Category Archives: Relationships

Guest Post: 2013: A Year for a New Feeling

Posted by Amy in Faith, Guest Post, Relationships, Writing and tagged with

I’m thrilled to be starting 2013 with the very first guest post ever on this blog.  Many thanks to Andrea for her contribution.

By Konrad Westermayr 1883-1917

A Year for a New Feeling

My emotions often show up on my face before they show up in my head. I have people ask me, “Are you okay?” A questioning looks crosses my face and I say, “Yeah.” Sometimes I throw in, “I’m just tired.” That’s to make them think I’m less crazy not because I really am that tired. After they have asked the question, I pause to think about why they asked that. Sometimes it comes to me right away and I realize what I am feeling. Sometimes it just doesn’t come to me and I have no clue what ‘that look’ on my face meant. I have somehow shut the door from my emotions to my brain. For some of you that might sound like a great thing and maybe it would be. Maybe if you pushed that door shut a little bit life would go better.  Maybe it wouldn’t. For me, it isn’t working anymore.

You see this year I felt a very clear call from God to write a memoir about the way people have influenced my walk with Him. I finally realized this year that I have been holding on to and not dealing with a whole lot of hurts. Holding on to them has served to ingrain them deeper into my psyche, my dealings with other people, and my habits. I also realized that I am not alone. There are others that are going through this struggle silently. They, like me, think they are alone or that they have dealt with it or that it isn’t that bad. And all of those thoughts are wrong.

So if I need to write this memoir to help other people dealing with this that I am dealing with, then I need to know what I am feeling and why. I need to know what I have felt and delve into those past events and past feelings. So this year I am committing to journal 3 times a week. I am going to be writing down what I am thinking and searching for what I am feeling. I want to embrace those things and open that door back up. So I am looking forward to 2013 as I rediscover my emotions.

What are you looking forward to in 2013?

Andrea is a working family woman who writes about faith and relationships.  She takes seriously the call on her life to encourage others.  You can read more about her on her blog, Jesus, You, and Me.

Can we learn from this?

Posted by Amy in Blogs, Relationships and tagged with , ,

I was all set to post something else today.  I’d even finished writing it yesterday.  Now it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow, because yesterday I read this great post over on From Two to One.

I think I should let Danielle’s words speak for themselves, in part because (and this is not a criticism) she’s younger than I am and entered into her relationship and marriage with her husband after Joshua Harris’ book was published.  I got married the same year the book was released and it was entirely irrelevant to my life because I had been in a relationship and then engaged before the book came out.  However, I will note that I’m not a fan of Harris or his notions about relationships.

That said, what really struck me in Danielle’s post was this:

The most important factor in the distinction between Jessica and Libby’s views on this second point – that you shouldn’t necessarily date unless it could potentially lead to marriage – is context. In Jessica’s case, she was raised in a predominantly Catholic home, which despite the Catholic Church’s frenzy over contraception and abortion, is way less obsessed with purity culture. Jessica also did not date in her high school and much of her college years. In contrast, Libby grew up in a family and community heavily influenced by the purity, Christian patriarchy, religious right, and related movements.

Yes.  That, right there, is an important distinction.  (I believe this is significant beyond the realm of dating, love, sex, and marriage, but that’s a topic for a whole other blog post.)  For those who had their religious formation in a restrictive environment and then removed themselves from that world, Harris’ book is likely to bring up a whole lot of feelings.  Even for people like me it can induce strong reactions, in part because I had no exposure to that culture until well into adulthood—and quickly discovered that it was not for me.

I was a parent before I even heard of such a thing as “purity culture.”  I knew of exactly two people during my high school and college years who believed in a sort of magical soul-mate non-dating type of relationship.  Both of them were certain that the man God had ordained for them would one day appear, à la Snow White’s “Someday, My Prince Will Come.”  I am not exaggerating at all when I say that one friend believed she and her future husband would gaze into each other’s eyes and just know they were meant to be.

Other than that, I had “purity training lite.”  I learned in my first church that I was not supposed to have sex before I was married, but that was about it.  My first church was much more hostile toward gay people than toward dating couples.  I had no idea that there was such a thing as purity rings, purity balls, or parent-arranged/parent-approved courtship.  After I got married, I heard about Harris’ book, of course, but dismissed it as irrelevant and never read it.  It wasn’t until after my daughter was born that I learned the rest existed and that there was a whole culture surrounding it.

