The Happy Medium

Everything is an extreme.
Black and white.
There are no grey areas. And if you think its a grey area, its probably sin.
You can't walk the fence. You're either all in or all out.

Or at least that's what we've believed.

We had good intentions. We started out well. We saw what we didn't want and decided that the best thing to do was to run in the opposite direction. Logically, biblically, morally...that's what you're supposed to do, right?
Because who would ever think that extreme goo could in any was be wrong? That's like saying that extreme wrong can in some way be good. Right?

Oh yes. We had good intentions. But how did we get so messed up along the way?

We just went too far.

We took beautiful things and pushed them to a limit that made them sickening. We took things that should have been admirable and made them in to something people scoff at and are disgusted by.

We made a heart into something that could be given away in bits, never to be restored, and we were warned to avoid any emotional romantic attachments until we found "the one".

We turned homeschooling into something that sheltered and cloistered our children from the world, in an attempt to protect them from the world instead of a way to teach them how to deal with it.

We took sex and made it scary. We took any type of physical contact with the opposite sex and made it so forbidden that many of us were pretty freaked out when our wedding night rolled around.

We took "honor thy father and mother" and made it into "thou shalt not make any big decisions, especially concerning relationships, without our permission until you are married, at which point you will suddenly be forced to make all big decisions."

We turned modesty into an obnoxious declaration of holiness.

These are just a few examples.

We made things into sin that never should have been, and turned our lives into one big guilt trip.

This is what we did.
Now look at where we are.

Articles are popping up all over the internet, refuting the practices and beliefs we worked so long to define. Whole websites have been devoted to telling the stories of the young men and women who now bear the scars inflicted by the extremes of the homeschool/conservative/quiverful/ATI/etc., movements. Kids that grew up in our little worlds are now adults, facing a whole new set of extremes. We are either falling apart, washing away our guilt with various addictions and/or turning so far in the opposite direction that we are nearly unrecognizable. Or we are standing as if frozen, wondering what to do with ourselves. As I recently related to a friend, we know that we can't repeat the past, but we aren't sure what to do with our futures.

We need a happy medium.

We need a way to go back to our original intentions without screwing them up. We need to find a place in our hearts that views homeschooling as a better education option, not a cult lifestyle...a place that is comfortable talking about sex and communicating it as the beautiful marriage thing it really is...a place where modesty really is a heart issue...a place where there are grey areas, and where grace is applied. 

We must learn to be real.
Normal.
Comfortable.
Gracious.

We have to stop freaking out, calm down, give ourselves a break and see if we can make these things beautiful again.

For the sake of future generations, its worth a shot.

CONVERSATION

1 comments:

  1. Thank you. I am so thankful for my parents who did this right (of course, they have areas they messed up in too). They did a great job of teaching us the WHY of things and going from the Bible, not some man who taught them they HAD to do things a certain way.

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