Tag: modest dress

The Formula Ruled Above All

October 24, 2010

by Erika

If you remember from one of my earlier installments, right before we started our first year of homeschooling, I had spent the summer in Uganda on a missions trip with Teen Missions International. It was an amazing summer and everything had seemed normal in my family before I left. I was promised that things wouldn’t change much even though we’d be homeschooling. Of course, reading back through my story, you know that things DID change. I enjoyed that summer away so much. I had amazing experiences and the travel bug had officially hit. More than the travel bug, though, I enjoyed the satisfaction of helping others and telling people about my relationship with God. Hearing the stories of missionaries that went through the churches of my childhood came alive when I was finally able to have stories of my own to tell from the mission field. As soon as I got home from that trip with TMI, I was ready to sign up for another one. I truly had the heart of missions within me. I was excited to go to another country and help more people the next summer.

When the summer trip catalog arrived in the mail, I poured over it and marked off the different teams that I was interested in until I narrowed it down to the one I really wanted to go on. Nicaragua. It was a new team for TMI. They had never been there with a team before and one of the girls that was on the Uganda team with me was planning to go there. We got along really well while on our trip together and I thought it would be fun that we could be on the same team.

Time Heals All Wounds ~ Part 10: It’s in the Lord’s Hands

September 30, 2010

All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go; The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow

by Shelly Cruz

I walked over to the phone, and dialed Cecilia’s number. My first thought was that it would possibly be disconnected, but who knows, maybe they finally moved. Cecilia always talked about how the time would come, and their house would be demolished, and then they would have to move. They were living rent-free in an old farmhouse. Someone had blessed them years ago with a property. They had to care for it, and in return they could live there for free, but once the owner passed away, they’d have to move.

They were even given a 15-passenger van as a blessing too! Regardless of their ways, the Lord always saw fit to bless them, in abundance, too. Oftentimes, I wonder why all the big families always get so many blessings? If being Quiverfull, is an Old Testament mandate, why does it seem like extra-large families always get extra-large blessings?

I have seen this in church many times, the family with the 8+ kids, receive box loads of children’s clothing for their children. They get free food dropped to their doorsteps, their mortgage paid for them, or they get a blessing of not having any mortgage at all. Do people feel sorry for them, or are they really the “chosen ones”? I know I should not be questioning these things, but sometimes I do. It seems, to me, like the most legalistic people I know are the ones who get enormous blessings.

Anyway, the phone rang three times, and then someone picked up, ”Hello, whom may you wish to correspond with please?”

Daughter of the Patriarchy: “Why do you look that cow in the face?”

September 20, 2010

By Sierra

Courtship took my church by storm in the 1990s. While I never read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, I was given a number of books about marriage and intimacy and taught explicitly that dating was preparation for divorce. Having never dated, I was not in a position to protest. I listened patiently to the story of the couple in my church who had married without so much as holding hands. They were the happiest couple after Eamon and Pearl, so clearly they’d done something right. I learned that smitten young Message couples would walk around holding each end of a shared stick, in order to express their affection without risking finger-to-finger contact. I thought to myself that it sounded a bit contrived.

I was sure, however, that the first man to touch me would take away something of my purity: a commodity I was given at birth and must guard throughout my life. I was spiritually dressed in a sparkling white wedding gown, which I must constantly defend against the oil of someone else’s hands. Kissing was out of the question. Branham taught that there were “sex glands” in the lips of men and women, and that the two sets should never meet except for marital procreation. But it wasn’t just physical contact to be avoided: broken hearts came, too, from loosely guarded emotions. I must never say the words, “I love you,” to anyone until I was engaged. True love could only happen to the pure.

And so it was with dread that I, at age 15, received and read an email from my friend Karl. I’d known him online for a couple of years – we had joined a message board and discussed our shared love of Japanese anime there. He had been left hanging when I purged my life of secular influences – indeed, I had also purged my life of him, along with the anime and my other very close friends. But on a whim I had logged into AIM, we’d talked, and he’d got my email address. He wrote to me about a dream he’d had where everything was right and beautiful, where I’d come back from my strange and sudden disappearance and told him that it was all okay, now I could finally be with him. He said he loved me. I stared at the email in helpless frustration. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t date! Especially not an unbeliever. With my cheeks burning in the shame of hypocrisy, I clattered out a terrified reply. “It’s not me you need,” I wrote through gritted teeth and tears. “It’s Jesus.” I never felt like such a liar.

