Identity Shapes Faith & Practice

Mistaken identity threatens to re-define faith and practice.

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Unhooked and Set Free (Part 1)

two women walking on beachMaura is a young and spirited woman who invited me into her life.   She seems to welcome the experience of age and expresses the need for a “mother” figure.  Maura is intelligent.  More mature than most her age.  She has a tangible dream and works hard in college.  Maura displays all the normal feelings and emotions that come with being female.  But, there is more.  Wisdom speaks to Maura through her conscience.  The answers to my questions consistently reveal that Maura delights in all things of God… but, she is “hooked” to her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend’s words of love cause Maura to feel special so, when he has demands, she tries to please.    The warmth of his embrace encourages her loyalty, but his lack of commitment makes her vulnerable.  She clings to the relationships with hope that it will change.

Maura and I have talked at length about who and Whose she is.  Her eyes glisten when I explain that because of what Jesus Christ has done she is a daughter of God.  If too much time passes between our visits, I text with an invitation to walk or meet for lunch.  Rarely does Maura refuse.  She’s happy to bring me up to date, explaining her work and studies.  When the conversation turns to relationships, Maura smiles when she talks about her dad.  “I’m happy when I’m with him.  I feel safe at home.”  But, when I inquire about her boyfriend, Maura’s smile always fades.

One day, Maura seemed less confident.  More sad.  She uttered not one positive or hopeful word about her boyfriend.  “So,” I asked, “why do you stay with him?”  Her shoulders drooped.  She stared past me with no particular focus.  She sighed, then almost seemed to shutter.  “He isn’t good for me,” she confessed.  “But, it’s so very strange.  After we’ve been– you know–together, the harder it is to think about breaking up.”

The honesty of our friendship compelled me to take a deep breath… then look into her eyes.  “Maura, you’ve fallen into a bad habit… and now you’re hooked.”  Tears that flowed were evidence of the tug-of-war for Maura’s heart but also for her mind and soul.

Maura is “hooked” not because she is uneducated, but because she is wrongly educated.  Maura is “hooked” not because she missed out on “Sexuality 101″ but because she was encouraged at a young age to “be comfortable with her sexuality.”  The well-worn saying goes, “Our parents were too quiet about sex.  We need to inform our kids.”  All the information in the world, however, does not necessarily help children and teens.   The “feeling” part of the brain is in fine working order at a young age, but the judgment part of the brain (pre-frontal cortex) is not fully developed until the late teens or early twenties.

Maura is “hooked” not because she doesn’t have a protective dad, but because in his fear he believes that he’s helping his “sexual” daughter by putting her on the Pill and shooting her up with Gardasil.  But does he know why his daughter’s young body isn’t ready for sex?  Does he know what affect years of chemicals and hormones will have on his daughter?  Does he know that he is needed to set boundaries because his daughter lacks good judgment when oxytocin floods her brain?

Maura is “hooked” by a culture that daily sexualizes children.  Maura is convinced that sexy clothes and sensually intimate behavior are normal and expected.  But if she is so normal, why is she so unhappy?  Why does her heart ache?  Why does her soul seem troubled?  Maura is in conflict with herself because she lacks vital information beginning with the simple fact that male and female are different.

Maura is “hooked” by the claws of militant feminists who deny gender differences.  They have worked long and hard to minimize, manage and misrepresent everything that is girlish and womanly.   No one informed Maura that her female brain predisposes her to yearn for love, understanding, connection, and communication.  No one informed Maura that her chemistry promotes attachment and trust of her boyfriend.  No one told Maura that her female wiring causes her to take risks by overlooking her boyfriend’s shortcomings.  Maura’s unique physiological vulnerability to intimate behavior was never explained because that would be a “gender stereotype.”

Maura knows her relationship isn’t what it should be.  As a Christian, she knows it isn’t what God desires for her.  But, even if she wasn’t a Christian, she would sense that something was wrong.  What is wrong is that educators in “sexuality” have wrongly identified  Maura as a “sexual being”.  But she is so much more than a body overwhelmed by feelings, urges and desires.  She is a head that can think, a heart that can love and a soul that will endure beyond this lifetime.

