{when the most wonderful time of the year....isn't}

the entire past fortnight has been one bloody mess.

between coming down with some mysterious sickness, overwhelmed by stress upon stress, caught in the middle of family feuding, facing a future world that feels falling apart, and crying hangovers and splitting headaches every morning.....those that say that Thanksgiving and Advent are the most wonderful time of the year have obviously never met mine. 

i am usually the Christmas Grinch - never in the Christmas spirit, always burdened by some strange heaviness around the Advent season; and when I found myself scheduled to sing at church two weeks in a row, (Christmas carols no less!), I groaned and flipped off my laptop in dismay. 

too standard, too rote, too every-single-year-and-it-means-nothing-to-me apart from wishing it were all over already. 

Save the carols for after thanksgiving, once well into December! Save the carols for the day of Christmas itself, because with all the heart-heaviness in our world today, the ideals of peace-on-earth-goodwill-towards-men seems fanciful at best, and downright impossible at worst. 

and while we sing about a newborn babe there is a new president in the White House and old ugliness taking new shape in newest conflicts and protests, and instead of hearing each other out we draw division lines and blame and silence and shame those who think differently than us, and I stumble into church of an early Tuesday evening, already dark outside, and wearily sink into a seat, heartsore and voice sick, and we run through carols and more carols, run through the set, and i run out of heart. 

then the worship leader sits down to the piano, fingers flirting with black and white keys. black and white. no gray. starkly divided between right and wrong and republican and democrat and east and west and racism and acceptance and fear and hope and all the division in our world disparages me. 

Yet the notes of my favorite carol ring out strong and clear against the late November stillness, as the crisp snow falls, his voice indescribably longing, and the tears spring unbidden to my eyes when all i want is for the coming of Christ and the end of this season that feels like a sham when tensions run so high. 

O Come, O Come Emmanuel....ransom us. 

my heart contracts in longing as the music builds and wells and suddenly drops; a promise, a plea, and a prayer. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come. 

God-with-us will come. God will come to us. God will come. He will be with us. He will walk with us, and talk with us, and comfort us. 

so where is He? 

where is He every night for the past week, scream-sobbing into the darkness that it's all just too hard? where is He through Thanksgiving tears and Advent tears and trying to smooth things over between my brother and boyfriend and the lighting of the Hope candle in a world where I can barely find the hope to go on? 

where is He a week later, again at church, rehearsing through a fever, and I glimpse the pastor's wife through the transparent sanctuary doors, stringing bright lights on the giant Christmas tree in the lobby as we begin again O Come O Come Emmanuel, but where is He? 

Where is He? 

and late that night lashing out in angered frustration that I can't find Him, and I don't know who I am or where I am going, and the whisper comes that what if the reason I haven't seen Him this Christmas is because I simply haven't been looking?

if the pounding of the years has pounded out my old starry eyed hope in the story which made Christmas night, and the jaded disappointments of life have hardened me to the point where I don't bother looking for Him because i don't think He's there

But what if I started....looking? 

After all, the babe in the manger didn't come looking for the wise men. or the shepherds. 

they went to seek Him. 

and if you shall find what you seek, then what if I spent this Christmas actually seeking Him? searching for glimpses of Emmanuel, God-with-us in the messiness of the mundane? in the hectic, in the stress, in the streams of shoppers shoving past the poor homeless man on the corner, or the massed worshippers Sunday morning dozing through the sermon? 

because if Emmanuel is God-with-us, and if Christian means God-in-us, then He is with us when we are with each other, and He will touch us through one another, and reach with human fingers again to wipe our tears and teach us to live again? 

so what if I went looking? 

Would He show up? 

....oh and would He ever. 

it is amazing what you see as soon as you start looking for it. It is amazing where you see Him as soon as you start searching for Him there. 

He is everywhere. 

In the twinkling eyes of a five year old, brimming with pure joy as the first batch of gingerbread cookies emerge from the oven, and sticky kisses find their way onto your cheek as sticky fingers twine themselves round your neck. 

in the tall seventeen-year-old, practically a man, scrubbing dinner dishes (your rightful chore) after a day of his own studies, shushing children, and running errands so that you might rest, because he's heard that you aren't feeling well. 

in the tenderness of the man who calls you his girlfriend, who grants you your first night in over a week without crying yourself to sleep, by reading Isaiah over FaceTime until you fall asleep.

in the generosity of your grandmother, the thoughtfulness of your sister, the laughter of your brother, the warmth of your mother, the wisdom of your father...

in the shining lights which dance through the night, mirroring His arrival, illuminating the darkness and declaring hope

i am learning to see it

i am choosing to see it

Emmanuel. God with us. 

God is with us. 

We only have to look. 

{'Godly' womanhood in a nutshell...as per Debi Pearl and such}

Dear Girl, 

Whether you're newly married, single, or have been married for years, I just know that the tactics in this book will prove invaluable to you in your journey of placating the male gender in order to secure your own lasting happiness which can only be found when you are fulfilling your submissive role. 

Firstly, you must know that there are two types of woman: the Proverbs 31/Titus 2 woman, and, well, the Bathshebas and Jezebels of the world. Make sure you're the former. This entails staying at home, striving to be feminine and dainty and modest and saintly. You must sexy only for your husband, yet worthy of a pedestal to the rest of the world. If you are the latter, or any less than the former, then God will be furious with you for tempting his menfolk to sin. 

The fundamental thing you must learn is that men are always superior. always. unequivocally. without exception. God made it that way for your own good. You're a silly, weak, emotional creature who needs to be kept in line by a man, and therefore God made men. Depending on your status, this could be your father, brothers, husband, or, well, any other man really. Men > women. always. this is why women are not supposed to work. or preach. or teach. or get a job outside the house. because if they do, then they are usurping the man's role as always superior. 

