I grew up with a mother who had epilepsy. It was an intense disease and her seizure activity seemed unmanagable though many treatments were tried again and again. Naturally, you can imagine that any child would be frightened when seeing a seizure from their mother. It created a lot of difficulty in our home. It created a lot of tension between my folks. My mother wasn’t allowed to do many things that are on the normal “to do list” for busy wives and mothers. She wasn’t to cook, iron, or drive and she had to wear a helmit on her head when she walked around. But oh, how she just wanted to be a normal wife and mother. It was what she was created to do. But since her safety was of great concern to my dad and her physician she wasn’t to do certain things and she definitely was to wear her helmit. Yes, my dear mother struggled in the area of submission too, especially when it came to wearing her helmit. When dad would catch her not wearing it, well, it got a little loud in the house. I remember the day he told her that if she wouldn’t wear her helmit she would end up in a situation she wouldn’t want to be in. His exact words being, “you’ll end up in a coma in some nursing home.”

Shortly there after, my mother fell during a seizure. She wasn’t wearing her helmit and suffered great intercranial hemorrhaging. After three years of being in a coma, she finally passed away in a nursing home bed. I share her poignant story, because it is now my glory. I came to understand that there is blessing, protection and life in submission. I share her story not to dishonor her, but because I believe this is what she would want me to do. How often do we mess up and God in His mercy redeems our messes and then condescends to still use us? I often wonder if my mom would’ve heeded my dad’s wishes, if she would still be here - to tell her own story, with a much different ending! I was 16 years old when she died. I was the fourth of five children she birthed. And we all miss her dearly.

We never truly do know what consequences may befall us when we go our own way. And this story isn’t meant to breed fear. But one thing is certain, the fences God places around our lives exist for our good. With every stake God pounds in the ground He is sending a very loud message - “I love you and thus I cannot but desire to bestow blessings untold upon you.” Perfect love does indeed cast out fear. Brandi, you are loved by Him and I am praying that you begin to revel in the joy of being fenced in.

Kamelda, what a beautiful picture! It’s like a pas de deux! I LOVE dance analogies!

It’s not exactly that I think the men get the plum role. It’s mostly that I don’t like being thought incapable of, well…much of anything. I am a physician. (Housewife by trade…long story). So, yes, I can hunt and gather, and educate. I was pretty good at it, back in the day. I don’t know about protection: I’m not much of a fighter (Billie, though….I wouldn’t mess with a Marine!) but I can write a check to the security system guy. I don’t even find it comforting to know that my husband would have to take the rap for my mistakes. That makes me feel like a child.

I’m not defending this; I believe it is sinful pride. I am trying to overcome it; that’s why i’m on this blog and thinking and praying about these issues. I look forward to a day when I can see the fences as protective, not restrictive.

I think it is hard in our society for a Christian woman to totally reject the world’s philosophy that leadership/submission as positions in the abstract are merit based because everywhere we turn we see that being entrusted with leadership does in fact have a lot to do with at least perceived merit. The only adequate analogy I know of is the submission of God the Son to the Father. He has shown that the place of submission has nothing to do with substance, and ennobled it with His Deity forever. There is no way God can be superior to God. It was not an arrangement of merit. It was an arrangement of willing love in the Godhead, to accomplish the Divine will. So we are accomplishing in our creative order the Divine will. I think it’s more like a dance than a job. Is leading ’superior’? How could it be said to be so — it’s one kind of movement, juxtaposed against an equally significant and necessary movement from someone else. Both together make beauty and order.

Claire, when you’ve been brought up with a femenist mindset (which really serves to make women less feminine and more masculine, ironically) that’s exactly what you want. Learning those wonderful truths is refreshing and a blessing, once you can accept them with out anger or hurt, but that certainly didn’t come immediately for me. It was a long, painful, lesson years before it became a beautiful thing to embrace. I could tell that tale, but this isn’t my blog, and I talk too much as it is!