Posts from — March 2009

by Laura

I had 9 perfectly normal pregnancies and deliveries. Well, my ninth baby was premature but things worked out fine and we had her at home and kept her at home. She was just a bit on the tiny side but all went fine.

Over the course of the next 2 years, I experienced 3 devastating miscarriages. One right after the other. I was stunned. My body had never betrayed me like this before. I never had trouble conceiving or bearing children. Why was this happening to me? I had never felt this kind of hurt, this bereavement. As a Christian, I comforted myself with the thought that ultimately we all wanted our children to end up in heaven, right? Well, I had 3 that had made it there safely already. Yet my mother’s heart ached and broke for my little ones that I would never hold, never nurse, never kiss good night. I wrote a loving poem for each of my babies. I named them and loved and missed them terribly.

During this time, a very dear friend of mine had also suffered a miscarriage. She and her husband bought a tombstone and buried their baby in the local cemetery. She shared with me how healing it was for her to have a place to go to mourn and cry. She wanted the same thing for me. She asked me to look around for some sort of memorial that I would like and then to let her know what it was and she would send me the money. [Read more →]

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Okay ~ how’s this for the kick-off to my Tour de Crap?!!

Actually, I’m not sure if any commentary is needed except to say, “OMG ~ Can you see how thoroughly convinced I was of the martyr mentality?!!”

WHEN I AM WEAK

by vyckie bennett

During a dinner-table conversation a couple of weeks back, Warren was expounding on the children’s song, Jesus Loves Me. He wanted to make the point to our children that when we are weak, Jesus shows Himself strong. Later in the conversation, he commented that we should “make ourselves weak” so that Jesus’ strength can be made manifest in our lives.

Make ourselves weak? Now that sounded a bit odd to my ears. After all, self-improvement is one of the great American values – right up there with self-reliance, choice, tolerance, and unity in diversity.

Check the local bookstores: a myriad of “self-help” books top the bestseller lists. Advice columns are among the most popular in the local paper, fitness centers are booming businesses, everyone is on a diet, community college classes fill up fast, we wait for hours for our turn at the doctor, dentist or mental health offices as we’re all seeking to improve our lives.

Sure, we all have our struggles … relationships disappoint, finances are always tight, our youthful stamina and good looks fade, we are not immune to various health problems, stuff happens and we find that we need help – who among us couldn’t stand a bit of self-improvement now and again?

Lest I should be exalted above measure …

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

So in response to Warren’s admonition, I’m thinking, “Life has a way of providing plentiful opportunities to show Christ’s strength in our weakness – why should we, then make ourselves weak?” Still, I could not easily dismiss the thought that in all our strivings for self-improvement, how much room do we allow for God’s strength to shine forth in our lives?

Avoidance of pain, suffering, and persecution are as American as apple pie. If we step back and take a look at Christian history, we find that “the pursuit of happiness” has not always been the norm for the people of God.

During our devotional times, our family has been studying early Church history. We were perplexed to read of Christians who eagerly gave themselves up to authorities – these people actually wanted to suffer martyrdom. Hmmm….

The apostle Paul said, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (v.10) What does it mean to “glory in” or to “take pleasure” in infirmities?

Well … I’m still contemplating all of this. But, I do recognize that much of the Church’s failings today can be traced back to our studied avoidance of trouble and hardship.

Protest outside an abortion clinic? That’s too radical How about volunteer at the Crisis Pregnancy Center? Well, I’m pretty busy. Adopt an orphan or special needs child? Of course, our finances are just too tight right now. Visit the elderly? We can probably do that … maybe once a month and then go out for pie and hot chocolate. Yeah, we should do that sometime. Shut off the boob-tube? We just have it on for noise. Write to my representative? I’m sure he’s received piles of mail already. Give to the Rescue Mission? Can’t those guys get a job? Prison ministry? Well, isn’t So-and-So already doing that? Preach the gospel? I don’t really have the gift of evangelism.

What would the Body of Christ look like today if we were to embrace our weaknesses? Not enough money or patience to have another baby? Take heed to your spirit for He desires godly seed. (Malachi 2:15) Does it seem awkward to get involved in the lives of the single mom and her children next door? Pure religion demands that you do so. (James 1:27) Homeschooling not for you? Whose image do your children bear? The image of God? Why render them unto Caesar? (Matt. 22:20,21) Too tongue-tied to witness to your co-worker? Speak up! Preach not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit. (1 Cor. 2:4)

The very areas in which we feel inadequate – lacking in resources and talent – these are the things which we should do eagerly because “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” (1 Cor. 2:5)

May your faith not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God

Well actually ~ after reading this article that I wrote ~ which appeared in my own newspaper and was reprinted in several home school magazines ~ I do have a couple things to say: [Read more →]

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Okay ~ I’ve noticed that over on my “We’ve been thinking” post about the Birth Control/Abortion Connection ~ you all are already posting comments about just how “Biblical” the whole patriarchy/women’s submission/male headship-thing is …

Since I’m such an organized person, I’d really like to have that discussion under a separate post. Only I don’t have time this morning to write my thoughts down on the subject. So ~ I’ve put the summary of my thoughts in the subject title ~ and I’ll be back after a while to write the rest of it.