As Maura’s friend and mentor, I have promised not to fail her by repeating foolishness.  There is one truth for Maura… and all the rest of us.  It is the truth of our design.  Divine design.  This design by God is evidenced by our anatomy, pure biology and credible scientific study.  It is evidenced by the consequences of our choices and behaviors.

The bottom line for me is that Maura matters.  So, we are discussing a new life — unhooked and set free.  Set free to be more of what God created her to be.

Recommended reading:
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
Unprotected
This was first posted by Ezerwoman

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Sex Education in the Church

My book coverOn May 29, 2014, Todd Wilken helped his listeners learn more about the new book entitled The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity.  The book is available on Amazon.

Please listen to the interview (following a brief commercial) by clicking Sex Education in the Church

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Too Long at the Animal Circus

creepy circus clowns“Sexuality” appears to be the one “right” above all others. It dictates how things are done in the marketplace, classroom, court of law, and military. It even threatens to re-define marriage.

How did this come to be? I think it’s because we stayed too long at the animal circus.

At the animal circus, children are wrongly identified. They are not seen as their Heavenly Father sees them, but as people of a different faith want to see them. “Children,” said Alfred Kinsey, “are sexual from birth.” Kinsey didn’t mean that children are either a boy or a girl. He meant that children can enjoy and benefit from early sexual activity.

Something smelled foul in the circus tent but those who wanted to hear that even children are defined by their “sexuality” — indeed, their sexual desires and inclinations, were ecstatic. Others, including many Christians, were troubled but decided to accept the data of this “social scientist” and examine human sexuality in light of his “new information”. Kinsey made a mockery of science. Nevertheless, he and other humanists such as John Money, Mary Calderone and Lester Kirkendall set in place a social movement that changed the way we see our children and each other. Children were sexualized and imagined as little more than animal-like beings captive to urges and desires.

The “progressive” folk among us already knew they were “animal-like.” Charles Darwin said so and many believed him. All who resisted the God who creates life and, therefore, has authority over that life determined that now they had “license” to do as they pleased. Piggy-backing (how animal-like!) on the theory of Darwin, Kinsey plunged into “scientific” study with the goal of breaking down all sexual inhibitions. Kinsey’s “scientific” study has been exposed as fraudulent and criminal. (See resources below.) Yet the distorted truth of a psychologically twisted and sexually deviant Kinsey seems to have more influence on our present culture than God’s Word. Kinsey and other secular humanists lured parents, pastors and teachers away from guarding purity, modesty, and the innocence of children. The animal circus of sex education went on the road.

“Get your tickets here!” cried Kinsey. “Come one, come all!” cried Mary Calderone of SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S.). Four generations have been trained to believe that “sexuality is our entire selves, influences us in every way, and encompasses everything” but left clueless about what it means to be male or female. Sex education has equipped boys and girls to be sexual, not relational; all about me, rarely about others; less inhibited, but more at risk; and far more hopeless than hopeful.

We’ve been too long at the animal circus. What is the evidence?

  • Parents assume that their children will be sexually active.
  • Too many young women are held captive by the political correctness of feminism and denied the biological facts that explain why a female body is more vulnerable than a male body physically and psychologically. (Visit Miriam Grossman, M.D. or read her book, Unprotected.)
  • The brains of young men and women have been “re-wired” and addicted to sex. (Read Hooked by Joe McIlhaney, M.D., or You’re Teaching My Child What? by Miriam Grossman, M.D.)
  • An increased number of husbands and wives who have partnered intimately with others prior to their marriage are discontent and in search of having their “needs” better satisfied.
  • Pregnancy resource centers hearing from adolescent girls who consider themselves “normal” because they dress “hot” and have casual sex but can’t understand why they are “not happy” or “content”.
  • Girls demanding the “right” to “shower together” during church retreats and experiment on Christian campuses with bi-sexual and lesbian lifestyles. (These examples from personal testimonies.)