For that reason, I can easily dismiss Harris and his ilk.  I don’t have to rebel against an entire culture in which I was raised.  I don’t have to assert my sexual liberation or rail against the idea of “falling into sexual sin.”  I’m free to agree with anything that might be of value in those books, while rejecting anything that is inappropriately restrictive.  I’m even free to toss the whole thing out the window and find better sources for relationship ethics.  My children are free to do the same.

But for those who have been wounded by that culture, it’s not so simple.  They’ve seen the damage that can be done at the hands of parents, pastors, and teachers who demand compliance with Harris’ ideas.  They see people still suffering in oppressive religious environments and they want to set them free.  Sometimes that comes out in healthy ways; sometimes it doesn’t.

Ultimately, what I took away from Danielle’s post is that I could stand to be more generous myself.  I need to be willing to consider carefully whether it’s the message or the packaging that I don’t like.  Danielle seems to have been able to do exactly that in her own reading of Harris’ book, and she seems to have been capable of forging her own path as a Christian feminist.  I think that’s a life story we can all learn from.

Letters from your hoo ha*

Posted by Amy in Relationships, Sexuality, Writing and tagged with ,

Every Tuesday at 9, you’ll find me glued to either the computer or my phone, enjoying live Twitter chat with fellow writers.  (You should join us if you’re on Twitter.  Just search for and use the hashtag #writestuff.)  Each week, we have a challenge.  This week’s is to honor our writing space (the physical place in which we write).  Last week’s, which is the one I want to share, was to write from a part of our body.  No, not writing from the point of view of that part—drawing on its energy and using that to write.  Similar, but not identical.

Which is where the hoo ha comes in.

Let me start by saying that I don’t care for romance novels or really smutty stories.  Probably not for the reasons you think, though.  I have the same issue with romance novels as a genre that I do with porn: unrealistic, objectifying, and unsafe sex.  And it honestly doesn’t matter whether the sex is graphic, because it can be just as bad even if the writer doesn’t describe anyone’s throbbing member or heaving bosom.  But I have no problem with stories that include intimacy, especially when done well.

My problem was entirely in writing intimacy.  I can accept that other people write it, some better than others.  But I couldn’t do it.  I could not type words on a page that implied or outright stated that a couple were physically acting on the love the have for each other.  I suppose that’s a holdover from some of the negativity about sex within the church, combined with my own personal worries that I couldn’t make it come out right.  Whatever the reason, I just felt embarrassed.

So I took the challenge to write from a body part.

I realized that there were elements I wanted when writing intimacy:

  • Realism
  • Humor
  • Steam rather than smut
  • Love and Trust

I suppose that’s because those are the predominant things I feel (and apparently my hoo ha feels) during sex.  I’ve written before about how sex is not a magical unicorn.  Realistically, it’s awkward, messy, and sometimes funny.  But it’s also (under the best circumstances) a giving over of our bodies and hearts to another person.  That’s what I wanted to capture.

So I drew on that energy, concentrating less on how it feels physically and more on the emotions.  And there it was, a fairly good result.  No, I’m not going to post it here, for those of you who are wondering.  There are people who would feel uncomfortable.  I’m sure just reading this makes some people squirm, and others probably think that I’m at Hell’s doorstep for writing overt sexuality.  I also have some young people reading this whose parents would not thank me to expose their children to something like that.  Besides, this was more about my comfort than about what I usually write (I’m still pretty tame).

If you’re a writer, here’s my challenge to you: Try writing sex.  Even if you never show it to anyone, and even if it’s not your genre, and even if you use yourself and your significant other as the characters.  Put it down on paper.  Type it into whatever program you use.  You can burn it or delete it when you’re done, it’s okay.  Draw on your own energy, using whatever body part you feel is appropriate for such a thing.