For now ~ don’t wait on me … go ahead and bring your thoughts and comments over here to this post. I’d love to hear from you ~ I truly appreciate the respectful tone as well as the thoughtfulness which goes into the majority of the comments which you have been contributing to this blog. You all are wonderful!

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Just thought I’d post a little note to say, “Happy Monday, everyone!”

We enjoyed a wonderful weekend with friends and family. Sunday evening we celebrated Wesley’s 6th birthday with a little party ~ pizza, X-box games, presents and yummy strawberry jello cake ~ fun!

Angel was here, along with her boyfriend Aaron and another friend ~ she has a new car that she got at a ridiculously low price ~ so we went for a drive and that gave us a few minutes to talk. She’s written her reaction to the “Daughters” section of Kathryn Joyce’s book Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement
~ I’ll be posting that here soon.

Once again, I want to say “Thank you” to those of you who are following our blog, reading the stories and posting comments. I posted this as a comment ~ but wanted to repeat here: Thanks for your very kind and encouraging words. Sometimes I feel pretty hesitant about what we are doing here ~ because I feel like we’ve taken on something HUGE and I wonder if I’m really up to it!

[The] commenters here make all the difference for me. You all are SO encouraging and it inspires me to keep writing ~ there is really SO MUCH that I want to tell!

I know Laura is encouraged too ~ she’s living a nightmare right now ~ and hearing from others who have BTDT and can clearly say, “Good for you ~ you’re doing the right thing!” is a real boost to her ability to get through this struggle.
Angel ~ n ~ me

One reader, Aimai posted her husband’s suggestion that it might be interesting (if painful!) for me to share some of my old writings and comment on them from my new perspective ~ and I told her that I’ve actually been considering doing just that. Angel recently told me that if you Google my married name “Vyckie Bennett” ~ “It’s like taking a total tour de crap!”

So ~ that’s coming soon. I think I’m going to call the series: Vyckie’s Tour de Crap.

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by Laura

I thought about my mom. I thought about if my daughter was told she was clinically depressed, I would want her to tell me so I could love her up and help her. But I had been estranged from my mom for so long. She would call me about every 3 months just to make sure I was okay. The calls were always hard on both of us. If I was feeling especially pious, I would usually end up arguing with her and saying some negative thing to her. But most often we were just sad and talked about nothing important. I hardly talked to her about her grandkids because it was too painful for her to hear. Almost every time we spoke, I would get off the phone and beg my husband, “Can’t we handle this situation with my moms differently. I mean, they hate God because of us. We are not being good witnesses for Christ here. Why can’t we just love them like Jesus loved the woman caught in the act of adultery?” He would respond that Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery to “go and sin no more”. We had basically said that to my moms regarding their relationship but they still lived together, still loved each other, still stood up for women’s rights and equality for everyone. They were a threat to our children in our eyes. Who knew what they might say to our kids? After most conversations with my mom, I would argue with Dale about keeping our kids away from her and then I would back down and let him have his way figuring that he knew what was best.

And I would cry. I missed my mom so much. It was horrible. I would fight with myself inside over the feelings I had toward my mom( I loved her and missed her deeply) and the responsibilities I felt I had toward my husband (to be submissive to his will) and my kids ( to protect them from evil influences which I considered my moms to be because of their lifestyle). Eventually my Christianity would win out and I would again put up the righteous wall that I felt was necessary to protect my children. When I look at it now, I am amazed that I let my husband do my thinking for me like that but it seemed perfectly right and reasonable at the time.

I was alone in the house, just diagnosed with something that terrified me and I knew what I wanted. I wanted my mommy!!! [Read more →]

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by Vyckie

So many of the visitors who are reading the stories on this blog have left a comment to the affect that, “You & Laura are amazingly strong women.”

I’ve actually done some thinking about that ~ and wanted to share a bit of it here.

We have been “strong,” yes ~ but is that such a good thing? For myself, I finally realized that being so strong enabled me to live a life that was not healthy for me or my children ~ or for my ex-husband for that matter. As long as I could “handle it” ~ I did.

Allow me to boast for just a minute about how “strong” I was.