The Church stands guilty. Fearful and not wanting to be irrelevant, Christians filed God’s Word on sexual purity under “Unrealistic.” Willingly or unwilling, they adapted the ways of circus trainers to keep pace with the world. Too many Christians assumed that as long as Jesus was part of sex education, their children would be all right. But they are not all right. Children pay the price every time we try to wrap Jesus around the foolishness of the world.

Nowhere in Scripture does God identify male and female as “sexual beings”.  He does not call male and female to be “sexual” but to be “holy” (1 Peter 1:14-16).  God created male and female to be so much more than our urges, desires and perceived “needs”. We are, by His design, persons of great significance with bodies, minds and souls. We are male or female and, no matter if we are young or old, single or married, we can live in relationship to our brothers, sisters and neighbors. We can work and play side by side without any hint of sexual intimations.

Is there hope? Yes… away from the animal circus.

Away from the animal circus, we are better able to see children as God sees them. Each child is God’s own (Isaiah 64:8) and called by name (43:1) to be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work (2 Timothy 2:21).

Followers of Christ Jesus need to abandon the animal circus. The structure is unsound and the tent began to collapse long ago.

Resources:
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
by Linda Bartlett (Amazon)
Stolen Honor, Stolen Innocence by Judith Reisman, Ph.D.
(Original title Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences)
The Children of Table 34 (google for Youtube video)
The Kinsey Syndrome (DVD)

This post was first written 3-23-2011 and posted by Ezerwoman

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Significance & Permanent Place of Clothing (#5 in series)

wedding feastIs clothing a thing indifferent?  In His parable of the wedding feast, Jesus has something to say about the significance of clothing.

But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless” (Matt. 22:11-12).

In the tradition of the Israelites, invited guests were expected to wear festive wedding garments.  Such garments could be provided by the host.  So, when the man fails to dress in appropriate clothing freely given to him, he offends the host.  Jesus was not describing party attire here.  The garment freely offered by the host signifies the righteousness of God, which covers our sin” (cf Is. 61:10; Gal. 3:27).

Revelation 16:15 explains more about the significance and permanent place of clothing.

Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed.”

White garments serve as a symbol for Christian righteousness which is bestowed through Christ at Baptism. Here, again, we are reminded of our earthly and eternal identity: we are holy as opposed to sexual; uncommon and useable by God as opposed to common and useable by anyone. Revelation 19:8 speaks about the marriage of the Lamb (Jesus) to His Bride (the Church), saying:

It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.”

Commentary on this verse explains that the bride’s preparations for the marriage are the result of God’s grace and Spirit, not simply her own efforts.  The saints’ righteous deeds which, in this passage are identified with spiritual adornment, are a gift granted by God and not a human achievement.  (The Lutheran Study Bible, 2228.)

Nakedness, modesty and clothing should take on a new meaning for children of God.  If we infer that embarrassment is unnecessary or even unnatural, then I believe that we might actually do a disservice to children and ourselves.

There is no shame in blushing. It’s natural, too!  When the wind whips up a woman’s skirt, she quickly responds by pulling it down. I’ve watched girls in strapless dresses with their boyfriends out dining before prom who are so distracted by tugging and tucking that I can’t help but wonder: What will they do when the dancing begins?

To be embarrassed about nakedness is God’s natural protection for our body and spirit. We cannot separate the physical and spiritual parts of our body. The two affect each other. In this world, men and women see each other through sin-damaged eyes. We are too easily tempted to wrong thought or action by a warped vision and perspective. We owe our sons and daughters the truth about nakedness and the reason for clothing. The world cares little, if at all, about our vulnerability. It is God, because of His great love for us, who wants us covered. When we are not, God uses natural emotions of shame and embarrassment for our benefit.

