Tag: freedom

Thoughts on Feminism

When I was twenty an older woman I knew said, about me, that I would make a good wife for somebody. She didn’t say it to my face, but it was gleefully retold to me by a mutual acquaintance. It was not meant as a compliment. The implication was that I was weak, submissive, and had no leadership qualities. The woman who said it was a successful businesswoman and ran a matriarchal type household. She was definitely the one in charge of everything. At that time, I did want to get married, and I think I shrugged off the insult part of the comment without much trouble. I knew that I had different goals. And the woman who said it was not someone I wished to emulate. But the core of what she was trying to say was I was not a feminist and thus inferior. 

I want to talk about feminism. This is the definition I’m going to use, found on humanrightscareers.com

At its core, feminism is the belief that women deserve equal social, economic, and political rights and freedoms.

To give you a little background, my Grandmother Picazo went to college as a math major and had a lifetime career in Christian radio missions, my Grandmother Rigby was a nurse and a career missionary her entire life. My mother was a missionary, and then went back to school and became a Physician Assistant and worked in the medical field until her retirement. My mother-in-law has her doctorate, is an ordained minister and was a career missionary. 

I come from a long line of strong, educated, women. When I was growing up there was always an assumption that I would go to college and have some type of career. I honestly didn’t think about kids too much when I was young. Just assumed I’d probably have two, like my parents did, but it was not something I gave much thought to. I went to a christian university right after high school and studied music. And then I had a breakdown, struggled with panic attacks and anxiety, and decided, with the blessing of my parents, to take a break from school for a while. I went overseas, spent four months in Haiti and then six months in Chile. All the time, wondering what I was going to do with my life. 

During college, I made a vow to God that I was going to follow him wherever he led me. I asked him to be the one to choose my husband for me and I approached life with open hands, trusting that God would take me where he wanted me. 

I ended up getting married at twenty and then shortly after that my husband and I felt that God was asking us to trust him with our family size so we went off birthcontrol. 

Twenty-five years later, ten kids later, I am sitting here, thinking about feminism. 

I homeschooled my kids for somewhere between twelve and fifteen years, depending on how you count it. The homeschooling community is a very diverse place and I ran into all kinds of teachings and belief systems that had me scratching my head. One of the belief systems that I ran into was that feminism was bad. Women should be under the protection of their father or their husbands at all times and should be content living out their role in the home, leaving all decision making to the men in their lives. 

I disagree. And when I hear people bashing feminism, I want to remind them that without feminism, women would not be voting in the upcoming election. We wouldn’t be able to have our own bank accounts. We wouldn’t be able to own property. We would not have freedom to pursue higher education and fulfilling careers. We would be essentially enslaved to the men in our lives. I don’t think this is a just, safe way to live. We live in a sinful world, and while the idea of being raised by a gentle godly man as your father, and then marrying a perfect man who always takes care of you exactly the way you need, sounds good in theory, in reality there are girls being raised by abusive fathers and women trapped in marriages to abusive men. Without feminism, these women would have very little recourse to escape these situations. And that’s not even addressing the women who do not want to be married in the first place. 

I believe in freedom. I am a stay-at-home mom. I have been for twenty-four years. My husband and I have a very traditional marriage. We hold to the belief that he is the head of the house. I have ten children. We felt that God asked us to trust us with our family size and when we felt that we had reached that size, we took measures to not have any more children. I feel that I have been especially blessed to have the privilege to stay home and raise my children. But, here’s the thing. I chose to have this lifestyle. I believed that it was something God wanted and so I chose to obey that. It was not forced on me. I had choices. I could have chosen to not get married. I could have chosen to insist on our marriage looking different. I had a choice about whether I would have children or not and how many I would have. I chose to hand that over to God, but it was still a choice. Without choice, it’s slavery. And for those who see my lifestyle as obedience to God, I would say that without choice, it’s not really even obedience. Can a slave be rewarded for obedience when they had no choice in whether to obey or not? 

