Today was one of those more unusual mom days. Earlier in the week I got a text from an in-town mom asking if I’d be able to fill in for her Thursday serving lunch at the high school. After asking for more details, I learned that for the past several months, some of the upperclassman moms have been doing a Thursday lunch fundraiser to raise money for prom. The recruiting and organizing has been done on Facebook, which would explain why I had no idea anyone was even doing this.

I said I would do it, and it was actually really fun. Every Thursday three moms serve a meal that is homemade one week, and picked up from a restaurant another week. The high school has a kitchen, but not a regular lunch program. For between $5-8 depending on the meal, students and teachers can sign up for lunch. Today they had potato soup, toppings, and rolls. As much as I have mentioned over the years how cooking isn’t exactly my passion, I actually feel quite at home in more commercial and industrialized kitchens.

Within minutes of the third mom entering the kitchen the three of us standing there were all close to tears. One was talking about the bittersweet realities that come along with senior year. Another mentioned her late husband and teared up, as he has only been gone a little over a year. The other had been a single mom for most of her child’s life, and she spoke of the various jobs she has had to try and keep a flexible schedule in order to be with her son as much as possible.

It really just made think about how different people’s lives are. Josh came into the kitchen on his way out from teaching. Both moms mentioned to me how handsome my husband is, and my son with his chiseled features. Of course I know this and I agreed with them. There is a type of compliment, a form of truth-telling, that isn’t offensive. During first lunch I went and said hi to my daughter and her friends. I know their names, but would not have been able to match them all with a face. Today I learned and won’t forget.

I said hi to my son and his table too. Later when I’d gotten home I was sitting next an open window when I noticed it was chilly. I emailed him to see if he was good on having enough clothes. There was a baseball game later this afternoon. They played in the cold, sporadic light drizzle. We brought a long-sleeve shirt along for him to wear underneath his uniform. Dad had put on plenty of layers and the boys and I brought extra blankets. It was a fuller day including more activities with others.

Dad had to preach tonight for church. The boys and I rode along and we arrived around 6 for the Lenten meal. They served shepherd’s pie, green beans, garlic bread, and dessert. I have this weird thing with Lenten meals where I always walk away from the line feeling like my entrée serving size was too small. I saved the shepherd’s pie for last and it slowly. The younger boys it seems are eating more and more these days and I wonder sometimes if they’re just trying to keep up with their brother or if they’re genuinely hungry.

The big kids had track practice then stayed in town to go to another church’s youth group. Between practice and church they stopped at a boy friend’s house for grilled cheese and soup. One time last year they came home after practice and we immediately left for the Lenten meal. The elders were in charge and had signed up to make breakfast food. When we got there they had already run so low on food that everybody got a 2x2in piece of egg casserole. I was definitely disappointed but I also thought it was funny.

It is the only time I can remember that I have ever used the parenting line, “Now kids we really need to be grateful and remember there are starving kids in Africa.” Dad left to go get ready for church while the boys and I finished up. I wanted to walk and get in some steps before church. I told the boys they could play but that they could not run inside. They decided to come with me and went outside so they could run. The weather was warmer this evening so we didn’t need coats. Soon we settled in, quieting down for evening prayer.

“Addiction may oppress our desire, erode our wills, confound our motivations, and contaminate our judgement, but its bondage is never absolute.”
~Gerald May, Addiction and Grace~

You know what’s something that really bothered me about spring break? It’s that I had spent so much time of mine the week before engrossed with an article I read on the internet. This is my topic, the one that sucks me in and that I give myself over too. After the firestorm, after the TCG article debates and Twitter threads that probably burned holes in my prefrontal cortex from reading on my phone so much, I asked myself “WTH?”

For me it is several topics tied up into one. The topics of purity culture/biblical manhood and womanhood/various popular Christian teaching on marriage are all things I became involved with during times when I was seeking guidance. This guidance primarily came through books acquired from the local and now out of business Berean Bookstore. Purity culture was during my teens when I was looking for answers to the question of “how far is too far?” The marriage books were in preparation for and throughout our years of marriage in an attempt to understand more about relationships and the way men think. What makes a good wife? How do you have a godly marriage?

