Hannah's Heartstrings

On November 9, 2017, I began writing this post, tears streaming down my face as I typed. It has taken me a while to be able to come back and finish it. 

***

I've been awake for hours. I'll blame it on pregnancy, even though this sort of thing just seems to happen every now and then. Its ok, honestly, because even though it leaves me incredibly tired, it usually means I get to spend a little time with my husband before he goes to work for the next twelve hours, or I get some "alone time" to reflect in the quiet before Titus wakes up. Both of which have happened this morning.

There have been lots of thoughts swirling in my mind in these early hours. I'm looking forward to Fellows Family Thanksgiving this weekend, and getting to see our Canadians. There's food prep to think about. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm quite grateful that I figured out how to transition Titus into sleeping through the night.

But everything pales in comparison to the two overriding themes currently presiding over our family.

There is a new baby growing in my belly.

And our Grandma is dying.

There is such a dichotomy of happy and sad in our hearts right now. We are rejoicing in the home going of a dear 94-year-old saint, a woman who has brightened every life she's touched, all while mourning the end of her beautiful life and dealing with the heartbreak of seeing her mortal body suffer through its decline.

We are also completely thrilled at the new life joining us next year, but sad that he or she will never get to know this amazing person nearly everyone simply called Grandma.

Watching someone go through the end of their life while beginning someone else's life inside me is such a humbling experience. To be this close to both the beginning and the end of creation...it's something quite holy.

We keep saying it won't be long.

It won't be long before I have this precious baby in my arms. It won't be long before I get to go through birth again and Titus gets to be a big brother.

It won't be long before Grandma is home in glory, seeing the husband she hasn't seen in thirty years, her family and friends who've gone before her, and most of all, the Savior she has loved for nearly a century.

There are tears. Lots of tears. And comfort food and comfort pants, thanks to my indescribably amazing sister-in-law, Amy. We are all rallying to support and love each other. Its deep. Its meaningful. Titus brings joy with his infectious toddler energy, and I recount the most recent wonders  of how my miraculous baby is growing to the size of a blueberry this week.

One of the most incredible things to watch during this time has been my mother-in-law taking care of her mother-in-law. I watch her in complete awe sometimes. What love it is that compels a person to take care of someone else so tenderly and intimately! Her tireless attention, generous spirit, and deep, deep kindness makes me hope that I can be even half the woman she is. There are few things in this world that I have seen more admirable than this.

***

Now, two months later...

Life and death surely have collided, but not in the way we were expecting.

Based on what I wrote earlier in this post, Grandma should be in Heaven, and I should be close to 17 weeks pregnant.

But she isn't. And I'm not.

Grandma has somehow hung on to her threads of life for two more months, rising and falling from week to week, and surprising us greatly with her longevity. She has even managed to outlive a friend who was nearly 15 years younger.

And I lost my sweet, tiny baby. I've never experienced a miscarriage before, and hope with all my heart I never have to again. I was 12 weeks along, but the baby was no bigger than 6-8 weeks, so very well may have been gone already when I began began this post, or shortly after.

I miscarried a week before Christmas. Nothing could have prepared me for the process, the grief, the pain, and the confusion of such an ordeal. I am so grateful for the love and support that has carried me through this last month, some of which has come from places I never expected.

This is not going to be a post about how God's ways are higher than our ways, or how He always has a plan. I don't believe that's how God works with us today. I don't believe He micromanages our lives in ways we cannot understand (and I don't want to have any doctrinal debates with anyone over this, so please don't even start).

What I am here to say is that sometimes, life is horrible. We live in a fallen world, where beautiful souls linger in bedridden old age far longer than they want to, and where babies die before they get to live a life. Its horrible. It hurts. It is unexplainable and unfair. The answer to our agonized question of "Why?" is simply that life happens in the worst ways sometimes.

But we do not sorrow as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). We are grateful that this world is not our home, and we look forward to better days in Glory. We know that we have peace no matter what happens, and that God comforts our hearts and gives us the strength we need to get through the worst things life throws at us. He doesn't leave us unprotected. He builds us up in our hearts through His word, giving us wisdom and courage to persevere even when we don't want to.

God did not take my baby so that I could learn some valuable lesson, and He is not leaving Grandma here in pain and confusion for some unknown purpose. But He is loving us, comforting us, and teaching us how to live through tragedy so that we may help others going through the same thing. He does not bring about the pain so that He may teach us, but rather can use it to help us learn when it happens.