I have five daughters. I have tried very hard to let them know they have choices. And at the same time, let them know that following God is always going to lead to the most fulfilling life. 

I hope that my daughters look at me and see someone who chose to follow where God led, and as a result has lived a blessed, fulfilling life. And I hope that they look at the examples of their grandmothers and great grandmothers too and know that following God looks different for each person. 

Feeling the Absence

Lately, I’ve been feeling the absence of something in my life. It has felt like a huge gaping hole in my personality and has actually made me pause and wonder a lot as I’ve tried to analzye what this hole was. And I think I’ve finally figured out what is missing. It’s fear. Anxiety. Stress. I am not feeling it. And it is strange and wonderful. LIke a part of me finally stopped pacing up and down and just sat down and rested. 

This absence feels so weird that it’s made me feel like I need to do an assessment of my life, inner and outer workings, make sure I’m not missing something. Surely there is something I should be stressed about? Surely I’ve messed up somewhere. Why am I feeling so relaxed and not guilty? 

I made a survey of how things are going with kids home for summer break. And I realized this is the first summer that I haven’t hyper-planned every moment of the day. And everyone is doing fine. Kids are playing well. Using their time well. 

I made a survey of our family as a whole. Have we lost our vision? Do we have goals we are actively accomplishing? And I came to the conclusion that we are on track. Over the years our goals have simplified down to wanting our kids to love Jesus and learn how to serve the people around them. And I feel like all our planned summer activities lend to promoting those things. 

I made a survey of myself. Am I being all that I can be? Probably not, but I’m pretty happy with what I’ve accomplished as a wife and a mother of ten so far. And I do have other interests I’m pursuing as well, like music and writing which makes me feel like my life is pretty balanced at the moment. 

It’s not like life has suddenly become perfect and amazing. I could easily summon up a long list of things that are not ideal, need changing, Prayer requests which I’m still waiting on answers. But that feeling of anxiousness seems to be gone. Like I can look at a problem, and say, yes, this is definitely a problem, and then I can pray about it and move on with my day. 

It’s kind of like getting an aching tooth pulled. You’re so glad the tooth is gone and is no longer hurting you, but your tongue keeps exploring this empty hole in your mouth because it’s weird and different. 

Anxiety has been a constant companion for all of my life. I can’t remember a time without it. I don’t know why God has chosen this time in my life to set me free from this. I can’t think of any momentous thing I’ve done to warrant it happening at this moment. But I am thankful. And feeling hopeful for the future. And trying not to feel too weird about this unexpected gaping hole. I wonder what positive thing I could replace it with? 

Freedom

I just finished the book “Dispossessed” by Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s one of those books that make you think. It takes place in some far distant future on some far distant planet that has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years. The planet has withstood all the typical human problems, mismanaging the planet, corruption, slavery, violence, changes of government. They are now settled into a system that sounds a lot like our current way of life, but with proper management of the planet and its resources. The rich rule, the poor survive. Class systems. A great focus on material possessions. In the story, about two hundred years before, a group of social dissidents gain enough power that the local government is afraid of their influence, and so they give them permission to leave the planet and settle on the moon, which is habitable, but barely. It has water and fish and some vegetation, but not a lot. It’s a very fragile system and in order to live there everyone has to be very careful with the resources. This group of dissidents call themselves the Odonians, after their leader, Odo, and they set out to create their own utopia. This utopia is centered around anarchism.

anarchism: a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups Merriam-Webster

Their means of accomplishing this is to banish all ownership. Everything is commonly owned. People work together because in helping their community, they are helping themselves. And that is supposed to be the driving motivation to do the right thing. Their culture also helps promote this by disdaining and calling out any behavior that reeks of “propertarianism” or being an “egoist”.