The biblical manhood and womanhood stuff is less clear to me. I still remember the day when I brought the book home from my husband’s office, which I reached for the blue cover standing out from the middle shelves. Often while out for a walk I’d take the kids by to visit him. I went through a phase where I liked to wear sundresses, where I ate oatmeal as an aphrodisiac hoping to bring my body back into balance. Debi Pearl’s Created to Be His Helpmeet was one my sister immediately rejected, but I felt challenged by it. Her words were sometimes harsh and came off at times sounding terribly prideful and self-righteous, but she had a beautiful, feminine, picture on the cover and I wanted to be seen as a wife like that.

He liked when I read that book and wore dresses. When I’d have his lunch ready for him when he’d come home, doing what I could to treat my man like the king of his castle. None of this was stuff he asked for me to do. We would fight sometimes about things, often when I would criticize the culture and women of our church. Why was I the only one who seemed to care about motherhood and womanhood in a biblical way? Why wasn’t there anyone here to teach me how to do this? He always said I could be too extreme with things. The biblical manhood and womanhood book was something he’d picked up in a seminary book giveaway pile. It was not an ideology that he had first ascribed to and then imposed upon me.

At one point I had a resurgent interest in marriage and housewifery which one again led me to reading more books, something to stimulate my mind in the midst of the everyday. This was all done for fun, and not because, that I can remember, we were experiencing any kind of pressing or particular marriage problems. It was true what they said about being a housewife. There was so much time to cultivate a life of domestic arts. You could express yourself in the decorations of your home, love your children and husband by having warm meals for them, experiment with baking, gardening, and cloth diapering for the sheer pleasure of serving loved ones alongside learning something new.

It’s weird. The more false beliefs are extracted from my mind, the more the experiences that were attached to those beliefs are also changed. So many of my experiences, attitudes, and pains were tied up in my marriage beliefs and desires. It annoyed me that I had wasted so much time on this article and the subsequent discussions and articles that followed. Instead of cleaning and straightening my room like I had planned, I ordered more Amazon books for “research”, that I do not even have time or energy to read right now, for my stash for when I write my own book someday.

And then it’s like, I think to myself, “Oh my gosh. This is crazy people behavior. Like, this really is crazy and this is what people do who don’t actually do anything.” And every time I fall into this there comes the airplane with the banner flying overhead with its bright bold letters: She Does Not Eat the Bread of Idleness. It’s the only bread I eat most days, except if I eat bagels when I give in and don’t care. There’s another one somewhere about women who go from house to house, speaking about things that they ought not to say.

I think this is the biggest addiction I have, the addiction of not giving a crap about myself, when I get too discouraged, give up, and quit caring about my life. There is a healthy and non-narcissistic form of self love, as foreign and cringy as it might sound to say it. That is a love we can all learn to walk in. I was actually really sad about the whole not writing books thing, like facing the fact that this just isn’t real, this is not my life. I have an essay to write that is due tomorrow, a book report that is also due Friday. I need to move on now.

The kids are back to school this week. Last week remains to me much of a blur as I could tell you what everyone else what doing but not so much of whatever it is I was doing. Dad and Ethan took a trip down to Florida. The left early on Wednesday and returned late on Friday. They drove all that way to watch a three hour baseball game, eat supper afterwards, and then drive back home. The Cardinals were playing for their spring training.

It was fun for me to watch their travel progress on my phone. I would kind of get emotional whenever I would see their little dot moving so determined down the road. For a time in there the boys and I just did our own thing. They made a sleeping area in the living room one night and watched videos of a some guy trying to beat a Minecraft world record. I made taco soup one night for us to eat. We made it to church on Wednesday evening.

