Judging the Broken in us all.

Another facebook inspired post.


Facebook and the News.

Today an article appeared on my news-feed, via multiple friends... When I was scrolling through and saw the picture I said hmm she looks familiar but kept going. Later I came back to it and another friend had shared it...I looked closer. The brokenness of the world was in those eyes. The eyes of a lady who tried to speed away from a police officer and ended up sliding of the road into an embankment. She apparently had her 2 year old child with her and a warren out for her arrest as well as no insurance and an unregistered vehicle. The eyes of a life where all she ever saw was broken...Who is now in jail facing 4th degree child abuse charges...

She has 3 children...all boys..

it's not fair...but...there is a reason whatever it might be I deal with my own demons.


The eyes of a childhood friend...just as lost as she was in 2nd grade when we played cats and dogs and C.J. was the catcher.... or when we would pick apples from the trees in her back yard and get sick from eating to many, play in the corn crib down the road, build snow men, and have sleep overs where I would watch movies my mom wouldn't like me watching. Someone I meet in Kindergarten who I spent years growing with...Someone who watched what sin can do to adults. Who watched a mother deal with pain (MS..if she was being truthful) the best way she new how(drugs)...who watched her mom and dads marriage dissolve.  Who really saw nothing in relationships to hold her together. Who lied...sometimes to survive or get attention she was starved for... or at least to convince others she was just fine. She lied so much I will admit she pushed me away even as a child she could tell fantastic stories and swear they were the truth..and she could  make you believe them. I watched them trun from stories to falsehoods, to lies, to manipulate, strike back, and destroy .....and it's a mental illness...but she falls through the cracks in the system...and shes broken I'm not making excuses but I saw this article and cried..other see it and roll there eyes...mock her, She shouldn't do it but does she know anything else??

A life of choices stretched out behind her, passed on to her from her parents and now to her own children...None of it her fault and at the same time every single choice she has made, lie she has told, hers and hers alone. Her mother didn't hold a gun to her head and say do what I did.... but she showed her the way...

Show your children something more... to rise above.

Because if you didn't know her before 4th grade...you don't know her at all. Between the lies and the walls and the life she grew up in...she has survived...somehow allbeit not well. But look at her eyes....

Just an article about a woman who ran from a cop.... posted and shared again and again...for people to read that really don 't need to read it, sure it's in the papers it public domain..but does that mean that old friends, acquaintances need to share it like that?  It use to be if you didn' live in the area you didn't really hear about it...local news stayed localized...now...now people that live in Flordia who had forgotten that this woman existed knows, complete strangers all over the nation...and have formed an opinion based on one small write up...

Isn't it at that point the same as gossip? Is it going to help this woman? Is judging her, calling her stupid going to fix her? Is stating that she won't change because she never has yet really the answer? How many times has she heard stuff like that in her life? Look at her eyes and don't tell me shes not hurting... I'm not saying she can be saved..but has anyone tried. (Maybe they have...idk)

what if she finds this article with these comments (some from people she knew) is it going to motivate her to make her life better..or drive her deeper into the pain she can't seem to get away from? I'm not making excuses for her and honestly if this results with her losing her children thats good. This cycle needs to be broken. I can't wait to be in a position to do foster care and help children placed in situations like this... but

 but things like this isn't going to do it.

"Sounds like a real winner.  Unfortunately this is the kind of person that breeds in this country."

When I see people like that I magically run out of money. Funny how that works. Smh. I can't stand low life lazy people. I bust my ass for everything I have and they seem to always be there with a hand open for a donation.

"Drugs do that to people"

I think a lot of people with mental problems, drug and alcohol abuse problems, tend to stay that way because 1. It's all the know. 2. That's what everyone expects...so therefor it must be true.  It's no different then telling a child they are worthless... over and over again...

My heart hurts...this is "Red" (I use to be so jealous of her red hair..but oh how she hated it) This is my friend, even if we haven't spoken in years...

Maybe I feel to much....idk...

She is a human...she does have feelings...I know I've seen them...

She tried to reach out to me a year or so ago when she ran into my mom and gave her her phone number to give to me. I truly wanted to call her...then lost the number...

What if I had...

In highschool she was never ready to hear about Jesus...She was into some pretty dark stuff (also a coping mechanism) but from what my mom said the day she gave her her phone number and from the look in her eyes in this picture. What if I had called her? I know I can't save her but when is the last time she's heard the message? 4th or 5th grade when she left St. Johns? When her life fell apart around her? I never even bothered to water or re-plant that seed to share the hope of a future, and to make it worse God put it on my heart real heavy that day and I still didn't call her.

