{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. 

(dance... devil)

​I have a confession to make.

Suicide Squad hits theaters this weekend and I will not be among the hundreds of movie-goers sweltering in lines for their first peek at the latest DC franchise.

it's very simple. the main reason I will not be supporting the movie with my money is the main reason most people I've talked to are looking forward to the movie...otherwise known as Harley Quinn and the Joker.

Why, you ask?

Well see, I kind of have this thing where I'd rather not give my money to perpetuate stories about abusive psychopaths preying on the women who love them.

Now, before you jump on my case, vehemently protesting that 'it's just fiction! everyone recognizes that, and no one actually thinks their relationship is goals!', do us both a favor and look up 'Joker and Harley memes'.

Still don't believe me? here. take a look at some of the results.

um...excuse me...perhaps i didn't catch that....the JOKER and HARLEY as relationship goals? the only way those two ought to go together in a sentence is as relationship goals of what to be avoided at all costs. 

.....I don't care who you are, if the man you love backhands you across the face, then he doesn't love you. This isn't romance. This is abuse. 

..okay, this actually makes me sick....I could go on citing examples... but at this point it would just nauseate me further, and I think you get my drift. At least, I hope so. 

And my goal here is not to condemn anyone who watches Suicide Squad. But the difficulty with portraying relationships like Harley and the Joker's as a love story, is that it teaches young people that dysfunctional abusive relationships are love.

See, somehow we are being taught as a society, through media and books, that "screw Romeo and Juliet...the true love stories are the Joker and Harley...Christine and the Phantom....Gideon and Ana....Bella and Edward", which simultaneously breaks my heart and terrifies me. 

Have we become blind to the point of failing to recognize abuse when it's staring us right in the face? Or, even worse, justifying it under the banner of love? 

After all, Harley's famous quote?: 'He's a little rough sometimes, but he loves me...really!'.....How can we not see the enormous damage that this phrase, with its justification of abuse, does to women in abusive relationships? I can't count the number of times I've heard abuse rationalized with that phrase, or some variation of it.. I can't count the number of times I've rationalized abuse with that phrase, or some variation of it.

'he really isn't all that bad' / 'he loves me, he just has anger issues'.

'that's just the way he is..he's been hurt in the past, so it isn't really his fault he's the way he is. it's the fault of those who have hurt him'.

But no. love and dysfunction aren't equivalent. If you truly love someone, you will want what is best for them. You will want what is good and right and true and healthy to be in their lives. You do not manipulate the ones you love. You do not abuse them. And you never ever ever hit the woman you claim you love.

Love is not abuse. Love is not controlling and manipulative and distrustful. Love is not destructive. Love will not beat you and leave you in a corner. Love is not perverted. Love is not a backhand across the face while he's drunk or death threats in a fit of rage. 

True love is patient. True love is kind. True love does not envy or boast. It isn't arrogant or or rude or willful. True love isn't resentful. It doesn't fly off the handle at the slightest provocation. True love is hopeful, faithful, enduring, steady. True love builds up. It restores what is broken and heals the wounds of the heart. It does not create further scars.

True love is not abuse. True love is never abuse. It is not psychopathic devilry disguised as intense and damaged and a bit overbearing. And while it looks alluring in movies - painted as romantic, passionate, and exciting - every time you say that you want what the Joker and Harley have, this is what you're really saying you want:

You're saying you want blood and bruises and cuts and scars. You're saying you want to be backhanded across the face for any minor infractions. You're saying you want to be tied up and beaten, chained and left hanging in the basement for hours on end. You're saying you want to walk on eggshells all the time, to be terrified to cross him or make him mad. You're saying you want physical, mental, sexual, emotional, and verbal abuse. You're saying you want slavery. You're saying you want pain and humiliation....you're saying you want death.

And trust me. you do not want a relationship like they have.

Because in real life, women like Harley and Ana and Bella and Christine don't end up Happily Ever After. The end of abuse is not romance or marriage or love or happiness or health. The end of those relationships is a woman lying dead in a puddle of blood on the floor because her lover got out of hand one too many times, and she fell final victim to his cruelty. That is the dark side of our obsession with the romanticization of abusive relationships. That is what we are asking for when we romanticize relationships like Harley & the Joker or Ana & Christian or Bella & Edward.

