I looked around my sewing ’studio’ yesterday and thought, “I need to do something about this!”     I was home from church with a slowly disappearing headache and nausea.  I found myself pacing to avoid the nausea (odd symptoms but what do I know?) and it occured to me that if I’m walking around anyway, I could work on the room.  I started… and by the time I was done (with LOTS of resting from exhaustion, starting again only when the greenies got too bad) I had several cabinets removed and then by the end of the day, I had DECOR up there!     My next goal is to paint the drywall (huggy says he’s going to change it out anyway… it isn’t mudded or taped so I never painted it.  Since he isn’t going to tape this stuff… I’m going to make it look GOOD!)   Then I’ll start on more of the cupboards.  GET THAT STUFF OFF of them!  WAHOOTY.   Nothing too profound… but I’ve gotten a LOT done since I did this.  Amazing isn’t it?

Entitlement Mentality Permeates

A strange thing happened to me today.  I discovered that no one is immune to the effects of the entitlement mentality that runs rampant in modern America.

 

My example?

 

I went to Charlie’s Grilled Subs.  I LOVE their subs and after my debacle with the SS people (Social Security was given the right initials you know… Nazis every one of em.  ) I decided a treat of Charlies was in order.  The helpful girl at the counter asked if I had my ‘7 card’.  I quickly pulled it out but found to my dismay that the one side of it had torn away where the punches had occured.  See, at our Charlies (and I presume others) if you buy seven sandwiches, and they punch them on their little cards, they give you one free as a ‘thank you’ for being a good customer.

 

I was disappointed.  Six sandwiches were punched… just one more to go.  This one would give me my free sandwich but noooooooooo the sides ripped off.  All those sandwiches purchased were lost.  However, the lady was very nice.  She showed me that she could tell which ones were purchased and she’d just repunch a new card for me.  I was excited.  This meant that with the one I’d just purchased, my next one is free!  WAHOO!

 

She handed me the card back and the one empty sub that had been left on the old one was still left.  She hadn’t counted today’s.  I started to ask but just felt odd and didn’t.  I mulled my reticense to ask.  Why not just say, “The old card only had one left… and I just bought one.  Shouldn’t all of these be punched now or did I misunderstand?”?

 

However, I didn’t.  Whatever kept me back, well… it was right.  As I walked to my van, I realized why I was bothered.  I had an entitlement mentality.  I felt entitled to that free sandwich because I’d purchased enough to get one.  Their free gift as a ‘thank you’ had become a right in my mind.  How very sad.  I’ve always been against that kind of thinking but it creeps into every aspect of our lives when we aren’t looking.

 

• Sales.  The store runs a sale on light bulbs, 100 for a dollar.. and if they run out we demand a raincheck.  After all, they offered them so we DESERVE to get them.
• Price Matching.  We feel obligated not to have to drive as far to another store when the local one was so nice as to offer to price match… but woe to those who don’t offer the service.
• Benefits.  Because some employers found the need to offer benefits such as insurance, retirement, and vacation back in the late fifties and early sixties, we now feel like they OWE us these things when actually, we agree to hire on at x amount.  They owe us NOTHING but the hourly wage/salary that they promise the day they hire us.  IF we get a raise… it is a BONUS.. it is not something we are entitled TO.

So… I will admit, there is one thing that EVERYONE is entitled to.  Hell.  How come no one is demanding THAT right?

Conditional Obedience

Along the same thread as my conditional submission post, I’ve gotta put my .02 in on my new thoughts on obedience.

 

If we as wives, do not have to do the right thing, simply because it is right.  If we are allowed to wait until our husbands are in line with the Lord before we submit to them, I submit to you (pun intended) that our children do not have to obey us as we’d like until we show perfect obedience and deference to the Lord.

 

I say it is time we quit focusing on our children’s short comings and work on our own.  They have a life time to recouperate from poor training… we’ve got only half a lifetime left to perfect ours! 

 

Let them rule the roost, run wild, speak with attitudes while we turn our platitudes into our attitudes.  They’ve got plenty of time to learn what we haven’t yet.  It is downright unjust for us to require of them what we do not do perfectly ourselves.

 

I know… I know… it means a harder life for them later.  I know that truth doesn’t change depending on the bearer’s perfect living of that truth, but it’s hypocritical and snobbish to require it and  whatever we do, we MUST be fair.  FAIR is the rule you know.

 

So next time your child tosses her shoes aside instead of putting them away, ask yourself, “Do I always put my shoes away?”  If the answer is no, then by all means, do not make them do it right.  They can master the habit somewhere around your age.  AFter all, it didn’t kill you!

Conditional Submission

After reading the complaints and arguments and rantings of women who are disgusted at the state of biblical authority, I have come to the conclusion that I was wrong.   Men are required to love us as Christ loved the church.  SELF SACRIFICIALLY.  Women are told to submit.  Women whine and cry at the injustice of them being told to submit when it is their opinion that their husbands are not being the kind of leaders, lovers, or men that God requires.  “Why is it always WOMEN’s fault.  Why do WE have to do all the hard stuff.”   Yeah.  Why do we.  I mean after all, the guys get the fun stuff right?  It isn’t optional for them to work outside the home or inside.  It isn’t an issue.  No arguments are ever made as to whether or not men are biblically commanded to provide for their families.  THEY have it easy.  They just have to do it.  Day in, day out, year after year.  How nice.  It’s EASY for them to do that you know.  THEY don’t have the dilemma of which is right.   Oh, and LEADERSHIP.  Those guys don’t know beans about it but we sure want it done… and our way.  “I insist that you lead this family in a godly direction!”  And we wax eloquent on how we insist that this be done.    It’s time women rise up and demand our place in the church.  We MUST stick within scriptural guidelines, so we cannot insist that WE be the leaders… that the men submit to US… that WE be responsible for the provision of families.  This goes too far.  However, before we submit to one more stupid requirement of our husbands, we need to demand our right to be loved as Christ loved the church.  We need to demand that our husbands fill THEIR scriptural roles.   God will understand why we didn’t do what He required of us during this time.  After all, we WANTED to submit… these guys were just getting away with murder and we were doing our part to encourage them to be who GOD said to be.  We’re being so helpful.  It’s really quite loving.   So, I retract all of my previous admonitions for women to do what is right regardless of what their husbands do.  How foolish of me.  We need to insist on our rights to RECEIVE.  We need to hold our obedience to the Lord hostage until our husbands are as obedient to the Word as we think they should be.  Perhaps if women rise up we can eradicate the abuse of authority in homes much as the temperance women eradicated drunkenness with their prostests, pledges, and laws.