I can't sleep now.... the hopelessness of those eyes... and the back of my mind...

Tomorrow could be one day to late.

Judge away world, beat her down and make sure she stays there... feel better about yourself...share her misery with the world and let complete strangers judge as well.

I'm a hypocrite though, how many times have I watched someone on the news do something stupid and call them that? Some people really are just bad people...and some people take in a broken world and have nothing left. Seeing a face I now in a article like this, I will now think more before I pass judgment on someone or share the news.... Because sharing is not in and of itself a bad thing, and nothing is going to stop mean comments on something like this. I'm just going to try to check my  motives of why I'm sharing something and see if they are good. Does EVERYONE on your friends list need to know this? Because until today I've never really thought of it.

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ...Matthew 7:1,2~

The draw back of small town life, the drawback of the media infused world..

they are both blessings and curses..

and my heart hurts....look at her eyes. (taken from the article photo and cropped by me)

When I find it I'll add the picture of us when we were about 6 or 7 building a snowman...

Pray.

Here is an article that explains her mental health issues...I think her mother had the same problem.
http://www.newhealthguide.org/Pathological-Liar.html
(I wouldn't be suprised if most or even all of the "Causes" in this definition are true for her.)


it's a sickness...

It's not an excuse...it's a reason. It doesn't make it right or fair..but when sin entered this world nither of those things are always a part of life.

Completely Normal Chaos.

I think my new normal is broken.

an awareness of the brokenness of this world. Whether it's residing in myself or in the everyday people I interact with.  If it's in a conversation with a frustrated child, or a frustrated adult the basic feeling is the same. "what is going on, why can't I get you to understand...how do I explain."

I'm not sure how to write this without showing the complete breakdown and lack of faith I have in...well everything. My choices I've made and the ones I and my husband will have to make in the next half year or so. My faith in my ability to be okay with what life is....

because life just is.


My whole life has been a battle against loneliness self imposed, imagined, or circumstance, and depression.

Broken.

Right now the loneliness isn't so much a physical obvious thing, I'm obviously not alone, an amazing husband, a wonderful family, and even my friends. But a loneliness in my walk of faith, and my walk in life. Where I'm at exactly is hard to define...It's not single and looking and it's not married with children (Everyone my age around me falls into those two categories).  It's not on fire for God, and it's not a complete lack of faith...it's like a distance that could be fixed by picking up his word....but no desire at all to do so....and no encouragement in sight then what I can try to find deep down in me...somewhere.

I'm scared.

This last week broke me. Like way more then I wanted to admit. It broke me emotionally and spiritually. I've spent the last 5 days in a funk (I started crying Friday when a rock hit my windshield and cracked it all the way across) My husbands reaction "it's just a windshield" but by then after a failed bible study and friends backing out for hanging out ...it was just to much. I'm trying to figure out just why one thing not working out could set up such an alarming and out of control spiral...I'm leery of writing because I don't want to make anyone feel bad because I know life just is...Life just happens completely normal chaos.

I miss community group...and I know that even that is changing...

I'm so empty, its just echoing in my head empty empty empty like racket ball in an empty racketball room...which is bad bad bad because with that much empty space in my heart and soul who knows what could fill it up. Where did it go? How did I not know until it was gone? How do I make anyone understand... It went with wherever my desire to try to start a bible group went...crushed under busy schedules, children, and marriages. It went wherever my church went...slowly stripping away my desire even to TRY to work on my personal walk with God. It's that lapse on my end this crippling defeat that has emptied me.  For I am to fill myself with Godly things and let my mind dwell on them...

"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart" ~Psalm 37:4~

At last the truth: my bible study didn't happen because it wasn't the time...my heart isn't right so how could I have expected to do that. Maybe i hoped it would help me get back on track. I don't know. I feel silly for even trying when it's so clear now...this is not the time. I'm so desperate for something anything...fellowship...worship...

I'm. not. Alright.

isn't life...

I could blame so many many things on this fall out with God. I could blame my church, I could blame my pastor, my husband for not being a spiritual lead, my friends for not making the time, the fact that I can't have children...

When it comes down to it though, It's all on me, my choices of what to do with my time, my heart. It was all I could do to make myself go to Church on Sunday. Sometimes I wish I had never EVER stepped foot into St Marcus...it hurts still over a  year later to think about that church I cried yesterday for missing that church. But what do I miss? God's word is still being spoke here in Dowagiac...ah but it's so much more....here it's so much less...here it's stale...stagment...broken.

