I Can See You Now (A Letter to a Friend)

...I wonder what you thought all those years ago. About me.  About my life...

We could relate when we talked about books and poems and longing to be loved. But we were talking about two different things.

Were you holding your tongue when I rhapsodized about this guy- about that guy? How nice they were. How smart they were. How gentlemanly they were. And how they liked me. And I liked them. And their smile made my world shake, the room swirl around me- my stomach tie up in knots- my eyes dance in happiness.

What were you thinking, friend?

I remember the way I caught my breath- the way my heart lurched in pain- when you told me you would never marry. That you didn’t want to marry. That you were going to be a nun.

Two fourteen-year-old girls- and in two different worlds.

I didn’t understand yours. And you were too young- and too surrounded by it- to explain it to me.

Years passed between us. I was ever in your prayers. You were daily in mine.

Time brought us both experiences that made us understand one another.

There we were- seeing each-other after so long- laughing and talking so fast over our drinks at Starbucks… realizing we had stepped into each other’s worlds.

I had been raised by a godly man. My whole life had been surrounded by males whom I looked up to- whom I could follow- boys whom I admired and instinctively- blindly trusted. I had not been sexually abused- as you had been.

India was the closest I ever got to ever experiencing what it might feel like- objectification- to despair of ever being loved for who I am as a person- to be ashamed of my own femininity.

And now we had switched places. You who had known so few true men were surrounded by them at seminary. You were being treated like a queen- and were becoming one.

And I? At my college… I see girls- who have lost all they ever had to give- with no conception of what it means to be- nor any hope of ever being- cherished. I see men taking advantage- daily- of our vulnerability. Do you know what it did to me, dear friend, to see boys (I can’t call them men) shove, pull, mock, and strike their girls- in public (all this mixed in with false, filthy kisses)- and not one person protest? Oh, sister! How easily we are lead! How easily we love! How easily we are deceived!

What does a girl do when she has no protector? She can do one of two things. She can give in. Or she can recognize the men around her for what they are: animals- and refuse to be their plaything in the only way she knows how.

I read the paper you wrote. I will quote it here. “I got tired of men real fast. By thirteen, I was dressing like one, talking like one, walking like one. I wanted to be one, because men weren’t man enough. I saw a need for men, but I couldn’t see any men. I had to make up for what men were not. I was the man of the house. Women have become the new men, that’s my theory.”

I understand the feminist, now. I am not one. But I understand what wrongs have made them- and I find in my heart no strength to judge my fellow sisters- for I have been blessed with what they were not: to know men made after the likeness of God- who sacrificed themselves as Christ did for their brides.

I know you are meeting them, too. And I know you are coming to love them as I do. I am glad. But my heart breaks for our sisters who will never have the hope that you and I do. And I must love them- even as they hurt- as I loved you- because of the inescapable that we share: we are women.

Motherhood Musings

Would it shock you to know that I’ve been thinking a lot about babies lately?

Maybe it was reading this blogger’s post- and reminiscing on baby-blankets and little siblings.

Maybe it was going to a party and holding baby-Leah – with her happy gurgles and soft black hair… baby-Timmy smiling with his big-blue-eyes...

I was scarcely eleven when my youngest sibling was born. –Too young to feel maternal fluttering when I held her in my arms. (I still played with dolls on rainy days.)

I remember the first time I realized I wanted to be a mother- not in the baby-bottle and stroller sort of way but instinctively, in my very being- a longing to hold and bear new Life.

I was fourteen – it’d been a while since my sister was little- we were camping and a family friend let me hold her newborn.

She was so small- warm, alive, nestled, unable to support herself, against me.

Perfect life.

I can only imagine what that feeling will be like when the little one is my own, mirror of myself and the one I love.

I remember realizing how small I was. Every other baby-holding had always invoked thoughts of when “I’m all grown up and big.” But at scarcely 5’1’’ –and petite at that- I smiled at the realization that “this was it.” I wasn’t getting any bigger. (Ouch. This is gonna hurt!)

…to have a baby in your arms… to feel its first stirrings within you...

I am not alone in longing for children, I know. Most of us girls want children from the time we’re born. Babies draw us like magnets. We play with dolls and mimic motherhood since old enough to first grasp the concept. Yet negative attitudes and societal pressures soon make us think otherwise. Could this tucked-away, forgotten desire be the reason for girl after girl at my college being either ambitionless or pursuing careers in which they taught or worked with children, (the only legitimate outlet for their maternal feelings society allows) despite the fact that when my teacher asked the class how many of us wanted kids it seemed I alone raised my hand?

For my own part, I have embraced the role God has given me- to follow in the footsteps of Eve and Sarah- to bring forth children and to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

But it seems, at times, like the world itself is against me. Children are delayed as long as possible, and if you do choose to have them we have day-care centers, public-schools, and summer camps to carry our children from the cradle into adulthood.

Once women were told they could only be house-wives. Now, liberated, we must be anything but housewives.

I confess at times the alternatives offered are temping: independence, so-called “freedom,” and a life devoted to my own interests.

I am still single. Uninvolved. I could choose to do that with my life if I wished.

But I don’t wish.

How many others would wish as I do if they were not afraid of what people would say and think of them- of us, wimpy, naive slaves to our husbands, the stove, the mop, and the baby. The home: “Not good enough!” For heaven’s sake, DO something with your life!

As if caring for a man and raising the next generation wasn’t doing something.

So, godly women around me, if this calling be true, and if my desires are good, then

…encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. –Titus 2: 4-5 [emphasis mine]