If you’re not a writer, here’s your challenge: Use your imagination.  Before you and your significant other are intimate, imagine yourself drawing on the energy of your body.  Consider all the things you feel when you’re together.  Consider what the other person is feeling in his or her body.  Then use that energy to physically love and enjoy the other person.  If you feel uncomfortable, or worried that this might be “lust” in some way, it’s not.  If you’re doing this exercise with your spouse, you have nothing to worry about.  (Writers can do this too, we just have the added bonus of being able to put words to it and type it on a page.)

Just do me a favor.  Please don’t describe how it turns out in the comments section.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Yes, I really did just use that as the title of this blog post.

Shotgun Prom

Posted by Amy in Parenting, Relationships, Sexuality and tagged with , ,

This photo has been circulating on Facebook:

I have the sense that most people find it funny.  I don’t.

Even though my childhood wasn’t perfect, and my parents did their share of crazy and destructive things, I am thankful that my father never would have dreamed of doing something like this.  In fact, my parents were actually pretty cool about the whole dating/prom thing.  (I went to both of mine with “loaner” guys—good friends on loan from their girlfriends who were unable to attend.  I had wanted to go with a date, but not a date, if you know what I mean.)

Back to the picture.  There is so much wrong here that I’m not sure where to begin.  Perhaps with the threat of physical violence by an adult toward an adolescent?  Or the lack of trust between the father and his daughter?  Or the idea that a young woman just needs a big, strong man to protect her from the evils of dating and sex?  Take your pick.

I understand that the sentiment behind this is the idea that Daddy Dear is willing to go to any length to protect his beloved daughter.  As a parent, I get it.  I want to protect my kids, too.  If anyone tries to hurt them, they will have Angry Mama Bear to contend with, and I would absolutely take a bullet or a speeding bus for them.  But that’s the difference here.  This man isn’t protecting his daughter from actual, real, impending threat.  He’s the one doing the threatening under the assumption that his daughter is incapable of taking care of herself or making her own choices about her relationships and intimacy.  (I’m not advocating for post-prom sex here; I’m just pointing out that unless her date is a rapist, then she herself is in control of what she does or doesn’t do with her date.)

There are a couple of things I’m sure that someone will want to point out to me about this.  First, the dad “understands” the way boys think because he was one.  You know what? I married a man who used to be a teenage boy.  My father was a teenage boy.  Every man in my family was a teenage boy at one point.  Guess what?  Not one of them would ever have considered doing anything like the man in the photo.  Not only that, all the men in my family (including the one I married) give a lot more credit to their daughters than that man.

Second, I’m sure some people might wonder if I would go out of my way to protect my kids from potential dangers.  Of course I would.  But I also know they have to learn to stand on their own.  Let me illustrate.  My son likes to climb things.  (I’m surprised he hasn’t found out how to get onto the roof yet.)  When he was about 5, we were at the playground with some friends.  He climbed up the outside of the tube slide, something he’d been doing for quite some time.  When the other moms saw, they all yelled to him at once to get down.  He got distracted and slipped, scraping himself on the way down.  The other moms turned to glare at me, and one or two said, “I told you that would happen.”  The problem is, they were the ones who caused the fall.  If he hadn’t turned to see why they were calling him, he would have made it safely to the top.

When my son first started climbing, I did worry.  I wanted to stand guard under him in case he fell.  I wanted to tell him to stop, to wait until he was bigger, to tell him he shouldn’t do that.  But that wouldn’t have stopped him.  He would have continued trying, because that’s part of who he is.  Instead of preventing him from climbing, I understood that I had to give him the confidence and the tools to do it safely.

I feel the same way about my kids and their future relationships.  I want to provide them all the tools they need to be emotionally and physically healthy.  Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, I don’t just mean giving my kids “the talk” and handing them condoms on prom night.  I mean that I want to give them what they need so that they know how to stand up for themselves when they feel pressured into something they’re not ready for.  I want to provide them a faith-based moral foundation so that they are spiritually prepared to make wise choices.  I want them to understand healthy relationships.  And yes, I want them to have everything they need in the event they make a choice that is different than what I would prefer.

