God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I can't tell you how many times I recited creeds about this holy trinity growing up. It was a concept I was very familiar with, and had always believed, but someway, somehow, I managed to miss the Spirit altogether. That was the void I was so desperately trying to fill. I knew God. I knew Jesus. I never knew the Spirit. Until that one Sunday morning this past January.
I was sitting in the pew of this tiny little congregation (that's something else I had been adamant about, I wanted a good size congregation, you know, with lots of options for myself and my daughter) next to my neighbor whom I barely knew (and whom was about to become one of my closest friends). At any other time before then, I would have felt like the elephant in the room, convinced everyone was staring at me and judging me, because I did not look like them. And yet all I felt was warmth and welcoming. The smiles were genuine (yes, even those directed at me!) and there was a light shining in them all. A friend of mine once compared it to something out of The Stepford Wives. :)
That day the pastor spoke an a topic which, to this day, it amazes me that I did not run screaming and never look back. He spoke about wifely submission. What?! I was shocked. But not for the reasons I would have expected to be. Me, the feminist, women's studies minor, career oriented, climb to the top woman who had been adamant I had every right to do anything a man could do, and then some. But what shocked me was not that there was a man standing up in a pulpit discussing a divine headship order of first God, then Jesus, then Man, then Woman (and to be fair, I should mention he not only spoke about wifely submission, but also the husband's responsibility to care for the wife, and not take advantage of that submission).
What shocked me was that he was quoting scripture. That's in the Bible?!
Backup a little bit. One of the main reasons-actually, THE main reason, I had turned my back on God was the hypocrisy I was bombarded with of His children. I was disgusted by the prevalence of so-called Christians picking and choosing which scripture they wanted to follow, which scripture they felt others should follow, and which scripture they could simply ignore because "that doesn't apply". And more often than not, there was no rhyme or reason to which scripture was picked, other than to justify the lifestyle he or she wanted to live. So when my neighbor invited me to attend her Mennonite church, what appealed to me was that, at least on the surface, these people appeared to live their faith. I realized that I too was being a hypocrite. I didn't like people picking and choosing from the Bible, so I just ignored it all? That makes perfect sense.
So as I sat there in that pew, with a burning desire to know God and His word, and realized this concept of wifely submission was actually in the Bible, I thought-"I can try that." Notice the word try. I wasn't about to commit to this. And I certainly wasn't going to tell my husband what I was doing. I wanted an out. But I also realized that the biggest point of contention in our marriage revolved around my unwillingness to do anything considered "woman's work" without my husband doing at least half of it. Of course, I never did half of the man's work. But that's fair, right?
So I went home that Sunday, did a little Bible study (you know, to make sure I was hearing the pastor right), and started doing housework without complaint, and without being asked.
And my whole world began to change.
No comments:
Post a Comment