Physical clothing actually affords brothers and sisters in Christ—married or single—more freedom to interact with one another in their vocations of biblical manhood and womanhood.  They are less distracted and able to do the work laid before them, whether that is studying in class or clerking in a store. As baptized sons and daughters of God in Christ, we are dressed in preparation for heaven. We are not left naked—physically or spiritually. God covers our body and spirit with appropriate clothing so that we are less vulnerable and tempted to stray away from Jesus who waits for our meeting with Him in heaven.

It cannot please God when an adult tries to remove a child’s embarrassment. Embarrassment and shame, like guilt, can move all of us to the Cross where repentant sinners can robe up in Jesus’ righteousness. More than anything, we should want to help our children appreciate Jesus’ robe of righteousness which makes them holy in God’s eyes. Wearing that robe, children of God are called not to sensual living, but holy living.

From Chapter 14, Questions 88 & 89
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
by Linda Bartlett, Copyright 2014 Titus 2 for Life
Our Identity Matters

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Physical and Spiritual Clothing (#4 in series)

robe of righteousnessEvery person conceived and born after the Fall is a sinner. Every person who believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior is a saint. Clothing, which is significant in Scripture, speaks to both of these identities.

After the Fall, a loving God provided Adam and Eve with two kinds of clothing. Coats of animal skins covered their physical body, but the covering of Jesus Christ was promised for their spiritual body. As forgiven sinners, we are clothed in the garment of salvation which is the robe of righteousness given freely to us by Jesus Christ (Isa. 61:10). Wearing the robe of His Son, God sees us as holy. However, it is a consequence of the fallen world that men and women see each other through sin-tainted eyes. For this reason, God tells women to dress modestly—in a way that professes faith—so that they do not tempt an admiring man by way of false glory to sinful thoughts or deeds.

Adam and Eve covered only certain parts of themselves with fig leaves, but God designed clothes to cover their bodies. From this we know that Adam and Eve could not sufficiently cover themselves physically (nakedness) or spiritually (works righteousness). The work of their hands was neither acceptable nor enough. There was absolute necessity for the full covering and righteousness of the Savior, Jesus Christ. Today, whenever we consider clothing, we can remember that its purpose is to cover our bodies and protect us from our own corrupted thoughts.

Here is where instruction in purity does what sex education does not. Clothing is not usually considered very significant in sex or sexuality education. But to help male and female of any age understand that we are called to a lifestyle of purity means that we must talk about clothing.

From Chapter 14, Question 87
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
by Linda Bartlett, Copyright 2014 Titus 2 for Life
Our Identity Matters

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Modesty on Sunday Only? (#2 in series)

girl thinking by windowThe outward adornment of a woman who professes faith in Christ should reflect her inner beauty and identity as a baptized daughter of God. This is true especially in worship but, because women are always in the presence of God and men, it is true for all times.

1 Timothy 2:9-10 encourages women to “adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.” The Christian woman is called by God to profess godliness every day of the week in her vocation of “helper” (Gn. 2:18) whether she is in class, at work, or having fun. She should refrain from being proud and sensual but can be generous with “good works” that help men think about what is honorable and pure.

Identity matters. How we dress says something about who we think we are. Focused on an identity of being “sexual,” it is easier for girls and women to disregard self-restraint and responsibility in favor of personal rights. Dressing “sexy” can have a powerful influence on our feelings and, therefore, the decisions made based on those feelings. But if girls learn to see themselves as daughters of God in Christ, then they will be encouraged to dress in a way that calls attention not to themselves, but to their Father.

Women who see themselves as God sees them help their brothers in Christ better navigate the journey of life to their eternal destination.

From Chapter 14, Question 85
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
by Linda Bartlett, Copyright 2014 Titus 2 for Life
Our Identity Matters

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The Language of Clothing (#1 in series)

what label are you wearingDoes clothing speak?  Does how we dress say something about who we think we are?