This new year is looking different than I thought it would. Right now, instead of looking forward to the halfway point of my pregnancy, I'm healing my body from a traumatic experience, managing deep anxiety, and hoping in the near future to try again for a new baby. And we are still waiting to celebrate Grandma's home going.

Life is crazy, and amazing, and unexpected. And we look to the future with hope and a joy in our hearts that cannot be quenched.


(It doesn't matter to me if you agree or not, and I'll reiterate that my Biblical beliefs are not up for debate. If you have found comfort in some other belief, then good for you. I've spent enough time arguing and studying to know where I stand and right now, I don't need to hash it out again with someone just looking for a fight. Thanks but no thanks.)

In the past months, the internet has been extraordinarily filled with news about the infamous Josh Duggar, as well as others who have taken inappropriate sexual liberties whilst preaching christian values. Alongside all the chatter, the shock, and the judgment of these people, I have seen an uptick in articles, blog posts, and Facebook conversations, discussing how these great men could have possibly fallen. A lot of them stick to the fact that we all have the propensity to sin, and noted that things like this should be warnings to us all. But sadly, this was not all that people had to say.

With the exposure of people like Josh Duggar, Doug Phillips, and Bill Gothard, came a wave of hurt and bitter young people, blasting the world of homeschooling and teachings of purity, modesty, and other values conservative Christians have held dear for ages.

Oh this is nothing new. There's always someone eager to put down the things they have been raised in. There are whole blogs devoted to exposing the hurt that homeschooling has caused, "freeing" young women from the chains of modesty, or providing a place for the bitter souls of rebels to commiserate.

But the words that I saw coming from these people gave me great cause for concern. Suddenly, Josh's upbringing was the reason he molested his sisters and cheated on his wife. Teachings of sexual purity,  chaperoned dates, and not being allowed to kiss his wife till their wedding was the reason he went looking for love in all the wrong places.

People were quick to point at these stories of men's sinful choices and use them to validate their own hurt and bitterness against the world they came from.

"That's why I'm not homeschooling my kids!"
"That's why the purity movement and all teachings of sexual purity are evil!"
"That's why I don't teach my girls modesty!" 
"That's why I don't go to church anymore!"

Basically, the sins of the few condemn the beliefs of the many. Basically, if someone falls off the bandwagon, the entire system is corrupt.

I shake my head in wonder at this concept, and the one ringing thought in mind and heart continues to be, "You're missing the point!"

Homeschooling isn't the problem.
Modesty isn't the problem.
Purity isn't the problem.
Having lots of kids isn't the problem.
The Bible isn't the problem.

These and many other things that often take the blame for the wrong doings of the few are not the problem. They are still the good things they always were, regardless of who uses them wrongly.

The problem is simply that sometimes, even good people make bad choices.

We have all been given a free will and sometimes, we abuse it. Thank God we are saved by grace, and all our sin has been washed away. But that does not excuse us from the truth that we can, and do sometimes, make the wrong decision, and sometimes, our decisions hurt other people.

We need to stop blaming the good, positive things and instead look at the root cause.

If I said that a certain person was a drug addict because they grew up in a public school, would I be even close to correct? Of course not. I would be grasping at straws, looking for something to blame for that person's addiction, other than his or her own personal bad choices.

So why are these situations any different?

Josh Duggar didn't cheat on his wife because he was taught a standard of sexual purity and homeschooled. He cheated on his wife because he let his sinful nature take hold of his life, and ultimately made one of the worse decisions a man can ever make.

Regardless of how we are brought up, we still have to make choices in life. Our parents can instill in us all the good in the world, but that doesn't change the fact that once we reach adulthood, we stand at a fork in the road, and have to make a personal decision as to which way we will follow. It is our responsibility. Our parents have done their job, as best as they know how. Now it is up to us.

Ultimately, we must remember that no belief system is perfect, and no teaching is without its flaws. We must take what we have learned, chew up the meat and spit out the bones, and decide what to apply in our own lives. We cannot blame a belief, a teaching, a group, or a method as a whole when we apply something wrongly and use it as an excuse to bad choices instead of a tool for good.

Instead of pointing fingers and trying to use another person's failings to validate our own personal hurt and bitterness, let us take these stories and learn from them. Let us strive to find the happy medium and take heed to examine our own hearts and motives. Let us pray for the strength and courage to make the right decision. Let us daily work to put away our bitterness, and never let it distract us from good things.