Before someone points out that I don’t yet have teenagers and might feel differently, you’ll just have to trust me on this one.  I know what kind of parents I had, and I know what kind of parent I want to be.  I also know that my kids are surrounded by family and friends who care about us.  I’m not worried.  See, I trust my kids.  I trust them because we have that kind of relationship.  You won’t find my husband or me standing on the porch with a gun because it won’t be necessary.  Instead, we’ll be the ones begging for one more picture before waving to them from the doorway.  Kind of like my own parents.

Notable News: Mutuality Edition, Week of June 1-8, 2012

Posted by Amy in Blogs, Cool Stuff, Doctrine, Gender Roles, Links, News, Relationships and tagged with , , ,

My apologies for posting this so late in the day.  Here are my favorites from the week of synchroblogging inspired by the week of mutuality.

1. First, kudos to Rachel Held Evans for her outstanding work.  She will be continuing to post over the weekend, so be sure to check out what else she has in store (including her own highlights of the best).  Her series has been fantastic.  Here are the posts, in order of appearance:

2. Christian Marriage: Fail?  Pam Hogeweide is one of my favorite bloggers.  In her post My Failed Christian Marriage, she talks about the struggle to fit the ideal for Christian marriage and the joy in finding freedom from those restraints.

3. Fabulosity on Alise Wright’s blog.  Another blogger I just can’t get enough of.  First, Alise catches our attention by reminding us that You Don’t Have to Take Your Clothes Off to Be Egalitarian.  Then, she has the always wonderful Sarah Moon share her thoughts on Too Much in a fantastic guest post.  If you don’t read anything else, read these posts!

4. A couple of men weigh in.  I always like the way Travis Mamone shares his heart.  This post is a good way to introduce some deeper theological constructs without getting bogged down with terminology; it’s nicely put.  Through the trending topic #mutuality2012 on Twitter, I discovered Jonathan Aigner’s post sorry, little girl: a patriarchal response.  Great thoughts on the deficiency of the female gender and faithfully following God’s gifts in our own lives without causing guilt in others.

5. The Best of the Rest.  I could go on and on, listing everything I like and why.  Instead, I will simply list the several other posts that I found meaningful.  Even though we’re all writing on the same thing, each person has a unique voice, an interesting perspective.  What an amazing week it’s been!

Feel free to leave a comment with any blog posts you like on the subject of mutuality/egalitarianism, whether they’re from this week or not.  Don’t forget to link to your own if you wrote something!

 

Another view on Biblical submission?

Posted by Amy in Blogs, Gender Roles, LGBT Issues, Relationships and tagged with ,

Since the last post was short, here’s another brief one to round out my own thoughts on mutuality (see footnote).  You can read the other three here, here, and here.  Tomorrow, I’ll recap the week with my favorite posts from around the web, so don’t go anywhere.

My final thought on this subject has to do with same-sex relationships.  As many of you know, this is a topic I love to challenge the Church on.  Today is no exception, but it comes in the form of a question.

How do Christians in same-sex long-term relationships/marriages handle the issue of submission?

Okay, I get it.  The majority of complementarians probably also believe same-sex marriages are outside God’s will.  Fine. But for those who don’t subscribe to that view, this is a teachable moment.  After all, being complementarian doesn’t mean being conservative in all ways (though the correlation is probably pretty high).

According to complementarian theology, men and women have certain roles within marriage.  These roles can be very conservative, encouraging women to stay home, care for the household, and be the nurturing spirit of the family while men work and are strong and masculine.  But these roles can be more flexible, recognizing that women can work and men can stay home, that household chores can be divided equally, and that children are everyone’s responsibility.  The main point is really that men are the spiritual head of the household and that women should respect them as such, trusting their husbands to lead the family.

I am not certain this would work in a same-sex relationship.

Honestly, I don’t know.  I’ve only ever been a woman married to a man.  I’m not trying to be irreverent, nor am I trying to be ignorant.  I’ve never asked this question before.  I guess I never thought about it much.  Come to think of it, I’ve never given much thought to what my role in my own marriage is “supposed” to be, much less anyone else’s.

I do wonder if this is what some people object to when it comes to same-sex marriage, though.  Is it the idea that two men or two women couldn’t reflect or represent God’s relationship with the church properly?  I suppose that is an issue, in some people’s minds.

