Insert snappy title here

Still struggling with brain freeze, though I was able to finish writing a proposal (whew!) that was hanging over my head. So, again, here are some random thoughts for your consideration.

Extremism: I while back I wrote a post where I talked about the benefits of considering opinions more extreme than my own. It takes a bit of mental work, but often there is some truth at the base of many extreme opinions. I just have to be careful that I don't get carried away with it. Yesterday in the comments to a post over at Novaseeker's I made the mistake of reading the comment of someone who I had previously decided to avoid reading the comments of. However, I saw that he referred to my friend Ame, so I read it. You know, this may be the first time ever that I saw some good from porn. Perhaps it is better for women if some men prefer porn to them. Of course the reason it would be better has to do with the effects of porn to begin with, so that is rather a circular argument (and yes, entirely facetious).

Purity: Via email, a friend recently commented on some of the discussion over virginity and particularly the, um, physical aspects of it. She shared this bit of wisdom, gleaned in part from The Facts of Life: Purity resides in the heart, not in the vagina. True that.

Along similar lines, but far funnier, was a conversation I recently had with a group of single christian women ranging in age from early 20s to early 50s. We were talking about singleness and sexual temptation when one of the women, a widow in her early 50s who I'll refer to as "J", began to relate a story about a date she was on several months ago. J said that she found the man very sweet and that she really liked him and was struggling with being sexually tempted when he had his arm around her waist. She then shared that she was simultaneously embarrassed that he may be able to feel her Spanx. This lead to her conclusion that Spanx = modern day chastity belt :) (I know the ladies will think that is funny...we laughed over that one for quite a while)

Being "Normal": Or normalcy or normality? I don't know if those are even words. Anyhoo, I am participating in a women's Bible study on the book of Esther and the teacher via video (Beth Moore) did a survey of women, both believers and unbelievers while preparing for the study. One woman, married for a few years but without children, who responded to the survey said that she feared losing her uniqueness. She does not want to be considered normal or ordinary. She does not want who she is to be defined by being some one's "wife" or some one's "mother", she just wants to be "happy". The teacher made a very interesting connection between this woman's thoughts about not wanting to be "ordinary" and the current obsession with the famous and with fame, especially among women. She talked about a term from social psychology, to BIRK, or "birking", which stands for "basking in reflected glory", and how it has become so common for people to idolize the rich and famous to feel worth rather than to ground our worth in God.

In closing: If you are so inclined, please pray for my sister who had a biopsy yesterday and will likely be having a laser surgery in the next month or so due to what they are currently calling "pre-cancerous/suspicious" cells in an area the size of a quarter in her cervix (and for those of you for whom the thought may enter your mind, no, she does not have HPV and was a virgin when she married at 40 years of age).

And...

LET'S GO PENS!!!!!!!!

Father and daughter bonding

A conversation with my father on the occasion of my birthday.

Learner's Dad: One day you're deciding what color lipstick to wear and before you know it you're 40.

Learner: I'm 43 now Daddy (Yes, I call him Daddy. What of it?)

Learner's Dad: You're 43?

Learner: Yep

Learner's Dad: 43? When are you getting married?

Learner: I don't know. Gotta meet someone before I can marry them.

Learner's Dad: Your mother and I met a guy.

Learner: Oh? Where?

Learner's Dad: One of the home care nurses.

Learner: Oh yeah?

Learner's Dad: Really nice guy...and funny. A bit older than you. You'd like him.

Learner: You think so?

Learner's Dad: Yeah. But, he may be gay or married.

It took my Dad a minute to think that was as funny as I did.

Chemistry

What is chemistry? I am not referring to the science that gave me fits in both high school and college (and gave me my lowest score ever on a test...26%!). I am referring to that "something", that connection that we feel for certain members of the opposite sex.


A few weeks ago I went on my first "real" date since the incident. How did it go you ask? Um....not so well. I am normally a little nervous on first dates, but I was so nervous that I had to slide my hands under my thighs to keep them from shaking. Not surprisingly, my trembling like a school girl did little to endear me to the poor man. He let me know that he didn't think there was sufficient chemistry for him to further pursue me. Naturally I was disappointed because he looked so good "on paper" (meaning we have compatible spiritual beliefs, he is intelligent, has a good sense of humor). But honestly, I think all of the trembling was a physiological reaction indicating that I'm just not quite ready to date again just yet. So, it's just as well that there was no "chemistry".


