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*****Thankfully Kate is a totally fictional character,the subject of much speculation, a figment of someone’s imagination, as is my response to her letter. Sadly she does represent the caricature of many women I know who have been a harmed by false teachings on submission.

Dearest Kate,

Whatever possessed you to write to Pastor Wilson about being a miserable wife? As you well know, the man’s entire women’s ministry consists of only two words, “wives submit.” It should come as no surprise that you, my precious one, are nothing more to him than his daily dose of confirmation bias and his cure for what ails you is of course going to be, “wives submit.”

Hope rears its ugly head once again, doesn’t it? We all do that, insist on seeing the good in people, in men especially, our eyes easily deceived as we weave and spin elaborate excuses for them, he loves me, he loves me not. Women are wonderfully and fearfully made, don’t apologize for it, not once.  There is no sin in hope, even misplaced hope, but one must learn how to protect themselves.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and what you see in front of you is just as appalling and horrific as your feelings have led you to believe.

I am grieved Kate, that you have allowed yourself to be abused, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, and that these things have now been reinforced, by a pastor no less. There is a kind of sin in forgetting you are the precious daughter of a King and allowing yourself to be trampled upon. You are a child Kate, His precious child, and to set yourself up for mistreatment or to accept that being miserable is just your lot in life, is to disrespect and fail to love His own child. Yourself. Our Father, who died to know you, who laid down His very life to protect you, would not take kindly to seeing one of His own mistreated.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” The good pastor’s letter is spoken with the tongues of angels and so the lack of charity, the words devoid of empathy, the deeply ingrained disrespect for you may not be apparent at first glance. I almost wish it was, because the abuse of the velvet glove is so much harder to see and so it worms its way into your psyche like a slug or a parasite. Those things are like tiny rose thorns that embed themselves in our flesh and must be dug out least they fester.

Let me begin by saying you mentioned you were unhappy in your marriage. You own your own feelings Kate, they are yours and your perceptions are valid. I notice the first thing the good pastor did was to go have lunch with your husband to, “get his take on everything.” There was no accusation in your words Kate, there is no reason to go and find 3 witnesses who will testify to the fact  that you are indeed having “unhappy feelings.” For the pastor to believe he needed to go check with your husband to verify if there is any truth to what you say about your own internal, emotional life, and feelings, is disrespectful towards you, to say the least. It just screams out the pastor’s own fears and insecurities, as if to say, her perceptions are probably wrong, her feelings are probably hysterical, most likely she is being irrational. She is female, after all.

This is utter rubbish Kate. Imagine if that doctor who prescribed you antidepressants had decided he needed to call your husband in order to ascertain whether or not you had permission to be suffering from depression.

In case the pastor’s complete disrespect for your own ability to know thyself  is not yet apparent, he does proceed to declare that your feelings are liars, they have no authority, and that you should consult with Jon if you need to know what to believe about your  own self.

Gaslighting, Kate. Ingrid Bergman, 1944. Gaslighting means “to manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.” Our own perceptions, feelings, knowledge, thoughts about the reality we are experiencing are messengers, they are tools designed to help us find our way in the world. To deny, devalue, disrespect someone’s feelings, to declare them unworthy to perceive their own reality is a form of psychological abuse designed to manipulate and control you.

You feel unloved in your marriage, because you are unloved, Kate. Most likely Jon has never learned how to love properly and the burden, the frustration of that truth has been leaving you feeling unhappy, depressed.  Not only are you yourself not receiving the love you crave, you now feel compelled to somehow teach, explain, bring it out in Jon, what you were deceived into believing you had all along. You are like an empty cup with the weight of two souls on your shoulders.

Of course you are depressed, and like many women you have gone and swallowed your anger over the injustice of it all. I prescribe anger Kate, the healthy, non sinful kind, the kind that acknowledges itself and finds healthy outlets for its expression. Some women run, some write, some go to the recycling center and smash glass.

Even Pastor Wilson says it, Jon doesn’t know how to love. What a tragedy that he does not then apply the biblical principle, “husbands love your wives.” Jon desperately needs a man to teach him how to love. Marriage is an equation, husband’s love, wives’ submit is a dance, a beautiful tango. You are trying to dance with a partner who sums up his entire biblical requirement to love his wife as, “I go to work, I come home most nights. I’ve fulfilled my obligations.” You are trying to dance with a lifeless partner, a corpse really.

That is not our Lord’s way, “I come that you may have life and life abundant.”

Sadly the good pastor has not yet finished erasing your very essence Kate, nor laying waste to your self-confidence, nor rendering you completely invisible, because in a lecture about identity he must drive the last nail in your coffin, totally annihilate your femininity and sexuality with a most opportune quote from the Hideous Strength, “No one has ever told you that obedience—humility—is an erotic necessity.”

It’s almost comedic in its tragedy Kate, the final slug to finish you off. God Himself Kate, wants you to submit yourself, your entire being, to a man, to your full role in marriage, that of simply being an “erotic necessity.”  Resented, hated, feared, a force of nature, but sadly necessary. Perhaps a creature once foisted on men by a wrathful God.

My dear, submission will not solve this inherent disrespect, this deeply suppressed resentment towards you, the spiritual blindness of those around you. One simply cannot make themselves small enough, submissive enough, powerless enough to lift up someone incapable of even seeing their own hatred and disrespect. That is because it isn’t about you at all, it is about them. What they project upon you is what they are saying about their own selves. In the process you are erased, rendered invisible, reduced to nothing more than an “erotic necessity” of marriage.

Of course they do not understand, they cannot see it, it is not personal and their intentions are good. Of that I have no doubt. They honestly believe they are being helpful, there is a stunted kind of love behind their words, a genuine concern for your well-being. It is not as if they are orcs swinging in a monkey tree or something, they are just too willfully blind and sexually confused to even see your heart. They can’t even see their own, and it is right there within their own chest thumping.

You very much want to be seen and known and delighted in, don’t you? To be loved for who and what you are. Intimacy. That is a desire we all have, to be seen and known by men, first our earthly fathers, later our husbands and our heavenly Father. To be loved, to be known, to be seen and delighted in, it is your birthright, your inheritance. Sadly we live in a broken world. Kate, your pastor is deeply flawed, your husband is deeply flawed, and submission is being used against you in a  game of sexual politics you may not even understand.

My dearest Kate, submission simply means to yield. It is to yield to and receive love. Love Kate, not abuse, not  authority, not fear, not control, but love, the way “perfect love casts out fear.” We soften our heart, soften our countenance, and render ourselves vulnerable to simply receive love, grace, and mercy. We drink in every drop with gratitude.

Submit yourself to your heavenly Father Kate, receive the abundant love He has for you, allow Him to fill you with His grace, to delight in you, to cherish you so powerfully that your cup runneth over, that rather than sadness and despair you will begin to feel abundance, a well of love so vast it spills forth from you. Get into His word, believe His promises about you, surrender all to Him, and allow Him to clothe you in the elegance of His white raiment.

“When the mood is upon you,” when you are caught up in the storm, you do not need to fear. You my darling, in all your glorious rage, are the storm, the force of nature your heavenly Father made you to be. Embrace it, relish it, take up space with a whirling fury that declares and proclaims the glory of God and the truth of a daughter well-loved.

God is not afraid of you Kate, He made you, every hair on your head, just the way you are. What a blessing it is when men are unafraid, too. Come have a cup of tea with me, we’ll laugh about the orcs and how very small one must curl themselves up so as not to frighten them. I suspect God Himself will delight in our antics, not unlike earthly fathers often do.

Till we meet again, Kate.

perfect