Anyway, I am sincerely interested in the answers.  I would love some of my Christian friends in same-sex relationships to help me out here.  How do you read and interpret the Bible on the subject of submission?  Is it irrelevant to you, or do you choose to read those words in a way that is meaningful within your particular relationship?  Have you ever heard a message given on this subject that you found applies to you?

Chime in, don’t be shy!  I’ll bet there are a lot of people interested in the responses.  And be sure to let me know if I’m overstepping the bounds of being appropriate here—I’m not above loving correction and I will be happy to remove this post if it’s offensive.

This post is part of the Week of Mutuality led by Rachel Held Evans.  You can follow the other posts on Twitter with #mutuality2012.  Check it out, there are some fantastic writers weighing in on the topic.  On Friday, I will highlight my favorites.  Look for Rachel’s faves in her usual Sunday Superlatives.

A new view of submission

Posted by Amy in Blogs, Gender Roles, Relationships and tagged with , , ,

This is the third post on the subject of mutuality (see footnote).

I got some nice responses to my first post in this series, including a mention in this post (which I enjoyed reading; I appreciate the writer’s generous, loving tone).  On my Facebook page, one friend wrote,

[To] us that word [submission] doesn’t mean authority it mean[s] “source.”

I found myself thinking about that, because I liked it, but couldn’t place exactly why.  Then I realized that I liked it because it has profound implications for both complementarians and egalitarians.  In other words, we can both be right, because in our unique marriages, we can figure out with our spouses what to do with it.

I looked up the word “source” and found the following definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary:

  1. The point at which something springs into being or from which it derives or is obtained.
  2. The point of origin, such as a spring, of a stream or river.
  3. One that causes, creates, or initiates; a maker.
  4. One, such as a person or document, that supplies information: A reporter is only as reliable as his or her sources.
  5. Physics. The point or part of a system where energy or mass is added to the system.

Each one of those definitions can hold meaning within a marriage.  Each one can be a point of blessing for a couple, depending on how they view their roles and how they are seeking to honor one another and Jesus.  The beautiful part about the word is that when it’s applied to the passage about mutual submission, it can take on a whole new dimension.

Personally, being kind of a geek, I like definition number 5.  It suits us well, as my husband and I both score major Nerd Points, both in our marriage and in life generally.  If marriage is a system, then it certainly makes sense that “mass” would have been added when we entered into it!

I would encourage you, with your spouse, to engage with this concept of “source” in marriage.  What does it mean for you?  How does it work in practical terms?  In what ways does this make you feel either more free or more restricted?  I hope that in digging deeper, you will be able to find peace with how your relationship works.

This post is part of the Week of Mutuality led by Rachel Held Evans.  You can follow the other posts on Twitter with #mutuality2012.  Check it out, there are some fantastic writers weighing in on the topic.  On Friday, I will highlight my favorites.  Look for Rachel’s faves in her usual Sunday Superlatives.

What if a man can’t lead?

Posted by Amy in Blogs, Family, Gender Roles, Relationships and tagged with ,

I’m continuing my posts this week on the subject of mutuality.  Today’s topic: Exceptions to the rule.

Whenever I hear the words “Biblical womanhood” I want to do several things:  Throw something large, heavy, and preferably breakable; scream; hide until whoever said it goes away.

I understand that a certain kind of relationship is to be expected when you take a particular female personality type and a particular male personality type and put them together in a marriage.  And you know what?  That’s awesome for them that they have figured out how to make their marriage work, honoring their natural styles.  But I’d rather they keep their opinions about my marriage to themselves, thanks.  My marriage isn’t built on obeying a certain set of rules, goals, traits, or what have you.

Anyway, one thing that always concerns me is the number of people who are left out of the equation.  I can handle it.  I’m used to being a non-traditional woman among traditional Christians.  Story of my life, for many, many years.  No, I’m more frustrated by the traditional people left out in the cold by people hawking Biblical womanhood.

There are a lot of women who can’t fulfill this role even if they want to.  As one friend put it, “I don’t like hearing all the time about how I’m supposed to submit to my husband.  I don’t have a husband.  Am I supposed to go find one so I can submit to him?”  Another friend asked, “What am I supposed to do?  I’m a single parent.  I have to be both mom and dad to my kids.  Who do I submit to?”