There are all kinds of thoughts and ideas to dig into in this book, but one theme stood out to me, freedom. For the Odonians, freedom was being able to do whatever was best for yourself and the only way to achieve that freedom was to not be imprisoned by authorities or societal institutions directing your path or to be imprisoned by material possessions. There were no taboos for sex and no traditions supporting family units, though couples that wanted to stay together could, and parents that wanted to stay involved in their children’s lives, could, it was just not required. Work was seen as a fulfilling thing that everyone did, preferably in an area where you had obvious gifts and talents, but everyone also pitched in to help with nonglamorous jobs so that everything got done. And if someone chose to not work they could. But the people serving food could also choose to not feed those who didn’t work. And if a person behaved in a way that their peers found selfish or hurtful, the community could encourage them to move on to somewhere else. The underlying idea being that it’s our social structures and traditions and our material belongings that actually make humans not live in harmony with each other. And if you eliminate all those things, harmony will surely come.

Except, spoiler alert, we also learn that humankind is just bent to form bureaucracy and hierarchy and fall into power struggles, and it takes constant effort to remain in a “free” state.

I finished the book last night and then this morning I went to church and we sang a bunch of songs about being “free” . And that really grabbed my attention since I’d just been reading about this theme.

For a Christian, we understand that we have all been affected by the entry of sin into the world which happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Sin came into the world and the end result of sin was moral decay, rot, and death. And no matter how many structures we put into place, religions, sacrifices, moralism, structured civilizations, strict laws, none of these things had the power to free us from sin and its end result of death.

Then Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth and was killed on a cross and he took the punishment for all our sins, for all mankind for all time. He abolished death. He fixed the problem and made it so we could be free from sin. But in order to enter into that freedom we have to accept the work he did on the cross, repent of our sins, and submit ourselves to his authority. We become slaves of Christ. His will be done, not ours.

Christianity is a paradox. In order to be free, we become slaves. We serve the Lord of the Universe, and that Lord, lay down all his power and sacrificed himself for us. And then Jesus said, if you want to be great in God’s kingdom, you must learn to be a servant. And then he proceeds to lead by example and serves us, his people. We live in a utopia of being loved and held by God, slowly being changed by him, but we also look forward to the true “utopia” of heaven where everything is finally made right and all sin and pain are abolished.

The difference between finding freedom in Christ and finding freedom in anarchy is that Christ actually takes care of the original sin problem that makes humans not live in harmony. Anarchy is at best a bandaid that offers a temporary solution, but it can never deal with the root problem, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

My Sin was Great, Your Love was Greater

I want to start by letting you know that my mammogram went fine, no problems. All is well. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. 

This past week has been pretty crazy. My days were a lot more busy than I like. This month seems to be the month of Doctor Appointments. I just looked at my calendar, we have sixteen appointments scheduled for this month. Which is horrible. They are all check ups, dentist appointments, eye appointments etc. Which means that after this month, I shouldn’t have to take anyone anywhere for a long time. Getting it all done in one fell swoop. 

Except that it makes this month a lot more stressful. 

I had the whole having-to-get-a-mammogram thing which was also stressful, though it ended well. We’ve had some changes in our home life with our foster daughter slowly transitioning back to her birth parent. Which is great, but our schedule has gotten a lot more complicated. Even when she goes home completely, I will still be her full-time babysitter, which is a part-time job all by itself. Also a bit stressful.

So, here’s the crazy thing. All this stuff has been going on, and I have been stressed, but it’s not really these things that has been stressing me out. 

I have been mostly stressed about my inability to conquer and be victorious over my weight problems. Sins. Gluttony. Emotional Eating. Using food as the source of my peace and comfort. 

I have been feeling weighed down with condemnation. Surely God is sick and tired of me still struggling in this area. I am a disappointment. A failure. Weak. Not worthy. I’m pretty sure God really doesn’t want to have anything to do with me until I stop being this way. 

Yesterday I kind of hit rock bottom. I wrote a letter to God. 

It was helpful. Helpful for me to be very, very honest. Helpful for me to lay it all down. And then stand back and get some perspective. 