Secondly, submission means that you do not question, do not disagree, do not argue with anything that the man says. If your father says something, your husband says something, then you render joyful unquestioning obedience. It matters not how unreasonable or irritable he may be.  The more you bow down before him, reverence him, and give him unlimited power over your life, the more he will be inclined to be magnanimous, and the more he will love and cherish you. (I dare you to ask the slaves how that worked for them)

Remember that there is no such thing as abuse, when it comes from a 'Christian' man. If it appears to you, weak woman that you are, that he is being abusive, just remember that you do not know everything; and what seems like abuse to you might really be ordained by God for your own good... or something that God told the man... or a decision which he made for your ultimate good... or because you did something wrong... so just pray that God will help you to submit and do whatever he tells you. After all, the reason that you feel like you are being abused is because you are really just mad that you cannot dictate his actions to him. remember your place. 

Thirdly, you must respect him. he doesn't want or need your love. he needs your respect. This means that under no circumstances must you damage his poor frail male ego. Even the slightest hint of doubt will be enough to cripple a man for life. Do not tell him anything that is wrong with him. Do not ask him to change. Do not dare criticize him. It is simply pride that makes you feel like you are in a position to preach to *the man*. Sit down and shut your mouth. 

Modesty is paramount. Men are simply incapable of controlling themselves, to the point where even the mere shape of the female form will lead them into unspeakable sins. If you are an unmarried woman, then you are singlehandedly responsible for all men around you. If any guy finds you attractive, then you are guilty of seduction on par with the sin of Bathsheba, and consequently responsible for making the stronger vessels fall. Of course, the only place where modesty ceases to matter is if you are married and alone with your husband. Then, it is your bounden duty to be sexy and make him want you so that he doesn't cheat on you because you have failed in your duty as a wife. 

If you are unmarried and in a relationship, then you must hold sex over his head as the ultimate reward for marrying you. You can't possibly expect him to be willing to put up with all your female mood swings and high maintenance selves. Guys don't want that. God didn't create them to want that, or even be able to understand your emotionality. Guys only want one thing. That one thing is sex. Girls want love and security and safety and a family, but all the guy really needs is for you to agree with him in everything and give him lots of sex. 

That's why you aren't supposed to give him sex before he marries you. Because all he really wants from you is sex, so if you give it to him before you get a wedding ring, then he will leave you. Who wants the cow if you can get the milk for free? Before he marries you, you ought to be the paragon of female angelic purity. You're a girl, therefore can't understand his sex drive. Just understand that that's the way all men are. Girls want love, guys want sex. 

However, once he marries you, then sex is what will keep him married to you. Sex and submission. Become his personal slut. Act out all his sexual fantasies. Whether you like it or not is really of no consequence. It isn't for your pleasure, nor is it supposed to be. As per the revered Doug Wilson, "the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts".  You should just be happy that you've pleased him. Unless, of course, it's anal sex because that's what homosexuals do. (yes, this was actual advice. I'm not making this up). 

Don't have female friends because that could lead to homosexuality. Don't have male friends because they might hug you and you will thereby cause them to fall. Your husband might also feel threatened by the fact that you care about someone other than him. Your husband should be all in all to you - best friend, lover, prophet, priest....after all, you honor God by obeying your husband. If he cheats on you, it is your fault for not having enough sex with him. If his eyes wander, it is your fault for not being sexy enough. 

Finally, nothing is free. You earn love. You earn God's love through your implicit obedience to your husband, and you earn your husband's love as well. You must admire and respect and adore and worship him for who he is, without even daring to whisper a hint of changing him - but God forbid you be arrogant enough to expect him to love you for who you are! You earn and keep your husband's love through ample sex, maintaining your youthful figure, wearing makeup (or..not..depending on what he likes), being beautiful, being a sex goddess in private and a perfect homemaker christian wife in public, making him the envy of all his male friends, making him look good in front of the church, deferring to him in absolutely everything, and in all other ways serving him as his housemaid/whore/slave/worshipper all rolled into one. 

If you do all this, then you will be fulfilling your sole and chief purpose as a woman. For the married woman, by following these principles, you will honor God and honor your husband, and you will find fulfillment beyond your wildest dreams. God will be pleased with you, your husband will love you, and your kids will rise up and call you blessed and want a marriage just like the one that you have. If you are single, or still unmarried, then you can practice these principles of submission and respect on your father and your brothers while you wait for a young man to approach your father for your hand in marriage. 

And anyone who disagrees is a lesbian feminist who has forsaken her God-given place, thereby bringing disgrace upon her gender, and God's curse upon society. 

{All You've Ever Wanted}

someone downstairs this early in the morning had turned the radio to full volume, stirring me from a deep sleep as I  rolled sleepily out from under my warm comforter, shivering, pulling a sweatshirt over my head...

.....only to suddenly stop dead in my tracks 

after all, what are the odds that the music floating up the staircase was the precise song I had found myself falling asleep to last night, after the frenetic sobs had subsided. 

"All You've ever wanted, all You've ever wanted, all You've ever wanted was my heart...
freedom's arms are open. my chains have all been broken. 
relentless love has called me from the start....
all You wanted was my heart" 

burying my forehead in my palms, I sat down heavily on the edge of my bed, letting the lyrics wash over me once more, still groggy from lack of sleep last night. 

I hadn't fallen asleep until well past 1 in the morning, coming face to face with my crying inability to accept a love freely offered, without feeling as though I need to somehow earn it. and looking back over my life, I shouldn't find it surprising that I have come away with the messages 'try harder/be better/do more if you would be worthy of love'. 

when it came to my parents, I considered the score even. I obey, and they love me. I disobey or displease them and I deserve punishment, and must atone for my misdeeds. Do good and they will love me. Otherwise, they won't. Don't be a burden, but support them when they need emotional support. Do housework, be a good student, earn their approval and affirmation. 

when it came to my friends, I help them when they are down. they help me when i am down. it is my responsibility to be a kind, considerate friend, to not over-tax them, to not burden them with my problems unduly, and to support them. Therefore i earn their love and care. 

when it came to mentors, I earn their approval through doing what they say is right. quit cutting. recover from my eating disorder. stop doing things that they say are wrong, and if i comply with all their expectations, then i will be able to be worthy of their time, effort, investment, and love. 

when it came to relationships, the formula was simple. Acquiesce. Submit. Do what they want, make them look good, lose weight and be perfect and meek and quiet and let them have whatever they want, and if you do all that, then you will ensure that he always loves you. otherwise it is your fault, your responsibility, if he stops loving you, and your job to earn it back. 