With eyes open, it appears that clothing even for Christians is a thing indifferent. Younger (and older) women too often approach the Lord’s Table clothed in eye-catching attire not dissimilar from the women one might see working the corner of Hollywood and Vine. From time to time, I ask teen girls and their moms if they would be comfortable wearing their lingerie or bra and panties out in the front yard or going shopping. “Of course not,” they proclaim, “no way!” But how is their bikini any different?

As a wife and mom, I strive to see the world through the eyes of my husband, sons and grandsons. They are sorely put to the test. For example, there was the time when a beautiful and well-endowed woman waited on the table of my family. The cross the server was wearing hung low and visible between her breasts, but where were the eyes of my husband and sons invited to focus: upon the cross or somewhere else?

Sex education turns the eyes of boys to the bodies of girls.  It turns the eyes of girls to the bodies of boys. Sex education teaches that there is no shame in the human body. After all, as this thinking goes, God made our wondrous bodies. But this thinking ignores the fact that sin has corrupted our desires. This thinking may unconsciously encourage girls to become temptresses. Sometimes a young woman is completely unaware that she is being a temptress. She is, perhaps, uneducated in godly womanhood, dressing “like everyone else” or unaware that immodest clothing draws a man’s attention. There are other women who know full well that sensual clothing invites attention and this is how they exercise power over men.

We may hear people claim that clothing is a matter of “Christian liberty;” it is simply a personal choice. “Sexy,” they say, is just part of being female. It is, as I have been told, “showing my best assets.” But showing them to whom and for what reason? To believe it is a “liberty” to wear clothes designed to highlight certain parts of the body is to be fooled. Foolishness puts us at risk.

For the sake of young women and men, let’s be honest. There is a reason why the marketing industry uses scantily-clad women to sell products. There is a reason why the procurers of prostitutes want their “working girls” to dress the way they do. That reason is sin. It is sin when one person uses another person to gain power or financial profit. Young women need to know that they are more—far more—than objects of pleasure for display. Failing to speak about clothing as God’s protective covering for their bodies puts them at risk of being identified not as He created them, but as the world sees them. It removes respect. It places them in conflict with themselves and compromises their true identity. It sets young men up for temptation, frustration, and trouble. A young Christian woman in college told me that she never gave much thought to the way she dressed until the day her boyfriend blurted out, “Do you know what you’re doing to me?”

A classroom educator might try to explain to a young woman that a man’s eyes rest easily on a woman’s body. It is, however, far more appropriate and protective when a father explains the virtue of modesty to his daughter. He can explain to her that before sin Adam could gaze upon Eve’s body in appreciation for what God had made, but that after sin his eyes would distort that appreciation. It is also the father who best explains to his son how to avoid the temptress. The father’s warning away from the temptress in Proverbs 7 is wisdom to his son:

At the window of my house I have looked out through my lattice, and I have  . . . perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense, passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness.  And behold, the woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.  she is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home . . . let not your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths. (Prov. 7:6-11; 25)

The father in Proverbs 7 wanted his son to know that identity matters.  Even what we choose to wear says something about who we think we are.

From Chapter 14, Question 84
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromise Purity
by Linda Bartlett ~ Copyright 2014 Titus 2 for Life
Our Identity Matters

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War Against Boys Hurts Girls Too

father sonChristina Hoff Sommers is the author of The War Against Boys.  The Ph.D. scholar cites one example after another of how America’s academic, political, and cultural “elite” have maligned and tried to re-define masculinity.

Speaking on behalf of those cultural “elites,” Gloria Steinem said, “We need to raise boys like we raise girls.”  Bear in mind that such convoluted thinking followed the so-called “girlhood project” of the 70s:  Raise girls like boys.  Giving birth to a daughter instead of a son was, for some parents, somewhat of an embarrassment.

On campus and off, workshops, seminars, and projects exist with a sole focus of “transforming” boys.  A “boy’s masculinity” is seen by cultural “elites” as a “problem.”  Despising patriarchy, off-track feminists work feverishly to construct a new version of manhood.