All that had me thinking about the idea of "chemistry". For me, chemistry is something that is rarely, if ever, instantaneous. Actually it is rarely something that I would feel strongly after one date. I seem to need to interact with someone more than that usually. The two examples I can think of where I felt that "zing" or "chemistry" within the first date didn't lead to good things for me because I seemed to allow my "feelings" to diminish reservations and "warning signs". I seem to do better when the "chemistry" is a bit slower in the development. So, generally, I will agree to more dates to give things a chance to develop. But, people are different. Some people want to feel "chemistry" right away.

It brings many questions to mind:

• Is chemistry just about attraction?
• Do you feel chemistry instantly, or does it take time to grow?
• Is chemistry necessary for a good/ successful marriage?
• Can chemistry last?
• Would we be better off paying less attention to chemistry when looking for a potential spouse?

I want to hear what y'all think.

Forgiveness

When someone wounds you, what needs to happen for you to forgive them? Forgiveness hasn't been a big struggle for me in the past, maybe because I am very aware of God's mercy toward me. Recently, I have come to realize that I seem to need to understand where a person is coming from and why they did what they did to let the offense go and forgive. Perhaps in some way that allows me to rationalize the offense and in that understanding to forgive. That sort of reasoning has worked pretty well for me.

But, what do you do when someone wounds you and you cannot understand why they would do what they did, because it is irrational? This is where I find myself. I don't think I recognized my struggle with recovering from this wound as unforgiveness. When I think about what happened I feel sad and hurt and confused, but I feel no anger. Actually, I have felt very little anger over what happened. So, I thought I had forgiven.

But, one of the pastors at my church tells me that to forgive someone you need to recognize the wound and not minimize it. You need to say, "Yes, he hurt me, he wounded me. What he did was wrong and he sinned against me. He owes me." Only then can you decide to give that offense to God and let the wound heal.

Personal Responsibility and Sexual Purity

I recently wrote about my desire to learn from my experience. The subject of sexual purity seems to be a common one lately with Boundless republishing some previous pieces on the subject and Amir and Anakin responding from a male perspective. Because I am a woman, I write the following from a woman’s perspective. I don’t know what the experience of trying to maintain sexual purity is like for a man, but I do know what it is like for a woman. I’m sure that some of what I have to say about a woman’s perspective could also be said about a man’s.

To be naïve or not to be naïve…that is the question.

Is it easier to maintain sexual purity the less you know, or does it take knowledge and wisdom to obey God in the area of sexual purity? If we lived in a world where a Biblical model of sexuality was followed, less knowledge may be beneficial to maintaining sexual purity. But, because we definitely do not live in that world, even sometimes when we are interacting with believers, it is important to be wise and accept the responsibility of maintaining your own sexual purity. No matter how much a man tells you that he admires your sexual purity or commitment to sexual abstinence you cannot assume that he will respect or protect it, even if he is a Christian. That is your responsibility. It is your responsibility to prayerfully consider and set physical limits and stick to them. It is your responsibility to clearly and respectfully communicate those limits to him at the appropriate time. Even after you do these things your responsibility does not end. You need to continue to exercise wisdom and discernment in your interactions. You need to make sure that you are not saying one thing and doing another.

Some things to consider:

• Does he get angry when you try to set physical limits?
• Does he respect the limits you set?
• Does he exercise personal responsibility for his own sexual purity by being willing to be open and tell you if something you do or say is making it more difficult for him, or does he assume that you should know?
• Do you respect his limits?
• Does he pressure you to be alone with him before you are comfortable with it?
• Do you allow too much emotional intimacy too soon?
• Does he belittle your inexperience (or your resolution to abstain from further sexual activity), equating it with immaturity or frigidity?
• Does he say or do things that you don’t understand or feel comfortable with and won’t stop or does he get upset or evasive if you question him about it?
  
  What else do you think is important to consider?

