It's a Girl!

I was born a female, physically speaking. Psychology was teaching at the time and for many years after my birth, that gender was irrelevant to the emotional and spiritual development of a child. In some places it still is. The teaching is, essentially, you could teach a child to be “gender neutral.” Little boys don’t naturally want to play with cars and turn sticks into swords. Little girls don’t naturally want to nurture a baby doll or play dress up in princess clothes. It was a lie then and those who espouse this idea now are still lying. God created the genders equal but different. Each has a beautiful reason for being but as a society we will never find it if we keep trying to pretend the difference isn’t there. If we keep teaching our children that their innate way of being a girl or a boy is wrong how will they find their purpose?
I do not need to prove that I am as strong as a man, emotionally wired as a man or that I think like a man to prove that I am a beautiful woman created by God and as worthy of my life and freedom as a man. God created me to be unselfish, unconditionally loving, unending in pouring myself out for others, to be nurturing, compassionate and patient. He created me to be loved by Him and if it is my vocation, to create life with Him. If marriage is my vocation, He created me to be loved by a man as He Himself would love me. He created me to be a beautiful woman, physically, emotionally and spiritually. This is not less than a man; it is different from a man. Finally, after 30 years of searching the world over for the career that would fulfill me, searching for what my identity is, I have found it. I am His daughter, spouse, and mother; there is nothing on earth I would rather be.

Mk 3:35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

However, the road has been long and hard. Even now as I am pregnant with Mark and I’s second child who may be a female I realize that God has to remove the last vestiges of the “I hate women” attitude I was given growing up.
How did you get there, Dani? How did you get to the point where you hated being a woman? Well, there were a number of reasons but I will single out the most significant. Husbands, how are you treating your wife, the mother of your daughter? If you can’t be bothered to love her unconditionally, sacrificially and in an edifying manner, then your daughter is watching you. If you say horrible things to your wife, your daughter hears them and those words are for her as well. If you refuse to help your wife when she needs it or say kind words to her regularly, your daughter isn’t getting the help she needs and is not hearing those words. She is watching you, she is deciding if being a female is beautiful in your eyes or useful. She is deciding if her entire being has any value to you. If you do not value her mother, nothing you will say or do to her is going to matter one wit! Daughters create their image of themselves based on the way their parents interact with one another. Just as the mother is showing the daughter how to be woman, the father is showing the daughter if being a woman is worth anything.
Wives, are you lifting up your husbands? Are you thankful for them? Do you try and make their life easier? Do you show appreciation for your husband in front of your children? Do you speak to your children of the great things about their daddy even when he is not around to hear? Your son is watching you, deciding if being man is worth anything? Do you strive to value the traits in yourself that are inherently female? Do you appreciate them in your daughter? When she brings you a wounded animal, do you help or tell her she is being ridiculous? When she wants another baby doll burped and diapered do you help, or ask her to play a different game, you are tired of that one? Does the fact that she wants to pretend to cook bother you to no end? How about when she wants to dress up as a princess? Do you point her in other directions because that is rubbish and no woman ever gets to be a princess?
Did you know that both of your children are watching the spouse of the opposite gender to decide what they want in a spouse when they are adults? Do you want them to be treated as you treat your wife or husband? Statistically speaking, your son and/or daughter will find the carbon copy of yourself. Is how you treat your spouse the best you want for them?
The bottom line is, husbands, do you treat your wives as the beautiful princess you envisioned when you married her? Wives, do you treat your husbands as the handsome princes you imagined as you strolled down the aisle? If not, your children know, they will assimilate the treatment as unto themselves and their gender. Do you want that for them? Many times as parents in this society we are taught that we must feed, cloth, educate and dump heaps of materialistic rubbish from the store on our children. However, that is not the truth. The truth is we must feed, cloth and educate our children. Most of that education comes from their observances of our ACTIONS not our words. This means you have to work at being how you want your son/daughter to be when they grow up. You cannot just tell them, you must be kind, self sacrificing, committed, responsible, loving, etc, because if you are not, they certainly will not. This is why Paul says, “Be imitators of Christ!” Don’t just read his words and teachings and then go on your way thinking he sounds like a great guy. Strive after becoming like Him! And don’t sigh and say, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” That cliché is rubbish, I had an old dog I taught lots of new tricks and humans are not dogs. We were created to get sweeter with time just like wine. Why do you think Jesus talks about wine so much? We cannot do this without the Holy Spirit to guide us.
When I was 19 years old, I decided that I was going to remove the last remnants of anything female when I had my heart broken by who I thought was going to be my prince. He seemed to get over the loss of me so quickly that I decided I must be nothing short of a useless gender. My father had been teaching me that for years, however, I thought maybe he might be wrong so I tried dating. That experience solidified the lessons I grew up with. As a female I had no value to anyone. I would just learn how to be a man and what better way than to become a Marine? It was convenient that I felt God calling me to the Marines anyway. I shut down my heart completely until I only felt two things; anger and hate. Crying was never an option. I stopped caring about other people or trying to help them, all the men in my life were that way so I had to adopt that policy as well. I graduated boot camp trained to kill when necessary and was no longer afraid of a man hurting me. They could not hurt me emotionally or physically, ever again! The six year old who dreamed of a princess wedding and being a homemaker metamorphosed into the 20 year old who thought that she never wanted children or to be a homemaker, ever! That would just be a way for a man to use me!
Enter an officer’s wife and mother of five. She invited me to her house for a women’s bible study. I was assured that it wasn’t about how to be a better housewife and so I went. What I witnessed upon entering her home shocked me to the core and began a series of events that knocked down the giant walls I had built so high around me no one could get through. I watched her make lunch and orchestrate its consumption by five children. The oldest being six years old, spilt a glass of milk. His mother didn’t say a word, just smiled and said, “Accidents happen, I will clean it up and you will need to be very careful with the next glass.” To which the child smiled and said,
“Yes, mama.” She never got her dander up and I felt like she was the eye of a storm. Her husband, the Marine Officer, came in and the look he gave her even though she wasn’t looking stopped me in my tracks. He loved her, after all the years they had been married, all these kids they had made, all the craziness and moving and military. He really loved her. She grounded him and gave him peace. I saw all that in about 10 seconds. I don’t remember the bible study. God didn’t need me to retain the study, He wanted me to see her. He wanted me to see those children’s response to mamma. He wanted me to see a husband who loved and honored his wife. That United States Marine Officer clearly thought that women were valuable. The children thought that mamma rocked and they were so happy to see daddy. That United States Marine Officer hugged them, loved them, asked them how their day was going and listened. He asked his wife if she needed anything and asked her how she was doing. Even though there was company he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek amidst all the chaos. She was their center. A crack in my wall formed, only ever so slightly, it was enough for the Holy Spirit to move in.
Years of strong female friends who also loved the Lord was instrumental. My friend Melinda taught me that God thought I was wonderful and beautiful as a women. He didn’t need me to be married and make children to have value but if that was His plan for my life it would be beautiful. My friend Donna helped me through my journey into Catholicism and also showed me a healthy marriage and love for one’s husband. Even if that husband seemed really quirky(because I am really quirky so was worried about being too quirky to love forever), Donna told me she had her own quirks too! Was love in marriage about loving the other person even with their “faults?” Catholicism, itself, God began using to show me the beauty of womanhood, wifedom and motherhood. That will be another blog for another day, next week . . . .

