Category — 8 ~ Vyckie's Tour de Crap

The recent “Born to Breed” episode of “Secret Lives of Women” has attracted quite a bit of attention from practicing Quiverfull women ~ and several QF/P blogs are discussing my story and NLQ.  I appreciate that quite a few of these blog commenters are giving thoughtful consideration to the message here. 

But many others are insisting that my Quiverfull “conviction” was a burdensome form of legalism rather than a true calling from the Lord.  It is frustrating to read their comments as these women dismiss my Quiverfull experience as irrelevant by concluding that what we were doing in our family was not the same heartfelt, Spirit-led decision based on our sincere love for the Lord and our desire to be open to His wisdom and guidance in this very personal area of our reproductive lives as what they are currently doing in their own families.

So ~ feeling a bit (okay, maybe a lot) defensive, I went and dug up a piece of writing from my “quivering days.”  This one happens to fit in the timeline of where I’m at in my story ~ I wrote this shortly before I became pregnant with my 7th child, Wesley.  While this started out as a personal letter to a friend, I later modified it for publication in several QF periodicals including “Unless The Lord Magazine.”

I’ll follow this one with a bit of commentary at the end:

Quiverfull and the Life of the Mother

A friend of mine (the local La Leche League leader) is under heavy conviction right now concerning the use of natural family planning.  I can understand her hesitancy to completely give this area over to the Lord as she and her husband are only 21 and already have two children. Recently, “Katherine” posted a question on QuiverFull Digest (an Internet discussion group for families who are trusting the Lord with their “family planning”)  which basically asked the question, “How far are we supposed to follow this ‘Quiverfull’ conviction?  What if the life of the mother would be jeopardized by pregnancy – would it then be prudent to abstain during the woman’s fertile time?  If so, where do we draw the line between being ‘good stewards’ and taking complete control over our reproduction?”

Dear Katherine,

I noticed your post on the QuiverFull Digest recently asking whether it’s acceptable to use birth control in a situation where the mother’s life is in danger.  I did not want to respond to the Digest – but, for what it’s worth – here’s my take on that situation:

[Read more →]

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This letter which I wrote to Jonathan Lindvall via his “Bold Christian Living” email discussion list fits into the time period of the latest installment of my story.  This one is total crap ~ I was trying so desperately to figure a way to get Angel to accept and embrace the godly, quiverfull lifestyle which we’d chosen for our family ~ I think that my desperation is quite apparent in this rather pathetic letter:

Dear Mr. Lindvall,

Thank you so much for your ministry — you have been a great encouragement to my husband & me.  I have a concern that I thought you might be able to address as you come from a godly Christian background.  You may have already dealt with this subject and if so, could you please direct us to the appropriate tapes?

My husband & I both come from very ungodly families and grew up amidst drugs, alcohol, violence, perversion, occultism, etc.  As  a young man, my husband, Warren, was serving time in jail for possession & sale of drugs when he turned his life over to the Lord and experienced deliverance from drugs and alcohol.  As for myself, at age 18, I knew that I was a hopeless sinner who deserved Hell — I lived with that miserable conviction for quite some time before the Lord revealed to me His grace & I was saved through faith.  When I surrendered my life to Jesus, it was a dramatic conversion experience  and I knew beyond all doubt that I was a new creature, a child of God and eternally secure.

[Read more →]

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Warning: If you are a sensitive individual ~ possibly prone to PTSD reactions ~ please be aware that this particular edition of my “Tour de Crap” will likely trip your trigger.  It’s a choice piece to be sure ~ and timely too, in light of all the ruckus over the Conservative Bible Project’s determination to eliminate liberal/progressive bias from the bible.  That’s right, not even the bible itself is conservative enough for True Believers ™.

I understand the mentality ~ BTDT, wrote the following column for our “pro-life, pro-family” newspaper back when my head was totally “there” ~ that is, in a place of absolutist, black & white, no-room-for-compromise thinking.

Okay ~ and I have to say that I do hesitate to post this one ~ because truthfully “crap” doesn’t come close to accurately describing this stuff that I wrote ~ and wholeheartedly believed.  So ~ just in case you didn’t pay much heed to my warning up above ~ let me again caution you, dear clear-minded, not-thoroughly-brainwashed reader:  don’t start this Tour de Crap without first setting up a barf receptical nearby  ~ and you might want to consider pouring yourself a stiff one first ~ just to calm your nerves and help you to keep your cool.

Homosexual, abortionist, drunkard, baby-killing center, selfishness, liar, pervert, child-molester

Are these words offensive?  Should we perhaps use the more politically correct, non-inflammatory euphemistic substitutes: gay, abortion doctor, alcoholic, women’s health center, choice, disingenuous person, gender-confused, pedophile?

