To subscribers, visitors, followers, and friends over these past 4 years blogging here,
I love you all and thank you for listening, caring, and sharing. I’m moving to a new chapter in my life and I am ready to put this focus behind me. Some of the writings which were key revelations to me as I wrestled with the topic of “A Wife’s Submission” are collected for reference at titus2keeper.wordpress.com as my rendition of an “online book” and I will continue administrating the relatively quiet blog at godswordtowomen.wordpress.com.
But I’m going to stop blogging here and close discussion of old posts, forget what lies behind, and reach forth to what lies ahead.
God grant me
serenity to accept the things I cannot change
courage to change the things I can
and wisdom to know the difference
Thank you for enCOURAGEing me in this journey!
My situation and understanding has moved from oppression and darkness under the traditions and doctrines of men to freedom in the bright refreshing and wonderful light of the Lord.
I am moving forward to embrace the day.
All the Best,
Charis
This is a beautiful post! Full of grace, hope and promise!
All the best with your new “chapter”!
BTW, I love your disclaimer to your readers: “Do your own homework!”
Good Luck Charis,
You have been an inspiration to look deeper into these issues. May God bless you on your continued journey in the light!
I will keep an eye out for you here in cyberspace.
Thanks Keetcha and Marg,
Being willing to “accept the things I cannot change” is part of this decision. As I changed (dumping a boatload of destructive marriage killing doctrine), MY husband and MY marriage changed dramatically.
But on a wider scale than that, I feel powerless against the traditions of men which are such a stronghold in the church.
When I make comments here and there, I often regret it and I have decided it’s not my gift or calling to try to convince anyone else of that which the Lord has convinced me so I am laying it down. I’ve seen some great biblical insights on misunderstood passages recently at the following blogs and recommend:
http://kbonikowsky.wordpress.com/
http://biblicalpersonhood.wordpress.com/
(Marg, I can’t read your blog because my Norton blocks it as “malicious” and I don’t dare defy Norton having had to rewrite my hard drive before because of viruses.)
Say it ain’t so!
Okay, initial shock out of the way.
I understand but I’m really going to miss this blog.
You have been a wonderful friend and co-journeyer in this battle to find out who God really is and how He really feels about women and what He really wants for us.
Be blessed in all you do.
Thanks Mara, You’ve been a good friend in the journey and I love your blog too- for encouragement. I cleaned up my blog reader but yours made the cut
. I honor the desire you expressed in the past not to be publicized so that your blog can stay “safe”.
Life is full. I just won the Republican caucus which makes re-election highly likely; I continue in school full time toward an RN; and I continue to be wife to my husband and mother to our Quiver Full of 8 children- four of whom have been launched. The meditation and theological wrestling here has been a stepping stone by which the Lord has led me into some other theological digging where I desire to devote more time.
Life is full.
God is good.
Oh, I have to admit, on a purely selfish level I am so sad! I guess because I just discovered your blog this year as I have just started the journey myself. It has been such an encouragement to me. I don’t know if I would have had the knowledge/courage to make some of the decisions and growth I have made the past year without your blog, Charis.
But if the Lord is calling you to move on, then you must be obedient to Him. Will you leave up the old posts as a sort of “archive”?
Charis, Thank you for the encouragement you’ve aimed toward me with your numerous blogs and comments. I am sad too that this chapter is ending, but understand. May your next endeavors be as fruitful as the past.
God bless you.
Kay
Kay, you go girl! Keep up the good work!
Thank you Julie.
I’m humbled to be part of your journey out from under the oppressive doctrine. If there’s ever anything I can help with, you can post to the godswordtowomen.wordpress.com blog and I will see it. Meanwhile I commend to you Kay and Retha’s blogs which I linked above which are doing similar digging and research into biblical texts affecting wives and marriage as I did here.
PS. My first thought was to take down the blog and make it private. Then I had a check about that. My motivation is that I am being called to other pursuits and I don’t wish to stew/meditate anymore on the errors so widely propagated in the church about wife submission nor the people propagating them (such a discouraging downer
). But I still care about the women (and their children) who are the victims of the bad doctrine so I decided to leave the blog up for their benefit.
Charis, Have you tried my site lately?
Norton finally gave my site a completely clean bill of health about a fortnight ago.
http://safeweb.norton.com/report/show?url=www.newlife.id.au
Charis,
“But on a wider scale than that, I feel powerless against the traditions of men which are such a stronghold in the church.
When I make comments here and there, I often regret it and I have decided it’s not my gift or calling to try to convince anyone else of that which the Lord has convinced me so I am laying it down.”
I can identify. I, too, feel like I’m yelling in the wind and my words are being swept away. Or I am “preaching to the choir.” But your voice, along wth others encourages me that my work is not in vain. I recall when I first heard arguments against husband authority, the first authors I read were Catherine Kroeger and Margaret Rinck. They hung in there in spite of the fact that the fruit of their labor takes so long to germinate, sprout, root, and grow. Although I understand I cannot change your mind, I still ask you to reconsider. Your words HAVE made a difference to me. Please don’t stop because of discouragement. Only stop if God’s spirit is telling you to stop. I believe God is using the many voices, the many different angles, to make a difference. When I first read Cathy Kroeger’s work I could not quite accept it because it was witten by a woman and was different from what men teach. But over time, as I read, studied the Bible, prayed, read the the writings of others from other angles, the seed sprouted, took root and grew.
The doctrine of husband authority has so totally and thoroughly permeated our hearts, minds, thoughts and beliefs that it is extremely difficult to untwist and unravel what has been taught, because it has been taught as “a command from God.” I am asking you to reconsider. Although you may think you’ve said all you have to say, God may have more to say through you. I think you add valuable insight to the discussion. For example, that for women submission to our husbands is a state of being. I have suspected the very same thing: that submission is actually “rolling with the punches” whatever they are. We are mostly reacting to what our husbands dish out, whether its loving or nasty. You are the first one who had the guts to say publically a concept that I had suspected for awhile. As of now, I suspect submission may have a 2 or 3 fold meaning. IE when we finally realize we don’t want to be stuck reacting to his poor treatment of us, we make a huge effort to change the dynamics of the relationship, to stand up for what is right. Although that is seen by the men as rebellion, it is still us responding to the “cards” hubby dealt to us, and trying to make turn them into something better.
Anyway, whether you decide to keep blogging, or to stop, i wish you the very best.
~Waneta
Godspeed as you move past and forward to new endeavors!
I would encourage wives under submission tyranny to visit Waneta Dawn’s blog and look at her research.
Waneta,
I was hoping you would stop in (but I know your life is full too). You are in my blog reader and though you don’t post frequently, when you do I always read what you have to say.
You have no idea how much encouraging it is to me that you have grasped this (so few seem to):
It’s clear as day to me but for some reason neither egals nor comps understand it. Secular psychologists such as Gottman get this, but Christians of every stripe are blind to it.
I’m going to put up one more post, Waneta; put it out there one more time near the top of the blog. Repeating myself just frustrates me and it sure doesn’t makes anyone hear me any better. I’m not sure that I will ever have any more insight and revelation than God has already given me on this topic and I’m off the hamster wheel (see that “one more post” I mentioned) and have shaken the dust off my feet.
[...] This final post is dedicated to my blogging sisters who can be found in the comments here[...]
Charis,
Thank you for leaving the blog up as an archive, and thank you for that “one more post”, too!
I hope I will still see you around. I will definitely check out the godswordtowomen blog.
God bless you!
Julie