Depressed. Let Down.
Defeated.

I'm not proud of this post and it has taken me days to get the courage to evaluate myself this much to write it... I'm frustrated because I know all the right words. God has a plan, God's got it, yet it seems so

Empty.

I need some time with God and a mental vacation (t-mac) and have no desire to try to make it happen. I'm so blessed in life it's unbelievable...yet here I am.

what next.



~I don't want you all to think I'm miserable I really am for the most part okay with life..but the one thing that I stand on ..that solid rock..right now my sinful nature is shaking me...and I'm terrified I'm going to lose the battle...and when you start questioning your faith in what basically makes up your being..well it's a little overwhelming to handle. I've gone through "droughts" in the past with my walk with God...but this feeling of defeat...this lack of passion is new...unsettling.. and not okay. ~

Why can't we share something that isn't even ours?

Rude.

Sometimes I think we all are to quick to judge someone as rude.

Today, I got to go get some pretty amazing pictures. Now, I don't really consider myself a photographer but I really do enjoy taking pictures. Specially of things in nature. I think in this way me, you, and the professional are all the same.

However, it's people like the people I pissed off today taking this picture...that make me never want to try to make it a serious hobby....

So picture behind me 4 fancy photographers, with their high end clothing and super amazing cameras and big obnoxious tripods...ALL of whom hear me approach behind them know I'm standing there waiting trying to take a picture behind them (with out them in it... does anyone know how short I am?) I even checked to see if I could go on the other side (I couldn't). this was 6 feet away from me and one step down....angled down all the way.

I knew I could avoid 3 of the cameras but the one was questionable so I waited and when he moved away from his camera I went through. At any point, the approach or the almost in the way,the guy could have said, "Could you wait a second it's shooting a video and will be done in such and such time." Because seriously how was I suppose to know you would take a video of something that won't move. At no point did these guys ask if I would like to pass, or get a picture.

Instead, when I start realizing the guy is mad I hear him saying, "aaaaaand she's in my shot" and his buddy saying "did someone get in your picture" with the response "of course I was filming" followed by "that's rude." (did I mention I was the only other person around??) So hear I am being called names literally behind my back trying not to start crying. Because everyone who knows me knows I can NOT deal with people being upset with me for any reason even complete strangers.

 Here I am though this little nobody with my little Glorified Nikon Digital Camera..trying to get one picture and get back to her husband who is waiting back further and out of the cold. One picture without someone in it...God forbid I have the same rights as someone with training and fancy equipment. So I take my picture fast and shaking because I'm upset and now I have to turn around and go back through...the humiliation... why do I always feel so guilty?? My mind racing, do I talk to them, do I apologize does it even matter? God I wish I could have jumped in that freezing lake and froze to death. 

Of course I say "sorry, I didn't realize you were filming." and his response "Well that's why you need to ask" Then I made some sort of joke about being short and got a" yeah I know what you mean from a different guy." and left. It wasn't worth saying you could have asked me to stop. You could have acknowledge my existence...it wasn't wroth telling them how bad I felt they didn't care. I walked just as far as they did on a pier covered with nothing but ice, I climbed over ice walls and I was freezing just like them. When you are on a pier that's not even set up for pedestrians covered with ice surrounded by freezing water there really are not to many options of taking a picture somewhere else. 

(I and they were standing on a spot more narrow then even this covered with just what you see in this picture)

I know now to ask instead of wait for a turn because I guess sharing and letting someone pass isn't an option anymore. I will some how face my fear of speaking to strangers (even in stores I hate saying excuse me to get through I tend to turn around and go another way). I'm just broken like that.  I tried hard not to be rude, and failed. Which makes me think, how many people have I called rude wrongly?? You never know the thought process a person might have had before doing what could be considered a rude action.

I hope those men got their shot eventually and I bet it will be WAY more amazing then my pathetic attempt at a picture. I really was sorry albeit angry as well.

So worth the trip.

Also, another thing I have found in my picture taking hobby (if you could call it that) some people get really mad when you take a picture from the same spot they are? They found the spot first and no one else should get to take the picture. How many people have stood there before you? I don't get it, when taking pictures of something that really anyone can see if they want to how can you get mad when people get the same picture as you?? Why does it matter? I'm seriously curious about this I've had people down right mad at me for taking a picture they took...

I love the things I get to see in this world, and God's power is truly apparent in it always. He made if for everyone...why is it so hard to share something that isn't even yours?

end rant.