...and when it came to God? do all the right things, check all the boxes, live in constant fear of messing up, apologize for the very breath I take, punish myself when I feel I have let Him down or displeased Him, offer Him whatever He wants.... I am still trying to earn His love, because I cannot believe that it is possible for Him to love me. 

i cannot conceive of a love which would love me even when I do not love myself. I cannot wrap my mind around being wanted despite the fact that I mess up, am messed up, hurt people and will continue to do so in spite of my best efforts not to. 

and if you claim you love me? there must be something I am doing/have done/can do to earn it. something physical, material, substantial. something i can point to and say 'this makes me worthy', because I know I am not.  

but the song which has haunted me since last night's meltdown, begging him, begging Him to please let me earn their love only to be met with 'all I've ever wanted is your heart', smacks me again this morning, crying that 'freedom's arms are open...your chains have all been broken...relentless love has called, is calling you..and it doesn't want you to try harder, jump through more hoops, perform better, or make yourself perfect. all it wants, all it longs for, is your heart. who you are. just you' 

hashing it out with a friend later today, i confess that there is nothing which makes me angrier or more frustrated than that thought. I sense, rather than see, her smile. 

"In your mind you drastically fall short of being worthy of the love that's being given to you. and it frustrates you to no end because you cannot see what others see in you. you can't understand when looking at you, why they choose to love you."

she is uncannily accurate. if I can only halfway like me when I do all the things that i think are right, and make me look clean on the outside, then why in the world would anyone want my messy, mismatched, bloody, broken, holey heart? 

and I am sitting here, half in tears, typing, when the five year old brother breaks into my thoughts, holding out a 'scepter' staff, the other half of the curtain rod, as tall as he is. 

"touch it! touch it!" he cries gleefully. I comply, half smiling at his newest game. 

"now you have to give me something!" he announces. "like candy..or something..or whatever you have". 

my hand blindly reaches over, eyes still on his face, seizing on the first thing from my desk that it touches.

a small heart, shaped from plastic iron-on-beads, and without thinking I hold it out. 

"I have a heart?" 

His face breaks into a boyish grin. "Thank you!" and grabbing it in his free hand, he bestows a parting smile on me before skipping off. 

and God laughs, and pats me on the head. 

and i sigh, running fingers through my hair in bewildered frustration.  

what if what He really wants isn't what I do. what if what He wants is who I am? 

my heart? 

your heart?

no matter how busted or bruised or beat up or...plastic?...it is. 

what if when He looks at it, He sees beauty? 

because if we are His tapestry, His work of art, then all we would see from the inside is the wrong side of the work. the loose ends. the brokenness. the tangled string splashed across a canvas in a meaningless mess.  

but what if when He looks at us, He sees the right side. He sees the weaving as it is, but also as He is shaping it to be, and He sees the glory of the finished work when all I can see is the struggle and all I can wonder is why, why He would ever choose me. He sees the pattern He is working through the pain, and if the holy God of the universe knows all my sins and still wants me as I am, then dare I say no? 

dare I "turn away with a smile on my face, with this sin in my heart try to bury your grace" only to "alone in the night still call out for You, so ashamed of my life" my life, my one and given life which I cannot seem to throw away no matter how hard I try? 

what if there is nothing I can do to earn it? what if, like grace, love is free? freely given and freely received in gratitude to the Giver? 

what if...what if I am simply allowed to...be? to rest? to accept the love that is mine instead of endlessly chasing the things I think will make me worthy of it? 

what if all He's ever wanted is my heart...and He loves me anyways, just as I am? 

what if it's past time I stopped running and hiding and deflecting with do more/be more/try harder? 

what if i just..said...yes?

Oh and what on earth

"but what does that mean practically?!" I half-wailed aloud at 10pm last night before slamming my forehead into my mattress in frustrated confusion. 

the question at hand was a result of my insistence that my boyfriend and I, as I put it, 're-evaluate boundaries', and, consequently, I found myself both miserable and stumped.

not that we didn't already have boundaries - some of them set by my parents, and some set by us - but they were much more general than I had been taught they ought to be, and therefore it seemed the right thing to, as i put it mentally, 'lay down some real concrete boundaries'. 

so I, in complete earnest, wanted to know "what NOT to do". Give me a list, tell me exactly what is and isn't allowed, and I'll be good. right? 

His response wasn't quite what I'd expected. Apart from pointing out a few things we both had just assumed were a given... "Yield to God, and trust Him...if we want this to be of God, then we let His Spirit and Word guide. Not man-made rules of how we 'ought' to be"....

...which resulted in my aforementioned reaction, and this morning, reading my devotional, I realized just what was wrong. 

see, it wasn't that we didn't have boundaries. we do. 

it wasn't even that we weren't abiding by aforementioned boundaries. we are. 

the real issues, I'm realizing, is that I want my old trusty relationship rules. 

(my sister gave me the epitome in loving sister looks - the one that screamed, "You're being an idiot and you know it and i know it so snap out of it" - when I asked for the legalistic relationship books last month) 

but, I still want a spelled-out list of what to do and what not to do. 

i want the ten commandments of us. 

things like

"you must sit at least six inches apart at all times" 

or 

"all hugs other than side hugs are prohibited" 

and 

"don't ever get into a car alone with him". 

because if you give me a cache of commandments, a list of rules, then... the rules are responsible. not us. the rules will do all the work, and the rules are...quite frankly... easier. 