Out of Control!

I hate it when I believe that I have learned something, only to discover later that there was a whole new level to learn! Amazingly, walking with the Lord is like a video game. We learn things in echelons. Once I’ve beaten one level of the game, He moves me to the next! Like the character in the game has no control of going to the next level, neither do we.
First, I believed that I completely understood how much I wasn’t in control. I had finally and happily released to the Lord control of every minor detail of my life. The house, my career, my pregnancy, my husband in Iraq, my family in the States. Yep, I thought for sure I was holding onto nothing. Then I held my wee son for the first time. As I gapped at how amazing God was that He would bless us with this perfectly healthy amazing son I realized that he was out now. Out in this evil and destitute world where there existed people who would try to harm him in a myriad of ways I couldn’t fathom and didn’t want to. There were germs that I couldn’t see or fight against. There were cars on the road, wars in other countries and there was a famine in Africa! All the horrible things came crashing in on me and I couldn’t stop them. He would learn about them and see them, he would be hurt in this life - physically and emotionally. There was nothing I could do to stop it. The horror of that realization sent me to my knees(figuratively as I had had an epidural and couldn’t feel my knees). I had to trust in the Lord with the safety of my son! God had given our son to us but we had to give him back.
Secondly, there is that phrase perpetual prayer. Or as it is put in 1 Thessalonians:

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Pradis CD-ROM:1Th 5:16.
1Th 5:16 Be joyful always;
1Th 5:17 pray continually;
1Th 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

I definitely want to do this verse. I want to walk in the joy of the Lord so that for my kids I am consistent and able to help them through what ever circumstance we face as a family and they face as growing individuals of free will. I want to do this verse so that no matter what is going on in our life my husband can depend on me and the fact that my walk with the Lord means I won’t be running from hard things.
Finally, at least for this week. There is faith. I was sure I had it. Not the mustard seed of faith because I hadn't gotten the Lord to move Everest into my back yard yet, but I thought I had a lot. I realized that at the first cry of this gift from the Lord that what I had was no where near enough! I had been asking the Lord to increase my faith since I was about 14/15. I remember my pastor at the time, Pastor Scott Carlson, telling me in one of his sermons that if you pray for your faith to be increased, stand by! The Lord will move mountains and you to answer that prayer. As I had to go to the Lord for more faith due to Mark Jr.‘s debut I looked over the last 15 years. God had been answering my prayer all along. My faith in Him has been growing. I required faith to leave all that I knew and loved to join the Marines because I felt that was where the Lord wanted me. I required more faith to wait for four years on the love of my life, believing that the Lord had meant for us to be together. I required yet more faith when the Lord escorted my husband to Iraq and then yet more to be pregnant and alone. Then finally, as if He placed the cherry on top, He gave me this tiny fragile gift that would demand more faith in the Lord, he would demand that I remain on my knees perpetually in prayer before the Lord. This little one would demand of me agape love and patience, long suffering, gentleness, kindness. My prayer for faith had been answered and was being answered for the last 15 years. I rapidly commenced praying for the fruits of the Spirit to grow in my life as I was going to need more than five a day to be a good parent to our children! I believe that the Lord will spend the next 30 years or so answering this prayer . . .
The Holy Bible, New International Version. Pradis CD-ROM:Gal 5:22.
Gal 5:22-23 But the fruit u of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Thank God that He is faithful to answer our prayers and thank God that He gave us the privilege to talk to Him in this manner. Until next time . . .pray!