Feeling sure that God would bless my efforts to fully commit myself to Him, I deliberately cast Karl out of my mind and immersed myself in a mythology of my own making: a story running from the time I entered the Message to the present. I rejected the name I’d used online, telling myself all that was “Sierra” was sinful and rebellious. “I will not be Sierra again,” I wrote in my journal furiously. I would rededicate my life to Christ, and revert to my childhood nickname, Tara. And onto the set of my little drama waltzed Sven.

Daughter of the Patriarchy: The Sickness ~ Pt 2

August 26, 2010

by Sierra

William Branham never claimed to be a faith healer. That is, he claimed that it was the power of the individual’s faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that healed their diseases. Christ had finished the work; there was nothing left to do but believe. In a 1955 sermon entitled Jehovah-Jireh, Branham explained that faith was the force that brought healing to the believer:

If I could heal anyone, I’d come down here, and go to each one and heal everyone. I would, if I could. But I can’t. And there’s no other man can. And–and if Jesus was here, He could not, only if you’d believe. Look. That sounds strange, that Jesus could not heal unless you’d believe. When He went to His Own country, the Bible said, “Many mighty works He could not do, because of their unbelief.” Now, if He was standing here tonight on this platform, just like that you’re looking at us, and you’d come up to Him, and say, “Jesus, will You heal me?”
He’d say, “Child, can’t you believe that I have already done it on Golgotha? I paid for your sickness. If you believe, go and receive.”
For here’s what He said. “As thou has believed, so be it unto you.” He said, “Now, for Myself, I can’t do nothing. I do what the Father shows Me. The Father shows Me a vision, then I do what He tells Me. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Now, you just ask. It’s your faith. … Just go out believing and you get well. Isn’t that simple? It’s God’s love. Now, we will call a few people up here at the platform to pray for them. You know why I do that? Is to get the anointing, Spirit started among the people. It begins to build their faith. And as their faith comes up, He speaks to me, just like He did to the Lord Jesus. The woman that touched His garment and she went out in the crowd, Jesus said, “Someone’s touched Me.”
And everybody said, “Not me.”
And then He looked out; He seen the woman. He said, “Thy faith has saved thee.”
Now, it was her faith, not Jesus. She–she drew the power from–from God through Jesus. Now, watch and see if He doesn’t do the same thing. See? As soon as the Holy Spirit gets anointing the people, the prayer line as good as stops.

Believing was evidently an imperfect process, as I slowly watched the demon of cancer waste away the life of one of my dearest friends.

Time Heals All Wounds ~ Part 9: Draw Near to God

August 23, 2010

All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go; The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow

by Shelly Cruz

It was not until a period of distance was placed between my family and Cecilia’s, that I began to see the blessing that Cecilia gave me. It was an ABUNDANT blessing in disguise! At the time, I felt sad, lonely, depressed and even angry with her and with her whole family. I felt that Cecilia divorced our friendship, and I had no idea why.

I went from being a babe in Christ, to a woman, desiring nothing more, than to love my Savior Jesus. God was changing me little by little each day. I began to pray for specific things, and within weeks, sometimes days, prayers were being answered.

As I spent time in prayer, I started hearing the Lord speak directly to me. I became sensitive to hearing his voice. Good things began happening in my life. It felt amazing! I felt on fire for the Lord, and wanted to scream it from the rooftops! I felt that I had been lost, walking around in limbo for so long, but now I was found.

I clung to this verse: “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” (James 4:8)

Daughter of the Patriarchy: The Sickness ~ Pt 1

August 12, 2010

by Sierra

As an adolescent girl, growing up under William Branham’s Message of the Hour, I stood poised before a great fall. Sometimes I felt a cold breeze rising from the pit in front of me. I knew that against my will I was edging closer, and would someday have no choice but to jump in. But I looked frantically for an outlet or a bridge, digging in my heels against the edges of the pit. The name of the abyss was womanhood.

