Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 119
December 4, 2017
Reader Question: What Rules are Appropriate for Teenagers?
Every Monday I like to post a Reader Question, and this week’s is from a mom who is struggling with what boundaries she should set for her teens. She writes:
One of my biggest parenting struggles with my girls is teaching modest dressing. I shared the pinterest poster with my girls. I can always use more advice with modesty. I have a real hard time seeing cleavage, I don’t want my girls to show that, but there is so much of it, even at our church among people who work with the kids. Also, a Pandora’s Box issue, but my 18 year old has expressed interest in getting a tattoo. I don’t feel they are right. I know that nothing will take a person’s salvation away, but I feel like a person who gets a tattoo is desecrating their temple that God gave them. Also I don’t know what dating standards to teach our kids. I get the impression that my oldest thinks we are too strict. I don’t want to raise children who are more likely to rebel however, I also want to raise them with God’s standards, not the world’s. Letting your kids go is sure a hard, painful job.
I get it. I do.
But one of the big risks we run is in raising kids to think that a relationship with Jesus is all about the things you shouldn’t do.
When my mom was little, most of the Christian message that she heard had to do with accepting Jesus as your Saviour. She remembers as a little girl thinking that the best life would be one where you knew beforehand exactly when you were going to die, so that you could accept Jesus right then. The reason? That way you could knit on Sundays. She wanted to be able to knit on Sundays.
My mom did not understand the gospel then–that it was about a living, breathing relationship with Christ, and that becoming a Christian wasn’t really the point. The point was living with Christ, and being transformed and becoming a different person. Yes, salvation is obviously central, but there is so much more to it than that. There is the joy of relationship.
I tell that story to say that a constant danger when we are raising kids is giving the impression that the Christian life is about rules and being in the “saved” crowd, rather than about living for Jesus.
And because we want our kids to be saved so much, we often look for signs that they are as dedicated as we are, or at least as we want to be. So if we associate tattoos with living an ungodly life, for example, we get scared. Does this mean that she’s not saved? Is she not truly committed to Jesus?
If you’re going to parent your kids into the kingdom, you need to strip away the trappings of what you believe your children’s lives should look like, and go back to a relationship with Jesus.
If we are spending more emotional energy worrying about what our daughters are wearing rather than dedicating that energy to growing a good relationship with them, then it is quite likely they will believe that we think the Christian life is about rules.
Are you teaching your children what true faith means? Or is it about rules in your house?Click To Tweet
Here’s a fact: Your children, even if they love God whole heartedly, will likely choose to live out that faith in a way that your generation did not. If you get upset about that, you will drive them away, rather than pulling them closer.
Here’s a picture of my future son-in-law and my daughter:
David has a sleeve tattoo that tells his salvation story, and then a cross tattoo on his left index finger. He has several others as well. My daughters don’t have tattoos, and this certainly wasn’t something I pictured my girls doing. But you know what? David has his own unique expression of faith, and his sleeve tattoo opens a ton of doors for conversation about his past battles and the victories that God has won in his life.
Galatians 5:22-23 tells us what the fruit of the Spirit is–what our kids lives will look like if they’re following Jesus:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Those things are all POSITIVE things, not NEGATIVE things. It does not say that the fruit of the Spirit is not wearing having tattoos and not wearing your neckline too low and not listening to the wrong kinds of music. Again, I am not saying that I don’t have particular opinions on some of those things, but God speaks to us all differently. How many of us who are worried about what are kids are wearing are simultaneously struggling with overeating–which the Bible also mentions is wrong? We all do tons of things wrong, but God convicts us of different things in a different order. I think the important question is not “is my child culturally reflecting Jesus exactly as I would” but rather “Is my child showing character traits that shows that he or she knows Jesus?” And if they are–then spend your emotional energy focusing on that and reinforcing that in their lives!
God wants to ADD to our lives, not just LIMIT what we can do! Let's teach that to our kids!Click To Tweet
Seriously, if they know Jesus, the rest will take care of itself, because the Holy Spirit will teach them. If they don’t know Jesus, then no amount of stressing rules is going to get them there.
The question you need to ask, then, is this one: “Is my parenting helping my kids know Jesus, or is it just reinforcing rules?”
I’m going to let Rebecca jump in here, because her book Why I Didn’t Rebel talks a lot about the effects that rules have on kids, especially in chapter two. In this chapter she tells the stories of Shiloh and Megan. Shiloh seemed to be doing well because she acted, talked and looked like the perfect Christian girl. But in her home, she felt smothered by the rules her parents had to make her a good Christian, like when she did devotions, who prayed at dinner, and how many Bible chapters she had to read a day. By the end of her high school experience, she was ready to burst and started to rebel.
Megan, on the other hand, came from a family where there weren’t many rules at all, but when she got particularly out of hand her parents would swoop in with a Bible verse to set her straight. “We don’t hit because the Bible says it’s wrong, you must obey your parents because the Bible says so.” But this didn’t exactly work because Megan didn’t believe the Bible yet herself. One girl had too many rules, the other girl had too few rules but the rules she did have were about being the perfect Christian girl–something she was never interested in being.
Is your parenting helping your kids know Jesus, or is it just reinforcing rules?Click To Tweet
At the very end of the chapter, Rebecca closes with this:
In Matthew 13, Jesus tells the parable of the sower. A sower goes out to plant his seeds and some seeds end up on the rock, where they shoot up quickly but lack any root; some end up on the path, where birds snatch them away; some end up among thorns, where they are strangled by worry; but some end up on good soil, where they flourish and multiply. Obviously the good soil the option that parents desperately want for their children. And often parents’ way of making sure their children are the good soil is by implementing tons of faith-based rules.
But what if rules don’t actually work in creating good soil? Rules do not encourage personal growth—they merely dictate behaviour. Shiloh didn’t truly follow God until she met a friend who challenged her in high school to go beyond the rules and truly give her life to Christ, not just go through the motions. Megan came back to the faith after seeing the joy that Christians who were living by the Spirit, contrasted by the rules-based religion her parents had tried to force on her. In both of these cases, the girls became good soil by transcending the rules, not by following them. They became good soil despite the rules.
The rest of us, who didn’t rebel, were raised not to follow rules but to make good decisions, and that carried into our faith lives. Instead of trying to control our faith, my parents gave us independence. Their belief that we had the Holy Spirit as much as they did shaped how my parents raised us—instead of controlling us they gave us freedom to make our own decisions, guided by our knowledge of Him. And through repeated practice, we learned discretion and how to identify when something was or was not from God. And that is how good soil was created in our lives.
