Here’s another attempt to put into some form my journey through this question. Some back round info to set the stage to this question comes from an experience I had while attending a bridal shower this past weekend with food, games, and advise for the bride-to-be. It was a great party. I just kept thinking: Did I look that young when I was engaged and going through all of the showers, planning, and excitement? This question took me back to my bride-to-be days at warp speed and caused me to remember my state of mind during this major event in my life.
Who did I think I was? What did I want to do? Who did I want to be? Where did I think God was through all of this? I guess let me start with the first question and work my way down.
Who did I think I was? What did I want to do? And who did I want to be? Can be answered together. At this point in my life I was the happiest I had ever been and have ever been about my body size, face, etc. . . I was surrounded by friends who liked me. I was engaged to one of our church college group’s most eligible studs. I was a newly licensed cosmetologist. The world looked pretty bright and full of endless possibilities. I really don’t feel that at this point I was really looking into the future at all. My main career aspiration was to be a stay-at-home wife and then mother. I held strongly to this ideal and figured any job I found to do until I could attain my goal was just a biding time kind of thing. Totally disregarding the fact that God has given me only the moment I live in. Questions like: What if I am not able to physically have children? and: What if Dave is in school forever and I need to work? What if God is telling me something today and I’m not listening because I feel I have a handle on my “calling”? These didn’t even cross my mind.
Where did I think God was in all of this? At this part of my journey I was trying to gear myself up to live out what I had been taught a “Godly Wife” should be. Does Proverbs 31 ring a bell? The explanation in Ephesians? With out further studying these passages to find out for myself what they truly meant for me I took the interpretation of the Southern Baptist world I was in. I do believe I had been instructed in love and given wise advise from women I admire and love dearly. I feel today I was lead down a dead end road. A road where submission, being of lower status because I was female, drawing a line down the middle of my roles and Dave’s roles, giving up my responsibility to my spiritual health and major decisions in our lives to my husband, biding time until I could fulfill my great calling, and living in fear that I had lost all capacity to think, dream, and hope for anything that would jeopardize my picture of what I was told a “Godly Wife” should be.
Living with this “new law” so to speak left me wanting. This “new law” left me in fear and imprisoned. I beat myself up daily because I didn’t live up to the standards given to me. Finally, when I beat myself into some form of submission to these virtues I was lost to who I was anymore. I had accomplished my goal I was at home and I had two beautiful boys. The problem lay in the desires and dreams that I felt guilty of thinking about. Letting myself think about anything beyond wife and motherhood felt wrong. Shouldn’t I be fulfilled because I’m doing what I feel I was “called” to do? Of course typing it out like this seems like an easy question to answer.
A little disclaimer to my wonderful, amazing husband. He didn’t live in this world of “I wear the pants”. The “Me husband you little wife.” mentality really never fit him well. He never pressured me into this world of roles and submission. I was doing what I had been taught throughout my teenage years and early adulthood. If anything, I tried to get him to fit into the “role” I thought he should have as leader, provider, and CEO of the family. It never quite worked out with our situation and how God was forming us.
All of this brings me to my present question of why am I doing what I am doing? The rebel in me doesn’t want to submit to the stay-at-home wife and mother image that I was taught early on. And this is the image I still feel is being passed down to the next generation of young women in some of the American evangelical circles. As I journey though this question I hope to be challenged to think and not to be afraid of answers that may seem to contradict the lessons on submission, spiritual health, and men having the greater majority of responsibility in the guidance of the community of Christ. These lessons that have seemed to have left me timid and fearful.
Of course you well know these are many of the same things I struggle with, not so much the stay at home thing given my situation right now in life but I can definitely identify with trying to fit into the “right” role as a woman and a wife. I also didn’t ask those important questions in dealing with marriage and womanhood- I took the tradition of church women as gospel truth instead of digging into the Word. For years I’ve been struggling with the fact that even though I was conditioned to believe that I was made to be a mom, it isn’t happening for us right now. I honestly still think I’m just buying time until its my turn, not ever thinking of the missed opportunities in the here and now.
Wow Molly. I am just so happy you are thinking about these things. I feel like God has given you a wonderful gift in that you want something more and that it is okay to question what you have learned and are learning.
hey girl! i love your deep thoughts and i hope you stop by my place and read my deep thoughts this morning, too. it’s funny because i have felt exactly the same pressure regarding female roles in the church since i was in high school and was fired from being youth group president because the pastor found out a girl was running the show. this actually led me to the path of vp of the she-ra men hater’s club and the most inelligible female on campus my freshman and sophomore years. it took God’s grace, jason’s love, and lots of friendly support to help me relook at the scriptures and find balance in our relationship.
i am also in similar mind frame. since i just finished my master’s degree and am starting to figure out my world a little (and dig down to the bottom of the laundry – almost) i am starting to wonder. did i do all that just for a pay raise and now i work all day and try to keep up the house and that’s it?
we need to get coffee or something, girl… there’s just too much to say here.