I was taught that the Bible recognized three classes of people: men, women, and children. In God’s plan for the family, authority descended directly in that order. Men obeyed God, women obeyed men, and children obeyed all three. For those living within this scheme, God’s blessings were assured, but stepping out of line meant incurring a curse.

As I reached puberty, I became acutely aware that I was leaving one class for another. I was transitioning from childhood to womanhood, and the latter was not a class I wanted to join. As a child, I was never specially commanded to obey my male friends. I could assert myself if they tried to act “bossy,” and a parent would rebuke the offender. We were all equals as children; we all had to obey our parents. None of us had the right to order one another around. This was a short-lived world of equality, however. When my breasts began to bud at nine years old, I angrily flattened them with a tight sports bra, disgusted by the reminder of what I was to become. I wore that flat swath of spandex all the time, even to bed, although I sometimes endured shooting chest pains as my lungs struggled against the constriction. I set my jaw in disappointment, warding off the tears when my period arrived at age 11. I didn’t want to be a woman.

Women in my church had one purpose: the “highest calling” to which we could aspire was indeed our only acceptable calling. At our best, we could be “jewels” in the crowns of our husbands – pretty, docile objects men cherished and admired for their beauty. We were to be keepers at home, obedient to our husbands, clothed modestly with “shamefacedness and sobriety,” forever repaying Eve’s debt with the agonies of childbirth. William Branham taught that men and women were placed on equal footing before the fall, but also that Eve’s sin was a natural consequence of her creation as a “by-product” of Adam. She was defective from the start: not even a part of the original Creation, Branham said. Before the fall of Lucifer and his angels, God had allowed him to design one facet of the universe, the only thing He hadn’t already created: the woman’s body.

Time Heals All Wounds ~ Part 8: Somehow, I Lost My Entire Identity

August 9, 2010

All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go; The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow

by Shelly Cruz

There was so much to read about this man; I didn’t even know where to begin. I stumbled across a message board that had a whole bunch of people who grew up following his teachings. They were adults now. The thing that perplexed me the most, was that these folks were calling him a religious cult leader, and that did not seem right to me.

Cecilia and her family were very strong, mature Christians. They would never get involved with something cultish, would they? The time I spent reading about this man, seemed so déjà vu to me. Everything I was reading from these strangers, was stuff I had heard before, from Cecilia herself, and it all began making sense.

Some of the things I was reading were things that I had no idea about. Things such as: there were 100+ chosen ones that were taught under this man back in the early 70’s. They signed up voluntarily, and some paid a small sum of money and were ministered too. They were given books, and literature to take home and study with their children. This was the first generation of Bill Gothard followers.

A lot of these former followers were very anti-Christian nowadays. Some were even atheists! This did not make any sense to me. Some were confused, and just strayed from religion altogether, yet some, managed to find their way back to the Lord, and were ministering to the ones that left the warped teachings of this man.

I could not spend more then several minutes at a time reading all this. I kept taking breaks, and then would go back and read some more. My heart wept so much while reading the stories. These poor helpless children had been taught that God was harsh and unloving. Who would ever want to worship a God that demanded such harshness? Who would want to remain faithful to a God that was just waiting for his children to mess up, so that he could punish them?

Daughter of the Patriarchy: The Atheist

July 23, 2010

by Sierra

Willa was an atheist. A self-styled “unschooler,” she attended homeschool conventions and activities with her two children, Alexis (9) and Steven (5), and it was there that she met my mother. Willa’s husband worked in a field that I knew only abstractly as something involving computers and sales. He was a passive, taciturn man with whom I never exchanged a single word. Their children were boisterous, especially Alexis. Willa attached herself to my mother very quickly. Since Alexis was my age, we were an automatic source of play dates, which often really amounted to tea parties for our mothers. Common interests seemed to abound at first: homeschooling, books, and bargains. Both adored flea markets, and Willa’s house sagged under the evidence. But there was no escaping the fact that Willa was an atheist.

Willa quickly became a mission field for my mother and her friends. One by one, they joined my mother in the weekly tea parties and occasional trips to flea markets or homeschool fairs. Soon the “Seal Sisters,” as my father called my mother and her church friends (referring to the seven seals of the book of Revelations), had developed a little circle around Willa. How to deal with the “Willa problem” became a topic of heated debate.