Last night, my husband and I generated a list of people who might have some difficulty with the typical conservative marriage expectations:

  • Women whose husbands have died or abandoned their family
  • Women who have never been married
  • Women whose husbands are ill or injured and unable to “lead” their families
  • Women whose husbands have left the Christian faith and cannot be the spiritual authority
  • Women who became Christians but their husbands did not (see above)
  • Women whose husbands are deep in addiction
  • Women whose husbands are abusive
  • Women whose husbands are doing things that are morally corrupt or illegal
  • Women whose husbands are incarcerated
  • Women whose husbands spend large amounts of time away from home (due to work or military service)

That’s an awful lot of exceptions to the rule.

I am sure that conservative people would have some snappy answer for all of it.  Or else they might say that of course there are exceptions, this applies to “regular” people.  That’s fascinating, but it doesn’t do much to help the people who are in the midst of those situations.  It doesn’t help the woman who has lived her entire marriage being the kind of Biblical wife she believed she should be, and now finds herself without a spiritual rudder because her husband has Alzheimer’s.  It doesn’t help the woman who suddenly finds herself a single mother of three because her husband has left her for another woman.  It doesn’t help the woman who has given her whole life in service to others, believing her highest calling wasn’t marriage but the mission field.  It doesn’t help the woman whose husband returns to her every night, blind drunk.  It doesn’t help the woman whose husband has spent the better part of their marriage beating her and calling her names.

Instead of labeling those women “irregular” and “exceptions to the rule,” why not make a point of helping those women gain strength in Christ?  I know there are support groups for people dealing with life issues.  However, shouldn’t the church be another place they can turn?  There are more women in these situations than you know.  Instead of reminding them of the ways they are different from all the “normal” families, where Dad is the strong head of the household, can’t we do more to empower those people who don’t fit that mold?

If we really want to build healthy marriages and healthy families, we need to start by removing language that says or implies that proper, Biblical marriage is the pinnacle of existence.  We need to talk more about how families can be strengthened in God-honoring and people-honoring ways that have less to do with gender roles and more to do with respecting each person’s needs within the home.  When we can do that, we will bring hope and healing for all women, regardless of relationship status.

This post is part of the Week of Mutuality led by Rachel Held Evans.  You can follow the other posts on Twitter with #mutuality2012.  Check it out, there are some fantastic writers weighing in on the topic.  On Friday, I will highlight my favorites.  Look for Rachel’s faves in her usual Sunday Superlatives.

What would happen if I didn’t submit to my husband?

Posted by Amy in Blogs, Family, Gender Roles, Relationships, Religion and tagged with , ,

I didn’t grow up in a family culture that promoted “Biblical womanhood.”  My mother had been an evangelical Christian, and then spent many years as a non-believer/agnostic/possibly something else before returning to the church.  My father is a non-religious Jew.  Throughout my childhood, I attended a Unitarian church.  In Sunday school, we drew pictures of what God might look like, watched secular kids’ movies, and ate popcorn.  We didn’t learn much about what men and women are supposed to be like or how husbands and wives are supposed to make marriage work.

When I became a Christian at age 14, I had no idea what was in the Bible.  My mother had a dusty, old King James Bible on her shelf, which I promptly took out and started to read.  I began with the Psalms.  At my church youth group, we were studying Revelation (our leaders did a fantastic job with it, by the way; a post for another time).  I didn’t learn much about Biblical womanhood there, either.

The denomination my church belonged to, PCUSA (Presbyterian), allows women to be elders and pastors.  I don’t recall much about Biblical womanhood or wives and husbands over my years there.  Maybe I tuned it out, or maybe it didn’t make sense to me, but it didn’t register.

Until I found Ephesians 5.

I read these words:

 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.

I didn’t understand them.  So I asked some of the adults at church, “What does this mean, submit?”  They mostly seemed uncomfortable, awkward, like they weren’t sure how to answer that question.  I got everything from “respect your husband” to “do what he says” to “be the kind of wife and mother he wants to come home to” to the considerably more honest “I don’t really know.”  One person said, “We take it to mean that when there is a major life decision, we go with his preference.”

