What do you do?

Elspeth wrote on Traditional Christianity about what to do after you've done something wrong.

Do you hide it and treat it as irrelevant to the arguments you present?

Do you broadcast it for everyone to hear knowing that what is said can not be unsaid, knowing that it will be used against you be better men than yourself?

What do you do?

My opinion is TEACH.

Without telling her story for her, I'll simply say we have made similar mistakes.

I was born into a Christian home - I often claim that I never had a "moment" where I accepted Christ ... I always knew God existed and loved me. I'd sing to him from my crib while looking at the morning sun. Learning about Christ and his sacrifice for the first time, it was just common sense to me that God would do something like that for me and so I accepted it without question.
I was die-hard about my faith. I wasn't the preaching kind, more like the quiet, bible reading kind who answered questions posed and was nice to everyone. My catch-phrase was "Be Nice." One of the boys in church made fun of me for it.

As I got older, I gained this stigma among my friends - I was "holier than thou", a "goody-two-shoes", an insecure little girl who thought she needed to earn God's love. I was too young to really have an answer for them then, but I know I wasn't proud, I didn't think I was better than anyone, and I obeyed God simply because I loved him. Not because I felt like I needed to earn his love.
Christian friends pushed me aside because they thought I was too judgemental - you see, they kept failing and they didn't want it rubbed in their faces. My non-christian friends embraced me because I wasn't judgemental. They all knew what I believed and how I felt about what they did, but they saw someone willing to love them anyway through me.

For a long time, I knew what it was like to be good. Where everyone falls short of the glory of God and doesn't deserve Grace, they were just words to me. I had done my best to follow God's rules and knew what mistakes I made were forgiven.

Then I turned 18. And its like a floodgate opened. I did things I shouldn't have, I made serious mistakes that left me broken, depressed, bitter, angry, hurt, confused, and rebellious. And I kept making the SAME mistake.

Through the pain and healing, I found myself in a unique position that can only come from God's grace, mercy, and love. A way for God to use my hurt and pain to serve HIM. I have the unique ability to see both sides of the Prodigal Son parable - the view of the one who left and the one who stayed behind. God can use me to teach. He can use me to teach my daughter about the difficulties of following God - but how worth it it is. I can give encouragement, empathy, and compassion.
I know what Grace is. And I know that life is not this pristine and perfect stained glass world the church can try to make it. I know life is not always something to smile about and that just because you "got Jesus" that everything is not hunky dorey now. It's messy, confusing, hard, distressing. Its nitty gritty and we rarely emerge from it unscathed. And that is why we are given the balm of Gilead. That is why we are presented the savior on the staff - who all we have to do is look to Him and be healed. Those who have been the Edmunds in life (Chronicles of Narnia) are more adept at teaching to a broken crowd who are desperate for their aching hearts to find rest.

Where I would never counsel someone to experience life in this manner - obeying God from the get-go is so much more preferrable to this - those who have lost everything and found Christ have been given a special gift in their testimony to the world.

They are the Pauls of ministry and not to be dismissed.

Chicken or the Egg

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
-Ephesians 5:22-24

I've always been anti-feminist, but not so much full on board the MRA thing. I've held, and continue to hold, to believing all of this is a sin issue - failure to recognize, failure to acknowledge, failure to admittance. Instead, we are all rebelling against God, believing WE know better than He. Giving over to pride and self-knowledge. After all, both Adam and Eve both ate from that fruit. So I suppose now we all think we know more than God does.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.-Romans 1:28-29

What I find appalling is the Church's complicitness in this. They haven't actively participated, but their inactions have led to horrific state within their own ranks. They have cherry-picked the Word of God to cater to the sinful masses - whether it was out of greed to fill their coffers or justified as trying to keep them in their seats long enough to hear the good news. Which came first? Wives rebelling against their husbands or the Church failing to submit to Christ? After all, Ephesians tells the wife to submit to her husband just as the church submits to Christ. I see a church who doesn't talk about sin. We cheapen Christ's horrific suffering and miraculous resurrection by white-washing our need for Him. Churches across the West are ordaining women - against God's words. This is not submission to Christ - this is Rebellion. Churches across the West are not calling Homosexuality what it is. This is not submission to Christ. Churches across the West are not teaching wives to submit to their husbands. This is not submission to Christ. We have let heresy into the church and have not dealt properly with it. I think we need to if we want to see any change in the world around us.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!Galatians 1:6-9

Being Meek

I've been struggling a lot lately with anger.  Some things that I've failed to let go from my youth have been causing an increased amount of bitterness to build up in my heart.  My patience has dwindled, my emotions constantly raw, my feelings never cooling enough to be of any consequence.

Over at Elusive Wapiti's blog, EW and I somehow stumbled into meekness.  Where I barely grazed the idea, I guess it stood out to EW enough for him to let it "soak in" so as to give a meaningful response.

His response included this definition of meekness:

A total lack of self-pride, to the point of a lack of self-concern...a decided strength of disciplined calmness [and] is also not a submissive or pacifying state, but rather an active proponent of what we know is right. Source

I was hit with truth and convicted by it. I don't feel angry, I don't feel offended - just somehow at peace. Everything that I've been angry about has revolved around pride.

I am bitter and angry because I was a good girl who tried to do everything right because I loved God - and no one who I cared about seemingly cared about me. My priest who I served diligently as an acolyte calls me by my sister's name. My youth minister was more interested in mentoring the popular crowd (and still has an active relationship with them) even though their lives in school did not recommend them. I was berated for being a goody-two-shoes, seen as a "holier-than-thou" by those I loved, shunned from confidences because I might be too judgemental.