I struggle to order and maintain basic life habits as it is but it’s amazing to me how it all falls apart when Dad’s gone. Within days the pile of books and clothes has re-exploded in our room. The boys grazed for lunch and eventually I eat something. I started a book on addictions. I wrote an entire post summarizing the first chapter of the book then deleted it because I was afraid of saying something wrong or not understanding right.

Thursday evening we had a board of directors meeting at church. After the meetings the pastor has been taking us through this evangelism series called Every One His Witness. I have often heard things about the apostle Paul regarding how well he was educated. He was trained in rhetoric and a student of the law, even a Pharisee of Pharisees as he calls himself. I was encouraged then to be reminded that what he had was something else.

Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit, which is something we all have as believers in Christ. It was the Spirit’s power by which he wrote all his letters, gave Acts 17 speeches, and bore witness to Christ. This morning it was chilly again when we stepped outside for the ride to school. I played a few songs from Kids Sing Praise 5: Psalty’s Camping Adventure. The big kids used to watch it some but the boys would’ve been too small to remember.

It snowed a little today. This morning I opened the window and it was bitter cold, the kind where you don’t go outside. I drove up I-55, then I-39 to meet my sister halfway. She’d taken Elianna to spend a few days of spring break with her cousins. The nieces and aunts ate lunch at a Subway. After that we had to get gas, something I don’t like to do when it’s windy and cold. I had to lean against the car door so I could even get out and when I stepped outside my sandal blew off to the other side of the van. I’d bought my boots along too.

After that I came home and went straight to bed. I rested for about an hour before heading over to the CGC where I was needing to make supper for the group here this weekend. I mostly never have to cook for camp anymore, but earlier in the week my husband asked if I’d do it. Even last year I found the kitchen work too much to do for too long. I would need to sit down and catch my breath. Tonight though wasn’t bad and I didn’t need to sit down. After several years of being here you get to know the repeat groups. This group is particular about their meals, but still nice.

I went to bed again soon after coming home from there. I still have the shaking that happens after doing more “stressful” things. I can control it and mostly stop it if I want to, but if I do that I will also get these almost body shocks that want to jump start the shaking again. So I let it go. It’s like this simultaneous form of decompression with a subconscious way of saying to myself, “It’s ok. You’re alright.” I have a video from 2021 I’d sent to my sisters of this same thing happening after folding a load of laundry. It’s doing a lot better.

The older boys moved back into their bedroom last night. It wasn’t the total room makeover I first imagined, but the room is put back together enough. After the big kids came home from track practice this morning, the kids spent some time straightening and vacuuming the schoolroom. One of the kids was having a friend over who is also a member of the opposite sex, and the approved and welcomed afternoon plan was for all of them together to play board games downstairs.

Before that Dad took us out to lunch at Harvest Market. We drove three cars. He drove one, my son drove another, and then my daughter, a licensed driver as of Saturday, drove the third vehicle into town with one of the boys in the shotgun seat. I walked out of the house, saw the sight of them, and gasped. Everyone else seems to think this is funny, and one of the roles I’ve learned to play in our family is letting people laugh at my motherly reactions, and at times, over-reactions. I mostly don’t have a problem with it.

While we were eating lunch I praised one of the boys. Out of my own mouth, for everyone else to hear, came the words “Be like _______”. I told a story about him. I recounted the many times I’ve seen him display this quality I was telling others about. I started to feel I’d gone overboard with what I was saying, because pretty soon there was a sense that I’d embarrassed my son by drawing so much attention to him, and stirred up a trace amount of jealousy in the other kids. The jokes were back, about Joseph and his brothers, and me presenting the son with his coat of many colors.

Dad had to run camp errands, so when lunch was finished he left with his car. My son had baseball practice, so he left with his. The rest of the kids came with me over to the supermarket section to pick up a few item for the guest who would also be joining us for dinner. The conversation about my lunch comments continued through the first part of the drive home. They all have wonderful and exceptional things about them. I finally had to revise my words. Be like Jesus, I said. This is the person who in the Bible we are called to imitate.

