Wednesday, June 29
I'm reading "the myth of the submissive Christian woman" right now, and I'm being challenged by it. Submission is such a touchy topic in the Christian world - especially for women - and there are so many different views and opinions. For me, this is one area in which my conflict between rules and free thinking is definitely active.One group of people says that as Christian women, we should be obedient and submissive to the men in our lives, specifically our husbands if we are married.
"So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands." Ephesians 5:24 The Message
Another group says that husbands and wives are to submit to one another equally.
"Out of respect for Christ, be courtesously reverent to one another." Ephesians 5:21 The Message
A friend told me a story yesterday about how elephant trainers tie baby elephants to stakes in order to train them to assume the stake has more strength than they do. That way, when the elephants are older and much stronger, they will remain tied when needed even though they could easily break their restraints. I think a lot of times, we allow spiritual rules or assumptions to keep us bound to things and notions that we could easily resist if we were only to try.
Submission is a hard concept, a hard idea to get around - at least for me, sometimes. I certainly want to be a good wife, (though some have said I'm not, an assertion Mike vehemently disagrees with, bless him) and I want to build a good marriage. I want to be a good representation of God's love. But I also want to be me, who God created me to be.
I'm not finished with the book yet, and I'm reading more scriptures about this subject, but for now, this is an area of my spiritual life in which I think will be best suited to letting someone else's rules drift to the wayside in favor of my own free thinking.
This is something that I think needs to involve the personalities of the parties involved. Those who know us know that if my laid-back, never pays the bills husband and I (the organized, uptight one) were to swap roles, we'd have lots of discord (not to mention the creditors we'd have at our door).
I believe God put the two of us together because we compliment one another. We work well together. But we don't work well within a rigid set of roles that are based upon me submitting to him without question and him being required to do this or that as the family leader. We need the room to be who we are, to let the strengths that God gave each of us help to smooth over the weaknesses we each bring to the table.
I know there are people who will disagree with my conclusions on this matter. Thankfully, as I'm growing in my faith, I'm growing in the confidence needed to stand my ground for the things that work best for our family.
[ posted by Chel on Wednesday, June 29, 2005 ]
[ 1 comments ]
1 Comments:
Good for you! I'm sure Mandy would agree.