It is much easier to adhere to a list of man-made rules and regulations, as opposed to walking with God, and trusting Him to live through me as I seek Him. 

because the rules don't require you to grow in grace, or walk with Christ. they don't necessitate a real relationship, and they definitely don't teach self control. which is part of why I say that they are easier. 

it's so much easier to, for instance, say that we won't hug other than side hugs...or never hold hands...or never be alone with the other person unless you're married...as opposed to actually practicing patience and discipline and prudence and self control and all those things which are thoroughly impossible in our own strength. 

see, a legalistic approach to purity, I'm coming to realize, completely operates without God. it operates without the power of the Holy Spirit, and relies on pure human willpower. Hence the rules. because if I am perfectly honest, I have found myself focusing more on 'whether or not I'm being wrong by the purity rules' as opposed to 'whether or not what I am saying, doing, or thinking is glorifying to God'. I've been so caught between 'I really like him' and 'oh my gosh, what if i mess this up!?' that I've completely taken my eyes off of Christ. i want to lose weight so i can be good for him. i want to make this perfect. i want to make my parents happy. i want to make him happy. i want him and I am afraid of my own desires and wants, and somehow between the past few weeks' stress and forgetting to eat, I haven't focused on Christ at all. 

but and i wonder what would happen if, instead of being so fixated on purity..the do's and the don'ts and micromanaging...I focused on Christ. I focused on His love for me, and how I could best glorify Him in each and every situation I find myself in. 

and this morning's devotional from 2 Corinthians, "beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit"...okay...but how? 

"perfecting holiness in the fear of God"

If I focus on the fear of going wrong, or the fear of being impure and making my boyfriend fall, or the fear of him not loving me anymore, then my focus is in the wrong place. My focus should be on God. to fear Him and love Him and serve Him and glorify Him and glory in Him. 

and out of that focus, flows purity... and self control... and freedom. 

and I don't know about you, but I would far rather find my purity flowing from a celebration of the freedom from the shame-chains of the past that has been granted me through Christ, rather than one which stems from fear based legalistic behavior management. 

wouldn't you? 

so I guess that leaves me right back where I started at the beginning of the year... a phrase which is becoming somewhat of a motto for me 

'run as hard and as fast as you can towards Christ.. and everything else will fall into place'

indeed

An Open Letter to Anyone Still Voting for Trump

Dear Voter, 

By now the news has likely reached you - as it has us all - of the latest expose on Donald Trump's true views on women, from his own lips no less. 

We have seen it splashed on front page news that the GOP Presidential Nominee is not only guilty of (at least) two cases of rape including underage girls, numerous horrifically discriminatory comments towards women and those of other races, and a complete and utter disregard of all basic rules of common decency and decorum. 

But the recent release of the 2005 tape seems to be the breaking point for many Republicans - where we stand up and declare that we cannot support him, even as 'the lesser of the two evils' or an alternative to Hillary's corruption. 

The callous disdain he shows for the most fundamental principles of propriety should send anyone in their right mind running; but, to my horror, there seems to be a growing number actually defending him, and still set on voting for him next month. 

to make comments such as "all guys talk like that", or "all men think that/ all men have dirty minds", or "those women were asking for it"... as if that excuses his reprehensible behavior... blows my mind. It's been said before, but bears repeating, that he wasn't a (relatively) clueless 14 year old. He was 60.... and a pervert. 

However, if you persist in voting for him.. there are a few things I'd like you to know. 

First, if you vote for him, then you are agreeing with a mentality and mindset which says that all men are no better than perverted maniacal sex-crazed lustful beasts, incapable of controlling themselves, and  that women are not worth the basic respect and dignity due them as human beings created in the image of God. 

there is an entire subset in the Republican Party, the homeschooling community, the 'Christian Right', which pays lip service to the concept of womanhood as sacred, and yet, in practice, disregards that entirely - those who defended the acts of men like Josh Duggar and Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips and Bill Cosby and others. 

Don't believe me? Look up Tony Perkins. James Dobson. Sarah Palin. David Barton... 

what's even scarier is that the exact same phrases we are hearing now in an attempt to excuse Trump's comments...? we've heard them before - when the abuse and molestation perpetrated by Gothard, Duggar, and others came to light. 

"no one's perfect!" "we all sin!" "get over it!" "that was years ago!" "women ask for it by their dress, and then get mad when men take them up on their shameless sexual invitation!" "it's just a liberal media tactic to tarnish him!" "it wasn't really that bad!" 

but just because no one's perfect doesn't mean that there isn't a difference between someone who is genuinely upright (or striving to be), and someone who gloats about their misdeeds. Just because we all sin doesn't mean that heinous crimes are excusable. just because it was years ago doesn't mean that we've seen any change in his attitudes towards women (ask Megyn Kelly! or Heidi Cruz! or Marie Brenner! or his wife Ivana! or Alicia Machado!). He has a history of treating women as less than animals, and nothing appears to have changed, judging from his more recent comments. 

Just because others may have done worse doesn't excuse what he's done. wrong is wrong is wrong, regardless. two wrongs don't make a right, and the fact that Hillary is thoroughly corrupt doesn't negate Donald's wrongs. 

Secondly, if you vote for Donald Trump, you are proclaiming to the world that this man represents you. He represents America, and he represents everything that you stand for. 

Are you willing to tell the world that you stand for shameless sexual assault, discrimination, racism, egotism, narcissism, and a mindset which considers it completely acceptable and even necessary to "treat women like shit"?  Are you willing to cast in your lot with a lewd bombastic windbag who is incapable of keeping his word, and notoriously flip flops on issues of policy, and send him around the globe to represent your best interests? 

As a friend pointed out...can you look your girlfriend, your mother, your sisters, your grandmother, your female friends in the eye, read them Trump's comments on women, and then conscientiously tell them that you're voting for him?