We are better than this.

Our Parents Suffered Too: Thoughts on Modesty, Purity, and the Culture That Shaped Us

During my teenage years, I used to sit around and wonder what God wanted me to do. I would pray fiercely for Him to reveal His will to me and to tell me what to do. There were many times when I became so confused by what was happening in my life, especially at times when I was sure something was God's will, only to watch it vanish before my eyes. But I kept hoping that someday I would figure it out. I just had to be patient. After all, God had a plan for my life, right?

I believe it was March of 2011 when I began communicating with a young man I had met through an online ministry I had begun the fall prior. He was smart, energetic and a very interesting person. He clearly had a good heart and a love for the Lord, from what I could see via the internet, and we agreed  we should meet in person. We planned to meet at the Great Lakes Bible Conference in Wilmot, Ohio, where I had been invited by some new friends in the ministry.

Prior to this, I truly believed that I had actually heard God speak to me and tell me that I was going to marry this man. I believed I had literally heard His voice. I went to that conference believing I was about to meet my future husband. Well, I did, but it was not the one I was expecting.

The young man I had gone to meet was indeed very nice, but wrong for me in many ways, and I could see it almost as soon as we met. I can't really explain why, but I suddenly felt very uncomfortable at the thought of ever being with him. I kept trying to make it work, because I believed it was what God wanted. But no matter how much I tried, it was failing piece by piece.

I had gone there to meet a man who believed he'd come to claim his bride, and in, out of nowhere it seemed, walked my knight in shining armor.

Kyle was totally unexpected to me that weekend. I only barely knew who he was aside from the fact that he looked the spitting image of his brother Curt whom I'd met a few weekends before. The whole time I was trying to make things work with the other guy, I was hearing Kyle's praises sung and seeing his quiet, gentle eyes observing me.

I was terribly confused. What on earth was happening? What about the words God had spoken to my heart? Did that mean nothing? What was God doing?

It was about a week after that crazy weekend that I heard a messaged preached by Kyle's dad that forever changed my life. My family visited their church and Pastor Ted's message became the most influential one of my life.

He spoke clearly and succinctly of how God works in our lives today, and it was unlike anything I had ever heard. He shared how we as the Body of Christ are not be waiting for signs and voices from God to determine what we are supposed to do. We are to use "sanctified common sense", as one wise preacher once said, and he used the Apostle Paul as an example. There were many times in Paul's life where he used his own good judgment and wisdom from the Lord to make a decision. For example, in 2 Corinthians 2:1, Paul "determined with himself" that he should not come unto them. He didn't say "Lord willing." He used wisdom and common sense to determine that it was not a good time to do so. He also used the example in 1 Corinthians 16:5, where the Lord opens a door to Paul, and yet Paul chooses not to go through it (which kinda flies in the face of most Christian thinking).

In rightly dividing the Word, we recognize that in time past, God did indeed move His people where He wanted them to go. The people were under the law, and the law was an "if=then" system...if you do good, then I will bless you.
BUT NOW, something has changed, and as we also recognize that Paul is the apostle to the gentiles and the Body of Christ today, we realize that God has changed the way He deals with those He loves. We are under grace and grace says, "Here is the blessing, now go serve me because you love me. Do what you know is right."

The biggest problem with asking God to reveal His will in our personal lives is that He already has in His Word! We never have to look at our lives and wonder what God is doing, or trying to tell us, because He wrote a book telling us everything we need to know! We never have to wait for His voice, or look for His personal leading in our lives. He has given us all the tools we need. He gives us the wisdom to make good choices, and strengthens our hearts to be able to do the right things. Instead of making some leap of logic in trying to explain what God was doing in my life, I was able to find peace in knowing that He had strengthened my heart and given me the wisdom I needed to make the right choice.

Does this make me deist? Do I believe that my Creator does not in any way intervene in the lives of His creations? No. I do believe that He works in our hearts and minds through His word, and that we can enjoy a very personal, joyous relationship with Him. But I also believe in free will.

I believe that He steps back and lets us make those choices. I believe that the bad things that happen to us are just a result of life here on earth, and are not God trying to get our attention or teach us something. I believe that anything He wants to tell us about our lives here has been spelled out in His Word, and we need never sit in confusion about "what he's trying to tell us."

And it is in understanding this that I have true peace and joy in my life, and was able to evaluate the choices in front of me, and choose wisely the man I would spend the rest of my life with.

