'The Ties That Bind Us Together As Women"

The Ties That Bind Us Together As Women September 4, 2014 •                       “Don’t worry about being right, just worry about being kind.” – Tilly Therber, my grandmother It’s not the difficulty of my decisions that bothers me. As a woman, I can deal with the uncertainty, the fear and the doubt that accompany my choices. I can handle the weight of that responsibility. What I’m struggling to accept is this: When I look around me, it appears that we women have allowed the decisions we’re faced with in our lives—intimate, vulnerable and personal decisions—to become what define us and what divide us. And it’s something we’ve all been wounded by at one time or another. It’s not always obvious of course. It’s the scowl on another woman’s face when she hears you are taking off work for a week-long vacation. It’s the tone in another woman’s voice when she asks where your baby’s hat is “in this weather.” Yet it’s something that every one of us is guilty of. It’s the faces we make and the tones we take. It’s the eye rolls and the passive-aggressive comments. It’s the disapproval and judgment that oozes out of every pore of our bodies. And really, why do we care? Why do we care if another mother chooses natural childbirth or modern medicine? Why do we feel so compelled to turn up our noses at how she spends her money or what she wears? Why are we so appalled when a woman works full-time just weeks after giving birth or stays home full-time when her children are in school all day? Why is another woman’s work life and personal life and family’s life and child’s life any of our freaking business? But most of all, why are we so consumed with the things that divide us instead of the ties that bind us? Often, the reason we’re so quick to judge other women with decisions different from our own is that we aren’t completely comfortable with our own choices. The woman with a full-time office job looks down on the stay-at-home mom while battling her own guilt when she can’t attend every class party and field trip. The stay-at-home mom judges the woman working long hours while at the same time struggling with her own sense of identity and purpose. We’re all starving for grace, and at the same time, withholding that same grace from each other. And friends, it’s doing damage. It’s damaging our relationships and it’s destroying our trust. It’s fueling the fire of perfectionism and planting seeds of self-doubt. It’s tearing down and dividing us when God calls us to build each other up and be united. And really, at our core, all the women I’ve ever met want the same things. We want a purpose that we can be proud of. We want a family that is healthy and happy. We want a body that we can feel comfortable in. We want a life that we love. These are the ties that bind us together as women. How different would our relationships be if we focused on that instead? How different would our conversations be if we focused on how all of the women around us are doing exactly what we are, the very best they can? Her methods may be her way and not my way, but that’s okay, because it’s her life. I don’t know of a single woman in the world that needs another person telling her what she should be doing. She doesn’t need more standards to meet; she needs support. She doesn’t need more advice; she needs affirmation. She doesn’t need more guidance; she needs grace. Let’s save our well-meaning advice, suggestions and opinions and instead focus on loving the woman in front of us. Let’s deliberately dissolve the judgment between us and realize that each of us is on a uniquely and perfectly messy journey of our own. When we focus on that, we can finally put our weapons down and sit next to a woman with a life entirely different from our own and appreciate everything she is and everything she offers without feeling envious or superior. When we stop focusing on what divides us, we can champion each other in a way that allows the women in our lives to feel supported and accepted exactly as they are and we can feel the freedom to accept ourselves and our own choices as well. We can finally rest in the paradox of finding comfort in our own uncomfortable choices. . . . . . I won’t judge you for dishes in your sink and shoes over your floor and laundry on your couch. I won’t judge you for choosing not to spend your one life weeding the garden or washing the windows or working on organizing the pantry. I won’t judge you for the size of your waist, the flatness, bigness, cut or color of your hair, the hipness or the matronliness of your clothes, and I won’t judge whether you work at a stove, a screen, a store, a steering wheel, a sink or a stage. I won’t judge you for where you are on your road, won’t belittle your offering, your creativity, your battle, your work. -Ann Voskamp - See more at: http://christywright.com/2014/09/the-ties-that-bind-us-together-as-women/#sthash.gk8faDJZ.dpuf

Dear Girl Who Waited And Wishes She Didn’t

---

         