Can you look your Hispanic friends in the eye, read them Trump's comments on Mexicans and immigrants, and then conscientiously tell them that you're voting for him? can you look your father, your brothers, your boyfriend, your guy friends in the eye and tell them that all men are no better than Trump and are lustful monsters with no regard for basic human dignity?

and i dare you to look a sexual abuse survivor in the eye and tell them you're voting Trump

are you willing to declare that you are incapable of telling the difference between 'normal' sexual conversation and a glorification of assault and abuse? after all, there's a heck of a lot of difference between commenting on someone you think is attractive, and bragging about grabbing a woman's privates and sexually assaulting her. for the record, kissing, intimately touching, or grabbing someone without their consent is considered sexual assault. which, incidentally, is kind of a big deal - let alone the cringe-worthy rape allegations. 

to a young woman of color, the prospect of a Trump presidency is nothing short of terrifying on every possible level. He encapsulates the sort of man that women instinctively steer clear of unless absolutely unavoidable. He's the one at family parties who gets drunk and brags about his sexual exploits, the one who hates your boyfriend because you're 'corrupting' the family gene pool by dating someone who isn't from the same race as you.

He's the one who chases you down on the street and becomes angry offended when you ignore his sexual advances. He's the one you can't pull a taser or pepper spray on, for fear of more than your own life. He's the one who'd walk into a room and demand coffee with a slap on your ass, who doesn't believe marital rape exists, and considers himself so irresistible that it is actually inconceivable to him that a woman would turn him down. 

Finally, if after all that, you still think that voting for Donald Trump is a good idea...

well then I sincerely hope that no one ever rapes you. 

i sincerely hope you never experience the powerlessness of being unable to fight back, or the crippling shame and humiliation of being reduced to nothing more than an object for the personal sexual pleasure of a man several years your senior. i hope you never stand under scorching water, tears running down your cheeks, as though the shower could scald the words "fat bitch cunt whore" from your memory and burn his touch from your skin. 

i hope molestation and sexual assault are nothing you ever encounter; because if you do, then you will suddenly see why the excuses made for his behavior cannot even come close to making expiation for it, and why all the words in the world cannot make recompense for the heinousness of his actions. and if, perchance, you love someone touched by sexual assault of any form, then you will realize why good men and women across the country are finding themselves incapable of supporting a candidate who laughs about actions which are so incredibly lastingly damaging to the victims of his lust. 

forgive someone guilty of sexual assault? yes. it's hard, but yes.

elect him president? absolutely not. 

because, see, contrary to what Trump apologists would like you to believe, there are actually men who have not raped women. there are actually men who have never assaulted someone, or forced their advances upon an unwilling victim. there are actually men (yes, even men in politics) who are upright. 

those are men worthy of the highest office in the land.

not men like Trump.

never men like Trump. 

{an open letter to Josh Harris}

Hi. 

You don't know me, but I'm one of those kids.

y'know...the ones who entered adolescence with your book as gospel? the ones who are now adults trying to navigate this whole healthy relationships thing?

See, our parents had the Bible. Our parents had each other. but we had I Kissed Dating Goodbye. It was our relationship Bible. Instead of searching the Scriptures, we were given your book; and somewhere between the purity balls and the purity rings and the long lists of qualities we wanted in our future spouses and the chastity pledges and the modesty vows and the abstinence covenants and the entire 'courtship' culture whose interpretation of your book became the latest Christian mark-of-holiness, we never learned how to have real relationships with the opposite gender. 

Instead of teaching us how to relate to romantic relationships in a healthy Biblical way (without reading into the text and imposing your own interpretation on it!), we learned that romantic attachment is something to be avoided at all cost. We learned that our hearts are evil, all our desires sinful, and all feelings before marriage are nothing but stumbling blocks in the path to righteousness. 

We learned that we have only so much love to give, and that if we have feelings for anyone besides the person we marry, then we will end up having no love left for our future spouse - as if there is a limit on love! Did no one teach you, as a young man, the truth that while human love is limited, God's love is limitless? and if He lives in us, then we are given His love to love others with. 

We learned that there is an impossible standard for both men and women to live up to - women if they would be worthy of a man's love, and men if they want so much as a chance with her father. And while there was a tiny chapter on grace, that was not the overwhelming message we came away with. We came away with 'try harder..be better..follow these rules..and you will have a godly marriage. otherwise, you are doomed to disaster and heartbreak'. But, oh, heartbreak will come regardless. There are absolutely no guarantees in life, but we broke our own hearts over your book when the first person we found ourselves in a relationship with, we didn't marry. 

We learned that unless we are willing to commit to potential marriage with a stranger, we have no plausible reason to get to know them. We learned that dating was to relationships what public schooling was to education, so anything which could be construed as the beginning of even 'the appearance of evil' was sin. We learned to never take risks or step out in faith -that unless both parties were irretrievably bound to each other by parents, that unless it was perfectly safe with no chance of heartbreak, we ought not to care except in a remote detached fashion. 

Because of your book's message, and the way it was interpreted by the purity culture, I spent years trying to live up to an impossible standard of purity, terrified of so much as talking to a guy because 'oh gosh what if i make him fall?' and now there is a man i love who loves me and he still cannot hug me in public because it has been so deeply ingrained into his psyche, thanks to your book, that he is doing something wrong by touching me, even in the most innocent way. 

After the first shocking analogy which you opened Chapter 1 with, I and countless others, found ourselves unable to believe that we were worth more than damaged goods because 'oh God, we gave away pieces of our hearts before we were married' What your book advocates isn't purity so much as unemotionality - locking your heart away in order to prevent heartbreak, and an inability to have a deep connection (whether in friendship or otherwise) with someone of the opposite gender. 

And you cannot live your life sheltered in a glass bubble. 

there is no formula for preventing heartbreak.

just because we may have loved someone in the past doesn't mean we cannot love again. the biggest obstacle to love isn't having loved before. it's being taught that love is wrong - that love is purely a choice of the will and any emotions involved are sinful. 

