Nov. 16th - I posted this article, called "Christian Community Doesn’t Require Our Blind Trust: Discernment and Judgment Must Come First." I only posted the link...no personal thoughts or excerpts. The truth is...many Christian communities do require blind trust. If you question...or even worse, actually suggest another alternative to something or other...you are a troublemaker who won't just go along with the flow. You are seen as rebellious, out of God's will, led astray, backslidden, a Jezebel spirit, practicing heresy...there's a wide range of accusations that can come your way. It's so very dangerous for the church to be like that...for many reasons. This article goes into why.
Nov. 16th - I posted this article, called "Three Ways to Empower Your Daughter." I loved the 3 things on this list. So very good, so very true. Something that, sadly, probably 99% of the people in the world don't think of doing. Btw, the saying on the image below is very, very true...although my interpretation of that is probably very different than James Dobson's interpretation. As I am a female though...you should go with my version. How does a man rise to the occasion in a daughter's life? Go read this article.
Nov. 17th - A message Joel got from a 'friend.'
{EDITED for clarification: This is not a blood brother, you guys. Just a guy we know who calls Joel 'brother' at the end there. We aren't in contact with his family...really and truly this time.}
when i say that true colors have been shown over the course of the last few years (and specifically the last year), this is what i'm talking about. just wow. message after message and comment after comment like this one. geez...we have kept company with some immature, uninformed 'friends'...that is all becoming clear through all of this. joel got the following after he posted something last night. looks like his friends list is next!!
this is what is wrong with the church, people. and it is a HUGE problem!! this is from a *respected* family. #soscary
surely i'm not the only one who thinks this is so very disrespectful. please let me know i'm not the only one.
~Joel, have you been castrated since i last saw you?
Man up. And become the man of your house hold. GOD has given you the role as the head of the house. Dont give into the lies, that the devil has crafted. Pick up a king james bible, and search out the raw words of God, and his will for mankind and his kingdom.
Your wife is your helpmate, and God should be yours. Pursue him rather then your wife. And your wife will follow.
Just speaking from my heart, which isnt perfect by any means... Love you Brother...~Believe me...everyone assured me I was not the only one. Lol. Just wow. Still can't get over this and so many other completely immature and rude (and backwards...because only uneducated people treat others that way; in Portuguese 'educado' means 'polite'...and that is truly reflective of truly educated people) communication we've gotten over these past few years. Smh.
Here's a real kicker that I don't remember if I ever shared about the above message in particular. The guy that sent that? He's in his early 20s and has never been married. Hasn't even ever had a girlfriend I don't think. So, you know...that makes that message even more brazen. A young 20-something yr. old sending an almost 40 year old man who's been married for 15 years this extremely brash and condescending message? It would be bad enough from *anyone*...but add in that factor and wow. Sadly though, these are the kinds of messages that we've gotten from very married and experienced people too...because it's learned as one of 'God's clear principles' (the message that says that wife is your helpmate and you are the leader, and you are emasculated if you're not living that way...not necessarily always the KJV message except in certain pockets, lol). So while this particular isolated message could be taken as just young and stupid hubris and discarded, the truth is that that doesn't apply to all the other messages we've gotten like that. :/ Seriously dumbfounding, no matter who it is from. But, this one? He's been trained and taught that he can speak to anyone rudely and disrespectfully who he perceives is 'defiling God's order of things.' He's learned this well...it's been modeled for him. Some of the other men in his family have sent us messages like this too. And...the church as a whole models this kind of behavior.
Nov. 18th -
if you never listen to anything else i post, please listen to this...everyone.