---

Before you read this please let me preface it with this: You are so valuable. Man or woman. Girl or boy. Saved or unsaved. In agreement with me or not. Virgin or not. Whether you saved yourself for marriage or whether you didn’t. Whether you have slept with one person or slept with one hundred. You are FULL of worth and value. You were worth so much that Christ gave his life for you, knowing your sin just as he knows mine. Please don’t read this and feel invaluable or worthless because you are in a different place. I believe you are neither worthless or invaluable but are instead the most precious, valuable thing ever created.  I truly do. 
There is a blog going around right now called “I Waited Until I Was Married To Lose My Virginity And I Wish I Hadn’t” and reading it literally breaks my heart. It has gained much popularity and is circulating the likes of Twitter and Facebook with breakneck speeds. Out of love, this is my response.
Dear Girl Who Waited and Wishes She Didn’t:
I read your blog where you said that you took a vow at ten years old to hold on to your virginity until marriage under the banner of true love waits in front of your church and family. I read that how, even difficult, for the next ten plus years you did just that…WAITED. I thought that was so awesome…until I kept reading. I read your words about how when you got married you felt so shameful and dirty about sex that you cried after the first time and you hated it and were miserable. I am so sorry that after two years you and your husband stopped having sex and you began to see a therapist. I hated that you said as a result of that vow you grew to despise all things sexual and when it came down to it you chose sexual healing over religion and church and now participates in neither. I read how you said that if you could go back and do it again, you wouldn’t wait…and then I cried. You have broken my heart.
Do you know how many young impressionable girls have read your blog? Do you know how many men and women will give up what they have held so dear for so long because you said it didn’t matter?
You’re wrong. It does matter. I have one regret in my life and that is that I didn’t wait for my husband to have one of the most precious part of me and my body, my virginity.
I have felt the shame and disgust and guilt you talked about after having sex, but it wasn’t with my husband.
I have felt hurt and spent and used after having sex, but it wasn’t with my husband.
I have felt lost and abandoned and dirty and alone after having sex, but it wasn’t with my husband.
I felt that way with someone who I didn’t love, who didn’t love me, and who used my innocence and vulnerability against me. Someone who I found out later slept with me and was sleeping with about a half-dozen other girls around the same time.
Honeymoon sex is awkward for everyone. It’s a new thing, a private thing, with crazy expectations and ideas about what it will be like. The idea of standing naked for the first time in front of someone is daunting and nerve-racking for anyone. So don’t be so hard on yourself. I bet lots of women have had that experience and even cried after, but it shouldn’t bring shame. Shame and embarrassment are different.
I have never felt shame one time having sex inside the bonds of marriage. Not once. But you know what, sometimes something weird or unplanned happens. Sometimes it’s messy, and sometimes it’s not. The fact is, anytime you bring together something as vulnerable and open as two naked bodies, uncontrollable things are bound to happen. It’s part of life and part of sex. My sex life is wonderful and the longer my husband and I are married the better it keeps getting. It is still great though. It’s better now than it was five years ago and I believe in five more years it will be better than it is now. The deeper we grow in relational intimacy, the deeper we grow in sexual intimacy. I wish you could experience this without such bonds of negativity.
I’m sorry that you hated sex and it was horrible for you. I am sorry that your marriage struggled because of it. I’m sorry that you felt too ashamed to look anyone in the eye. I’m sorry that your church made you feel that sexuality and salvation were separate and shouldn’t be celebrated and enjoyed for the INCREDIBLE JOY that it is. I’m so sorry that you hated it so much that it caused you to give up your relationship with Christ. But please, please don’t say you shouldn’t have waited. Please know the value and power that your words have. Please know the influence you have. Please consider that somewhere tonight a young (or not so young) girl made the decision to give up her virginity to someone who didn’t deserve it, won’t appreciate it, and won’t be there in the morning to hold her through the shame…at least you had a husband to wake up with.
You see, Girl Who Waited, God created sex to be enjoyed by man and woman, husband and wife, and while that may not be popular in culture, it’s the truth. God didn’t create sex to be shameful, but just the opposite. He created it to be fulfilling, exciting, loving, and FUN. Women are lying to say that they haven’t felt shame or regret after they had sex with someone who wasn’t their spouse. Outside if the bond of marriage it will always feel that way, whether you choose to believe it, accept it, or neither. If you feel shame INSIDE of sex in marriage, then that’s a misconception about God’s intent about sex, not about sex itself.
I am sorry you aren’t glad you waited, but I sure am glad you did.
Love,
Girl Who Didn’t Wait And Wishes She Would Have

Grace.

Even your mistakes can be recycled into something good through my transforming grace. Do you believe this-- believe that your mistakes can be used for good in my kingdom?