Sommers asks, “How well do [these people] understand and like boys?  Who has authorized their mission?”

David Kupelian is the author of How Evil Works.  He asks, “Why would our culture so denigrate masculinity?  And why — this is the flip side of the same question — are we becoming so increasingly feminized as a society?”  He continues, “Today’s high level of gender confusion and role reversal, manifested most obviously in the dramatic upswing — and near celebration — of homosexuality, is one of the great cultural mysteries of our time.  The bending and sometimes breaking of traditional gender roles permeates our society in obvious and subtle ways.”

Sexual confusion abounds — in clothing, college dorms, and the workplace.   There is sexual confusion when girls “try out” lesbianism or bisexuality because it’s “chic.”   There is sexual confusion when girls wrestle boys and women are put on the front lines of war.

George Gilder is the author of Men and Marriage.  He writes, “To the sexual liberal, gender is a cage.  Behind cruel bars of custom and tradition, men and women for centuries have looked lovingly across forbidden spaces at one another and yearned to be free of sexual roles.”   Hmm.  Reminds me of a beautiful garden where a woman was tempted to reach for something that was not good for her to have.

When my sons were born, I didn’t argue with God or tell Him He’d made a mistake.  I needed to let them respond to life in their boyish ways, drive go-carts at high speeds, climb a 40-foot windmill, blaze a Yellowstone trail, and choose science fiction hands down over chick flicks.  I wanted my sons to be aware of how girls think and like to be treated, but not to become one of them.

I wonder.  Where would this country be if mothers raised sons to be “in touch with their feminine side?”  What if young men had stayed home and tens upon thousands of young women stormed the beaches of Normandy, Omaha, and Iwo Jima?

There is nothing wrong with boys.  Just because a boy fidgets doesn’t mean he needs some sort of drug.  There is nothing wrong with boys who want to roughhouse or jump in a muddy stream, but balk at the suggestion of shopping.  Instead of disfiguring, distorting, or denying boyishness, why don’t we stand in awe of God who was pleased to create male and female so compatibly different?  Why don’t we appreciate the way each has a different perspective on things of life and be better for it?

A war against boys hurts girls, too.  Eventually, it weakens society.  Messing with creation is nasty business with hopeless consequences.

So that’s why I smile when I watch boys put frogs in homemade rockets or blow up plastic pop bottles with Drano and aluminum foil or dig a big hole, fill it with water and take the plunge.  But I do something else.

I also try to say “thank you” whenever I see a dad raising his son to be gentlemen.  I applaud dads and moms who mentor sons to respect girls and never take advantage of them.  Biblical manhood is confident in its masculinity which, when put into right practice, makes the world a better place for us all.

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Choices Affect Our Attitude Toward God

1900s girlsHere are more pearls from my grandmother’s book.  (Once again, truth has a way of deflating the progressive thinker’s much inflated balloon.)

In What a Young Woman Ought to Know, Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M.D., writes that we are not only body and mind, but spirit (or soul).  Whether we’ve thought about this or not, the fact remains.  “No failure to recognize God as your Father changes His relationship to you.  No conduct of yours can make you any less His child.”

“Well,” you may say, “if that is so, what does it matter, then, what I do?  If disobedience or sin cannot make me less God’s child, why should I be good and obedient?”  Because… “your conduct changes your attitude toward Him.”

“The most worthy and dignified thing we can do,” wrote Dr. Wood-Allen, “is to recognize ourselves as God’s children and be obedient.  It is a wonderful glory to be a child of God . . . even the most ignorant or degraded have . . . divine possibilities.”

My grandmother’s choices and behavior evidenced that she was in a merciful relationship with her Heavenly Father.  And, no matter what anyone else thought of her, she knew she had “divine possibilities” because she was a child of God.

This woman physician from the late 1800s continues, “Being children of God puts on us certain obligations towards Him, but it also puts on God certain obligations towards us.  ‘What!’ you say: ‘God the Infinite under obligations to man, the finite?  The Creator under obligations to the created?’  Oh, yes.”