We learned to be terrified of physical contact. We learned that attraction is inconsequential and sexual compatibility doesn't exist. We were never actually given a sexual education beyond 'don't do it'. We learned to automatically sexualize any physical contact, and consequently never learned self control or reliance on God. We learned that unless we were stronger than Samson or holier than David, then we had no choice but to fall to sexual temptation, but what on earth happened to the fact that He who created them - He who is mightier than all - lives inside of us? and if it is no longer I who live but He, then He will give me the strength to walk in holiness.

And while the suffering we went through grieves me, the popularity and appeal of your book is not too surprising. after all, it is easier to adhere to a man-made set of rules. It's easier to put all relationships into one little box and say 'this is the only way you're allowed to do it', and fail to recognize the difference between cultural norms during Biblical times and what God actually prescribes for Christian living. 

So I don't blame you, honestly. I blame those older and wiser than you who should have known better. I blame those who created an entire culture around your book, where that was the only 'Christian' way to conduct relationships, and all other forms were sinful. I blame whoever abused you as a child and shamed you for it, and my heart breaks for the fact that you were just as much a victim of all the scripture-twisting of this particular brand of so-called Christianity as any of us. You just happened to have a bigger platform, so your words had more impact.

But for the love of God, it is past time to throw that book away. And i speak for so many of us when I say that we were sold a bill of lies, starting with your book and down through countless others, which promised a problem-free, heartbreak-free life, if we would just adhere to a set of rules. But, you see, life is not a mathematical equation; and if our hearts never broke, how would the light reach us? Sometimes relationships will fail, despite our best efforts, despite doing everything 'right'. You can't protect us. Our parents can't. Because life is not meant to be hidden from. Life is meant to be lived, in all its glory and beauty and pain and heartbreak. 

We were created by God to live and to love and to reflect Him in all that we do and think and feel and love. And...Jesus didn't have a pain and heartbreak-free life. He loved and He cried and He laughed.

And I firmly believe that your heart was (and is) in the right place, that you never meant the harm the book unwittingly caused, that the secular culture of cheap sex is wrong, and we ought to focus on following God more than chasing a mate. But the alternative to cheap sex isn't running away from love or vulnerability or emotion, and I think you know that now. I hope you do. 

After all, as C. S. Lewis pointed out, "to love at all is to be vulnerable. love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. to love at all is to be vulnerable" 

and of all the commandments Christ could have emphasized, when asked what the most important one was....his answer? "love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor". 

"Love as I have loved you"

Love. 

Love and feel and live every moment fully attuned to the Spirit of God and the breadth of the range of human emotion which we are gifted to feel. 

So I pray we find healing, we who grew up on your words.

I pray you are in health.

And I pray that the next generation will tell stories of the man who wrote a book on courtship which inadvertently hurt so many, but then recognized his errors, and became a champion of true Godly relationships, and I pray they admire you as much as we once did - only for far better reasons. 

With love, 

Tirzah 

when purity culture wounds men too

There's been a lot of talk regarding the damage done to women by the strict purity culture found in some circles of conservative Christianity. And while I would be the first person to passionately remind people that the problems caused by the purity culture don't just disappear because you no longer believe them, and that women seem to bear the brunt of responsibility for purity....sometimes I think we fail to remember that the guilt, shame, and fear of that movement also hurts guys.

While the majority of the purity culture literature seems to be marketed towards women, there is still a good percentage of it addressed to young men. And, being the abnormality of a girl that I am, I read the ones written for girls..and the ones written for guys.

Now, the books written for girls seem to focus primarily on emotional purity - guarding your heart, making sure you don't 'fall in love' with a guy and give away supposedly irretrievable pieces of your heart to someone you will not ultimately wind up with - and 'tips' for dressing and conducting one's self in such a manner where it is impossible for a man to be attracted to you, (yet somehow you are also supposed to attract a good Godly man by your loyalty and devotion to your father. go figure).

The books for guys, on the other hand, were wracked with the fear of repeating 'David's mistake' - brought low by a woman who failed to protect her modesty - and therefore focused on the fear of women as dangerous objects with the ability to ruin a man forever, and the fear of their own selves. 

Now I used to think that it was just women who were victims of the purity culture, but the more I've read and the more I've seen, the more I realize how much it damages men as well. Let me explain.

For one, purity culture teaches men that their desires are inherently uncontrollable, evil, and sinful. Don't even get me started on the fact that there is nothing inherently wrong with being attracted to someone. There isn't even anything wrong with being aroused. You can't control who you're attracted to, and you can't really control whether or not you're turned on. Lust is what is sinful, when you dehumanize another person in your mind and allow your fantasies to run wild. That's something completely different than even wanting to have sex with someone.

It teaches men to be terrified of attraction, since there are no clear lines drawn between attraction and lust - they are too often treated as the same thing - and therefore doesn't actually teach them how to deal with it - to go to God for forgiveness if they sin - but rather to remain trapped in cycles of shame and condemnation. (Seriously, stop shaming guys for things they have no control over..but that's a whole nother blog post rant!).

Additionally, by placing the entire emphasis on women's bodies, it teaches men to see women as nothing but bodies. By teaching men that women deliberately dress immodestly in order to trap them, and focusing on their physical attributes, it teaches men to evaluate women in terms of how much clothing they have on their frame - instead of seeing them as human beings, worthy of respect regardless.

Instead of seeing them as people... girls are viewed as either a potential future spouse, or a danger and temptation. (now, in all fairness, this one goes both ways where girls also need to learn that *gasp* guys are people too and don't fall into one of two categories: a. he just wants to get into my pants or b. future husband material).

Purity culture also sets an impossible standard for a man to reach if he is to be 'worthy' of the girl he wants to date/marry. Books such as 'What He Must Be If He Wants to Marry My Daughter', and others, set ridiculously high hoops for any prospective suitor to jump through, if he even wants a chance with the girl's father.  