The perspective I got (I believe with the help of the Holy Spirit) was this. Perhaps my bigger sin is thinking that my own works is what saves me. Perhaps my bigger problem is not overcoming in this area, but truly trusting God at his word, that he has truly saved me and given me His Righteousness, and His Righteousness is enough. Maybe Pride is more the issue. Having to realize that Esther, in her own strength, has no power to overcome. She is completely dependent on God and his power to free her from her strongholds. And trying to remember that I am loved. As I am. I don’t have to get perfect first before God decides that he can love me. 

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

I think I have reached the place where I fully see my helplessness to free myself from sin. And I then also fully see my dependence on God to do the work necessary in my life. And so I cling to his goodness. His mercy. And once again I put my trust in Him. 

I have set aside today to be a day of rest. A day of staying home, not having to run a bunch of errands. A day of minimal housework. 

And I pray that it also is a day of spiritual rest. Sinking into the truth that I am forgiven. That he who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it (Philippians 1:6).

And this line runs through my head:

My Sin Was Great, Your Love was Greater. (from the song, “What a Beautiful Name”)

Breaking Down Strongholds

I wrote the following piece, thinking, this is just going to be for me. And now I have sat here for some time, wondering if I should share it on my blog. It’s personal. Not G-rated. Not particularly something I feel like chatting with someone about later. Maybe posting this will be a help to someone though. So here goes. 

 

I’m thinking about strongholds. How we get stuck in them. How we get free from them. 

 

When I was a small child, I was assaulted by a group of older boys. I was young. My memories are pretty hazy. I remember laying on the ground sans clothing. I remember their faces above mine. 

 

I always thought it was some kind of recurring nightmare that I just remembered from early childhood. But then, when I was twenty years old and struggling with panic attacks, a young man at our church talked to me about how our past wounds can cause present day anxiety. He suggested that I pray and ask God to show me things from the past that were unresolved issues in my life. I took time, prayed, and God started downloading a list of memories that still caused me to have an emotional reaction. I wrote them all down. I was really surprised that the memory of being attacked by these boys was on the list. I hadn’t thought of it since I was a child, and I really thought it must have just been a nightmare. I wrote it down anyway. Later, I met with this young man and a couple others and we talked about each thing on the list. And he spoke truth over those memories. And as he did, something loosened inside of me. Later I took that list and burned it in a symbolic act of no longer having to think about these things. 

 

Fast forward to my late, late thirties. I was again doing Story Work. This time in a bit more formalized setting.  I had a friend who had been trained in Story Work. The premise being that each of us has a handful of stories from our childhood that have shaped how we see and interact with the world. When we can write those stories down, and then discuss them in a safe group setting, we are able to unravel some of the lies we have believed and perhaps in that way, bring healing to some of the wounds. 

 

My first story session was at a retreat. A lot of prayer had been poured into the retreat before we even got there. Early on, we were sent to our rooms to pray and ask God to show us what story we should write down. God gave me a story from my early childhood and I was really surprised by it. Again, it was something that I hadn’t thought of in years, and on the surface, it seemed pretty tame. Not much happening here. But, during the group time, when it was my turn to share my story and have a group discussion, I was blown away by how much debris got kicked up from a simple story. Some of the things that were brought up actually took me a whole year to process through and come to peace with. 

 

I signed up for another story group, maybe a year later. And as I prayed about what story I should do, again the story of when I was very young and attacked by a group of boys, came back to me. This again? I can barely remember this time, why is this so important? I decided to write the story down. As I did, more details came back to me and a larger overarching story came into place. 

 

I took the story to the group meeting. We discussed it. Nothing super magical happened that I could tell. I did get some better understanding of myself and how I approach life. 

 

But then, something really surprising happened over the next couple months with my thought life. Stuff I wasn’t expecting at all. 