Learning

I recently read that part of the recovering from a difficult experience is examining your part in what happened and I think that has been true for me as I recover from the incident too. That is part of how we learn and grow. I don’t mean to suggest that someone who has a bad experience always contributes to that experience because certainly bad things happen that we have no part in. But, sometimes our experiences and choices play a part in the bad experience. Please don’t think that I am under the impression that what happened was my fault. I know that my poor choices don’t excuse his choices. I just want to be responsible for my choices and learn from the experience. I plan to write about some of what I have learned about my part in what happened, but today I wanted to write about what God has been showing me about my relationship with Him, which in the end is much more important.

I think sometimes when bad things happen people have a hard time examining their part in what happened. Feelings of guilt and shame can get in the way and make it difficult for us to be honest with ourselves. I think this is especially true when we can’t bring our guilt and shame to God and trust Him with it. It is hard to carry guilt and shame on your own. Sometimes people can’t bear it and so they avoid looking too closely at themselves. When we can’t examine ourselves we cannot grow. When we do not grow we stagnate and make the same mistakes over and over again.

The ability to rest in who you are in the Lord gives you the freedom to grow in other ways too. Trusting God with who you are enough to examine yourself also allows us to better consider things from someone else’s point of view because it makes it safe for us to be wrong. It also makes it safe for us to admit to others that we are wrong and to say that we are sorry. When we see self-awareness, the ability to understand others’ points of view, and the ability to admit being wrong in others we recognize it as maturity. I used to think maturity was what helped you to trust God more but now I think in many ways that it is trusting God with who we are that leads to that maturity.

The "V Word"

I have previously mentioned, in a round about way, that a man I briefly dated earlier this year hurt me. It is difficult to talk about, so I have taken to referring to it with euphemisms when I talk to my friends about it. We call what happened "the incident". Even saying he hurt me is a sort of euphemism as well, because it makes it sound like he just hurt my feelings. While "the incident" did hurt my feelings, he also physically injured me. Some of the results of "the incident", like the bruises, have faded, but I was continuing to have some problems resulting from the physical injury.

I was hoping that the symptoms I was experiencing would just go away, but they became worse over time. So, I decided I should go to the doctor. I have been avoiding going to see my doc for the last few months about this because I really just did not want to tell her what happened. I feel so humiliated when I talk about it. While I am certain my doc was doing her best to be compassionate and supportive, saying things like, "Oh honey, did he hurt you?" and the look on her face didn't really help. It just made me feel powerless and small and vulnerable. Like a victim. I absolutely HATE that word. Shortly after "the incident" I was talking to a friend about how I was feeling and she said "it's not unusual for victims of assault to feel that way". I felt like she slapped me. It is an awful word. I think I need a euphemism for it too...the v word.

I have been thinking about this. Why do I feel so humiliated to talk about what happened? I actually put off seeking medical care because I didn't want to tell someone else about it. What is up with that? I just keep coming back to what always comes up in my mind when I think about it. "Why did I let him do that to me?" Or "How could I let him do that to me?". Maybe I am projecting my thoughts on others by assuming they are thinking the same thing..."how could you let him do that to you?" It's weird though, because it is not as if I "let" him do anything...he was significantly taller and much stronger than me. Nothing I said or did stopped him...but I did try...I didn't just "let him" do it. But some how I still think "how could I let him?". Maybe it is easier to think I just didn't do enough to stop him rather than think that I couldn't stop him...that I really am a victim. I don't know.

By the way, my doc ordered some tests, some medication, and sent me to physical therapy. It seems to be helping...I wish I went sooner.

Hello

I haven't written much here lately. I think that some things I have experienced in the last few months and my feelings about what happened have colored my perceptions to the point that I have thought it was better for me to keep my thoughts mostly to myself for a while.

I don't want to go into too much detail here but I had a brief relationship with a man that was not good. Before things got bad we talked a good bit about issues between men and women in society and in the church. So, when I have read stuff online over the past few months about issues between men and women that are the same or similar to things that he and I discussed, I find myself reacting emotionally (hurt, anger) about it because I am associating things with him. The emotion isn't about the issue, but rather about what happened between this man and I. So, I haven't felt that what I would have to say in this blog or in the comments in others' blogs would be productive. The emotional reaction seems to be getting better but I now find myself working through my thoughts and beliefs about these sorts of issues from a somewhat different perspective.