That's an incredible amount of pressure to put on a young man, and I have seen it work several ways, where either a. the girl ends up marrying an abusive man who is able to put on a very good show in front of her father, or, b. the girl doesn't end up married because no guy can possibly pass all of Dad's expectations and the poor guy eventually gives up altogether because the constant rejection crushes him, or, c. the father initially approves, only to disapprove the moment he discovers that the guy isn't perfect. 

Now, granted this doesn't mean that i think girls should date scumballs, but on the other hand, there is no perfect man (or woman, for that matter!) and whatever happened to giving grace to the one who is genuinely striving to follow the will of God?

Oh, and, my pet rant on this topic: purity culture (and the majority of the modesty movement, too) basically reduces men to the level of animals with absolutely no control over whether or not the act on their sexual desires. The logic goes somewhat like this:

a. Men are more visually oriented than women/have stronger sex drives. Their minds are 'mental rolodex's' of sexual images. they think about sex 24/7 and naught else (thank you, Shaunti Feldhan)

b. If a woman dresses or behaves 'provocatively' (attractively), then a man will lust after her, because, of course, his mind was already on the topic of sex - where it is all the time (*cough* Nancy Leigh DeMoss *cough*) 

c. If he lusts after her, then he will be sinning greatly. Since women have just that much power over these poor innocent men, then the guy will inevitably be unable to restrain himself from having sex with her because the temptation was just that great. (candle and gunpowder... girls are candles, guys are gunpowder..you get the drift)

d. Now, the guy is no longer pure. the girl knew what she was doing all along (or, at best, was naive enough to not realize the effect her mere physical form existing in public, whether fully clothed or not!, had on him), and we have a disaster on our hands. 

I'm sorry, but I beg to disagree.

This doesn't further healthy relationships, friendships, or otherwise. All it does is teach men to fear women, and, even, despise and loathe them (along with despising and loathing themselves for failing to be 'stronger').

See, if you are taught that attraction and arousal are both sinful, then if someone sparks either/or, that person will automatically be associated with your 'sin'. So, in addition to self-loathing and self-hatred for failing to live up to an impossible standard, the guy projects those feelings onto the woman as well, learning to hate and fear her.

It also conditions men to see non-sexual body parts as sexual (eg. shoulders!). It sexualizes the female form to the point where there is literally no safe place for a man to look.

and finally... while i could go on about this for quite a while... the biggest problem with what the purity culture teaches men is the way it instills in them a sense of shame and unworthiness, a certainty of damaged goods akin to what is instilled in girls, and completely overlooks, disregards, and trivializes the concept of grace.

God's grace.. grace that is greater and bigger and wider and deeper than any sin or shame or scars or screw-ups. Grace that says 'neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more', grace liberally bestowed upon us by God that says that your past does not define you and that perfect love casts out fear and there is no fear in love and there is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus.

See, that's the biggest thing they miss - they always miss - when purity becomes fear based shame laden behavior modification.

They miss grace. 

And without grace, there is no Gospel, and without the Gospel there is no Christ and without Christ there can never pursue true purity no matter how hard we try. 

so what if, instead of policing people's behavior and concocting extra-biblical reasons to shame them - which only furthers fear and loathing - we focused on the grace that is greater than it all? 

may we always remember that grace is greater...and extend that same grace to others

(....and for heaven's sake, ditch the guilt-trippy books!)

{an open letter to the friends that saved my life}

Thank you.

i know i don't say it near often enough, but thank you.

thank you for seeing hope when all I saw was darkness, for being able to look past these messy shards of a girl and see all the beauty that could be.

thank you for never giving up on me, even when i couldn't remember what it felt like not to have given up on myself.

thank you for having the courage to reach over and piece together the fractured shreds of my past, dipping into the darkness i had deliberately hidden for all those years.

thank you for not running in terror at the demons which were exposed, demons grown diseased distorted, raring for a fight - rather, you grabbed my hand and marched right into the middle of my war, refusing to let me back out.

thank you for all the late nights, and the times you've lost sleep because of me. also, the hours you've spent on the phone with me, whether talking me down or simply distracting my overactive mind.

thank you for making me eat. thank you for making me sleep. thank you for being practical as well as an idealist, never shaming me for my slow recovery but rather encouraging, supporting, uplifting, consistently speaking truth to me even when I refused to listen to your words.

thank you for the time you begged me to eat because 'this is killing me'. you will never know how many times that memory saved me. thank you for the times you told me you were terrified for me. those words worked their way past my defenses. they broke my heart. they changed my ways.

thank you for the hours of advice, entire days and weeks spent rehashing the same issues over and over again, because your 'little one' will apparently never learn. thank you for insisting that with you I didn't have to be strong. I was allowed to be vulnerable, to break without fear of being judged.

thank you for the times you didn't trust me to tell the truth, and talked to me till 4am in the morning, night after endless night, because 'i'm fine' always meant i was anything but. thank you for your stubborn persistence, all the times I demanded that you leave and you refused to walk away.

thank you for your purity. thank you for being so upright that at times i half-hated you for it, but i cannot count the number of times that i was stopped in my tracks by the thought that if you knew what i was about to do you would not be proud of me.

thank you for being my strong and steady for so long, my rock. thank you for letting me lean on you when i could not find the light, and showing me who i was through your eyes even when i didn't believe you.

thank you for putting up with all my moodiness, my doubts, my fears, my questions, my insecurities, my paranoia, my pain. you never held any of it against me, and i am still in awe of your ability to forgive the vicious anger and hurt which was unleashed upon you.

thank you for never letting me settle. thank you for your anger towards those who had wounded me, your passionate insistence that there was more to life than the abuse that i had grown familiar with.

thank you for all the times i scared you; the nights you called me or made me call you because i was too drunk or drugged to type straight, and you didn't know if i would survive till morning.

thank you for your truthfulness. for never promising that we would 'always be friends' or you 'would never hurt me'. i had heard those lines too many times from the mouths of those who left first.

