Hello There

[Hillary]

Welcome, Submissive, and thank you for sharing your story. {{hugs}} I hope that you find support and encouragement here as you work through these issues.

[fabucat]

God bless you and it's great to meet you!

A couple of questions:

1) Is the sister-in-law who recommended this forum to you on your husband's side of the family or your side?

2) Do you and your husband have any children?

Please don't be so hard on yourself. Perhaps with the friends you will make here, you'll learn to be less hard on yourself.

[Sierra]

Welcome, and thank you for sharing with us.

I grew up in a church that gave me many of the same signals you are receiving: that I am not worthy, that I will be the one left behind, that I am rebellious and sinful and lacking in the Spirit. I also never genuinely witnessed to anyone - except for a very embarrassing email to a young man who wanted to date me. I told him that he shouldn't like me, he should really want Jesus instead.

Something really stands out to me as I read your story. It's the idea that submission is a cure-all for women. As though cultivating an attitude of submission will save us from everything. As if we can reach a point at which we are perfectly submitted, and then God's will can finally work perfection in our lives.

Frankly, I think that any God worth worshiping ought to be more powerful than that. If our feeble efforts to control our own desires do not succeed, God should be able to make up the difference. You know? You (or your husband, or your pastor) should not be capable of keeping Him from saving you! And, well, He's already indicated He wants to by dying for you, hasn't He? God is not the author of the judgmental voice inside your head.

But back to the submission idea: does it not overlook so many other commandments of God to his disciples? To be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves? To have discernment? In other words, to think and act upon one's best judgment? To have no fear, for He is with you? All of these things should apply to women as well as men, and yet women are always told that submission is the only thing they need to learn. (Men, too, are taught to submit to one another - yet what percentage of sermons harp on that compared to other Biblical admonishments?) Simply put, I think submission is being sold as a magic pill for women, capable of transforming any situation into godly perfection if the woman just submits hard enough. And really, it's a bit superstitious - who has that kind of power?

(Full disclosure: I no longer consider myself a Christian, but I believe that if there is a God, the traits of mercy, love, and compassion that we so value have to be attributes of God as well. If we are created in the image of God, our desire for goodness and peace must be something we share, no? I believe that if there is a God, that's who led me out of fundamentalism to all the better things I've found in life.)

[fabucat]

Hey, what happened to the original post which started this thread?

If the writer deleted it, I can think of two explanations, neither of them positive:

1) The writer suddenly became afraid of what she'd written, scared that hubby might discover her 'rebellion."

2) The writer was either a pro-QF-person or just an attention seeking jerk who wanted to get a rise out of many of us.

Do trolls really clown around like that on this blog? And if they are pro-QF and oh-so-Godly, how Christian is that?

[Sierra]

Sept 7, 2010 16:17:47 GMT -5 fabucat said:

Hey, what happened to the original post which started this thread?

If the writer deleted it, I can think of two explanations, neither of them positive:

1) The writer suddenly became afraid of what she'd written, scared that hubby might discover her 'rebellion."

2) The writer was either a pro-QF-person or just an attention seeking jerk who wanted to get a rise out of many of us.

Do trolls really clown around like that on this blog? And if they are pro-QF and oh-so-Godly, how Christian is that?

I think #1 is the most likely situation - potentially not even connected to the husband, though. She might have felt "convicted" for being so "selfish" as to express what's really going on (although she did have an oddly circumspect view of her life for someone in the thick of it) and have "repented" by pulling the post. I'm not going to call "troll," though, because it's not typical troll behavior. She may or may not have been genuine, but I'd expect a troll to be more authoritarian and tell us how wrong we all are.

[ladygrace]

In my experience, trolls don't make, and then quickly, pull a post. A troll would leave it up for attention ad interact and try to gain as much sympathy as possible before exposing him- or her- self.