While searching through various resources for pro-family news and articles suitable for this issue of [the newspaper], I became irked at what I consider to be a compromise of words by several of the leading pro-life, pro-family organizations.  While I appreciate these conservative, Christian groups for their tremendous work and dedication on behalf of morality and decency in America, and I hesitate to be critical, still I could not remain silent on this issue.  So, while I should have been writing a column for this paper, instead I wrote the following appeal to a group which seems to be the greatest offender:

Please do not refer to homosexuals as “gay”

I just wanted to drop a note to say that while I am very grateful for the ministry of Family Research Council and the stand your organization is taking in the face of America’s declining culture, I am nevertheless disturbed that your materials consistently refer to homosexuals by the misleading term “gay.”  Nine years ago, when I first became aware of the work of FRC, your articles were very careful to avoid this misnomer, only using the designation in quotations.  In recent years, however, there has been a trend in the Christian community and Family Research Council in particular, to capitulate to the degenerates by adopting the preferred language of homosexuals.

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by Vyckie

“Angel is a very sweet, godly young woman. she has prayerfully come to the decision to stay at home and help with the business, homeschool, housework, etc. for as long as the Lord is leading her. Angel, Warren, and I all believe that the Lord has given our family as her ministry and that she is serving Him by serving at home….”

Shortly before Angel graduated from home school, I wrote the following letter to Skeet Savage (Wisdom’s Gate) which she published in the Fall 2003 edition of An Encouraging Word magazine:

Daughters At Home “Doing Nothing”

I’m feeling incredibly exasperated lately due to the constant “peer pressure” regarding our oldest daughter who will be 18 in November.

Because Angel is “graduating” this year we are constantly being asked, “What are her plans?”  Well, she’s still praying about the long-term but, for now, she’s committed to staying at home and helping with our family business and homeschooling the younger ones.

No, this is not her first choice of what she’d like to do ~ she’d like to go to Ben Speer’s singing school in Tennessee, or maybe attend BJU, or get a job outside the home so she’d have more spending money, or a thousand other possibilities!  BUT, after prayerful consideration Angel feels that for now she has an obligation to help her family. [Read more →]

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Here’s an article which I wrote shortly after a QF-ing friend had twins (I was so jealous) ~ this was published in Above Rubies and SALT magazines. I’ve added my comments at the end of the article …

THEY SHALL NOT BE ASHAMED

It sure seems to me that a high percentage of Quiver-minded families are blessed with twins (and triplets).

Of course, the mere fact that we’re having more pregnancies and many QF mothers are older (two of the “risk factors” for multiples) can partially account for this phenomenon – but I think there’s more to the story.

Could it be that God has a fantastic work in store and He’s placing His arrows in the quivers of His sharpest marksmen? Mighty men who are willing to take God at His word and will sharpen these arrows and aim them straight for the Gates of Hades?

I may never … I may never … humbug! Dressed for battle with his helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, belt of truth, sandals of the gospel of peace, protected by his shield of faith, and wielding his sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, Andrew is ready for action! Let’s do damage to the Kingdom of Darkness!

I’m in the Lord’s Army – Yes Sir!
Don’t you mess with me – No Way!
I am gonna stomp on the enemy -
Faith is the victory!
We will make the Devil flee.
I am gonna shoot that “Old Liar”
Flaming arrows set his pants on fire!
Cause I’m in the Lord’s Army – for the Kingdom! [Read more →]

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Are these all yours? No ~ not all ~ Angel was at the zoo when this picture was taken yesterday at the park ~ so one of them is missing

I’ve been thinking that now would be a good time to add our “reversal testimony” to my Tour de Crap ~ since I am to the part in my story when the babies started coming … and coming … and coming. Plus ~ Mother’s Day is coming up so that seems like an appropriate opportunity to tell how it is that, although I had determined as a child that I would never have any children, I ended up as a mother to seven kids. (And in case you’re worried that I’m not happy about all these children, please read this.)

I originally wrote this testimony about six months after our first “reversal baby,” Hazelle, was born ~ it appeared as a chapter in Nancy Campbell’s book, “A Change of Heart: Testimonies of Couples Who Have Had Reversals of Vasectomies and Tubal Ligations” ~ my chapter was titled, “A Tough Conviction.” A few years later, when Nancy wanted to republish the book, I added the update to tell about the addition of Andrew, Lydia Jean, and Wesley to our family.

So, here’s the article ~ at the end, I’ll add some commentary: [Read more →]

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Here’s another article that I wrote back when I was “quivering.” (‹(ô¿ô)›) The reason I wanted to share it here is simply to make the point that, for me (and I believe MANY quiverfullers), it was a “package deal.” We started out homeschooling (and I’m not saying that ALL homeschoolers go down this exact same path ~ but we certainly weren’t the only ones) ~ and everything else flowed from there.

I remember that after years and years of getting deeper and deeper, I began to sort of dread opening a new issue of Home School Digest, “The Quarterly Journal for Serious Home Schoolers .” (This was my favorite magazine ~ I often reprinted their articles in my paper and Skeet occasionally published my articles in her magazine.) I’d be thinking to myself, Oh boy ~ what’s next? [Read more →]

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