I recently shared an article I came across on Facebook. The writer jumped into the issue of modesty, and gave some interesting points. She built on the idea that it should not be the responsibility of a women to try to control a man's thoughts by dressing (or not dressing) a certain way, and in many ways I agree with that. We cannot seek to dress in such a way that will prevent a man from noticing and admiring the natural curves of our body, because its unrealistic. We can, however, strive to adorn ourselves in a way that lets our character and personality shine. There are parts of our body that should be honored by keeping them covered, but not because we are ashamed of them. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. That doesn't mean flaunt it if you've got it. But I think we have gotten so wrapped up in our ideas of what modest dress should be that we have forgotten to dress with class and dignity.

Its not our responsibility to keep men from lusting after us. We can't control it, not matter how conservatively we dress. However, we do have the opportunity to suggest through our dress what we do want people to think of us. Like it or not, we live in a world where we are judged and given labels based on what we wear. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked if I am or was Amish, just because I wear a lot of skirts and like my hair up in a bun.

Your clothing can say a lot about you. Therefore, your goal should not be trying to prevent people from thinking the wrong thing, but instead, focusing on encouraging them to think the right thing. Be comfortable, be yourself, let your God-given personality be defined, and let the Holy Spirit shine through you.


While thinking of all these thoughts on modesty, a friend sparked a conversation about how to teach our kids about sex when the time comes. I'll admit, its always a daunting thought to me. But it occurred to me...why should it be such a scary idea? Sex is beautiful and fun and why shouldn't I be excited to tell them about it? Sex is sacred and special, and something to be enjoyed to the fullest between a man and his wife. I hope and pray that we can give our kids a good enough example in life and communicate to them how wonderful these things are, so that when its their turn, they can face it with joy and with grateful hearts.

The kids of my generation and circles like to talk about how the purity movement damaged our thinking about sex. How most of us were so burdened by trying to keep ourselves physically and emotionally pure that, most of the time, we were simply plagued with the guilt of thinking we may have been impure by noticing someone of the opposite sex. And when we came to actually doing the deed, we were frightened. Really, sincerely frightened. Now, some will say that these were worst case scenarios, but I think there are a great number of us that experienced this to some degree.


We were extreme. We kissed dating goodbye and fell in love with courtship. We swung the pendulum so far in one direction that we forgot what the middle ground was like. So what is happening next? We swing it the opposite way. We hear the words---.modesty.purity.courtship.---even homeschool---and we run.

And then...we blame our parents.

They were controlling. They were possessive and crazy. They just wanted to shelter us and never let us out in the real world. They just feared the world and all in it, and wanted to keep us from it.

Those bad parents.

Seriously?

I have to say...we are messing this up even worse than it already is. Do we even realize what we are doing?

I realize that there are people who have taken the modesty/purity/homeschool culture way too far. And then you have the Doug Phillips and Bill Gothard scandals. I know many parents have cause irreversible damage and suffering in their children because of the standards and rules they enforced. They really did take it an unhealthy level. I'll never dispute that.

But I will point out one very important thing: they suffered too.

We have lost sight of what came before us and why we ended up where we did. We think its all about us. We were the ones jaded by legalism and tormented by the patriarchal system. But I'll say it again: our parents suffered too.

Most of our parents were not raised the way we were. Many of them were first generation Christians, first generation homeschoolers, first generation couples-that-actually-stayed-married, and so on. Most of them had no idea what they were doing. All they knew was that what they went through as kids/young adults didn't work and they wanted something different for their kids. So the pendulum got swung as far from what they knew as they could get, and the modesty/purity/homeschool culture was born.

They saw that traditional American dating-with-no-goal-of-marriage didn't work very well, and so Courtship was born (or should I say reborn?).

They saw that the public school system was full of crap (still is...), and so Homeschooling was born.

They saw that casual, premarital sex was causing damage, and so Purity was born (or should I say redifined?).

They knew the pain in their own hearts from the lives they had lived, and wanted to protect us from the same pain. They wanted to give us different opportunities and wanted to raise us as Biblically as they knew how.

They saw what didn't work, and went the opposite way. Hey...aren't we trying to do the same thing?

Let us not be so swift to judge the choices our parents made. Their choices were born out of their own pain, and so are our choices. We are making choices based on the same emotions that spurred our parents on, but this is where we have to be careful not to be so anxious to get away from what hurt us that we swing that pendulum so far the other direction and end up in the same hell hole our parents crawled out of.