Maybe the answer isn’t to force kids to follow rules; maybe it’s to allow them to hear from God themselves.
The book delves into what it means to raise kids who understand and love God so that their faith stays strong as they become adults. Rebecca tackles a lot of hard questions like the one we’re talking about today, so if you’re finding the teenage years daunting, check out Why I Didn’t Rebel.
How do you think you can know when you’re striking the right balance between rules and freedom? Have any tips? Share them in the comments below!
December 1, 2017
The Main Reason People Annoy Us–and How to Stop It!
One of the reasons I love being a blogger is that I love telling people what to do. My downfall is that at times others do not seem to recognize the brilliance of my insight, but I console myself in the fact that one day they might!
Hence, I know that one of the sins I struggle with is judgmentalism.
Perhaps we all have it to a certain extent, but I have it in spades. I am constantly having to remind myself that I should not judge, for I too have faults. And I should not expect people who are not Christians to behave as if they were.
And this time of year is especially difficult. Christmas is supposed to be about appreciating your family, remembering the good times you have spent together, and creating new memories.
But what do you do when there are certain family members with whom you don’t really have good memories? What if there are certain people who have left more holes in your life than anything else? We often feel that pain more acutely at Christmas.
December brings about the stark reality of all of the dads who walked out on their kids–and even some of the moms. It shines a light on the people who have devastated their families with affairs. We may not think of absent parents for 364 days a year, but when they don’t call at Christmas we’re reminded of the neglect. I struggle when I think of these so-called parents. And the anger starts to rise.
It reminds me of a wedding I was at when I had to leave early because I had such a visceral judgmental reaction.
The wedding was for two people my husband knew growing up. While they were smiling and walking down the aisle, all I could think about was the fact that a year and a half earlier the bride had aborted their baby because she was still in school, and they wanted to finish their degrees first. They had nonchalantly announced this to all of their friends at the time.
As I was seething in the pews of that church, I was also pregnant with my son, whom we knew had a serious heart defect, and whom we knew would likely not live long when he was born. We had been pressured to abort, and yet did not, because we wanted to give our baby whatever life we could.
That made the stark choice of abortion all the more vivid to me.
And as I was thinking these thoughts, there was this couple, grinning from ear to ear, enjoying the wedding they wanted now that they both had landed jobs after they had received their diplomas.
I want to reiterate here that the problem was with me; not with her.
Please hear me: I don’t mean this post to bring up fresh wounds for those of you who have undergone abortions; I know the pain you likely feel, and I don’t mean to add to it. I’m just want to illustrate a point–that we are often the most judgmental in areas where we also hurt.
And my thoughts then were not appropriate. For all I knew she had repented. Perhaps she had taken it up with God, and had been forgiven. Jesus already paid for everything hidden and secret and shameful that we have done, and no one particular sin keeps us separate from God more than others do. Yet quite often one particular sin keeps us separate from particular people.
That incident was about fifteen years ago; I have no idea what has happened to that couple, or if they have gone on to have other children. Yet I have always almost hated that woman. At the time I refused to stay for the dance, and demanded that my husband take me home, because the thought of her being so happy after she had sacrificed everything that was good and pure on the altar of convenience made me physically ill.
I am not proud of my reaction.
I am not sure what I expected; did I want to hear remorse from her in her wedding speech? Did I want her to look miserable? God, I believe, rejoices at weddings, yet somehow I didn’t feel they had the right to. Obviously the emotion I was feeling was not due to her. I was projecting on to this woman for reasons of my own.
Yet often it is in our deepest areas of pain that we are the most judgmental.
I am most judgmental about men who leave their families, and about those who take pride in their abortions, because these are the big hurts in my life: a father deserting me; a baby I so desperately wanted dying. When others throw away cavalierly what we would have done anything to keep, it makes us angry not primarily because of the hurt that they caused, but because we take it personally.
That couple did nothing against me, yet I was acting the part of God in that story, demanding a penance that was not mine to receive. I was wanting to punish them to make myself feel better, not because I wanted to bring them closer to God–which, of course, is the heart of Jesus. I was judging them, yet my feelings did not flow from any sort of godly root.
Many people say judgmentalism is caused by pride; we think we are better than others. I think it is also caused by hurt.
What if it's not just pride that causes judgmentalism--but also, or even mostly, pain?Click To Tweet
We are angry that things did not work out differently for ourselves, and when others seem to be replicating the problem, it is almost as if they are denying the hurt feelings that we ourselves have. The answer to judgmentalism, then, is not always to look at our own sin. I think sometimes it’s to look at our hurts.
When we don’t go to God with our hurts, we take it out on others. That pain is still there, and it is ugly and it is big and it won’t be silenced. If you won’t take it to God, it will emerge in obscure ways in anger; usually in the anger of judgmentalism. You will start projecting onto others because that way you have a seemingly safe method of exorcising some of the pain. But it doesn’t work, because it doesn’t really get to the root of what is hurting you.
This Christmas, you may find yourself angry at a sister-in-law who lets her work consume her life and ignores her children while you struggle with infertility. You may find yourself angry at the materialism of your siblings or the huge presents your nieces and nephews received when you and your husband struggle to survive on a small income. You may find yourself angry at your father for his relationship with his stepkids because he wasn’t there for you when you were a kid. You may find yourself angry when a brother-in-law makes an off-hand comment about the #metoo movement, not knowing that you were sexually harrassed at work.
It’s a time of year when it’s easy to be judgmental.
So if you find yourself overreacting with extended family this Christmas, ask yourself if they’re touching a scab, or maybe even an open wound on your heart. And then ask God if He will start to heal that wound. Don’t be afraid to touch it. Sometimes healing hurts us initially. The alternative, though, is to live with the pain. And to me, that’s not much of an alternative at all.
Have you ever found yourself being irrationally angry at someone? How much does hurt play a role in our judgmentalism? Let’s talk in the comments!
November 30, 2017
Can Hobbies Actually Change Your Life?
Ever thought of that? Before sin entered the world, and God punished Adam and Eve, He had already assigned them work. They were to care for the garden, and watch over the animals.
Work was not punishment. There is something intrinsically good about “the works of our hands”.
Throughout the Bible, one of the blessings God promises His children is that one day they will get to “enjoy the fields they have planted” and “live in the houses they built”. Too often, they would plant and someone else would eat it, or build and someone else would take it. But it is a blessing to be able to enjoy something that we produced ourselves.
Do we sometimes forget the tremendous satisfaction that comes from working on something tangible?
