Hannah's Heartstrings

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

There are so many people today fighting tooth and nail against victim blaming, and for the most part, I agree with them. Rape, murder, thievery, bullying, abuse...none of it is ever right. My heart aches for anyone who has had to go through anything like that. I cannot even imagine the pain they feel. The victims of these crimes aren't the ones at fault, and the criminals should be punished.

However there is something that bothers me.

I know that most of the time, things happen completely out of a person's control. They took all the precautions, but something terrible still happened. Innocent people get hurt. I get that.

But then there are the stories where the victim so clearly put themselves in a bad situation, and its those stories where I am confused. Why were you there? Why were you partaking in the substances that made you so out of it that you didn't realize what was happening to you? Why did you associate yourself with people that didn't have your best interests at heart, and only sought to do you harm? Why did you stay? Why? 

When you go somewhere questionable, and there are people you don't know, and alcohol is being consumed along with who knows what...what can you only expect is going to happen? You cannot expect that complete strangers, or even so-called friends, are not going to do something incredibly stupid when they are also completely intoxicated. People are stupid, vindictive and irrational, especially when intoxicated. It was your fault for thinking that they were to be trusted in such a state. And it was your fault for putting yourself in a situation where something like that could happen. Its one thing to become a victim of a crime while just walking down the street, or in your own home...but its another thing put yourself in a questionable and possibly dangerous situation and naively expect nothing bad to ever happen.

And I'm sorry if this hits the wrong nerve, but ladies...don't advertise if you aren't selling. People love to jump on the feminist bandwagon by saying that it should never matter what a woman wears; men should control themselves. I do agree---men need to control themselves. But we live in a world where "hooking up" is common, and there are no boundaries in sex. And when you go to a place where the people and their motives are questionable, and you are showing off everything you've got...you are sending mixed messages. You are saying "Look, but don't touch." "Here's my body, but don't you dare lust over it." "I'm gonna dress like everyone else, but I expect you to treat me with a special level of respect.""Control yourself, even though I'm not controlling myself." You see what I'm saying? Double standards and mixed messages help no one. You can't have a mindset of someone with a higher standard while dressing like someone who is looking to get laid. Like it or not, how we look speaks louder about ourselves than what our words say. Your beliefs and goals get lost in what your appearance is shouting. Your closest friends may know you differently, but someone who has no thought towards your well-being and only has one goal in mind doesn't care.

One more topic that irritates me is the constant mantra, "Its never ok for a man to hit a woman." True...but its also never ok for a woman to hit a man. Men just don't get away with it as easily because they are bigger and stronger. We hear all the stories of women being physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by men. But do we ever hear the stories of men being abused by women? They happen, especially emotionally, because women are far better at striking the heart and being emotionally vindictive than men are. Men generally show rage and anger physically, whereas women use their words to cut and damage. We are so quick to tell the story of the wife who suffered years of abuse from her husband, but dismiss the idea of a husband abused by his wife with "Well, he must have deserved it." Wait...isn't that the same argument that society has been fighting with blaming the female victims of rape? Are we just turning the tables now?

Ok so maybe that was three things wrong with telling the victim "Its not your fault." But you get the idea. And I'm sorry if this comes across as judgmental, but this is what is real and raw in my heart. This is what the media will never discuss, because it goes against every progressive, feminist, liberal agenda out there.

A crime, no matter who was at fault, is never right. It is never justified, and there is always pain. But someone is always going to try to pin blame, and there are always going to be three sides to a story...yours, mine, and what really happened. The point that I would like to get across here is this: protect yourself, don't put yourself in possibly bad situations, surround yourself with people you know you can trust, and keep your hands to yourself.