Now obviously I shan't shun you for going to see Suicide Squad, but just remember, when your beloved daughter comes home from college with a controlling boyfriend and new bruises only to refuse to listen to your concern because 'I really love him!', or you have to watch as your daughter-in-law slowly fades away before your very eyes and you are too afraid of your son to venture recriminations, it's because we as a society teach them no better. It is because we support media which romanticizes abusive relationships, depicting them in glowing exciting terms.

And it's time to to stop. It's time to call a halt, to take a stand, to say no. 

A dance with the devil, no matter how charming initially, is living hell, ultimately resulting in a death sentence. It is not life you teach every time you hold this up as an ideal - every time you show the movie industry that romanticizing abuse makes good money. It is not life. And it is never, ever, ever love. 

A dance with the devil is death. And I opt out. 

An Open Letter to the Guy Who Slapped My Butt and Told His Friend He Would F**** Me

Dear boys, 

I am not your toy. 
I am not your plaything, your pawn, your pretty little painted doll to push around. 

I am not sub-human. 
I am not un-human. 
I have feelings and thoughts and emotions and fears surprisingly similar to your own. 

I am not blind. I saw the once-over you gave me, lecherous eyes scanning every curve. 
I am not deaf. I heard the "mmm that's nice", mentioned in an aside to the other guy with you, as though I wasn't even there. 
I am not made of stone. I felt your grasping greedy hand reach over to grab what wasn't yours to touch. 

I have been catcalled many times, touched in passing, groped and abused, but never - never - never - have I felt dehumanized to the extent that you made me feel today when you behaved as though I wasn't even there. When you acted and spoke as though I was a pixelated woman in a porn reel; unable to hear your commentary, unable to see your glances, or to feel your touch. 

You will probably never know that as i walked away from you, head held high, my finger sharp nails dug into the soft palm of my hand until they drew blood, to avoid throwing my steaming chai latte at your face. I bitterly regretted forgetting my pepper spray. 
You will never witness the panic attack I had, ten minutes later, finally off the streets and back inside the building where I worked. There, unable to dismiss the feel of your hand and the look in your eyes from my mind, I finally broke down in solitude - yet couldn't shake the fear that I still wasn't safe. 

I couldn't shake the feeling of being nothing more than the sum of my physical parts, the sway of my hips, the shape of my breasts. I couldn't shake the haunting lingering knowledge that a person looked at me and didn't see a person. They looked at me and saw a walking sex object, a less than human, lower than even an animal. They saw an opportunity to slake their lust, a body with nothing that feels; a shell, no soul a-tremble. 

And I? I am so much more than a mannequin. I am made of stronger stuff than a store-bought sex toy. I am a fierce heart and a soul forged from steel to survive; and just like you, I am human.

I am alive. 

I exist. 

I think and feel and love and bleed and cry and laugh and there are those I would die for and those who would die for me. And should you dare try to dehumanize me, I will stand up and I will shout loud enough for the whole world to hear that I am here and I am alive and I will not be made any less than I am by someone such as you 

And, in truth, I half pity you. I pity you a culture which has taught you that women are nothing more than objects to be used and discarded at your pleasure. I pity you eyes which view a woman with less respect than you would grant an animal, and a strength wasted in worthless sensuality. I pity you a life lacking in the shared love and mutual respect between equals as man and wife. 

But...while I pity you, while I decry and disdain your attitude and actions towards me, I also challenge you. I challenge you to defy them. I challenge you to look me in the eye and see me. I challenge you to remember, when you look at me, that I am so much more than an inanimate object for your wandering eyes to rove. 

I am ambitions and I am dreams. I am hopes and I am plans. I am late night laughter and early morning sunrise sneaking over the mountains in the distance. I am the books that have changed me forever and the songs that move me to tears. I am summer night blazing bonfires and winter hot cocoa curled up in my father's oversize armchair. I am awed wonder at the tender touch of a newborn's silken skin and I am sitting silent soaking in ancient wisdom. 

I am war and I am peace and I will fight to the death for what I believe in. I am opinions on everything from high heels to heartbreak and I am nothing if not human. 

I am every inch a woman, every inch human. 

And I dare you to treat me as such.