Our “work” has become so far removed from our “hands”, in some ways, that we miss the satisfaction that comes in completing something. When you work all day in meetings or in strategy sessions, you are accomplishing something. But it’s a different feeling than when you garden and you actually see something grow, or when you build something in a carpentry shop or when you knit.
I was thinking about this last night when I walked into my sitting room and was greeted by the 4 pillows I knit recently (well, I knit the covers!). They’re made with a bunch of yarns I had left over, and I just love them!
There is something really satisfying about accomplishing something with your hands, of producing something with your own effort. We feel it when we give a room a thorough cleaning, or when we make a scrumptious meal, or when we plant a garden. We feel it when we needlepoint, or scrapbook, or woodwork.
And I think there’s a reason for that. God is a creative God and He is an orderly God. In nature, the law of entropy tells us that things go from a state of order to state of increasing disorder. It’s impossible for it to go the other way.
And so when we intervene, and create order out of disorder, we’re participating in God’s creation.
(I don’t mean to be blasphemous, but you know what I mean, right?).
When we take a disordered room and clean it, we’re actually doing a godly thing. When we take different bits of yarn and create something useful out of it, we’re participating in a godly endeavour.
But here’s the problem: all these godly endeavours are slowly being drowned out in our society.
A century ago, when most people had the experience of living on a farm, they knew what it was to work the land. I don’t mean to glorify that life, but I do think working with the soil teaches you something that working on a computer doesn’t.
They also made their own clothes, and cooked from scratch all the time. We don’t.
Even our hobbies are increasingly becoming technified. We watch TV, blog (!), surf the internet, or play videogames. These things are all fun, but what do you have to show for it later? Maybe one of the reasons we increasingly feel dissatisfied with life, and yearn for a vacation, is because we don’t get the true satisfaction that comes from doing something with our hands enough. So our relaxation doesn’t really rejuvenate us.
Maybe if we took more time during the day to turn off the computer and the TV and pick up a crochet hook while we listen to music, or talk to our kids, or if we ventured outside and weeded a garden bed while talking to Jesus, we’d feel better about our lives and we’d have less of a need to escape.
When we spend our leisure time on screens, we don't rejuvenate. That's why we're never rested!Click To Tweet
Crafts and working with your hands help you to focus; help you to slow down and just breathe; help you to appreciate small things. They ground us, I think.
There’s something lovely about handmade things, too. At Christmas my house is full of handmade things. Here’s our living room from last year (I haven’t decorated yet this year). I knit the Christmas tree rug; the stockings on the mantle; the blanket on the chair.
And at Christmas I always knit gifts, too. Last year I made my husband a scarf, my son-in-law socks, and my daughters mittens. This year I’m busy knitting Katie a beautiful shawl to wear at her winter wedding over her wedding dress. And then I’ll finish my own shawl!
My girls knit, too. Katie actually designs her own dresses:
And Rebecca both knits and quilts, and is working on finishing a big quilt for her bed this Christmas.
They’re both trying to figure out super cheap Christmas gifts to give people, and Katie was fretting about her soon-to-be-inlaws. I told her to knit them scarves (Darcy, if you’re reading this, forget I said that!). People love beautiful handmade gifts, and then what we’re giving someone is a gift of our time and creativity. And it’s so personal that they will think of us when they wear it.
Handmade crafts give us the ability to both feel productive and creative AND bless others.
Crafts have purpose. They help us focus, live in the moment, appreciate the works of our hands.Click To Tweet
But there’s another aspect.
We can enjoy watching TV shows together. But we can never pass on TV shows, down generations, like we can productive hobbies.
I inherited some knitting that was done by my great-grandmother. She made these dresses for my mother (her granddaughter), and my mom wore them in the 60s. My girls wear them now.
Rebecca and Katie wearing things their great-great-grandmother knit
Yes, you can do fun things with your family with a screen. But there is something unique about passing on a hobby that is actually a skill. You can pass that hobby down, teaching children different techniques, and, years later, a great-great-granddaughter can be reknitting a stitch based on something her ancestor, whom she never met, created.
That’s cool.
I would not be the person I am without knitting. My family knits. That is what we do. My mom knits, my cousin knits, my aunt knits, my grandmother knits, my great-grandmother knits, and so on, and so on, and so on.
It is wonderful.
Modern life is both a blessing and a curse.
The ease with which we can meet our basic needs is such a relief compared to what the most of the world lives like today, or what our own culture lived like a century and a half ago. But it’s a curse, too, because it takes us that step away from the works of our hands.
So let me encourage you today: take up a hobby. Create something. Work with your hands. It doesn’t even have to be good; just do something! It gets you in touch with God’s creativity, I think, and it lends a rhythm and a beauty to our lives.
Want some Inspiration for Handcrafts?
The Ultimate Handmade with Love bundle is for sale right now–but just until Monday! It’s over 200 patterns and projects for handmade items that will help YOU master a skill that you’ll want to pass on to your kids, too. And you can make gifts that people will remember!
And if you order today, you’ll get an additional Craftsy video class–for free (a $70 value!). Craftsy has awesome online classes on just about any craft or handmade skill around, from cooking to knitting to photography to sewing. Even woodcrafts! So if you’ve always wanted to take a class with Craftsy, get the bundle today–and you’ll get the class for more than half off, PLUS all the awesome products and patterns FOR FREE!
Now, what do you like to do? What relaxes you? Have you ever had that experience of feeling dissatisfied, largely because you haven’t been creative or productive with your hands for a while? Let’s talk in the comments!
November 29, 2017
Stocking Stuffers for Your Husband: 34 Out-of-the-Box Ideas!
One of the most popular posts I ever wrote was one suggesting different stocking stuffers for men. I wrote it a few years ago, and it had over 200,000 shares! And so I thought it was time to revisit the topic with some new out-of-the-box ideas for stocking stuffers your husband will love.
I’m not a real gift person. Gifts tend to stump me–especially gifts for men. So what I’ve done is revised this list every year based on the amazing things that people are buying ALONG WITH other stuff I’ve recommended (I can see through my Amazon reports), and I’ve discovered the coolest things, like credit-card sized tools, pocket constitutions, emergency auto escape tools, hilarious hand sanitizers, and more!
So I’ve decided to compile a list of stocking stuffers for men in a whole bunch of categories–handy stocking stuffers, sexy stocking stuffers (of course I had to include these!), yummy stocking stuffers, smart stocking stuffers, and more! And I’m going to try to include some things you may never have thought of–sort of “out-of-the-box” ideas. So here we go:
An awesome list of 34 STOCKING STUFFER ideas for your husband!Click To Tweet
Handy Stocking Stuffers for Your Husband
Magnetic Hands Free Work Light – $5.97
So cool! Trying to fix something in a tight, dark space? Just put this magnetic light up and you can shine light in any direction–when holding a flashlight is too cumbersome.
