The article to which I am responding can be found on my old legalistic church blog. http://www.covfel.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=52015&articleId=5558
I am rather proud that they dismembered me over parenting issues, thus, I opine.
"Once a Mom, Always a Mom
By Cindy Campbell
Editor's note: The following is a blog post that Cindy passed on written by Sheree Phillips that is from the Metro Life Church blog MetroMoms. It is a bit longer than usual, but worth the read. As Cindy says, “May this blog provoke all of us as Mom's to remember that our lives have been purchased by the Savior and that we have no claim to any our 24/7 - no matter what season of mothering we live in.”
Why are women in legalistic systems constantly told that they do not own their own lives as though they are the property of their families, We have *all* been redeemed by grace lest anyone manipulate another this way.
Last Sunday night I spent the evening with my married girls. We included Lauren this time, since she will marry our Joey in a few short weeks. The purpose of the evening was to discuss a wonderful sermon by pastor and author J.R. Miller called, “The Christian Wife.” Although he died in the early 1900’s and the standards and vocabulary can seem a little out of date to today’s sophisticated Christian woman, the truths are timeless, inspiring and convicting. (If you want to get a copy of the sermon follow the link to the MetroMoms blog)
This brings back memories. Why do the leaders of this org always have a purpose for a meeting? Can you imagine having this woman for your monster-in-law.
Preparing for this time together with a married daughter, two daughters-in-law, and a future daughter-in-law caused me once again to realize I’m on the back nine. But my heart and desire as a mother remains the same as when my approaching 30 daughter was the age of your little ones. Back then I wanted her to love being a girl. Love God’s wise and loving design in making her distinctly female, with all the responsibilities and privileges that entails. She was surrounded by brothers (until God mercifully gave her sisters some years later) and although she enjoyed playing with match box cars and didn’t mind getting dirty while playing outside, she was all girl. I wanted her to grow up to embrace godly womanhood. To resist cultural pulls to feminism and resenting her created design to be a suitable helper to a husband and a godly mother to children, should the Lord give them to her. I wanted to do my best to equip her to be an effective home manager.
In other words, manipulate through guilt, shame, and isolation. If you really want her to like being a girl, don’t create a template in which being a girl is so ghastly.
By God’s grace, Jaime loves being a mom. And now she longs for the same things for Kayla, Annie and Danae that I prayed would be her heart’s desire.
She sure as hell wouldn’t confide in *you* if she felt otherwise.
But she still needs the help, encouragement, correction and Titus 2 mentoring of others. At 3 she needed my help to learn to make her bed. At 7 we “used” her baby sister to teach her to bathe, burp and comfort a newborn. At 10 she needed help to understand why lying about cheating on her home school work was a reflection of her sinful jealousy over having to work harder on math than her older brother. At 15 it took time and long talks to help her understand why it was important to be honest with her temptations and sins, even when she was embarrassed. And at 18 she needed help to deal again with those same issues, especially when her lack of humility resulted in needing to apply the gospel when unmortified sin made life rough. (As it does with all of us!)
I believe this entire paragraph is inappropriate. I am remembering a book written by Sheree Phillips in which she was experiencing difficulty bonding with her second child. From what I recall, she had a son who was her golden child followed quickly by a daughter who may have been a fussy baby. Her mom or mother-in-law went over and took the older child for a few days and she really wanted whoever it was to take the infant and let her parent the golden boy instead. In her book, she admitted that it was appropriate for her to learn how to mother her new baby but I wonder if she ever truly bonded with this child and accept her unique temperament instead of micromanaging her with the older brother’s temperament as the ideal template. The superiority of the older brother’s math prowess makes me wonder. It also reminds me of the Barbie doll that sparked controversy that would say, “I hate math,” when you pulled her string.
The woman seems completely clueless about the embarrassment and shame she has poured over this poor kid. Imagine being micromanaged by this woman, having your every weakness thrown in your face and it never ends. Do these girls know they can emancipate themselves after a certain age?
What am I feeling? I guess I want you to know that what you are doing with your life isn’t just for “this season.” Do you think that once the kids go to school or learn to drive you will have more time for yourself? Do you dream of the days when they will actually respond to your training and stop interrupting, making messes and learn first-time obedience? Realize that laying down your life for your children is a lifetime commitment. The break our culture and our sinful hearts long for will only happen if we give in to the myth of midlife selfishness.
Do you realize that Jesus covered all of our sins and weaknesses? You get to sit back and enjoy your kids but yet you want to try to make them perfect in your image (although you never can live up to your own standards, must frustrate the crap out of you.)
Yes, there are days when I can lounge in the pool for 45 minutes uninterrupted, spend some extra time at lunch with a friend or have a leisurely devotional time without wondering what’s going on in the family room. But according to scripture, my life is not any more my own than yours is. I don’t wake up to nurse babies anymore. I just have trouble falling and staying asleep because I had iced tea with dinner or my hormones are wacky. I don’t get anxious about high fevers or whether I’m doing an adequate job teaching a first grader to read. I battle fearful concerns about whether my kids are adequately battling the worldliness or lust or self-righteousness or discontent that can lead to serious consequences in marriages and families.
Does she seem to *enjoy* worrying? Does she seem the stereotype of some ethnic joke about the meddlesome mother from hell? Stop sin-sniffing, it doesn’t make you look good and I’m sure it becomes tedious to your kids.