On the positive side, the experience has served to draw my attention to an issue that has been affecting my walk with God for a long time. It has been in the back of my mind though I have been unable to put it into words and recognize it for what it is until just recently. I am not prepared to write about the issue here at the moment because it is just too personal and raw for me. But, I am happy to say that I definitely sense God pursuing me and urging me to deal with this issue and so that feels very hopeful to me.

Still Here

I haven't written anything of any real substance here for awhile because I have been in a very introspective frame of mind. I have been processing things through the lenses (and they are not rose colored) of some of my own recent experiences so I think anything I would have written would have been too influenced by that. I haven’t posted here or even commented in other’s blog’s much at all because of that. In some cases I have stopped reading some blogs because the subject matter of issues between men and women are related to some of the issues I have recently been dealing with.

I have been learning (or re-learning…sigh) some lessons that have been good, though difficult for me to learn.

Lesson 1: Don’t let your “tanks” get too empty.

The stress and time commitment of working on my dissertation while continuing to work full time left me with empty or nearly empty physical, emotional, and spiritual tanks. I have been so focused on the task before me (thinking that it is only for a limited time and I can just push through it) that I have not been taking care of myself. I have not been getting enough sleep, or exercise, or eating well. I have not been spending enough time with friends or family or engaging in activities that are renewing for me. I have not been spending enough time focusing on my spiritual health. I adopted a sort of “siege mentality” toward finishing my doctorate that has made it tough for me to surrender to God. Bad idea. This is a bad idea because among other things, it left me vulnerable to getting sick more often and vulnerable to being taken advantage of. I have learned the hard way that I am going to have to slow down and ease up in order to take better care of myself and focus on the important things, not just the “urgent” things.

Lesson 2: Some people should not be given another chance.

I always try to see the best in people and tend to give them more chances than is probably wise. I think this stems from my optimistic nature and from the fact that I am very aware of God’s grace and mercy toward me and feel that I should extend that grace and mercy toward others. I don’t think it is a bad thing to be optimistic or to extend grace to others but when not tempered by wisdom and combined with the afore mentioned “empty tanks” those qualities can allow people to take advantage of me. I think things like “If he really understood that he was hurting me, surely he wouldn’t do that”. But, the truth is that there are some people in the world who will choose to do things even though they know they are hurting someone else. In fact, some people will purposefully choose to hurt other people. Even people who identify themselves as Christians.

I am sure that more lessons will be forthcoming and I think that is good. It is time I take my life out of it’s dissertation holding pattern and really be present in it for today. The dissertation will still get done. (Right?)

Issues....I've Got Issues

Don't we all?

A recent dating experience has brought some issues up...again. You know the kind of issues I am talking about. The kind that stay in the background much of the time but are always there. The issues that are hard to define but that somehow affect much of who you are. The kind that are about our parents, our sin, wounds from the enemy, and the deep desires of our hearts all rolled up into one. The kind of issues that God peels away from your heart over time, like the layers of an onion.

God has been peeling these layers from me for quite some time. But this time feels different. What happened to bring this on was one of the most confusing experiences of my life but I can't help but feel that what happened is going to be the impetus for a much deeper peeling. Yes, and I am hopeful.

Mea Culpa!

When I hear the preferences some women have for a man sometimes I cringe at how petty some of them sound. I recently read the blog of a 50 year old single woman who is looking for a husband. She admits that her child bearing years are most likely behind her but wants to find a man who wants to have children with her and rejects men who don’t want to have children. Huh?

However, it would be a huge mistake for me to feel superior. There is a significant preference that I held in the past that over the last year or so I have come to recognize was definitely wrong. What preference?

“I want him to be a committed Christian.”

Some may wonder, “What is wrong with that?”

Since it is my desire to be in submission to my husband if I marry it only makes sense that I would want to be assured of the spirituality of the man who I will trust with that, right? On the surface that sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

But really, it wasn’t reasonable.

It wasn’t reasonable because my ideas about what constituted being a “committed Christian” were from an entirely feminine perspective, as I believe is the case for many Christian women, both single and married. I judged the spirituality of men based on things such as church attendance and involvement in Bible study or a small group which are all things that women engage in and often grow through (though actually it is a poor metric to measure anyone’s spirituality by). These were things that my then church (and many churches and ministries) touted as measures of spirituality. However, these are not necessarily things that define spirituality for a man. Single Christian Man recently referred to this phenomenon as a “false metric” in a comment over on the Scripturally Single blog.