BYKES Magnetic Wristband – $9.99
Now THIS is handy! If your guy spends a lot of time with screws and nails, this wristband will pick up stray nails and hold them in place. No more worrying about dropping some and stepping on them.
Keychain Tweezers/Can Opener/LED light combo – $15.02
What a cool keychain! You get tweezers and a can opener and a handy light, and it’s all compact, in one place.
Storm Proof Match Kit– $8.39
If you’re married to an outdoorsman, he’ll love this! Help him always be prepared.
Tool Logic Credit Card Holder 9 Tools in one – $12.99
This is the coolest thing! It’s the size of a credit card, but inside are stuffed 9 different tools–a blade, a toothpick, an opener, tweezers, and more! I love it, and guys will too.
Life Saving Seat Belt Cutter & Window Breaker – $9.99
Ever have those nightmares where your car goes into the river and you can’t get out? Buy him a little piece of mind! This little gadget lets you cut the seat belt in an emergency and will break the window glass to allow you to escape. Put one in all of your vehicles!
Rechargeable Solar & Crank Flashlight–no Batteries Needed– $17.99
Great for emergencies! Keep it in your glove compartment. You can charge it via a solar panel or by cranking. Has three power modes, and it works for up to 4 hours at a time!
Thermos Stainless Steel 16-Ounce Coffee Travel Mug – $20.33
Here’s an awesome quality mug that he’ll love! It’s the king of all travel mugs. Keeps coffee hot, comfortable to hold, and leak-proof. For men on the go!
USB Power Bank Charger for phones, earbuds, and more! – $31.69
It’s a portable power source that you can take with you to charge phones, etc. on the go. Husband out at a job, with his phone running low? Now he can power it up!
Pocket Screwdriver – $6.40
It’s a 7-in-1 pocket screwdriver that you can take with you anywhere! So handy.
Looking for some COOL ideas for stocking stuffers for your husband? Here are 34!Click To Tweet
Sexy Stocking Stuffers for Your Husband
31 Days to Great Sex: ebook- $4.99, paperback $10.49
What man isn’t going to like getting a copy of 31 Days to Great Sex? It takes you through 31 days with short readings and then a challenge to help you spice up your love life as you grow more intimate, have more fun, and get to know each other even better.
You can get it in paperback or for your ereader. But how can you give an ebook in a stocking? Well, great news! I’ve got coupons now that you can download and print out to put right in there. There’s a link in the book that takes you right to the coupons, but you can find them here. Here’s a very small version of one of the coupons:
He’ll love it! Get it for Kindle, Nook, .pdf, or paperback. Read more about it here.
Deck of Dares Printables – $6.99
Want to spice up your marriage? Here are 40 sexy dares that you can do together! Purchase the download, and then you can print them out to put in his stocking. Or you can dole them out one by one….”Wanna do this tonight?” 
November 28, 2017
Top 10 Ways to Support Your Pastor’s Marriage
But how can families be healthy if the pastor’s own marriage is struggling? And because of the nature of the job, and the demands on a pastor’s family and a pastor’s time, it can be very difficult to keep a family together.
So I asked on Facebook recently: What are ways we can support a pastor’s marriage? I had so many insightful comments! And I thought today I would write about 10 ways we can help a pastor’s marriage stay strong.
Can you do me a favour as you read this? Pray and ask if one of these speaks specifically to you. And consider forwarding this to someone on your elders’ board or asking for it to be an item on a meeting agenda. This stuff matters, and the health of our churches really does largely depend on the health of the pastor’s family. So, here, then, are 10 ideas to help keep a pastor’s marriage strong:
10 Ways a Church Family Can Support a Pastor's Marriage (cause it matters!): Click To Tweet
1. Don’t make them be out of the house too often.
When we require pastors to attend all elders’ meetings, and all congregation meetings, and small group meetings, and every event that happens at the church–too soon pastors are never home. The biggest impediment for building a great marriage when you’re a pastor is never being home.
So have someone in the church look at the pastor’s calendar and ensure that most nights are free.
2. Don’t expect your pastor to always be reachable by cell phone on days off.
It’s amazing how much parishioners will text pastors if they have their number! Encourage your pastors to keep cell phones off on nights off or on weekends off. Or if you have a multi-staff church, you can pass around an “on call” pager so that if there are emergencies, one person will get it. If it is something important, obviously, then someone can get a hold of the pastor, but let your pastors have their time.
This is especially true for youth pastors, since teenagers honestly will text at all hours of the day and night. I’ve written before about how to handle it when a husband’s job never really ends, and I think this is something that a pastor can’t do individually. The church has to create the policy and enforce it. Please do.
One woman even suggested taking it one step further!
Be the person that others in your congregation can call on if they need something that’s not a true emergency and they don’t have support close by (i.e. Helping them find the phone book or figuring out how to work their tv, again)
Yep. That should not be a pastor’s job.
In fact, these first two points–not requiring them to be out of the house and allowing down time–are likely the most important ones. One woman summed them both up like this:
I grew up the daughter of a somewhat workaholic pastor. My thoughts- On a regular, daily basis, recognize that he is a person that needs to be allowed margins in his life. Show him grace if he didn’t immediately call you personally when something was going on in your life. If you have an evening meeting, be as brief as possible and then encourage him to go home rather than staying and shooting the breeze with him for another hour. You don’t realize how many other nights this week he has meetings. Don’t expect him to cancel his family vacation to do a funeral or a wedding for you. Encourage him to actually use the 2-3 Sundays off per year he is allotted so he can take a weekend trip with his wife/family.
Exactly–let your pastors have margins! If you do nothing else on this list, do these two. But if you want to keep doing something practical, read on!
3. Give them a mandatory date night
At one reader’s church, they provide baby-sitting and gift cards for dinner out once a month. I love that! (Though honestly, there are likely other people in the church who could use that, too).
Even if it’s not “mandatory”, offer baby-sitting occasionally. Many pastors leave extended family when they are called to a church, so they don’t live near natural caregivers. Becoming substitute grandparents or aunts and uncles can make such a difference. One woman wrote:
One of the best thing that supports our marriage is just people loving our child. Having local “grandparents” that help stand in the gap on school holidays or sick days so that we don’t always miss work is a huge help!!!
4. Actually schedule vacation time
One woman wrote this:
Don’t just “encourage them” to take their vacation, set up the church calendar so they feel like they can get away…either schedule things off if the pastor HAS to be there for them or get the appropriate people to fill in so he can feel comfortable being gone and that things are taken care of. Many pastors feel like they can’t leave and the “encouragement” without solutions only piles on the stress.
So true! If you’re going to give your pastor 2-4 Sundays off a year, then make sure there aren’t mandatory elders’ meetings or congregation meetings right then!
And make those vacations fun! Do you have a cottage? A time share? An RV? It can be a real blessing to gift that for a week to a pastor’s family.
We’ve lent our RV out before, and it can make the world of difference for an awesome family vacation. Churches don’t always pay well, and allowing them to enjoy something you get to enjoy is amazing.
5. Send the couple to a marriage retreat
Keith and I are just back from speaking at FamilyLife Canada’s Weekend Getaway. I absolutely love the conference, because it’s focused not on “marriage is so tough, you have to commit, because there are benefits”, but instead on “look how awesome marriage can be! Now let’s talk about very small and simple things you can do in different areas that make a huge difference–and let’s see how we can get to that awesome marriage.” It’s really upbeat, but even if the couple is going through a really, really difficult time, it still gives so much hope.
You can see where the conferences are across Canada here. And we always give major discounts for pastors!
FamilyLife in the U.S. also has their Weekend to Remember conferences, and then there are other weekend conferences run by other groups. I find that a weekend away is super powerful. We’ve done one-day retreats as well, and they can be awesome, too, but a weekend away can make a huge difference.
6. Offer them tickets to shows in the area or community events
Community fundraisers or community events can be super fun evenings–but they can also tend to be expensive. If you’re going to a fundraiser, consider buying tickets for your pastor as well. Those fundraisers are great ways to help the pastor integrate into the wider community, but they can also be a fun time to dress up and have a fun experience that many on a pastor’s salary can’t afford. And if you want to support the cause anyway, sending more people helps.
7. Invite them over just to be friends
I remember we once invited our pastor and his wife over for dinner and coffee (our daughters are super close friends!).
(Our daughters when they were younger!)
I asked if they played cards, and Peter mumbled something about occasionally doing so. So we got out the deck to play euchre.
Peter decided to shuffle, and went on and on about how he really wasn’t very good at the game and he would try to keep up, but the whole time he was talking he was cutting the deck with one hand and shuffling them with just one hand and doing these absolutely amazing tricks. He had us in stitches! But pastors can’t always let down their guard and just be themselves with people in their church because so many will judge.
I remember another pastor’s wife, who was a good friend, who wanted to borrow some chick flicks from me (in the days when we all watched VHS). She asked me to bring them in a big gift bag that you couldn’t see through, because when some people in the church found out that she watched movies, her movie choices would get debated and the issue would eventually end up back on the pastor’s desk.
So if you can, invite the couple over and don’t talk pastor things. Just be yourself. Allow them to be themselves. It can be a great gift!
Befriend your pastor. Pastors need safe people they can be real with.Click To Tweet
8. Don’t have the “2 for the price of 1” mentality
You hired the pastor, not the pastor’s spouse. One woman wrote:
Don’t think you hired two ministers for the price of one and expect the wife to be involved in everything – run the youth group, organize the ladies group etc.
Exactly. If you hired a youth pastor, you hired ONE youth pastor. If you hired a pastor, that’s who is on the payroll. Leave the spouse alone. I know one woman married to a pastor who had a busy job of her own in a caring profession. She loved her job. But she was always made to feel like she wasn’t supporting him enough because she had that job. She tried to volunteer in one ministry at the church, just like everybody else, but somehow that was never enough, and she felt a lot of judgment. Let the spouse be!
When you hire a pastor, you shouldn't expect a '2 for 1' deal. Leave the spouse alone!Click To Tweet
9. Show hospitality
When pastors are at particularly busy phases in their lives–like when the kids are really little, or when teens have busy schedules that affect the whole family, doing practical things to help can make a pastor feel like they are valued and recognized.
One woman wrote:
One woman who DID help out when I was a kid was an elderly lady and she did baking every Friday for our family …. all our birthday cakes, tarts, cookies etc. – two or three things every week ready for pick up. Really blessed my Mum busy busy with four little kids. If you enjoy cooking you could do meals like that too.
I love that! Maybe baking isn’t your thing. But maybe you can babysit every now and then, or even offer to drive the kids to youth group with your kids so that the pastor doesn’t have to be on the road to the church one more time every week.
10. Work hard at your OWN marriages!
I love this comment, and thought I’d leave it for last. A reader wrote:
Honestly, by working hard to take care of your own marriages; you are supporting your pastor’s marriage. If your home is healthy then you can be busy making disciples as a couple by offering hospitality, and lift some of the burden from his shoulders.
So true! And I’d throw this one in, too: tell your pastor when you’re doing well. They hear so much all the time about everyone’s struggles. Tell when you’re doing awesome, especially when something your pastor said made a difference. It matters!
I know reading through this list you can start to think, “Well, we have issues, too, and busy jobs, too, and I wish someone would do this for MY marriage.” So do I. Truly. But I do think that pastors are in a unique group, because they are shepherding the church. If we want the church to be healthy, the pastor needs to have home stress reduced. So, yes, we all need help. But realize that even if you are all busy, your pastor is in a unique situation.
Invest in your pastors’ marriages. It’s one of the best things you can do as a church!
Now, let me ask you: What would be #11? What idea did I miss? Or what one is the most important one? Let’s talk in the comments!
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November 27, 2017
Reader Question: How do You Help Your Teen Battling Sexual Feelings?
I received this reader question the other day that broke my heart:
Hi Sheila. I’ve just had a conversation with my beautiful teenage daughter. She has a strong Christian faith but is struggling at the relationship and she’s shared that she just wants a boyfriend. She’s asking lots of questions about ‘how far is too far to go’ with a boy and while she understands and agrees with wanting to honour God and His design of sex in marriage and her brain and heart say ‘wait’, her body is shouting ‘now’!! She tearfully told me that her thoughts stray regularly to sexual things and, despite me assuring her otherwise, she is convinced no other Christian girl her age thinks of these things. She says she wished she could know what other girls think because she doesn’t feel normal. I love this child to death – help!! Are there blogs or books that can help her with this issue?
Wow. That’s a tough one. What do you say to a child who so desperately wants to follow God’s plan, but feels like it’s impossible? I’ve got my eldest daughter, Rebecca, here today to help us out and talk about how moms can handle these tough conversations with their daughters.
Take it away, Becca!
The teenage years are tough.
Kids go through so many changes, including hormonal ones, and they start facing issues and temptations they’ve never had to deal with before! But that’s why you, as a parent, can have such an amazing impact on your kids–because you have been there before, and you have enough experience to help your child through their struggles, even if you haven’t had the exact same temptations as they do.
First let me say that I can’t give you a magical formula that will take away all the awkwardness that you might feel with these conversations. But just because it’s awkward doesn’t mean that you can’t help! And your child so desperately needs your help–teenagers are pretty dumb, if I’m honest, and having an adult’s perspective, especially a parent who knows you better than you know yourself at times? There’s no substitute.
So here are some tips that I have for talking to your daughter when she’s struggling with sexual temptation. I hope it helps!
Let her know that there’s nothing wrong with her.
When girls have a sex drive, it’s seen as weird. We’re told all the time that guys struggle with lust, and the message is often that girls need to be the sexual gatekeeper, making sure that boys don’t go too far or get tempted. But in all my years in youth group talking about purity and sex and modesty, not once was it mentioned that girls might want sex, too!
So when a girl starts to feel sexual desire, she can feel really dirty and think “there’s something wrong with me!”
But it’s important to communicate both sides of the story–God made women to enjoy sex, too! And sexual desire is a totally normal thing, and nothing to be ashamed of. It’s like any other struggle, any other temptation, and she’s not dirty because of it.
Too often we fail to teach teenage girls that THEY will have sexual feelings, too. Click To Tweet
Be careful not to focus more on the problem than you do on Jesus.
Whenever we talk about a struggle or a temptation, it’s really easy to make it the center of the conversation. But whatever you give your focus to expands! If you focus on the temptation and how bad the temptation is and how to overcome the temptation then the temptation grows. So yes, address the temptation and think of ways to help distract yourself or deal with the temptation when it arises. But also speak truth about God–and let that be the focus. Talk about how Jesus is our escape, our peace, our savior, and that He won’t leave us abandoned to fight alone.
When your daughter is struggling, coming at her with a list of “don’ts” isn’t a freeing message; it’s a message of condemnation. But talking about God’s truth in how he will provide a way out of temptation–that’s much more empowering and much more representative of how God works through us.
Our kids are going to face sexual temptation. Do we know how to talk to them about it?Click To Tweet
Start conversations early so that when there are hard conversations to be had, you’re both ready.
The truth is, though, no matter what the topic is, the best thing you can do for your daughter is to start building your relationship early. Preferably before any of these problems really start! If you’re in a habit of chatting and talking and sharing your hearts with each other, these conversations become much more natural and much easier. Additionally, you’ll know your daughter better and so be able to better help her!
That’s why we created The Whole Story. I really can’t stress how important it is to be able to talk about these things with your daughter. Yes, they’re scary conversations. Yes, they’re uncomfortable. But that doesn’t mean they can be swept under the rug. So if you do struggle with talking to your daughter about tough topics, please try our course. We believe in the mother-daughter relationship, and we created the course to help you be able to talk about anything–not just what’s in the course. So give it a shot!
But honestly all this makes me wonder if we’re just setting kids up for failure.
Bear with me for a minute. If we actually think about what the Bible says, it says that if you struggle with sexual temptation to the point where you can’t really control yourself, the answer is simple: get married!
But it’s not so simple anymore. Why? Because kids aren’t ready for marriage until much later!
And even for those of us who do get married young, there’s a lot of stigma. But I just have to wonder, maybe the answer is to start fundamentally changing how we see teenagers and young people–instead of assuming kids will get married at 29+, maybe we need to start preparing kids to be adults by the time they hit 18, so that they honestly can get married if they’re struggling with temptation. Because it seems to me that we’re setting up a lot of teenagers and young adults for a no-win situation.
Is asking people to wait for marriage to have sex & delaying marriage setting people up to fail?Click To Tweet
What do you think? Am I just crazy? How do you handle these hard conversations with your kids?
November 24, 2017
Let’s Bring Back Family Meals! Why Eating Together is Important
There is something very special about family meals.
And I was thinking about that yesterday as I was going through some old posts, and I ran across some thoughts I wrote a few years ago on family meals that I’d like to share again today.
A few years ago I was doing some research for an article on the importance of family dinners, and I really wanted to include some of the amazing observations of Theodore Dalrymple (real name Anthony Daniels) who has worked as a psychiatrist in the British penal system. He wrote an essay on family meals, “The Starving Criminal“.
Here’s part of his take on the link between criminality and family meals:
In fact, he told me that he had never once eaten at a table with others in the last 15 years. Eating was for him a solitary vice, something done almost furtively, with no pleasure attached to it and certainly not as a social event. The street was his principal dining room, as well as his trash can: and as far as food was concerned, he was more a hunter-gatherer than a man living in a highly evolved society.
Far from being unique, his story was typical of those that I have heard hundreds—no, thousands—of times. Another young man, also expelled from home at an early age because his new stepfather, only a few years older than he, found him surplus to requirements, had been obliged to drift from friend’s house to friend’s house for six years. Unfitted by training or education for any particular job, he had worked only casually, for a few weeks at a time, and so never had the financial stability to pay rent on a place of his own (in conditions of shortage, public housing goes preferentially to young single women with children, and he had made the situation worse by having two children of his own by two young women). Needless to say, he had no domestic skills either, never having been taught any; and his friends, coming from the same social milieu, were just as undomesticated. They too ate in an unsocial fashion and expected him to fend nutritionally for himself, which he did by eating chocolate, the only food he could remember having eaten with any consistency over the last few years. Apart from his time in prison (for stealing from cars), he hadn’t eaten a meal in a decade. It can’t be long before someone suggests that the solution to a problem like this is to fortify chocolate with minerals and vitamins.
There is a cultural phenomenon where food as a socially positive ritual is abandoned.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say something for which I have very little socially scientific research (if there is such a thing), but I feel it in my gut.
Food (or family meals) is what often separates functional families from dysfunctional families.
Think about it this way: in order to cook a decent meal, you have to know how to read a recipe. You have to be motivated enough to go to a grocery store. You have to actually cook the meal and serve it. Then, you all have to sit at a table together (Dalrymple claims that 34% of British families do not own a dining table) and eat it. It provides time for you to connect, to talk, to learn that others care about you, and to learn important manners.
Also, if you cook home-cooked meals, you’re more likely to be healthy and less likely to be overweight. In other words, it means that parents who cook care about the children’s health; are organized enough to give the children a schedule; are careful with their budget; and want to connect as a family. In fact, at one point in time nearly all families had family meals; today it seems to be a sign of privilege, which is sad.
Too many families don’t cook anymore. They reheat frozen food and that’s not the same thing. It means that the families aren’t giving priority to something that is so conducive to family togetherness.
Do we realize all the benefits that flow from having family meal times? Click To Tweet
Interestingly, I think one of the reasons many people are poor and stay poor is that they lack basic food skills, like cooking and scheduling. But they also don’t understand the importance of acquiring those skills, and so they have little motivation to do so.
I have a friend who is a dietician, and when she worked for the Public Health Unit she often put on information nights called “2 can dine for $1.99”, and stuff like that, where they taught basic recipes and cooking for inexpensive but healthy meals. They advertised in the welfare office, in the unemployment office, and with Children’s Aid. And you know who came? Homeschoolers with their parents. Their parents thought: hey, great way to teach my kids some extra life skills! So they missed their target audience entirely because their target audience wasn’t interested, or, more likely, lived such chaotic lives that they couldn’t get organized enough to attend.
I wonder sometimes how much of poverty and crime are really cultural issues, not economic ones.
Yes, there are tons of factors contributing to keeping people in poverty. It’s hard to go grocery shopping when you don’t have a car and you have two babies in tow. It’s hard to find good housing with a working kitchen on a minimum wage job. It’s hard to cook in general if you have never seen anyone else do it (and many who grew up in these dysfunctional families did not).
And I start to wonder…how can we teach basic life skills to people that honestly could help them get out of poverty? I wish they would bring home economics back to schools, because that seems so very, very useful. I truly think that for many people, cooking a roast seems like a magical thing that is beyond comprehension (though it’s actually far easier than making pasta). And if families could come back to the dinner table, would that not produce some discipline and organization that is so desperately needed?
I don’t know how to fix it on a society-wide scale, though it does make me sad. But on an individual scale, what I want to say today is: let’s not give up eating together. We need each other. Kids need to see a meal being prepared from scratch, and they need to sit down, at a table, and talk to their parents.
We don’t realize how important that one ritual is until, as a society, we lose it.
We don't realize how important the ritual of family meals are until we as a society lose it.Click To Tweet
Do we truly understand how much money we can save when we cook handmade meals?
When I see families eating fast food so much, I get sad. Yes, it’s bad for you. But it also costs so much! I know life is chaotic, and sometimes that’s all families know how to do. But for most of us, some discipline around grocery shopping and meal prep has HUGE dividends! We feel closer as a family, and our bank account stays way higher!
But how do you keep grocery shopping from breaking the bank?
And so I want to tell you about a unique mom-made system that I’m passionate about and an affiliate for.
I’m a huge fan of the Grocery Budget Bootcamp, a system that teaches YOU to save hundreds of dollars on your grocery bill each month. Seriously–if you could save $400-$600 a month, that’s like a part-time job income! That’s amazing. And it’s totally doable.
I’ve gone through the system, and she teaches things beyond the basics that most of us already know. She teaches you how to analyze your spending and zero in on the areas where you can save the most. She teaches you to do reverse meal planning, since traditional meal planning actually costs you MORE money. And so much more!
The course is only open a few times a year, and today, for Black Friday only, it’s open with a special! You get a 200 page workbook, shipped to your house (even if you don’t live in the U.S.), for free! Check it out here.
And read my review of it here–how to stop overspending on groceries.
Let’s bring families back to the dinner table!
Let me know: How important do you think family meals are? How has eating as a family helped your family togetherness–or your family budget? And what’s the biggest impediment to it? Let’s talk in the comments!
November 23, 2017
Thankfulness–Even When It’s Not Thanksgiving
Although, come to think of it, my American readers aren’t likely to see this, since you’re all busy with Thanksgiving!
So for all my fellow Canadians, fellow members of the Commonwealth, and those who read me from all over the world who AREN’T celebrating Thanskgiving right now, I thought I’d just take a moment and invite us to stand in solidarity with our American cousins and be thankful.
We may not be celebrating a big holiday, but I hope that with Thanksgiving in the media we’re at least drawn towards thankfulness. I know I am. I’m thankful for my kids, and I’m thankful that they’ve found great men to love them and to love in return.
Katie and David at their engagement
Connor and Rebecca on one of our vacations!
I’m thankful for my mom who lives with us now and who vacuums my house.
November 22, 2017
Wifey Wednesday: Thoughts on #MeToo
I have never been sexually harrassed at work. I have never been sexually assaulted. I was groped on public transportation several times while in Tunisia, and I have been flashed, but really nothing compared to what so many women have been sharing.
And so, after commenting on Harvey Weinstein I’ve been silent for a while because I don’t want to take away from their stories, and I think others have more standing to write on this (I really love Mary DeMuth’s take, for instance).
But there is one aspect that I’d like to talk about today for Wifey Wednesday, and that’s how men and women can see “flirting” and this crisis very differently.
Let me tell you a story.
When my girls were 13 and 15, we were taking a walk around our neighbourhood one day when a van full of guys pulled up just behind us and started whistling. I whipped around with rather a snarly mother bear face, and when they saw my face and realized how old I was (I guess other parts of my anatomy from behind didn’t look 40) they freaked and took off. I was told afterwards that I should have been flattered that guys mistook me for a teenager but that’s not the way I felt at the time. I felt seriously offended and scared on behalf of my girls (a van full of teenage boys pulls up and opens the side door? Really?).
I tried to explain to a guy recently that most women don’t find whistling at them in public to be a compliment. Instead we tend to find it threatening.
Why? Because when you whistle, you’re saying, “I notice what you look like.” You’re reducing us merely to objects that you can admire. And you’re not afraid to let us know that. And if you simply think of us as objects, then what else may you do to us?
It may not be as threatening when we’re in groups, but when we’re alone? Definitely scary. Definitely degrading. Definitely intimidating. He just didn’t believe me.
I wrote a while back in a post trying to explain to men the emotional toll it takes on women to always have a rape prevention strategy at the foremost of our minds. When we walk in parking garages, we’re taught to have our phones on, ready to speed dial 911. We scan for multiple exits. When I was a teenager going home at night in downtown Toronto, I knew to choose the subway car with the driver in it, to sit under the camera on the platform, to walk on the side of the street where the corner stores were open, so I could duck in if I had to.
We are constantly vigilant.
And you know what?
It gets tiring.
It gets tiring always watching movies where women are half-naked, because that’s what sells. It gets tiring always having to be on the alert in case something bad happens. It gets tiring as a teenager listening to stories of your friends who have been sexually abused when there’s nothing you can do to help them, and sitting in a Bible study on healing as an adult and listening to everyone’s stories of middle aged men who used to fondle them when they were kids and uncles who forced them to perform oral sex and a boyfriend who date raped them.
It gets tiring.
It gets tiring hearing in church that if you serve on a praise team you shouldn’t wear a skirt in case men lust after your legs while they’re supposed to be worshipping. It gets tiring hearing that men can’t control themselves on a beach, and so women are responsible for their thoughts.
It gets tiring if you’re out in a public place, and a guy grabs your butt, thinking it’s funny. It gets tiring when older men make comments about how good you’re looking, when you weren’t dressing to try to attract attention to anything at all.
And then it gets even more tiring if we are at work, just trying to do a good job, and sexual harrassment starts.
A good friend of mine is currently being sexually harrassed at her job, and it’s making her miserable and stressed. It’s causing her husband stress (and now she’s afraid he may end up in jail for punching the guy out!). It’s causing conflict with her boss. She’s the one bearing all the pain when her co-worker is the one who is causing it. It is all wrong.
And it is very, very tiring.
That’s why, I think, the Harvey Weinstein scandal did not stay the Harvey Weinstein scandal, and so many others are falling as well. Women are simply tired. And so there was this groundswell saying, “enough is enough!” (Reminds me of this post I wrote railing against the “boys will be boys” mentality).
What I’ve been noticing on social media, though, is that there’s beginning to be a divide in the reaction to the scandal.
Women feel angry, tired, and invigorated all at the same time, while many men (not all, but many) seem to think it’s gone too far. Are men not allowed to be men anymore? Are they supposed to be emasculated?
I just want to take a minute and say something to both men and women.
Men, your relationships with women would be greatly enhanced if you listened and understood that sexualizing women only puts distance between you.
(What I am about to say does not apply to all men–certainly not my husband or sons-in-law, and certainly not most of the male commenters on this blog, who are trying so hard to run after Jesus and love their wives. But I have seen some Christian men on Twitter push back on the scandal, and it is to those thinking like that that I write).
Yes, there are some women who climb the ladder by sleeping around, and some women obviously like the attention and dress provocatively. And, yes, you appreciate a woman’s body, and you feel like you were hard-wired for that.
But just because some women seem to want to be sexualized does not mean that all women do. And just because you appreciate a woman’s body does not mean that you should reduce her to that. God wants you to treat women like they are whole people. There’s a big difference between saying, “you look very nice today”, and “that dress makes your butt look great” (with hand motions).
This is not about protecting women, either. When I was being groped in Tunisia, I was on a missions team with a bunch of men who said nothing and did nothing to help. That made me really angry. There are times we definitely need your protection.
But do you know what we need and want anymore? Simply your respect.
What grieves me far more than the groping is believing that the male gender sees me primarily in sexual terms, and doesn’t really care about what I think. That’s very difficult psychologically to handle.
Certainly you may appreciate a woman’s body. But you do not need to mention that to her. You do not need to dwell on it. You can simply start talking to her about normal things and treat her like a person. That will help immensely. Be part of the solution to this cultural crisis, not part of the problem.
To the women: Please don’t think all men are perverts.
Every morning I turn on the news right now to see which other celebrity has fallen overnight. There are almost too many to count now (and soon it will start happening in wider Christendom. Just wait).
The temptation we women face now is to give up on men. I have heard so many women say, “none of this would be happening if women were in charge.” I understand the sentiment, but we all have issues. They’re simply different issues. Let’s not give in to the idea that women are superior than men. We are all made in the image of God.
It is so disheartening to see the extent of the problem. It is wonderful that it is coming to light, but there is part of me that is getting angry. Seriously? That many men treat women like that? A sitting U.S. Senator thinks it’s okay to grab a woman’s buttocks while her husband is taking a picture of them? He thinks that’s funny? He thinks it’s funny to pretend to grab a sleeping woman’s breasts?
And we hear of all of these media people masturbating in front of subordinates, and thinking that it’s okay because the women obviously were coming on to them. Really?
I know it’s tiring. And if you can honestly type #metoo, I would imagine it’s even more tiring. When people start doubting the stories and calling women liars, when you’ve been there, too–I’m sure it physically hurts.
How can you trust anyone now?
But, please, don’t give up.
We’re at a watershed moment as a church and as a culture right now. God is bringing things to light and bringing judgment on people who need it. But shining light has the propensity to make things look even more common than they actually are, because we are only looking at the light. We aren’t seeing all the other people who have been quietly going about their business, not doing anything wrong.
Our culture is realizing that sexualizing women is wrong. We are finally truly reckoning with it. That’s good.
But for this movement to do the most good it must be about both genders coming together to find ways to mutually respect each other.
For the #metoo movement to be most effective, it must be about promoting mutual respect.Click To Tweet
It must not be about the genders separating themselves to protect themselves. It should not be a men vs. women thing. It should simply be a humanity thing.
It feels almost intoxicating to nurse anger sometimes, but reject the impulse. Yes, keep conversations going. Tell your stories, loudly and widely. Work for positive change and do not compromise on the idea that objectifying women is always wrong.
But at the same time, remember that there are far more good men out there than there are bad men.
My friend who is being sexually harrassed is having almost all her emotional energy stolen by one man right now. He is poisoning everything. But there are so many other men in her life who are not like that. There are even so many men that she works with who are not like that. Let’s denounce the evil without denouncing the entire gender.
We have covered for sexual harrassment for far too long. We have sat by and laughed uncomfortably when someone made a sexual joke, because we didn’t know what else to do. We have put up with whistling and inappropriate touching because we didn’t want to be rude or make a scene. It’s okay to say “stop”. It’s okay to say “no”.
But, please, let’s not paint all men with the same brush.
Let’s stand firm against the objectification and harrassment of women, both in and out of the church. But then let’s remember that God made us in His image; male and female He created them. We are all sacred and special. And never, ever give up on men. Pray that God will show you wonderful men who do respect and honour women. Pray that those men will be emboldened to speak out.
And, even if you are tired, please, please do not give in to bitterness. This can be a healing moment in our culture or a polarizing one. I pray, for the sake of our culture, that we will all, men and women together, make it a healing one.
What do you think? Are you feeling tired right now? What’s the best way to make this a healing moment in our culture (and in our churches)? Let’s talk in the comments!
November 21, 2017
13 Dumb Things Smart People Believe About Marriage
Recently I asked on Facebook, “what are some dumb things people believe about marriage?”, and tons of you replied! (Thank you so much! It makes it much easier to write my posts when you all give me the ideas!