Last night I started my second 8-week class of the quarter. This class is called Substance Abuse and Addictions Counseling. All of us are still waiting to find out how we did on last quarter’s final exam. I got an 89% on our major class paper, which puts my grade too close to where I don’t like it to be. There were some very personal things in there, which with a grade like that now sort of makes me wish I hadn’t written them. I knew when I was writing it that I was missing more of the needed parts and had included too much narrative.

Dad and the kids are on spring break this week. Every single one of us slept in this morning, he and I until 8 o’clock. Neither one of us have ever really been sleeper in people, but I am the one who sleeps later in the morning, and enough times for it to be normal am often up in the night. I will never understand how men on a regular basis can sleep so soundly. Here and there if I’ve been awake longer in the 3-4:00AM range, I will take my stuff downstairs to fall back asleep in the schoolroom bed so I won’t be awakened by the early alarm.

I straightened our room this morning. Throughout the goings about of today I’ve been listening to a song called “Momentary” by Olafur Arnolds and performed by VOCES8. This is one of my favorite vocal groups to listen to. The beauty of the music truly tends to my soul, and not only that, but allows me to speak and share in the realm of the heavenly voices. I wonder sometimes if I’d get more done if I turned it off, if songs throughout the day just slow me down. The way this sounds is the way I’d sing if I could, the way I’d write if I could.

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord”
~Acts 3:19~

We left at 7:50 to travel down to Girard. Dad was filling in for a local pastor this morning. When we arrived inside the kids said it was like stepping into a doll house. It was so small and tiny that you felt instantly at home, like you could take your sleeping bag, pillow, and blanket and make a cozy sleeping space next to the altar. These Sunday local church adventures are my favorite.

There was Sunday School for little ones, three or four that I saw. We walked next door to the basement where they normally hold Bible class. There was a woman there. She said there’s usually at least an elder who comes. The four boys sat in the metal chairs at the table, and my daughter and I sat on the softer pew against the wall. The pastor picked up at the end of Acts chapter 2.

The elder did join us toward the middle of Acts 3. In church they had a lady in charge of running the iPad. They don’t have an organist so they use a special program. We caused a brief kerfuffle when the kids and I didn’t get up when it was our turn for communion. They dismiss themselves and were done in three passes. I was confused then at first but the pastor showed me where to go.

One of the things I heard while listening to a podcast in response to the TGC article is that Christ is now betrothed to his bride, but not married to her.* In this way, the article’s sexualized language regarding Christ penetrating his church is inappropriate. Christ isn’t having sex with his church right now. Furthermore, he isn’t going to be having sex with his bride even then, when he returns for her in glory at the end of all things.

I always thought it was weird that there wasn’t going to be any marriage in heaven. Why not let us share in the perfection of the holy state that we might know what it was meant to be when God created it in the beginning? And the same with the marriage act. Why take away something good that in the glorified state could potentially be even better? It surely seemed to me that to enter into eternity was like taking a giant step backwards.

I asked my husband about this, about Christ’s bride being a virgin. If in the Old Testament God’s people were portrayed as an unfaithful bride, always running away and going after false gods, is he perpetually making her pure all this time, so that she’s just gradually becoming more and more pure as time goes on? How is she finally presented to him without spot or blemish? How is she pure now? He said it’s because she is resurrected.

(*This insight was shared by Christy Hemphill on Season 3 Episode 124 of the podcast Where Do We Go From Here, 44:00-45:00, Ephesians 5 Gone Wrong in the Latest Evangelical Take on Sex. It might be better if I’d have said that while the marriage between Christ and his church has not been consummated, the benefits of this marriage are received and experienced now by faith.)

“For he knows our frame,
he remembers that we are dust”
~Psalm 103:14~

The first time I heard that men were givers and women were receivers I was at a weekend pastor’s wives retreat. At the time, I was very busy in the vocation of motherhood. Accompanying me on the retreat was my 5-week old infant, who I was happy to bring along and the other ladies were happy to have there. He slept with me in my bed where I was confident I could keep him quiet through the night while the others slept. I slept then too.