Nov. 20th - LOVED this article, called "Famous Quotes, The Way a Woman Would Have to Say Them During a Meeting." Still laughing (so ridiculously true and sad that it's laughable).
oh man...this is so right on!! lol and smh. (btw, it's not about jennifer lawrence...she's just referenced once) it happens very subtly. and you have to do this with some more than others. being kind is always a good thing. but, never again will i curb who i am, therefore how i say things, to fit a certain idea of what i should be.
i *loved* the part of j-law's essay that said, "I’m over trying to find the 'adorable' way to state my opinion and still be likable! F^(% that. I don’t think I’ve ever worked for a man in charge who spent time contemplating what angle he should use to have his voice heard. It’s just heard."
read the following. oh man...YES! this is how a woman has to speak. and it's ridiculous. praise God it's changing. that's *never* what He had in mind for His daughters!!
excerpts:
“Let my people go.”
Woman in a Meeting: “Pharaoh, listen, I totally hear where you’re coming from on this. I totally do. And I don’t want to butt in if you’ve come to a decision here, but, just, I have to say, would you consider that an argument for maybe releasing these people could conceivably have merit? Or is that already off the table?”
“I came. I saw. I conquered.”
Woman in a Meeting: “I don’t want to toot my own horn here at all but I definitely have been to those places and was just honored to be a part of it as our team did such a wonderful job of conquering them.”
Nov. 21st - I posted this article, called "Farewell to the Missionary Hero," with these words...
Joel has a very important role within Asas de Socorro still as Operations Coordinator. he logs all the flights made and makes sure all of the billing is taken care of, among other things. he puts in many hours a week with this position.
given all that has gone on in our marriage and the fact that we are still here in the u.s., that is often not known...that he still works within the mission organization. that he is, even practically speaking, a missionary. still. we should all be missionaries wherever we are...but, he does still even very technically and logistically play a vital role and hold major responsibility within our mission organization...is in constant communication with and is constantly working with them every day.
regardless, do people still consider us 'missionaries?'
as far as people's perceptions and expectations go, do people even still consider us 'Christians?' lol.
and that's why i love this article sooooooo much.
honesty is such a powerful thing. it is so needed in this world. even before we started talking honestly about details that were happening within our marriage, if i was honest at all just about 'struggling,' in my writings or talking with others, so often the answer was just 'well, you need to stay positive.' and that started being the normal rhetoric coming my way...that i was just being negative...i needed to be more positive.
the problem with this is that i was not being negative...i was just being honest.
facades and fronts have never been my forte. in fact, i've always run from them like the plague. just...gross. i can't deal.
luckily for everyone else, up until the past few years, my life had seemed to be full of roses and rainbows in most ways. the parts that weren't, i didn't have to speak about them publicly. they weren't all-consuming...and could be left to the side or left altogether, no longer a part of my life.
but once the roses and rainbows started being replaced with much, much darker things, God forbid i talk about it. that's too negative. honesty is great...unless it's crappy things we're being honest about. then just shut the hades up...nobody wants to hear that honesty.
this article nails it. it talks about missionaries specifically, but this is an issue for *everyone*...and for *all* Christians. i LOVE that elisabeth elliot and isobel kuhn saw the importance of honesty...and even had books banned from bookstores because they were too 'honest' (read: 'negative'). "Some memoirists, free from the oversight of mission boards, permitted themselves greater honesty about their missions." *free from the oversight of mission boards*...that is a key phrase.
"...missionaries still feel pressure to communicate in a certain way—one that leads churches and individuals to continue their financial support. Jamie Wright, who runs the popular blog Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, blames this dynamic on sending churches. She writes that missionaries can 'feel roped in to this wordplay because the church insists on overly spiritualized reports from missionaries whose work they don’t entirely understand.' Afraid of financial instability, missionaries downplay their struggles or just how mundane a lot of their work is."
on amy carmichael: "...even at the turn of the century (the 20th century that is), Carmichael knew something had to change in the way we talked about missions. Now we have a chance to realize her vision."
as i said, it's not just missionaries...although maybe i've had more criticism because i am/'was' one. but, this applies to everyone. *honesty*...it's the only way we ever grow and learn.
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