I’m here to say that motherhood is a life calling. My role has certainly changed over the decades. What my life looks like is different in many ways. But I remain constrained by the gospel to continue giving my life away to my kids. When the Savior bought me with the price of His sinless blood on the cross, He laid rightful claim to every moment of every day of my life through eternity.
Oh, for God’s sake, don’t blame the Gospel on your legalistic constraints Jesus freed us from the law, I am starting to believe you *enjoy* this and finding a Bible verse to quote (not that she has even cited a passage,) makes you feel all smug and righteous inside. You are, in reality, chained to a legalistic system.
So if you’re waiting for the day when you can “get your life back” (as I recently read one author say about midlife when the kids are grown) please stop. Most of the same sins I battled when I was your age I’m still battling. And the same need I had for God’s strength to give my life away 24/7 then remains my need today.
See, that’s the difference between you and me; my sins were nailed at the cross and I have my salvation to cling to and my sins are dead. I don’t focus on sins, I focus on Jesus and, yes, I get to redefine myself in middle age (I suspect I am about the same age as you.) My older children are establishing themselves in successful careers, my middle children are focused on college, and my youngest is almost a teenager. So I went back to school and graduated with my BS in Biology last winter and am now a grad student. I want to live my life for others but I will not have my life defined by patriarchal legalists.
God made women menopause; this is a huge hint that we were to be afforded the opportunity to be something other than mother in the second half of the three score and ten years that the Bible says is a standard life span.
In fact, it’s time to close this lengthy post. I have wedding rehearsal dinner invitations to address, a youth meeting to attend with 2 of my kids, clothes to move to the dryer, and a son who’s been gone for a week to pick up at the airport.
Gee, I have data to analyze, a paper that’s almost ready for publication, a novel to finish, paintings to paint, chocolate candy to make (other menial things like the wash and cooking,) help my son study for Biology, get the youngest ready to go skiing with her sister and brother in law, say, “yes,” to a lunch invitation on Saturday, and take care of a sick child.
Lord, thank you for calling me to a life of devotion to others, especially my family. Give me strength to persevere in my battle against the sin that easily lures me to love myself more than I love them. Pour out Your grace on the young moms who are reading this post today. Give them a long term vision for their mothering and protect them from worldly thoughts of getting their lives back. Their lives, and mine, were purchased by you. How foolish to ever want they back!
Filed under: Tuesday at Fivebucks, Parenting
Let me try my hand at a passive-aggressive prayer....here goes.....
Lord, thank you for taking me out of a system in which my own intrinsic value was meaningless, a system that kept me in bondage by taking my eyes away from the finished work of Jesus and on to my own strengths (aka “Battles.”) Thank you for giving me a new church family that emphasizes grace and not legalistic bondage.
Please let some young moms that are trapped in legalistic systems to read this and be released from the chains that bind them to the corpse of the law and the manipulation of these Pharisees.
Thank you for opening my eyes to see my children as *normal* and not little sinful beings that need regular beatings and belittlement.
I thank you for the years in which I was able to stay home and mother my children and I thank you now for the opportunity I was given to pursue my education and study Biology. Thank you for the privilege of being your ambassador; that I represent you in my everyday life.
Thank you for my life; that I get to have it all but not necessarily all at once.
4 comments:
wow. how horrifyingly sad. just tragic. i'm trying to remember if there was ever a point in my life where i could have read that stuff and not been horrified. even at the height of my legalism and bondage (which i honestly still struggle with), i don't know that i wouldn't have felt that something was wrong here.
i am so thankful that God will continue to work out in me an understanding of his grace and freedom.
p.s. if that's snarky, you should see some of my posts about mark driscoll! ;)
Oh, I've had plenty of snark Driscoli's way. I say he's so full of it he should be named for the bacteria that mutates a capsid and causes intestional issues (aka the runs) E. coli so he's D(ris) coli.
Debra, I am no fan of SGM, having left the very church where Sheree was a pastor's wife. I don't agree with everything Sheree teaches or her focus on sin, but I do think you are being a bit too critical about what she has written and why she wrote it. She is sharing from her own experience, she has a heart for ministering to other moms, and I know from observing her family for the past decade that she is being quite authentic and sincere about it. I really respect her daughters and her daughters-in-law; they are fine young women, and very good friends of one of my own daughters.
I think what Sheree is trying to say is that she wants to stay involved with and be available for her adult kids and her grand kids. I feel the same way about mine, though I go about it differently.
IMHO what she wrote just needs to be taken with a grain of salt and not a personal attack. So perhaps a little less snark would be appropriate? :-)
Virginia,
I can understand why you view this post as snarky I have characterized it that way myself and I will consider your wisdom when I pen a similar post in the future but I have my ire raised over this for good cause.
These women have had a bully pulpit to define Christian womanhood without dissenting voice. While in SGM (and, trust me, I was much less snarky then) I was put through the ringer for saying something negative about "Sheree's book" (by my caregroup leader's wife who patterned herself after Sheree which only confirmed that the woman has far too much influence in certain circles.)
The passive-aggressiveness is irritating at best.
The term, "role" and how they're filling their role instead of living their lives (like they're not real but actresses in a role"
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