Let's take what we now know, and turn it into something beautiful. Let's not just focus on "not doing what our parents did", but instead focus on why. We can do better than our parents, because they did better than theirs. And our kids will do better than us. But not if we are stuck in bitterness and self-pity. We had a rough past...ok, so let's get over it and move into the future. Modesty, purity, homeschooling, biblical manhood and womanhood, courtship-also-known-as-dating-with-a-purpose, saving sex for marriage...these are all still good things! Let's bring them out of their extremist past and give them freedom to work they way God intended!

We have a chance to find the happy medium. Let us not waste it nursing our wounds with our hatred of the culture that shaped us into the people we are today. We are who we are because of where we came from. We can't stay there, but we can take what we have learned and let the pendulum settle gracefully in the middle.

So I spent the weekend at the Great Lakes Grace Bible Conference in Wilmot, Ohio. It has become as very special place to me, since it was the exact weekend event where I met my husband three years ago, and the location where we decided to get married almost one year ago. Its always such a great experience, with wonderful preachers sharing their knowledge, meeting friends new and old, and seeing the beautiful landscape that is Ohio's Amish Country.


I really think that this was one of the best conferences I've been to, mostly because I focused on being relaxed, soaking in the messages, and simply enjoying it. I didn't have any pressures of wedding planning, or being so newly twitterpatted that I couldn't focus. I got to go, relax, enjoy every second, and go home afterwards with my sweet husband.

And that is where my first observation comes from.

I notice that I am so much more at ease now. I come with my guy and then I leave with him. Before being married, I thrived on staying up late, being in every part of everything and getting as much interaction with people as I possibly could. I cried when I left events and it always felt like there was a big hole left in my heart. The days after a get-together were hard and sad. Now...I simply enjoy the time that I have, I go to bed at a decent hour and at the end, I go home with my favorite person of all time. I like it better this way. :)

I really enjoyed watching people. I have always been the quieter person that listens more than talks and occasionally interjects when I feel I have something significant to say. That is, unless you get me on a subject I like...then I will talk your ear off. But I find it very interesting to just watch people and observe how they behave.

This is observation Number Two.

I saw that some people have an attitude that, because they are at a Bible Conference, they must behave differently than they would normally.

Yeah, this is a Bible conference, so I have to wear this instead of that.
We probably shouldn't watch that movie, or talk about that subject, since we are at a Bible conference.
Oops, I shouldn't say that word, since I'm at a Bible Conference.

You get the idea. And all I am going to say on that note is this...why do we live in a way that forces us to have to act differently in front of our Bible Conference Friends than we would when we are at home?

These are just my observations.

I also noticed that there are people that come to places like this, sit down to listen to speaker, and then get offended by something the speaker says. Bottom line...don't come to something like that and expect to only hear what you want to hear. The speaker merely gave his opinion, and he stated that it was thus several times. There is no reason to have a fit over something he clearly wasn't aiming at you personally.

Again. Just my observation.

On a happier note, I observed a mother deal with something sensitive in a most gracious manner. Her teenage son was spending a lot of time enjoying the company of a young lady whom she was not acquainted with. She wanted to know who the girl was, so she quietly asked around and eventually became good friends with the girl's mom. Now that, I thought, is a great way to keep an eye out on your children and who they are hanging out with. She found out what she wanted to know in a calm and rational manner. She didn't make a big fuss or become defensive. But she was looking out for her son, and she did it with respect and grace.
I admired that a lot. And its little things like that that I put in the back of mind, in a file marked "See that? Remember that when you have kids."

I also observed that when you do something different in your life, you have to expect people to not understand. And you have to try to find a gracious way to explain to them why you do what you do, because they will ask. You can get upset, because often people ask about your differences in ways that are not always the most gracious. They will be blunt and brash. But the bottom line is that they just don't have a clue. And at times, depending on what it is, you intimidate them, and their nervousness cause them to not really think about the question they are asking. Just keep calm and try to avoid beating them about the head. :)

One last thing. We may not be the largest group in the world. We may not be the most well-loved. We may not be the most talented or have the most advertising. But there is a passion here uncommon in many circles. There is a depth of love, grace and wisdom that you don't find just anywhere. And while so many people are trying to get filled up on some watered-down version of Christianity, something very special goes on here. This is real. This is empowering. And I'm not letting go.