 

Since I was a young child I have had an active fantasy life. Nothing super-sexual, just stories running through my head with me as the main character. There was a major theme though, that ran through all my fantasies. In a nutshell, I was always being attacked or hurt by a group of people, and then a Savior-like figure would come and rescue me. A king, a Lord, a Chief…something along those lines. My relationship with this Savior was never sexual. It was more like Master and Servant.\

I had realized, when I was a young adult, before I even got married, that my fantasies were very much a Salvation kind of replay. I am trapped, hurt, stuck, considered unworthy, and then the King arrives and says, You Are Worthy. I am going to save you. And I pledge undying fealty to my new Lord. But, despite the fact that I had analyzed and could see the good story line in these fantasies, I was still drawn to them. It was kind of like being stuck in an ever-repeating loop. 

 

And then I did my story group where we discussed my story from my early childhood. And by habit, I went back to revisit my old fantasies, and suddenly they had no pull on me. No attraction. They just seemed like a worn out shoe that I no longer wanted. These fantasies were a habit that I had never broken free from, and suddenly, they had no appeal. 

 

I realized that those fantasies had been playing a role for me. They had been an attempt to fix something broken inside of me. But, it never quite worked. No matter how many times I was rescued in my fantasy life, the next day, I needed rescuing again. 

 

But somehow, taking that old story from my childhood, discussing it in a safe setting with people who could help me understand it, and see it through the eyes of truth, somehow, that set me free. 

 

And the stronghold was broken. 

 

If you are interested in learning more about story work, here is a link to my friend’s website.   Click to Look Inside

Renewing My Mind

It’s been a long day. I’ve been up since 6:30 am. The kids were home today on their fourth day of “flood-cation”. Today we cleaned bedrooms, had devotions, played scrabble, read science books, watched educational tv shows, went to the Children’s museum, did laundry, washed dishes, cleaned up the house, drove my daughter to work,  made supper, cleaned up from supper, finished getting the laundry (including the socks!) folded and put away, dealt with numerous discipline issues, comforted crying babies, resolved fights, and now, I am trying to get everyone to sleep. (Did I mention somewhere in that list, breaking up a spontaneous rollerskating party that occurred inside the house while I was in the shower?)

 

Despite all the chaos and busyness, and despite the fact that there were numerous times when I felt the need to mutter under my breath, “Lord, I can’t do this!!” , it still felt like a good day. I think that has to do with some changes that have been going on in my thought process. 

 

As God has walked me through a healing process over the last couple years, I have been noticing the difference that it has had on how I think and what I think about. When I try to revisit old thought patterns, I find that they no longer satisfy me, they no longer hold my attention. When I try to revisit old stories that I used to weave in my mind, I now find that these stories no longer hold any interest for me. It’s like, they served a purpose, that purpose is no longer needed, and so they are useless. It’s almost been a bit comical. I will be sitting quietly and my thoughts will start to wander and then suddenly it’s like I’ve hit a brick wall. I don’t know what to think about. While it’s bewildering, it’s also freeing. Looking back, I can see how the things I used to occupy my mind with were simply coping mechanisms for dealing with deep wounds. As those wounds have been exposed to light and have begun healing instead of festering, those coping mechanisms no longer have a hold on me either. 

 

And I have literally had to ask God, Ok, what do you want me to think about now? And he was faithful to answer. I mentioned in my last blog that I have been thinking about heaven. I’ve read several books about heaven (I forgot to mention in the last blog that I also read “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis). And now, when I find my mind at rest for a moment, my thoughts wandering, I find myself settling into curiosity. Curiosity about heaven and Jesus and the scriptures I’ve been reading. 

 

It has been a true “Renewing of the Mind”. And the awesome part is, I know that it’s not me that has been doing it. It’s been all God. I don’t have the power in myself to break off these old patterns. I don’t have the power to heal myself. I don’t have the power to change lifetime habits of thought overnight. It has truly been a miracle to watch what God has been doing in my life and my mind. 

 

All of this to say, when I have crazy days that push me to my Patience Limit and wear me out from rushing from one thing to the next, it’s still a good day. A day of thinking about God, pondering his word, feeling his presence as I go about the day. Romans 12:2 says:

 

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

 

I am basking in the wonder of being transformed by the renewing of my mind. 

 

And that’s made it a good day.