When you know you've made mistakes, it's easy to start fantasizing about what might have been-- if only you had acted or chosen differently. But this accomplishes nothing! The best strategy for accepting yourself when you've made mistakes is to draw near to Me. This nearness helps you see things from my perspective. You tend to view yourself as someone who should be almost perfect, making very few errors. My perspective is quite different: I see you as my beloved child-- weak in many ways, prone to wandering from Me. However, your weakness and waywardness cannot diminish My constant Love for you. Moreover, My infinite wisdom enables me to take errors and weave them into an intricate work that is good. You need to accept not only yourself but also the choices you have made. Fantasizing about having done things differently is a time-wasting trap. The more you fantasize, the further from Me you wander. When you realize this has happened, turn around and run back to Me! Take time to talk with me and relax in my presence. Your perfectionist tendencies will dissolve as you soak in my transforming Grace.

God is an Artist

You

are proof

that God

is an artist.

he took you,

and took your sin.

He made you clean,

washed white

with blood.

You became

a canvas

for Him to paint

images of grace

and glory upon.

You became

a blank page

for Him to write sonnets

of peace and of love,

and He named you

worthy.

You became

a stone slab

which God is now

chipping away at,

creating in you

a new heart

and shaping you

into who you were always meant to be:

His child.

-God is an Artist-

"Have we made an idol out of sexual purity?"

“If you grew up in church,” writes Debra Fileta at Relevant Magazine, “you’ve likely heard one of these  horrific analogies somewhere along the way:
Your sexual purity, once it’s given away is like...
‘Tape that’s lost its stickiness.’
‘Paper that’s been torn.’
‘Gum that’s been chewed.’
‘A gift that’s been unwrapped.’
While I get the mentality behind these messages, my problem with these analogies, and in fact, this entire discussion, is that it presents ‘purity’ as a one-dimensional physical act.
First you have it, then you don’t. Vanished. Gone. Over. Done with. In a blink of an eye, the prospect of being ‘pure’ and holy has been wiped away.”
As someone who also grew up in church, it’s hard to argue with Fileta. It’s pretty easy to tell that in the unofficial church hierarchy of sins, sexual sin ranks as pretty dastardly. It was even apparent in the way my parents and most of my friends’ parents censored movies. Violence? Meh, as long as the kids aren’t too little and nothing’s too graphic. Language? That’s worse, but still manageable. Make sure to cover their ears if the ‘F’ word is used. But sex in movies? Nope, no way – they’re leaving the room. Even if sex wasn’t explicitly shown, your face was still covered with a pillow the minute things got steamy.
But now many authors like Debra Fileta are writing that this portrait of virginity as the end-all, be-all can actually be quite harmful – even to the point of making an idol out of sexual purity.
Whitney Hopler, in her article How to Find Sexual Wholeness as a Woman, reminds us that sex should never define us.
“Base your identity on who you are in Christ rather than on the roles you play in life. Your circumstances – single or married, mother or not, paid or volunteer worker – don’t define you. What does define you, from God’s perspective, is your identity as someone made in his image who he loves completely. So remember how valuable you truly are whenever you make choices about how to express your sexuality.”
In another article, Hopler covers the principles of the book True Purity: More than Just Saying "No" to You-Know-What. The book reminds us that there’s “a better way to pursue purity” than just obsessing over virginity.
“From God’s perspective, purity involves much more than what you do in one area of your life; it has to do with what you choose in every part of your life. Achieving true purity is possible, but not through your own efforts. Instead, you need to rely on Jesus every day to empower you to live in purity. Then your quest for purity won’t be frustrated by your failures; it’ll be a sign of Jesus’ successful work within you.”
She goes on to advise:
“Recognize what true purity is, and why it’s important. Purity means choosing to love God more than you love anything or anyone else, and expressing that love by wholeheartedly devoting your life to God. It’s important to pursue purity because the more pure you become, the more you’ll grow into the person God intends you to become.”
Debra Fileta rounds out her Relevant article by explaining,
“Our purity is not simply a product of the status of our physical bodies—but more so, it’s the condition of our souls, souls that are meant to be completely, utterly and only intertwined with the person of Jesus Christ.
We spend so much time discussing physical purity, without challenging this generation to live a life that is so Spirit-filled, Christ-centered and God-breathed that purity is just the natural overflow…
…Don’t allow anyone to define you by anything less than God’s goodness and grace. And then go, and be transformed.”
What has your experience been of how the church deals with sexuality? Do you feel defined by your sexual experiences, or have you been encouraged to find your identity in Christ alone? What does ‘purity’ mean to you? Share your thoughts with us below!

I will walk by Faith 💗

God's beautiful rain showers ☔️💙