Most of this has only begun to hit me now because I see many of the relationships between others from that time in my life thriving while I am barely on speaking terms with any of them.

But this is pride speaking - not meekness. I may have once been meek, but I am not so any longer. I want to call attention to myself (God knows why, I have nothing I really want people to really see!) and I want to be remembered. This isn't meekness.

About 5 years ago, I learned how to truly forgive someone. And I think its time I did so with my past. I do not need to seek out apologies, I do not need to throw this in their faces (I don't really think any of them read this...) - I just need to forgive and let go everytime it raises its head. Stop holding on.

And hopefully, I can recover and be made meek once again.

So, thank you EW - you made my comment much more than was intended.

Like Breathing Nitrogen

I honestly have no idea how my mind works, but on the way from the gym today, I was thinking about how the world really wants us to believe that men and women are the same.  We want women to do the same exact things as men and now, we want men to do the same things as women.  Some people embrace gender-neutral parenting, believing that a male and female infant aren't different from each other and that gender roles are assigned by society.  Where there are some things that anthropology shows us both genders are capable of, there are other things that are consistently performed by the same gender.  And there are other cultures who have short life-spans because of a reversal in those functions.

What I don't understand is that this is scientifically accepted.  Men and Women aren't THAT different, are they?  And yet the scientific community would quite emphatically agree that breathing in Nitrogen is significantly different from breathing in Oxygen.  Well why that example?  Nitrogen and Oxygen are ALMOST EXACTLY ALIKE.  They differ in ONE Proton.  But breathing in Nitrogen will kill you while Oxygen gives us life.  Well, men and women have different chromosomes.  Men are XY and women are XX.  They are different on a chromosomal level.  Those different chromosomes tell the brain what hormones to produce and those hormones effect the very development of the child's brain and body before they are even born.  For instance, estrogen encourages storage of fat while testosterone encourages the development of muscles.  A female child will be born with more fat than a male child will be.  It isn't just physiological though.  It's psychological as well.  Estrogen promotes the region of the brain associated with social interaction while Testosterone promotes the region of the brain associated with objects.  Baby boys are more tactile than girls and girls are more interested in their loved ones' faces than boys are.  And those innate tendencies have a dramatic effect on how little boys and girls play as they grow older. 

Where our society has come a long way in making our children more versatile as they grow, we have lost sight of the fact that male and female really are different.  Its in our wiring.  And instead of disowning our differences, we should be embracing them.  Our differences do not make one better than the other, it completes the us.  Male and Female together.  And that is good.

A Princess and her Crown

This is a first.  I don't usually post this kind of stuff because I'm not very consistent in it.  Not like I'm consistent in posting anything lately!

Meet the darling new baby, Anna Lyzette, on her baptism day =)  And aside from her rosy cheeks and lovely blue eyes and head full of crazy hair, check out the head band.  I made it with Tatting - a craft that uses lots of little knots to make lace.

Whip It Out

Its been a LONG time since I've posted anything! Life has just been in the way...in a very blessed way =)

We added a new family member recently...and its because of her that I am writing this post. She is 8 weeks old and we call her Anna...sometimes I call her Fuss Bucket. And she totally deserves that one.

She is a very different person than her big brother (who loves her to pieces). Her brother was easily pacified with a pacifier when he wasn't hungry. Not Fuss Bucket. Her brother was not so interested in fleshy suckers. Not Fuss Bucket.

For the first time since her birth 8 weeks ago today, I have learned about "EBF" - Ecological Breast Feeding. You see, this phenomenon, when done right, is what leads to a natural spacing of children 3-4 years...without using birth control. To be quite honest, as of yet I see no need for birth control because so far, I've been spending my nights with my little flesh-sucker permanently attached to me.

EBF is popularly referred to as "feeding on demand". This means when baby is hungry, when baby is tired, when baby is feeling sick, when baby has a tummy ache, when baby needs comfort...omg the list could go on!!!

So after my 100+ time feeding Fuss Bucket, modesty has lost all meaning to my weary brain and I'm afraid that I may "whip it out" because I no longer see it as anything but a fleshy feeding apparatus that is regrettably permanently attached to my body.

*Please note I love my new baby girl to pieces. I just wish she'd suck on a pacifier occasionally.

Sea of Faces by Kutless

I absolutely love the words to this song and heard it tonight while playing Video Games with my Hubby...

I see the city lights all around me
Everyone's obscure
Ten million people each with their problems
Why should anyone care

And in Your eyes I can see
I am not just a man, vastly lost in this world
Lost in a Sea of Faces
Your body's the bread, Your blood is the wine
Because you traded Your life for mine

Sometimes my life it feels so trivial
Immersed in the greatness of space
Yet somehow you still find the time for me
It's then You show me Your love

And In Your eyes I can see
And in Your arms I will be
I am not just a man, vastly lost in this world
Lost in a Sea of Faces
Your body's the bread, Your blood is the wine
Because you traded Your life for mine

If only my one heart
Was all you'd gain from all it cost
Well I know you would have still been a man
With a reason
To willingly offer your life

I am not just a man, vastly lost in this world
Lost in a Sea of Faces
Your body's the bread, Your blood is the wine
Because you traded Your life for mine

Just one in a million faces