thank you for all the times you could have quite justifiably walked out, because i repeatedly treated you like trash despite everything you'd done for me, but you didn't leave. you stayed. you forgave. you showed a jaded heart what faithfulness and Christlikeness looked like, practically, consistently lived out.

thank you for understanding and never losing patience with me when i demanded that you prove yourself over and over again, or slung thoughtless accusations at you, maligning your character, mistrusting your heart.

thank you for the moments of laughter, the teasing comments, the times you told me i was ridiculous when it came to my looks, and the way you could make me smile even with tears streaming down my face.

thank you for making me say the hard things. for letting me ask 'why?' and also asking it of me. there were times when i dreaded discussing things with you, because i knew i couldn't lie to you. you would dig until you found the truth, and i thank you for that.

thank you for knowing what was best for me even when i could not see past the Jericho-walls i had built for myself. thank you for taking a sledgehammer to those walls and rebuilding them with windows to let the light in.

but most of all, thank you for your love and your care and your faith and your hope and the way you always pointed me back to Jesus as the ultimate healer of my soul. you always reminded me that i am loved because He loves me. i am worthy because He deems me as such.

thank you for years of prayers, of songs, of bible verses, of 'don't you dare give up'. thank you for unconditionally loving me, for showing me what real love looks like - true love - the kind that saves and heals and holds on until the loved one is whole again.

thank you because i am alive today to write this letter to tell you that you were right after all. you were right about everything. there is hope. there is more to life than pain. there are people who love me, and a God whom i am infinitely loved by.

and for all that and so much more,

thank you.

thank you.

thank you.

{when faith and antidepressants aren't always polar opposites}

"You just want to believe in chemical imbalance so you don't have to take responsibility for your depression...You don't need medication. It's a cop-out so you don't have to have faith."   

I sank to the edge of my bed in disbelief, feeling the breath rush from my lungs, as those words lit up the screen of my phone. 

Having been brought up in a family which had always attributed mental illness to spiritual causes, it took nothing short of my hospitalization due to a suicide attempt for my parents to reluctantly allow their 16 year old daughter to be prescribed antidepressants. 

Their resistance largely stemmed from a deeply held belief in certain Christian circles that mental illness is spiritual in nature; and therefore, all it takes is enough prayer, Bible reading, faith, and trust in God in order for you to be 'all better'.  

Unfortunately, this isn't always limited to just mental illness. I know plenty of people who don't believe in pharmaceutical medication at all, for anything, choosing rather to rely on positive affirmations, 'claiming God's promises', and homeopathic remedies.

The difference, though, is that abstaining from medication for physical ailments (such as the pain from a broken leg, etc) is looked upon skeptically. While refusal to take medicine for mental illness, on the other hand, and instead claiming that it is all spiritual and can be cured spiritually, is still very much the general Christian reaction. 

I cannot count the number of times I've been told I ought to "just have faith, claim God's promises, oh and have you tried Bible memorization?" 

"Depression is a result of unconfessed sin in your life / dabbling in the occult, and if you simply trusted God more you wouldn't have anxiety or panic attacks!" 

But there are several flaws in this thinking. First, it presupposes that God will never allow us to experience things which are not conventionally viewed as 'health'. However, Paul and his thorn in the flesh could tell you otherwise. Sometimes God doesn't 'heal' in the way we want Him to, because He wants us to grow closer to Him, or to help others through the way we handle our hardships. 

Additionally, there may very well be a spiritual component when someone struggles with depression or anxiety. Not all depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. Not all anxiety is misfiring brain chemicals. On the other hand, it's really not our place to determine whether someone's mental illness is spiritual or not.

In one of my favorite analogies ever....if someone is drowning, you don't yell at them that they need to learn how to swim. You throw them a life preserver. Might they need to learn how to swim? Possibly. Or possibly they are a world-class swimmer who has happened to get caught in the undertow. If you're standing there watching them drown, it is not your place to determine whether or not they need to learn how to swim. It's your place to throw them a life preserver. 

Additionally, even if they do need to learn how to swim eventually, when you're drowning, you can't learn how to swim. You first have to get to a place where you're no longer drowning, before you can learn how to swim. 

Go ahead and pray for someone. Go ahead and encourage them to pray. But it is counter productive to stand on the side of a boat, holding a life vest, watching someone drown not five feet away from you, and pray as they drown. Throw the life preserver as you pray. Pray as you reel them back in. Then praise God for their safety; and if they need that life preserver for the rest of their life in order to stay above water, then you thank God for providing what they need. 

And there seems to be a false dichotomy, in Christian perception of mental illness, that you either have faith or medication. You can either rely on God to heal you, or you can take medication. We have created this dichotomy where you cannot have a strong faith in God and simultaneously take medication for mental illness. 

But for me, and so many others I know, us being on medication is us having faith. 

Let me say that again: Us being on medication is us having faith. 

Because truthfully, the decision to take medication is not something we take lightly. We know medicine isn't magic, much as we sometimes wish it was. We know that there are still things that we need to work out, healthy ways to learn how to live, but sometimes we need to not be drowning and this is the provision of God. We would never dream of replacing Him with a pill.

And personally, it calls for no faith at all to take matters into my own hands, despite God's clear guidance, and take myself off of the medication. But the only place that gets me is relying on my own strength and power again to try to fight the seeming insurmountable darkness which always leaves me defeated.

What requires faith is trusting that the same God who has led me to this place can and will carry me even now. What requires faith is believing that when He said "yes" and opened these doors, He meant it. What requires faith is swallowing a small white pill and an oblong green one every day and not knowing how it will affect my brain, whether it will work or not, and praying for patience as we discover what works.

And truthfully? It takes far more faith for me to be on medication, than it would were I to take myself off of it. For some people I'm sure it's the opposite.

But to be patient, to not judge and shun those who take medication for whatever cause, and encourage them to be open to God's leading in either direction and then support them as they follow Him, is what we as Christians, and we as a church can and ought to aspire to. 

See, having faith in God and taking medication aren't always opposites. 

Sometimes they're the same thing.