I think what helped me recognize this in myself was first learning about the feminization of the culture and the effects of feminism on the church. Once I was able to recognize the feminine bias it quickly became abundantly clear that my former way of gauging a man’s spirituality was deeply flawed.

I still have a preference for a committed Christian man, but the metric has changed. What is the new metric? What defines spirituality in a man? Good question... I have not entirely figured this out yet but I am keeping my eyes and ears and mind open.

Revelations

I have a lot of respect for the man who first called my attention to the feminization of the church and society. I’ll call him T. We dated briefly last winter and have remained friends. He lives a few hours away from me now but I still call him with my theological and computer questions. I ask T questions like, “what is the difference between amillennialism, premillennialism, postmillennialism, and preterism?” Or “how do I make my laptop not read an accidental tap on the touchpad like a mouse click?” The man is a saint!

I grew up in a traditional home with a stay-at-home-mom and never considered myself a feminist but some of the ideas he presented were very surprising to me. Like most Christians I had noticed that there seemed to be more women than men in church but had no idea why that may be. Being a woman I am comfortable in feminine surroundings, so comfortable in fact that I didn’t even notice the surroundings were feminine, let alone that this feminine edge would be alienating to men. When I challenged T’s ideas he patiently tried to explain them to me. I am very thankful for his willingness to do this. In fact, there are lots of things we have talked about that still have me thinking.

Random Thought #7

Regarding random thought #7 (RT7)

"7. I am confused by the fact that non Christian men seem to be far more interested in me as a person, attracted to me, and less critical of my body than my brothers in Christ. I am even more confused by all of the apparent "men vs. women" discussion about and among Christian singles online."

I have been reading a lot about the feminization of the church and of society the last 7 months or so. I have found much of what I have read to be very enlightening and at the same time very depressing because it has caused me to wonder if there is any way out of the mess.

What does this have to do with RT7 you ask? Well I have had a hard time with some of the stuff I was reading and hearing, especially at first, because it was so different from much of what I have been exposed to. I am very thankful, though, for the man who first started me thinking about a lot of this stuff even though I argued with him about some of it because I didn't understand...I'll have to write about that at another time.

My point (and I do have one) is that I am eager for my sisters in Christ to understand about what has happened in our culture, the relationships between men and women, and in the church, to see what feminism has wrought. We need to grasp this ladies! For our own good, for the good of the body of Christ, for the good of society. I am convinced that this. Because I am so eager for this understanding to happen sometimes I get frustrated with some (actually very few) of the points made by those blogging about these issues. Some of the stuff that gets discussed I think is a roadblock to the ability of some women to understand. One of those issues is the concept of beauty or desirability. This seems to get discussed a good bit by those exploring the issues. Some of what is said led me in part to RT7.

Back to RT7. Today I have been thinking that RT7 may in part be a numbers thing...I mean there seem to be lots more men outside the church than in the church. If only a certain percentage of men find me attractive, lets say 10% to make the math simpler, and I have met 100 Christian men and 700 non believing men of course that would mean that there would be more non-believing men who find me attractive to the tune of 10 vs 70 (hmm.......that probably means the actual percentage is lower than 10%....lol).

I suppose I could do as some men who participate in the online discussions I have been reading do and choose to engage in romantic relationships with unbelievers. And in truth I have actually tried that in the past. Didn't work for me. Besides being unable to relate to each other about what is very important to me, faith in Christ (you know the results of the often mentioned unequal yoking), there was always pressure for premarital sex (don't get me wrong....I don't think sex is wrong or dirty at all, just that God means sex to be within marriage.....marital sex, that's the ticket!). Sex appears to be an expected part of most contemporary dating relationships. The few non believing men I was involved with lost patience with my desire to wait for marriage and did so pretty quickly. So for me this is not an option.

I hope that one day I will meet one of the minority of Christian men that are attracted to me and that I will be able to enjoy being some one's wife. I acknowledge that the likelihood that I will marry is not great, but I still have hope ;)