On an basic level the words made sense. Strictly speaking, using human anatomy to make the point, the male has a body part that is made to go inside a corresponding female body part. His going inside her is his giving himself to her. Men are the givers, women are the receivers. And it doesn’t stop there. Even once the man is inside there is more of him to give and more of him to be received. From the man’s sexual organ comes his seed set free to travel further up and further in.

I am not against looking to the creation as a way to explain things. From creation we are able to learn more about the Creator. Romans 1:20 explains it this way saying, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…” God makes his glory known through his creation in many ways, with the ultimate way being in the incarnation of Jesus, the begotten Son of the Father, who entered his creation so that then, now, and at the end of time God might be with us.

I am still trying to figure out what I think about this TGC article that has now been removed. Besides making the discussed Ephesians 5 passage more about the act of sex in marriage rather than about the picture of marriage itself, the part of the original TGC article that stood out to me was when he started talking more about generosity and hospitality. Complementarian doctrine makes frequent use of happy adverbs. This is particularly true when talking about the woman and her roles. The way we fit, the way we come together, the way we fulfill God’s design for us as women is repeatedly seen in their descriptions of us gladly receiving, joyfully submitting, and now in this article, warmly welcoming. By God’s design a wife gladly receives her husband’s leadership, joyfully submits to his authority, and now with great hospitality welcomes warmly his generosity.

As far as the standard description of “roles” goes, I don’t even really have a problem with this. Yes I think there is more to marriage than the differences between us and this oft repeated emphasis on who is in charge. But whether it’s me as a wife, or just me as a person, or especially me as a Christian and child of God, I want to be associated with words like warm, joy, and glad. Sometimes though it sounds a little too convenient for men and as women we are not allowed to speak or have an authoritative say in any of this.

The president of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Denny Burk, in his response article Taking a Dog by the Ears provides an example of a common and related perspective regarding the roles of husbands and wives when he says, “The complementarity of head and helper in the covenant of marriage gloriously displays Christ’s love for his church (1 Cor. 11:9; Eph 5:25). This is the mystery that was hidden in ages past but that has now been most conspicuously displayed in Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection (1 Cor. 2:7-8; Col. 1:26). None of this sits well with the egalitarian spirit of the age, but it is nonetheless the message of Scripture.”

Complementarian theology stresses that men and women are different. We do have to be different in some way, and undeniably we are different. Our bodies display this difference as the original article pointed out. But the relationship between Christ and his church is not a relationship of boss and subordinate. It is far more personal than that. When Jesus left the Father’s side in heaven that he might be with us again on the earth, he did so by staying God but becoming human like we are.

“When cradling a baby, mothers tend to use the left arm, positioning the baby’s ear over the aorta and strongest heartbeat.”
~Gregg Johnson, PhD~*

This afternoon we met my in-laws for lunch at Red Robin. We tend to rotate between three different places. The waitress impressed me during our previous visit when she automatically knew what one of my sons wanted to order. She said the rest of us switch up our orders but he always orders the same thing. I’d never really noticed what he ordered myself. I took note of what it was, and today when he ordered, it was the same again.

We had a light snow over the weekend which didn’t stay long. By Saturday morning the roads were clear again. We had a busy day with camp things, first with a pancake breakfast and then an afternoon board meeting. The other kids stayed here while I took our son to one of his track meets. We had an enjoyable drive and the track meet wasn’t too bad. My tolerance for these events becomes more and more normal as time goes on.

I’ve still been borderline obsessing over the article I mentioned in my previous post. It’s easier to read other people’s thoughts about things than it is to try and write out your own. This afternoon when I went in to nap I ended up getting distracted with reading. I could hardly believe my eyes when the above lovely sentence jumped out at me. I then polled my sisters and a friend asking what side they cradled their babies on. They all said left.

*Chapter 16: Biological Basis for Gender-Specific Behavior, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood