Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 271

Mothering on a Weak Stomach

Every Friday my column appears in a number of newspapers around the country. This week’s actually is a shortened version of Monday’s blog post on parenting, so I thought that I’d run a Mother’s Day column from a few years ago instead in this space!

I have often marvelled at the fact that my youngest daughter is so healthy. At first I chalked it up to homeschooling, since we shelter her from germ factories. But thanks to Austrian lung specialist Dr. Friedrich Bischinger, I now have the real answer. It turns out that picking your nose and eating it boosts the immunity.

This is one of those things that, as a parent, you would rather not know. And as I was pondering this piece of research, a few questions occurred to me. Does Bischinger have nothing better to do with his time than worry about nose picking? Perhaps he should come do a shift or two at Canadian hospitals and fill in for some of the overworked internists here.

Even more importantly, how does one measure this particular experiment? You have to compare the pick-and-swallow kids with something. Do you arrange for a group of pick-and-stick-it-on-the-side-of-Grandma’s-couch? Or a group of non-pickers? In our family the question may be moot anyway because we have actually cured my youngest of this habit, at least in public. According to Bischinger, of course, we should just let her rip. Somehow I just don’t think I can find the stomach for it.

Stomach fortitude, though, is something I have discovered in a whole new way since becoming a mom. Grown women venture out with other grown women, only to find the conversation turning to the consistency of toddlers’ fecal matter. Two or three years earlier many of us wouldn’t even admit we had fecal matter. Kids, of course, don’t share our squeamishness. They know body functions are taboo, but these still cause gales of laughter. They are the source of the most outrageous insults and humour they can imagine. (Typical joke told by a four-year-old: “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Fart!”, followed by everyone collapsing on the floor laughing). Recently, when our family was considering renting a particular movie, I refused since it had swearing in it. Rebecca, our oldest, leaned over to her younger sister and whispered, “that means it has bum words.”

The odd thing is that children have no concept of what actually is distasteful. They think nothing of barging in to the bathroom at that particular moment when you really want privacy, but should they see you and your spouse kissing, well, the screams you hear are enough to think we had been the ones nose-picking.

Meal times are perhaps the worst for these expressions of disgust. I actually enjoy cooking, but my meals usually have vegetables and meat—I know this will be hard to believe—mixed together. This is a major faux pas in my children’s eyes, and worthy of several choruses of “eeeewwwws!”. If everything is not confined to its own hemispheres on the plate, it’s not worthy. And don’t even get me started on sauces.

Yet I am not the only source of squeamish stomachs in our family. My daughters cause plenty of nausea, too. One of them, who has never met a sauce she likes, thinks nothing of picking up the gum she stuck on her dresser before dinner to finish it afterwards (we’re working on curing her of that, too). And why is it so hard to get kids to remember to flush the toilet?

It seems that motherhood is an inauguration into new challenges for the stomach-challenged, which is probably why it begins as it does. When I was pregnant with Rebecca the only thing I thought of, for the first five months, was food. I dreamed about food. I daydreamed about food. The only thing I didn’t do was eat food. I was so nauseous that every waking minute was dedicated to trying to picture some food that would stay down—an apple? A hard boiled egg? Definitely nothing with sauce.

One day I will have the bathroom to myself, I will be able to kiss my husband whenever I want, eat whatever I want, and ignore the consistency of everybody’s toilet habits. I think I’ll miss these days. And that’s why I still cherish the mushy kisses and mushy cereal I’m presented with every Mother’s Day morning. I hope you all had a wonderful day Sunday, too.

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Mothering on a Weak Stomach
Mothering on a Weak Stomach
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Don’t Forget How Much They Want Us to Fail

We are a threat.

We, who believe that marriage is sacred, that sex is meant for marriage, and that sex is best in marriage, are a threat to just about everything our culture stands for.

When our marriages work, we show the culture how shallow it is. We shine a light on the fact that eveyrthing they’re chasing after and basing their lives on is essentially meaningless.

If married people stay together, continue to love each other even in the rough times, continue to be happier, healthier, and wealthier, and raise better kids, then maybe there really is something to that morality thing. And people don’t want there to be. They want morality to be a sham.

Yet what we know is that choosing to do what’s right isn’t constricting; it’s freeing. It means that you have more joy in life, and more fulfilling relationships.

So it is that our culture is dedicated to taking down those who are a risk.

Recently, a website (I’m not even going to mention which one, because I don’t want to send it traffic) announced a reward of $1,000,000 for anyone who could take Tim Tebow’s virginity (or prove that they had had sex with him). Writing in the Washington Post, Esther Fleece says:

Tim Tebow deserves…respect. He not only believes, but boldly lives by the belief, that sex outside the context of marriage forms permanent bonds and memories from temporary relationships, and is therefore neither long-lasting or truly satisfying to the soul.

Tell me, Mr. Biderman, where’s the $1-million-bounty-worthy crime in that?

I find that completely sick, but let’s not assume that we’re safe, just because we’re not celebrities.

The culture wants us to fail, and so we’re surrounded by movies, and erotica, and porn that will wreck our sex lives. Last week I talked about how Kindles can wreck marriages, and other marriage bloggers have chimed in, talking about the danger that erotica can pose to marriages. It’s everywhere today.

We’re surrounded by scantily clad women, and messages that we’re never good enough, so that we’ll be drawn to buy more and more stuff to make us feel beautiful, rather than just accepting our bodies and having fun with our husbands with them. How many women are robbed of pleasure because of negative body image?

We’re surrounded by the message “you just need to be happy”, as if happiness is god. And so when we’re not happy we start to question our choices and our relationships, because if we’re not “being true to ourselves”, then what’s the point?

Our culture is set up to hurt marriages, not help marriages. It is set up to encourage people to jump into bed. It is set up to encourage divorce.

And so what is the response? Listen to God. Talk to your mate. Keep him as your best friend, so communication is strong. As much as possible, get rid of negative media. Never be careless. And work to make things better! One of the recurring comments I get from my book, The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, is “I wish I hard read this earlier in my marriage; I would have saved myself so much heartache.” Don’t settle for mediocre. Fight for your marriage! And if someone else, or something else, is threatening to take you off the right path, fight back!

When you do, you strike a blow against our culture. When you fight for your marriage, you’re fighting for something bigger than yourself. It matters. You matter. And God never intends for you to have to fight alone!

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Finding God After Pornography

Today’s Wifey Wednesday is a guest post is by Jennifer from A Beggar’s Daughter, who is involved in a ministry to help women who have been addicted to porn. We often think that porn users are all men, but that’s not true. 30% of people who look at porn on the internet are female. And they’re hurting, too. Thanks, Jessica, for sharing your heart with us today!

We hear so often about women who find their husbands struggling with pornography. The sorrow is crippling, the uncertainty overwhelming. There are questions: “Why am I not enough?” “How could he do this?” “Does he still love me?”

But when a woman has locked horns in her own battle against lust, those questions become facts. I no longer question if I am enough; I am convinced I am not enough. I know no one could love me. I doubt I even love me.

I was exposed to pornography at the age of 13 and if it had come with a warning label that read: “Danger: Consumption will result in a lowered self-esteem and a lost love for life” I am fairly certain this story would have ended differently. Instead, pornography came wrapped in a shroud of lies about being beautiful, appreciated, accepted, and loved. It did not have a warning label, but it was still poison.

My years in pornography were the lowest of my life. Daily, I battled guilt and feeling like a hypocrite for saying I love Jesus and that I was ‘waiting for marriage’ when actual intercourse was probably the only thing I was not doing. I locked myself in my room at a Christian college and became pornography for men. I spent years feeling defective, convinced that I was a lost cause. I was convinced I was beyond God’s help, and beyond the reach of His grace. There was this overwhelming feeling that I had to be free first and prove I was worthy of His love.

It is interesting how those feelings we have toward God spill over in how we feel toward others. If God was incapable of loving me for me, flaws and all, then how could people love me? How could I ever have friends? How could I ever be married? Who would love this gross and disgusting person? They say beauty is on the inside, not the outside, but I did not feel beautiful outside or inside.

Even after I confessed and was discipled and walked down a path to freedom, I struggled with real life and relationships with people. I was having major issues with being single at 22, when my master plan had dictated I be married at 21. Life was just- empty. One night, I found myself face to face with an ugly thought that had been growing in my heart for years, “You don’t deserve love.”

I had never been face to face with that thought before. I behaved like I believed it; I just didn’t know I believed it. Realizing I felt that way about myself was crippling. Women want to be cherished. We want to be loved. It’s part of who we are, and here in the core of who I was, I believed I was unworthy of love. Sure, God died for me, and led me to a life of freedom from addiction, but could I really ask for more? Could I really have a life of joy, and fullness? Could I love and be loved?

The overwhelming answer was, of course, Yes! That’s the whole reason for Calvary, and the whole reason He came, but would you believe I still resisted? Sin had broken me so much that I was even afraid of getting close to God.

Lust is more than just a sin; it is an all out assault against who we are created to be as women. We are created to be cherished; lust teaches us to be used. We are created to be compassionate; lust teaches us to be aggressive. We are created to be a beautiful, almost mystical, with a heart that must be pursued. Lust turns beauty into sexiness and tells us to let it all hang out and that our hearts are really just a collection of our weakness. Lust brings with it a chain of lies, lies that we can hold on to even after we have conquered the sin of lust in our lives. Worst of all, though, lust drives us away from the arms of our Divine Lover.

Christ says He has come to set us free and that when He sets us free, we are free indeed. Free means free. But His promises get so much better. He tells us that He came to bring life, but not just any life, an abundant life- a life to the full and overflowing.

Like Eve, hiding away behind a tree and fig leaves in the Garden of Eden, we make feeble attempts to cover the darkness that rests in our hearts. While we may do a great job of lying to others, God sees right through our fig leaf aprons, but, like He did with Eve, He longs to clothe us. He wants us to draw near Him not so He can give us a good firm talking to and put us in spiritual time out until we get our lives together. He calls us to Himself so He can remove the tattered inadequate dignity we’ve scrounged up and replace it with love, value and freedom.

He does not promise that to the spiritual elite; He promises that as part of His character. He says, “This is why I came. This is who I am. This is what I do.” This is the God who is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. This is the God who praised the harlot who worshipped at His feet. This is the God who pardoned the adulteress sentenced to die. The God who dined with prostitutes. He loves you and longs for a relationship with you. That is who He is, and rest assured, no matter what you do, He is not going to change who He is.

Will you do me a favour and share this post on Facebook? Just click the share button below. We may not believe it, but many of our friends are secretly involved in porn, and this is a message they need to hear!

Jessica is a 26-year-old teacher living in Washington DC.  In 2009 she created Beggar’s Daughter, an online ministry for women struggling with pornography and lust,  after finding freedom from her own seven-year battle with pornography.  Since then she has been blessed to be able to share her story and speak out about understanding true purity in a culture that mocks it.  Her ministry has been featured by Covenant Eyes, Author Leslie Ludy and The Porn Effect, where she is a frequent guest writer.

It is her desire to bring hope and truth to women who are trapped in sexual sin.  She also serves as a counselor and speaker for Rockville Crisis Pregnancy Center where she speaks about purity, abstinence, and abortion.  In her spare time, she writes, cooks, and hikes.  Her e-book Devotional “Love Done Right: A 40 Day Journey From Lust to Love” helps women overcome the bondage of porn.

Visit her website: http://www.beggarsdaughter.com  



Now, do you have any advice for us today? Just link up a marriage post in the linky tools below! And be sure to link back here so others can read some great marriage advice, too!

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Sex Shouldn’t Need Batteries

I receive a lot of emails asking questions about sex in marriage, and one of the most frequent one I get is on whether or not it’s okay to use “novelty” items to spice up your marriage.

I dealt with this in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and I had a hard time doing so. I gave my opinion, but I know that many Christians feel differently. If it’s two married people, no one else is involved, and you’re not using porn, what’s wrong with just having fun?

And there’s nothing wrong with having fun. Absolutely not.

Which is why I wouldn’t call such things sins. I think the Bible gives a lot of freedom to people who are married to explore sexually, and I think to draw a line about some issues and say, “this makes God mad”, when it really can’t be found in the Bible, isn’t helpful.

At the same time, while I wouldn’t call things sinful, I do think of 1 Corinthians 10:23, which says (New Living Translation):

You say, “I am allowed to do anything”–but not everything is good for you. You say, “I am allowed to do anything”–but not everything is beneficial.

A lot of life falls into this category. It’s not necessarily sinful; but is it beneficial?

So in order to answer that question, let’s step backwards a minute and ask: what is beneficial about sex? What are the unique aspects of sex which make it great, and what is sex really for?

1. Sex is Fun

Absolutely! Sex is supposed to make us feel great, and feel relaxed, and sleep better, and feel absolutely and totally alive.

2. Sex Enhances Intimacy

Sex is meant to help us “know” each other. It’s not meant to ONLY be fun. It’s also supposed to draw us together. We should feel united through sex, as if it’s something that we’re experiencing together, and expressing love through, and not only something which is making us feel great.

And it’s the latter part that I think is so important to our discussion. Sometimes couples really lose out on this because they’re focusing so much on the physical that it’s almost as if you’re experiencing two separate, parallel sexual encounters. You’re “using” the other person, not experiencing and giving pleasure with the other person. You’re not really thinking about the other person, but you’re fantasizing or thinking about other things during sex. And so sex is actually quite selfish.

I received an email yesterday, for instance, from a woman whose husband would rather watch her using a toy on herself than actually make love. She doesn’t know what to do. He’s a Christian, and what she really wants is intimacy. But he’s always coming up with new and weirder things that they can try, and he doesn’t seem to focus on how they can feel close to each other.

I received another email this week from a woman whose husband is about to be deployed for a year, and before they left he wants to buy her something to tide her over, if you get my drift. She’s uncomfortable with that, because she wants to keep sex a mutual experience, not a selfish one (which is what she sees this as). But when your husband really wants you to do something, what do you do?

Finally, I received a further one from a woman with a unique problem: they had gone together to purchase a toy because she only orgasmed very rarely during intercourse. They thought it could “train” her body what to do. But now she finds she can reach the pinnacle really easily with the toy, but never through intercourse. What was once sporadic is now completely gone. And she doesn’t know what to do, because her husband is having fun with it, but she’s worried that she’s further wrecked her sexual response.

I know some women want me just to come down hard on this and say, “don’t use them! Tell your husband they’re evil and stop!” But I don’t believe it’s that simple. And let’s face it: a lot of women really enjoy them, too! And is there really anything wrong if you just use them occasionally, and you can still totally enjoy intercourse with your husband?

Again, I’m not willing to say that you can’t. But I would just offer this warning: if you end up in a scenario like one of the three I mentioned, where it seems as if the toy is being used to replace intimacy, then you have a problem. And because toys often lead to this kind of thing, it’s likely best to think twice before you introduce them, even if you do already have a great and intimate sex life.

So what do you do if you feel as if the toy has become a hindrance, but your husband really wants to keep using it? I’m afraid I don’t have great answers, but I will say this: intimacy and friendship go hand in hand. When you are close friends, you can talk about these issues more, and you can often come to a compromise easier. You can express reservations, and you can make suggestions, when you can talk more easily.

Like most things in marriage, then, I’d suggest working on your friendship. Make sure that you can laugh together everyday. Make talking a natural thing you do together, either by taking walks after dinner, or taking up a hobby together, or cooking together, or anything. Just talk and laugh. And, if he’s a Christian, add prayer to that, too. The more you are spiritually intimate through prayer and Bible reading, the more God can work on both on you to bring you together.

And then, work at making your sex life as physically stupendous as possible doing the things that you are comfortable with. When you’re showing that you desire to make love, and that you look forward to it, then you give him a big boost.

Once you have these two things in place, it’s easier to talk about things that you’re not comfortable with. I wish I had an easier path to a good answer, but like most things in marriage, it can be hard work! So pray it through, and make intimacy your number one goal in the bedroom.

If you’ve ever been through something like this, where you were involved in something you wish you hadn’t started, or where your husband asks for something you don’t want to do, how did you resolve it? Or do you have something else to share? Let me know in the comments!

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Two Approaches to Parenting: The Soft Landing vs. the Aim for the Sky

Do you expect your kids to fall, or do you expect them to climb?

Those really are the two expectations of parenting: the parents who think that their kids will fall, so it’s their job to provide the soft landing. And then there are parents who think their kids will climb, so it’s their job to provide the ropes and the harness. Both keep kids safe. But one aims at helping them climb; the other aims at assuming they’ll fall.

I’ve always been a climber type of gal. I expect that my kids will do the right thing. I thought all Christian parents did this, but I was speaking with a friend from church recently who said that her attitude towards the teen years is this:

Kids are going to make mistakes and explore. I would rather they do it now, while they’re still under our roof and we’re there to catch them when they fall, than that they wait until they move out and we’re not there to cushion the landing anymore.

I was a little flabbergasted, and I didn’t say very much. But why do we assume that kids will mess up? Sure teens have a lot of pressure, and a lot of issues, but so do adults. And teens have the Holy Spirit just as much as adults do, when they love the Lord. My attitude has always been: I expect you to do what God says is right. I know you’re not perfect, but I expect you to try to listen to God. I’ll love you no matter what, but I expect that we will all, as a family, try to live for Jesus.

Is that so weird?

Apparently it is. I was reading a story lately that epitomized this from Lifesite News, that featured a Planned Parenthood spokesperson saying that American families would be healthier if parents let kids have sex at home. She says:

Dr. Schalet, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said American parents should be more like their counterparts in the Netherlands, who allow teenagers to have sex openly under their roof.

Schalet told local media she finds it unfortunate that America, girls believe “in their parents’ eyes they would be a disappointment if they were to engage in sex.”

“In the Netherlands if a girl is in a relationship, she’s not a slut for wanting sex, for making decisions about sex,” she said. Most parents deem teen sexuality a “part of your life that you are allowed to own and make choices about.”

Get that? Our lives would be better if we let kids have sex at home! That’s not all that different from the attitude I’ve also encountered from some parents at church who let their teens drink at home, and serve alcohol to other teens visiting, “so that they won’t drink outside the house”. They’d rather the kids drink where they’re safe. Why not just expect kids not to drink at all?

You’re setting the expectations: I expect you to make poor decisions. I expect you to mess up.

Am I being naive? I don’t think so. I didn’t drink. I didn’t have sex before I was married. In fact, 40% of Christians in my surveys for The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex didn’t have sex before they were married, either. I know that’s not a majority, but it’s a substantial minority. And I think the figures would be higher if parents expected more of their kids.

My children have always come to me when they mess up. We talk all the time–taking walks and talking and chatting at least an hour a day. I keep up with them. They know they can talk to me. But they also know that I expect them to do the right thing. And lo and behold, they do!

I don’t know why Christian parents would give in to defeatism and assume that their kids will choose the wrong path. When we assume that they’ll fall, they often do. If we give the message: we expect you to do the right thing, they often live up to that.

And here’s one of the scary parts that I’ve never understood about parents who let their kids have “sleepovers” at home or to want to get drunk. They now have nowhere safe. If even their parents think they’re going to have sex, how can they say no? Your home is supposed to be the one place in the world where you can still be a child and still be protected. But if your parents are saying, “you can have sex here”, then your parents aren’t protecting you. If your parents are saying, “you can get drunk here”, then your parents aren’t providing a safe environment for you to grow up in.

We owe it to our kids to expect the best, and to provide that safe environment. Jesus’ message was, “go and sin no more”. Did that mean that He wouldn’t forgive them if they messed up? Of course not. But it did mean that He expected them to choose well. And we should expect the same of our kids.

Kids live up to their expectations. I want to raise mountain climbers, not people who fall. What about you?

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Reader Question of the Week: Help! My Husband Hates Kissing!

Every weekend I like to throw up a question someone sends in and let you readers have a go at it.

Today I’d like to throw up a question that I got asked a lot during my 29 Days to Great Sex event, especially after the post on Pucker Up. One email went like this:

I find it hard to get in the mood, and I need some gentleness first, especially kissing. My husband hates kissing. He finds it messy. He doesn’t mind quick pecks, but that’s it. But I need to kiss to feel close to him. What should I do?

What do you think? Can you help her?

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You Know You’re Middle Aged When…

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario and Saskatchewan. Here’s this week’s! I had help from my Facebook Fans for some of the one-liners. But this one was fun to write!

Is it wrong to be giddy that your husband needs glasses? As one who has required corrective lenses since I had to squint at the blackboard in school, I must admit to being tickled pink watching my husband break down and purchase some reading glasses. As my daughter and I, who struggle with contact lenses everyday, exult at both his misfortune and delight in being able to see again, it occurs to me that perhaps my husband and I are entering that phase commonly known as “middle age”.

You know you’re middle aged when you have to play the trombone with medicine bottles to read small print.

You know you’re middle aged when you meet someone new, and can’t narrow down their age any more precisely than “somewhere between 15 and 30”. They all look the same to you.

You know you’re middle aged when you have to start shaving and plucking hairs out of places where hair really shouldn’t grow. I always knew they made leg waxing kits. But lucky for me, they make facial waxing kits, too. Sigh.

You know you’re middle aged when hormones which used to be a mild irritant now wage war. I always believed PMS existed, but I never had that full, rich experience until “peri-menopause” hit. Now every month there are at least two days when, if someone says “Hi, Sheila,” I feel an irresistible urge to slap them. It’s like an out-of-body experience: I can see how badly I’m behaving, but I can’t stop myself because I’m so darned mad. I know I’m middle aged because my family heads for the hills periodically, skulking away, without telling me why.

You know you’re middle aged when, upon being given the choice of two “wild and crazy” things to do, you choose the one that will get you home the soonest. In fact, you know you’re middle aged when your bedtime is now the earliest one in the household, because one’s teenagers stay up later than you do.

You know you’re middle aged when you have to cross your legs if you laugh, and you have to avoid trampolines at all costs, unless you have fully emptied your bladder and have not had anything to drink for the last 36 hours.

You know you’re middle aged when every doctor’s visit results in multiple requisitions for “routine” tests that involve strangers becoming far too intimate with your nether regions.

You know you’re middle aged when your husband develops an obsession with weeds. After years of not caring what our lawn looked like, gardening gloves and glasses have become his new uniform.

To top it all off, we know we’re middle aged because we have dorky hobbies. We recently started bird-watching, a distinctly middle aged activity. Young people like to hike, which sounds vigorous. Middle aged people head to the trails, too, but usually we’re armed with cameras and binoculars and bird books, and have to take numerous breaks to verify that that Small Brown Bird really is just a sparrow, and not some rare warbler.

You know you’re middle aged when your favourite music is on the classics station.

You know you’re middle aged when your waist size matches your age—and that’s a bad thing.

You know you’re middle aged when your kids start saying, “You’re not going out of the house wearing that, are you?”

Finally, you know you’re middle aged when you decide to live until 120, so that you’re no longer middle aged.

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Who I Really Am

I have big thighs. I always have. I have a tiny waist, but my legs have always been big. That bothered me in high school.

I have a mole on the right side of my face. Periodically I wonder about taking it off.

But that’s not all that I don’t like about myself. I find it difficult to put up with people who are doing something that I consider stupid, or who refuse to see that there’s a better way of doing something. It means that I go through life often perpetually annoyed. I don’t like that about myself.

There are good sides to it: I’m an idea person, and I’m constantly coming up with new ideas of how to change a program at church, or a new idea for a book, or a new idea for how to do something at home. And people often embrace these ideas with enthusiasm. But I still go through life always seeing how stores could be set up differently, or how churches could run differently, or how the country could be run differently. It’s tiring.

At my last church there was an older couple named John and Bea, and they were just wonderful. They radiated Jesus. And I so wanted to be Bea. She was so encouraging to everybody. She found joy in everything. She was gentle.

I’ve never been gentle.

I’ve prayed that God will make me more gentle. I’ve prayed that I won’t see the inefficiencies or injustices in everything. And I’ve prayed that I could just be more peaceful.

It really hasn’t happened. In my interpersonal relationships I’m actually quite nice and loud and exuberant, most people will tell you. But in my mind I’m always coming up with new ideas, new thoughts, new ways to improve things.

Perhaps that’s why I’m a writer. I can get some of these thoughts out. I don’t think I would have been able to write as many books as I did, or stick with it as long as I did, if I didn’t have a lot of ideas.

But other writers aren’t like me, and that’s what’s been distressing me lately. When I read other Christian blogs, I read such beautiful things of people trusting God and seeing the beauty in things. Ann Voskamp, who is a personal friend, writes so gently. And other Christian mom bloggers talk about creating a peaceful and gentle home, where you know your role and you be Jesus there.

I agree with all of these things, but I have a problem. That is not who I am.

I still want to be gentle, but I’m beginning to understand that I will never fit the mold of a typical Christian mom blogger, or a typical Christian writer, or a typical Christian wife! I’m simply not made that way. That doesn’t mean I won’t love Jesus. It doesn’t mean that I won’t raise my kids to know Jesus. But I’m just not one of those people who will have a super-organized home with cookies baked (unless my daughter makes them).

I value those things, but I value other things, too. And I think this is the way that God made me. For years I tried to fit into a different mold, but I don’t think I can. And so what I’ve realized, instead, is that who I am is good. I just need to make sure that I’m acting and writing with God’s grace.

I don’t always succeed. I got a lot of flak on Monday for my post on 7 Pet Peeves About Worship Music, for instance. Some felt that I was inviting people to criticize worship pastors, which wasn’t my intention. In fact, if you read that post, many of the pet peeves are directed at those in the pews: no instrument is satanic. No time period is satanic.

But at the same time, I do think that blogs provide a place where we can talk about things without criticizing anyone in particular. And we do need to talk about these things. I think if everyone started an honest dialogue about what music in church should be like, taking responsibility for our own attitudes, then churches would be better off.

In retrospect, I could have handled that post better, and perhaps given it a name that wasn’t so inflammatory. And I could have warned people more up front not to criticize their own praise team leaders.

But often, whenever I say anything controversial, I get that response: we really shouldn’t talk about these things. This can stir up dissension. We should just get along.

I understand what you’re saying. I really do. But I’m not made that way. If that’s true, that we really shouldn’t talk about how to improve things in any area of our life if it may offend someone else, then my whole personality is wrong.

The truth is I don’t fit the mold. I never have. But I like thinking. I like dreaming. I like coming up with new ideas. And I am not a sweet person.

That doesn’t mean I’m not a fun person, or a Christian person, or a reverent person. But I’m not sweet.

I’m still praying for gentleness, and I hope that, in time, I’ll learn to write more gently in places while still making my point. But I think that most of you come to this blog because you know that I will tell it like it is, and I won’t try to paper over marriage problems by just saying, “just love him and pray and everything will be great“–because I know that in reality people often need more practical things than that. And so I don’t give the pat Christian answers. I sometimes fear this makes me less Christian. Don’t I believe in the power of prayer? Don’t I believe that we should just trust?

Yes, but in my life things have never been that straightforward. In the grief I’ve gone through, in the troubles I’ve gone through, it’s all involved a lot of struggling with God. Prayer works. Trust works. But sometimes I find it’s not that simple. We also have to acknowledge that life is hard, and sometimes what God asks is hard. But He is big enough to carry you through, even if it means you don’t achieve pure happiness in this life. Sometimes the joy we get is bigger. But let’s not pretend that hurts don’t still hurt.

I believe in wrestling with God, because I have wrestled with God. I don’t believe in status quo, because I think God is always calling us to something more. And I believe that God sometimes makes people out of the box, to encourage other people to be out of the box.

So I’m out of the box. I’m praying for more gentleness–please, make me gentle–but I can’t change who I am.

So let me know–why do you come here? Do you ever feel out of the box? What do you think?

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Wifey Wednesday: Why Kindles Can Wreck Your Marriage

It’s Wednesday, the day when we talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and then you all comment, or link up a marriage post below! Today I want to tackle a rather taboo subject among many wives: the increasing temptation of erotica.

Not too many decades ago, if a man wanted to see porn, he had to go to a store and purchase a Playboy. It was a deliberate act. It involved getting in your car, driving to the store, looking the clerk in the face and plopping down some money.

And so lots of people wouldn’t do it. The rate of porn use among Christian men was relatively low, in relation to the rest of the population.

Flash forward a few decades, and now the internet has made porn so easy to access that it’s become a huge temptation for many men (and for many women), and a huge roadblock in people’s marriages. While purchasing a Playboy at a store had involved lots of tiny choices, where at any point a man could change his mind and head home, accessing it on the computer involves far fewer choices. And those choices are largely anonymous, and very quick. To go to a store takes some time–time for the Holy Spirit to convict, time for you to second guess yourself. Time for you to say no.

To click on a link on the computer takes very little time, and it’s easy to silence those voices in your head and heart because it only takes a few seconds. And so many men have been sucked in.

Women haven’t faced this to the same extent because for most of us, visual pornography is not our main weakness, as it is for men (though it is becoming a graver threat to women, too). For many of us, romance novels and soft core erotica offer far more temptation than porn, and so the internet revolution wasn’t quite as dangerous to us. Sure, erotica is more easily discovered online, but the “really good stuff”, the big novels or the high quality writing, wasn’t as accessible. And so we were able to sit back and watch our men fall prey to the internet, and wonder why they can’t get their act together and practice more self-control.

Well, it looks like we have met our match in Amazon’s Kindle (or the Nook, or whatever e-reader you have). Because now we can do what men can do: we can access the things that tempt us the most without having to leave our homes, without having to look a clerk in the face, without having to spend a lot of time thinking about it. We can download erotic novels and no one knows! We just enter our credit card online at Amazon, and instantly the book is on our Kindle (or iPad, or Nook, or whatever). And there’s a whole series of erotic novels that are taking women by storm right now, earning mainstream news coverage about how women have discovered erotica.

I won’t mention them by name because it’s not important (and I don’t want to give them higher sales inadvertently). It’s just that we are now facing the same temptations that men have had to battle with for the last fifteen years, as the internet has become a staple in all workplaces and homes. They had to fight the temptation to access porn anonymously. And now we have to fight the temptation to access erotica anonymously. And it is vitally important that we do so.

Look, I think sharing “sexy” thoughts with one’s husband, and flirting, and playing together is all pretty great. I am not against sexual play or sexual fun at all. But when we use something outside of marriage to get aroused, we’re transferring our sexual energy from our spouse. And if you then have sex with your spouse after getting aroused some other way, it becomes increasingly difficult to “be present” when you make love. Your mind starts to focus on what you were reading, not on your husband. And that’s not really making love.

Our culture wants to turn sex into something that is completely physical. They are twisting something which is beautiful, and trying to make it exciting by focusing on the forbidden, the extreme, the hidden, rather than the relationship. And when you focus on the physical, sex loses that special element that helps us bond.

When I did my research for The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, I found that the couples who enjoyed sex the most were also those who felt most spiritually intimate with each other. And the couples who enjoyed sex the least tended to be the ones where porn had played a large part in their lives, and they were still trying to recover from it. Porn rewires your brain so that what becomes arousing is a picture, rather than a person. And now erotica has the same effect on women: it rewires your brain so that what is arousing is an idea or a scenario rather than your husband.

The church is rightly concerned with the intrusion of porn into our lives and our marriages, but we women need to realize that we face similar temptations, and we need to put things in place to fight against them. We’ve been talking up internet filters, and accountability software, and accountability groups for men. But what about women?

1. Share your Amazon/B&N/Chapters account with another person/another device

This one is going to be a little expensive, I grant you, but it’s important. Don’t let your family just own one Kindle that you control. Make sure there are at least two out there: maybe a teenager has one, or your husband. Then link them all onto one account, so that if anyone purchases anything, you all know about it.

In our home, my youngest daughter, my husband, myself, and my mother all share an Amazon account. Katie buys a lot of novels, and everytime I turn on my iPad, I can go to my archives and see what she has purchased, and download it myself. Believe me, if you share an Amazon account with a teenager, there is no way that you will EVER be tempted to buy erotica (let alone sharing it with your mother!).

2. Have your email for your account go to your husband

If you do only have one Kindle, and it’s yours, then make sure that the email address on your account wherever you buy books is your husband’s. That way, every time you make a purchase, the receipt is sent to him.

Internet porn became a big problem for men because it was anonymous. They could access it without anyone knowing. Take away the anonymity, and it’s suddenly not nearly as big a temptation.

The best way to protect ourselves, then, is to make sure nothing is done in secret. So even if you don’t think you’d be tempted to buy erotica, I still think it’s always a good idea to expose things to the light. Just make sure others can always see your account and access what you buy. Then any possible temptation is reduced greatly.

Are there ways around these steps? Of course. There always are. But the point is that when you had to inconvenience yourself to buy porn, most men did not. They only started looking at it in huge numbers when it was easy and anonymous. So let’s make sure Kindles don’t become our porn by making sure they’re never anonymous, too.

And spread the word! More women need to hear this, because women are not immune to these kinds of temptations, either. Please hit the share buttons below on Pinterest, Facebook, or Twitter!

Now it’s your turn! If you have any marriage thoughts for us, just link up a marriage post in the Linky Tools below! Please link the URL of the actual post, and not your whole blog. And then link back here so that others can read more about marriage.

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What’s Your Attitude?

Yesterday I listed my 7 Pet Peeves about Worship Music in Church. Great discussion in the comments!

But afterwards it occurs to me that I should have added an eighth:

8. People who criticize the praise team leader/sound man/pastor constantly, and blame them for their inability to worship.

If you can’t worship, it isn’t anyone else’s fault. It’s yours.

Yes, there are things that the praise team leader can do to help get rid of the distractions and facilitate you focusing on God (which is the main job of a praise team leader), but we are ultimately responsible for our hearts. Our attitudes matter.

And one of the most important attitudes we can have is praise & gratitude. That’s why songs that focus on who God is, and not just our response to Him, are so important in my view, because when we are reminded anew what an amazing God we serve, often the cares and concerns of the day melt away, and we’re more ready to listen to the message and learn something new from God today. We’re more ready to worship by listening. That’s part of what I was trying to get at yesterday, which some people said was wrong, because worship isn’t about preparing hearts to listen; it’s just about worship. I know what you’re saying, but there is a principle which I think is key:

Whatever you focus on expands.

When we focus on God, He expands. When we focus on distractions, or problems, they expand. So to me, part of the role of music in a service before the sermon is to help us focus on God, because that gets our attitude right so that we’re more prepared to listen. That’s why, when we do our devotions, we start with praise, rather than a list of prayer requests. That’s why, when we pray, we start by focusing on who He is, not what we need from Him. It’s about attitude.

And, if I can shift gears here, that’s why gratitude can transform a marriage. When we focus on what we’re angry with our husbands about, and all the things that they aren’t doing, then our marriage will be lousy. When we focus instead on what we love about our husbands, that is what we will tend to think about, and our attitudes will change.

Sometimes, when women email me about marriage issues, they list so many things wrong with the marriage that I’m tempted to say, “It’s hopeless!” If you look at only what they wrote, it looks very bleak indeed. But I often find myself asking, “is there really NOTHING good you can say about him? Is there really NOTHING that he does that’s right?“  Often we focus so much on the negative, and we spend so much emotional energy trying to “fix” problems, that we become very negative and judgmental ourselves. And then we make those troubles worse.

I don’t know where you’re at in your marriage right now. I don’t know whether it’s a mess, or it’s going wonderfully, or you’re just getting by. But I do know that the best way to transform your marriage isn’t to figure out a magical “fix” for your husband; it’s to transform our attitude so that we’re first grateful.

And so I’d like to point you all to a resource that can help you do that. Long time reader Cheri Gregory has a wonderful study starting today, for the month of May, called “The PURSE-onality Challenge”, 31 days of replacing “baditude” with gratitude, using God’s word. You’ll focus on 31 key Scriptures to move into your heart, and you’ll learn more about problem-solving vs. complaining. It’s a great resource for those who want to turn things around, and I highly recommend it!

Cheri helps you to focus on God, not your problems, and you’ll emerge from the week with a better attitude to tackle whatever life throws at you.

And when we’re rooted in Christ, we are so much more effective problem solvers, too, because the Holy Spirit is better able to use us.

So taking a challenge like this does not mean that you let your husband off the hook. It doesn’t mean that you say, “nothing’s wrong, and I’m going to sweep it under the table.” It doesn’t mean that you say, “All the problems in my life are due to me.” Not at all. But it does mean that you are saying, “I am going to change what I can. I am going to take responsibility for my attitude and response. I am going to let God work in me.” And then you’ll be equipped and grounded and better able to see clearly to make the changes that do need to be made.

Do you see the difference?

I encourage all of us to join Cheri for her PURSE-onality Challenge. And today, I also encourage all of us, whether it’s about marriage, or church, or friendships, or committees, or whatever, to think about what we can be grateful for. Make today the day that you pray prayers about gratitude. Text your husband something that you’re grateful for about him. Write someone an encouraging note. Focus on the positive, and you just may find that your outlook becomes far more positive, too.

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