Human parents are under obligation to care for, protect, educate and give opportunities to their children.  In a similar way, God is obligated to do the same for His children.  The difference is, He fulfills these obligations perfectly.  All our earthly blessings are from Him.  Every good thing we have is a gift of love from our Creator and Heavenly Father.

Our life matters to God.  And, why wouldn’t it?  He created it!  He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for it!  And, as Dr. Mary Wood-Allen observes, “God takes such minute care of us that if for one second of time He would forget us, we should be annihilated.”  What does that say to you?  I know what it says to me.  And it pulls me down on my knees in humble, speechless gratitude.

But, if God is truly taking care of us, why does He allow failures, hardships and worries?  Sometimes, the things we call hard and cruel are actually little tumbles on our way to learning to walk.  A trial or difficulty in the school of life may be God’s way of opening our eyes to see that we need Him and can trust Him.

Our choices affect our attitude toward God.  The most dignified thing we can do is to recognize ourselves as God’s children and try to do those things that bring glory to Him.

It is a wondrous thing to be called a child of God.  It means we are heirs of God’s wisdom, strength, and glory.  It means that when we fail to trust and obey Him, we are still God’s child because of what Jesus did for us (Galatians 4:4-7).   Only a personal question remains:

As a child of God, how shall I choose to live?

First posted 2-9-2011 in Ezerwoman

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The Body Is Our House

body is houseYour body, wrote Mary Wood-Allen, M.D., is not you.  It is your dwelling, but not you.  It does, however, express you.

She explains: A man builds a house and, through it, expresses himself.  As someone else looks at the house and then walks through it, they will learn a great deal about the man.  The outside will give evidence of neatness, orderliness, and artistry or it may show that he cares nothing for elements of beauty and neatness.  His library will reveal the character of his mind.  Care of his house — preservation of its health — speaks of respect and value.

The author of the book found among my grandmother’s treasures notes that  many young people just want to have a “good time.”  Dr. Allen wrote that she heard many young people remark that it’s o.k. for the “old folks” to take care of their bodies and health, but “I don’t want to be so fussy . . . I’d rather die ten years sooner and have some fun while I do live.”

But, what serious pianist would neglect the care of his piano because it’s too “fussy” and then add, “I’ll treat it more kindly when it’s old”?  Dr. Allen observed that, too often, we prize the body far more after its use for us is at an end than while it is ours to use.   We don’t neglect the dead; we dress them in beautiful garments, we adorn them with flowers, we follow them to the grave with religious ceremonies, we build costly monuments to place over their graves, and then we go to weep over their last resting-place.”  I wonder: Do we treat our living, breathing bodies with such respect?  Do we treat the living, breathing bodies of others with such care?

There are those among us who consider themselves “progressive.”  A “progressive” would find no value in “going back” to a book from their grandmother’s collection.  But, in reading What A Young Woman Ought to Know by a woman physician published in 1898, I am more deeply committed to the Titus 2 style of mentoring.  Yes, there are trends.  There are new styles.  Technology changes, even improves.   But, care of our bodies is a truth that does not change with time.  What we do to and with our bodies, what we put in them, how we dress them, what environment we allow them to be in, and how we expect others to treat them matters today as much as it did yesterday.

Does it matter how we treat our bodies?  The answer to that question depends on what we believe about our origin.  Are we here by chance, just accidents of nature?  Or, are we “knit together in our mother’s wombs” by God Himself (Psalm 139)?  Is the value of our bodies determined by how we or others see them, or by the price that Jesus Christ paid for them?

Dr. Allen asks:

Is it not life that we should value?  Life here and hereafter, not death, is the real thing for which we should prepare . . . Life should increase in beauty and usefulness, in ability and joyousness, as the years bring us a wider experience, and this will be the case if we in youth have been wise enough to lay the foundation of health by a wise, thoughtful, prudent care of our bodies and our minds.

First posted 1-24-2011 in Ezerwoman