I think I gave up.  In fact, “submission” wasn’t even something my husband and I ever talked about.  He was an avowed feminist, and I’m admittedly a pretty intense and opinionated person, so it never seemed to matter.  We simply did what came very naturally for us:  Talked about everything, worked things out when we disagreed, and based our relationship on mutual respect.  The one time our pastor gave a (rather half-hearted) sermon on submission in marriage, my husband and I ended up talking about how no one ever seemed to be able to define that term clearly.

I have since been exposed to a heck of a lot of conservative teaching on this topic.  Life has a way of doing that, I suppose.  I’ve met a lot more people and read a lot more books since the early days of my Christian faith and my marriage.  In fact, it seems like the older I get, the more I hear about the whole “wifely submission” thing.  Guess what?  No one seems any more clear on it than the people I spoke to at my first church or my college professors or my friends or my former pastor.  It’s still murky.

These days, my big question isn’t “What is submission?”  Instead, it’s “What will happen if I don’t?”

The message has been pretty clear that “bad things” will indeed happen if I don’t become the properly submissive wife I am Biblically meant to be.  I’ve been told that my children will be unhappy due to lack of clear authority; my marriage will suffer and we will be miserable; my children will “turn gay” because they have a gentle, nurturing father and a strong-willed mother.  Our lives will be out of control, because things run more “smoothly” if I show my husband proper (read: their version of) respect.  Our home will be filled with tension and strife.

So far, none of those dire predictions have come true.

Do we have our share of tension?  Sure.  Want to know what my husband and I argue about most?  Just take a wild guess.  It’s none of the usual things couples fight about (money, kids, sex).  Nope.  Our biggest arguments are about differences of opinion on social/political topics.  Not even Biblical interpretation or Christian doctrine—just stupid things.  We’ve learned to work through it, though, and we’ve learned to mutually respect each other’s views.

If your natural personalities mesh with a more conservative view on marriage, and this works to create a loving, happy home, then that is wonderful.  But if you’re like my husband and me, and your natural personalities don’t fit with the conservative view, you have nothing to be ashamed of.  What’s more important is that you build in your home a culture of respect.  There are a thousand—a million—ways to do this.  Start by applying what Jesus called the Greatest Commandments: Love God, love others.  All the rest will fall in place.

This post is part of the Week of Mutuality led by Rachel Held Evans.  You can follow the other posts on Twitter with #mutuality2012.  Check it out, there are some fantastic writers weighing in on the topic.  On Friday, I will highlight my favorites.  Look for Rachel’s faves in her usual Sunday Superlatives.

Notable News: Week of May 26-June 1, 2012

Posted by Amy in Cool Stuff, Relationships, Writing and tagged with ,

Not so much news as just a couple of pretty cool blog posts from this week.  Today’s theme: Dating and the concept of “guarding your heart.”  Also, something just for fun.

1. How far is too far

These two excellent posts offer two opposing viewpoints on the same topic: Navigating the world of relationships.  First, over at A Deeper Story, Megan writes about wishing she’d known what could happen if she gave away her heart.  In contrast, Dianna Anderson (and if you’re not reading her blog, you really should be; go do it now) writes about freeing herself to experience a broken heart.  I would love to weigh in on this topic, because I think it’s actually one of the most important things we need to consider as Christians—especially if we have kids we need to help through this process.

2. If it exists, someone has “shipped” it (paired it romantically).

You know that expression “If it exists, there’s porn of it”?  (Okay, maybe you don’t.)  Anyway, it appears to be the same in fanfiction.  While looking for something entirely unrelated, I ended up finding one of the most hilarious fanfics I’ve read in a long time.  Apparently, there is fanfic which ships Draco Malfoy and—brace yourselves—a green apple.  And there is seemingly no shortage of Drapple fics.  There’s even a Facebook page (several, actually).  This one is a pair of very silly shorts about Draco and his…um…”companion.”  Warning: The stories are somewhat suggestive, so skip it if you a) have no sense of humor or b) are easily offended.  Also, don’t bother clicking on the link if you’ve never seen the movie versions of both Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Drapple fics make no sense otherwise, and it’s less funny if I have to explain it.

Have a great weekend, everyone!