I was so “strong” that I bore seven children ~ six of them in eleven years ~ five of those were by c-section. I was so “strong” that after three cesareans and an attempted home birth which ended disastrously in a fourth surgical delivery, I had the “courage” to try again ~ my fifth child was born at home with the assistance of a midwife. Through all my years of childbearing, I was so “strong” that I also ran a (fairly) successful home business ~ a local family newspaper which I started from scratch even though I had no training or education in either business or journalism. Although I was physically exhausted, still I had the “strength” to act as a buffer for the children ~ doing what I could to shield them from their energetic and extremely intense father’s endless micro-managing and tyranny. I was “strong” enough to literally spend HOURS *every day* ~ year after year, dealing with Warren’s insecurities and trying to help him overcome what I perceived to be his “poor communication skills.” There was more ~ but I think that’s enough to make my point.

It was only when I was so worn down physically that I simply could not go on that I peeked my head up over the box (of the fundamentalist “biblical worldview”) and started asking myself not, “Can I do this?” but the much more sensible question: “SHOULD I be doing this?” [Read more →]

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by Laura

When I was living on the farm we grew almost all of our own food. We planted our own wheat and then harvested it with a pull type combine hooked up to our antique John Deere 70 tractor. We had a hand cranked fanning mill (another antique) to clean the wheat which was quite the operation. One of the bigger kids would crank the giant handle to produce the wind and shaking needed to send that wheat through the fanning mill screens and discard all the impurities. Well almost all. Inevitably there would be little bits of “stuff” that was the same size and shape as the wheat berries that would escape the cleaning process.

With our home grown organic wheat berries in hand, I would get out the wheat grinder that we had borrowed long term from a friend and would commence grinding the flour for the bread I made just about every other day. I would set my two little girls up on the counter and together we would pick out the little balls of mud-turned-dirt, the pieces of chaff and foreign seed matter that escaped the fanning mill. One of the girls would have the job of keeping the grinder fed by pushing the wheat kernels down the dime sized chute with a chopstick. It would stop grinding if someone didn’t do this every 10 seconds or so. It was a huge grinder with stones about 6 inches across. A heavy beastly thing. My one daughter was terrified of it because it was so loud, like an airplane in the kitchen she would say!

After we ground our wheat, I would take a giant stainless steel bowl and mix up our bread by hand. I had to stand on the little stool Dale had made for the children in order to be tall enough. My recipe made 6 loaves at a time and the lump of dough was quite large to knead. It weighed about 6 pounds. When my girls got to be about 4 or 5, I would get them involved in learning how to make the bread, hoping to work myself out of a job! It was such a relief when my oldest daughter, around 8 years old, could do it all by herself. Instead of having to take time out to make the bread every other day, I could just ask her to do it. And sometimes I did! I used to call her my bread machine.

Of course, I was not allowed to have an actual bread machine. [Read more →]

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I really am going to get the rest of my story written ~ eventually. It’s just that there are a ton of topics going around in my mind since so much of the “firm foundation” upon which I’ve based much of my life has crumbled on me ~ and I want to write about these things too. Mostly, I’m hoping to get some discussion going because I’ve been so convinced of one way of thinking for so long that it’s hard to know ~ what other way is there to understand this issue? So ~ I’m starting a new series of posts and I’m calling it, “LOOK OUT ~ We’ve been thinking…” Like it? It certainly isn’t my desire to start a debate forum ~ so far, the commenters here have been very respectful. Seems like we’ve attracted a community of others like us who are thinking things through in a humble, open-minded manner which is quite tolerant of other points of view.

Here’s my first post ~ it has to do with the Pro-life convictions which, (in case you wonder) I still hold to:

This is part of a comment I posted this morning in response to this article on Alternet ~

There’s a growing belief among the conservative and fundamentalist Christians that the most effective way to win the “culture war” is simply to outnumber the enemy.

The thinking goes like this:

The liberals are only having one or two kids ~ if they’re gay, maybe they won’t have any. If “God’s people” are pro-baby they will multiply exponentially ~ and within a few generations, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren will significantly out-number the “enemy” at the voting booth.

I was convinced as a Christian woman that I was “bought with a price” and therefore, I am not my own. The logical conclusion is that my life, *my body* was to be devoted to God’s service ~ and that meant having faith to produce as many “arrows for the war” as He chose to create through my womb.

I ended up with seven children ~ every pregnancy was a physically demanding nightmare ~ several times, I came close to losing my life. But I kept on because I was so thoroughly convinced that Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12 “I urge you therefore brethern, by the mercies of God, that you present YOUR BODIES a living sacrifice…” meant that whatever the cost to my own personal comfort and safety ~ I was under obligation to “trust the Lord with my family planning.” And if it killed me? Well ~ lots of faithful Christians have risked and lost their lives in their zealous service to the Lord ~ they are now honored as martyrs and wear a special crown in heaven. [Read more →]

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