{on Freedom and the Fourth}

{for freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and
do not submit again to a yoke of slavery}

does anyone else have moments of fervently wishing that they could go back in time and tell their younger self things that they now know to be true? 

because i do

see, this day in 1775, a document was formally adopted, signaling the end of America's allegiance to England, almost a year into what would later be known as America's "War for Independence"

but in that moment, the signers didn't know the extent of the struggle which would soon ensue. they didn't realize the sacrifices which would have to be made, the hopeless nights far from victory, the battles lost and battles hard-fought won. 

all they knew, in that moment, was that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and as soon as a government becomes detrimental to those aims, it is no longer one which promotes freedom, and thereby categorizes itself as unqualified, and it is our duty to protect and preserve and fight for freedom. 

therefore they were willing to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in pursuit of freedom, not knowing whether they would live through the upcoming war, but believing that it was worth it. 

freedom was worth any sacrifice, countless danger, endless fear, wars won and wars lost, fortunes wagered, lives lived in turmoil until peace was wrought at last.

it would always be worth it. 

fast forward 239 years to a young girl standing in the lobby of a Virginia college, leaving summer camp, looking up into luminous blue eyes regarding her with infinite compassion, as he continues to maintain that she is still 'unhealthily thin' because remaining trapped in a mindset of 'must not eat' is not freedom;

and she turns away with tears streaming down her cheeks, unwilling to believe him when he says that health is incomparably more attractive than a gap between her thighs; that recovery is hard but it is possible.

 it is worth it. 

because that same girl, a year later, joins her family for their annual Wimbledon marathon, a smile on her face, bowl of popcorn in her open hand. 

that same girl has lived through the same thirty pounds lost and gained, a back and forth battle between the light and darkness, dancing on the edge of giving up, and only grown stronger.

that same girl enters the house yesterday to her mother commenting that 'you look...happy', and hugging her mom with the reassurance that 'it's because i am'

that girl....is me. 

and if i could go back in time, to the girl that i was only a short year ago, there is so much i have learned that i wish i could tell her. 

i wish i could tell her that freedom feels so much better than bondage in the long run, even though it's so hard now, even though it will be the hardest fight of your life to try to be free... it's worth it. 

.....above all, i wish i could tell her that it's worth it. 

it's worth it for days like yesterday. days of love and laughter and conversation, catching up over bubble tea and frozen yogurt and Chinese food and Starbucks. 

it's worth it for the week i spent with Matthew and Amy without our lives revolving around what i could and could not would not eat. 

it's worth it for the week spent at camp without Brandt babysitting me to make sure i consumed enough calories to avoid passing out on the field trip, in stark contrast to last year, and thereby taking one more responsibility off his already-overloaded plate.

it's worth it for first tastes of venison at the Edmonstons and partaking of normal portioned meals without worrying whether or not it would make me fat. 

it's worth it for foregoing the isolation of spinach salads in favor of a burger and lunch with Leah, learning to make new friends, to take advantage of the time we have together

it's worth it for fresh fruit and yogurt after early morning runs, the feeling of strength infused through arms and legs stretched to endurance peak

it's worth it for lunch at the cafeteria of the state Capitol with co-workers and senators' chief of staff without packing 'safe' foods, sharing in companionship and camaraderie, fully partaking in conversation and merriment.

it's worth it for watermelon with little siblings since it's so hot outside; teaching myself to make bread from scratch; first successful pie and pie filling; molasses cookies at friends' requests

it's worth it for late night laughs and snacks, Oreos and Twizzlers, as i come to better know the girls i am spending camp week with; as opposed to last year's cornered isolation staying a safe distance away from foods too 'fattening' to be indulged in at such a late hour

it's worth it for ordering from Starbucks for the first time without counting calories to choose the lowest option 

it's worth it for Saturday morning brunch beside Dad, devouring french toast, made with fresh homemade bread, slathered in maple syrup.

it's worth it for spring nights with my brother, climbing out on the roof just before dusk, a bag of Swedish fish between us, and giggling at the way he always bites the head off first. 

it's worth it for finally feeling warm again, pirouetting in the kitchen on legs strong enough to stand, horseback rides and hope.

it's worth it for running up the stairs, and tears of joy that day, remembering times when i was too weak to walk up those same stairs without passing out. 

it's worth it because the best is yet to come, and i still believe that, despite all claims to the contrary. 

because after all that we've been through, and after all we've left in pieces, i still believe our lives have just begun; cause now the past can be outrun, and i still believe the best is yet to come 

the best is yet to come

there are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind, and i am finally tasting the sweetness of this freedom, and i swear that it has been worth it. 

it has all been worth it.

it was worth it all along.