LOOK UP!!

After that last downer...

Real fast some clarifications.

1.  I have no doubt that foster care/adoption is going to be amazing. I was the child (and some of my oldest and dearest friends will attest to this.) That most of my "lets pretend" time I was an orphan or running and orphanage...So yes when I say it's not the same as actually carrying a child to term I simply mean it's not the same not that it's going to be any less rewarding or that I can't love an adopted child just as much. It's just different.

2. I have no doubt God has a plan and as loving the reminders are it's honestly getting to the point where it's making me crazy. I know God has a plan and my guilt comes in that the just knowing that doesn't help ALL the time. Most of the time yes but not all. I am human I'm working on it.

3. I love each an everyone of you who read this blog and love me regardless. Thank-You all so much for the support the love and the prayers.


Now, onward Christian Soldiers. To a totally different topic.

It's amazing to me how some "Christians" just get it so so wrong. It's amazing to me how some "non-Christians" get it so wrong. This world as the bible says will get worse but I honestly feel like it's falling apart around me. People are crazy,

We are so selfish, so full of entitlement so sold on this everyone is right, has a right is a God, can be your own God philosophy. So FREE.

Free to judge
Free to speak
Free to take law into your own hand
Free to trample anyone who dears to think different
Free to do whatever the hell you want.

It's in these Freedoms we have lost

Our ability to love
Our ability to listen
Our ability to feel safe in our communities
Our ability to consider others thoughts and opinions, and by doing so learn and grow and if you find yourself in the wrong...change.
Our ability to share, have compassion, and build something better for our children.

I'm so tired of being slapped in the face because I'm a "Christian" Living in a world where the term "Christian is almost a swear word, sneered at. Then before I can get truly mad, some one, calling themselves a "Christian" proves the worlds point we are a laughing stock.  How do you fight ignorance with more ignorance? How do you spread Gods word at all if you are only looking out for yourself? If you are to busy judging someone else...

This whole world needs to take a step back and chill out. Shut off the news, sign out of facebook, set your phone down....LOOK UP.  We think this world is better this progress is so grand. Look I can have anything I want at the click of a button. I can get the answer to any question with a snap of my fingers. I don't have to talk to another human for DAYS if I don't want to even if they are in the next cubical, the next room or the same room. I also don't have to be able to use my reason, common sense, or form my own opinion on any subject. It's all there plastered on the internet blaring out of the T.V.

Zombies.

I'm drowning. I don't know about you, but this world where everything is instant makes me tired. Yet I'm just like you... on my Ipad, on facebook, plugged in looking down and losing...losing what? When the world is so broken instead of searching for the beauty that is still there I hide in an endless parade on my newsfeed liking pictures Pining my life one click at a time all the while missing...missing out on laughter, nature, the pride in working hard.. and worst of all my walk with God.

Always choosing to see the good side of everyone's life and feel bad about my own. Or rolling my eyes at another post from that person about how BAD there life is. At least they are willing to admit it's not perfect....I'm ready to reclaim my soul...

We are a sleepless world, twitching, over stimulated, diluted....all in the name of progress.


Advertising if brain damage

P.S. I hate Fox News.

Okay I'm done talking now, I'm going to sign out. No more placing my guilt in front of me with ANOTHER baby picture on my facebook. It's not your fault at all I would probably do the same thing...It's mine for not being able to deal with it...so I'm happy for everyone one I love you all...but I can choose to stop looking and wishing...and hurting unnecessarily. I can't seem to stop comparing my life to others especially those with children and houses and seemingly more put together lives...

I've got a lot of guilt but this is one area I can start in controlling it.  Because they are doing nothing more then sharing....It's not their fault they are happy...

I know it's NOT what it seems and I'm not saying my life isn't good right now in this basement next to my husband on a computer. Warm, sheltered, feed, loved, and entertained. No I need to learn to be content in every situation and if flooding my eyes and brain with other peoples lives isn't helping me personally then maybe I need to LOOK UP!! Take my own advice....

save my soul.

In a world full of short cuts and instant...you would think I would have heaps of time to spend in God's word. You think we all would... Yet I don't. I haven't in a while...

So ask yourself where is all that time saved going?

who is it helping.

LOOK UP!! if not at your world around you then to the heavens to his glory. AMEN.

I plan to.

I CHOOSE TO BE FREE!!

(end note, I'm not deleting my facebook..just going to try to step back....TRY being the key word)

Too much guilt.

What about Grandchildren?

What about the responsibility to give your parents grand children? What about the feelings of inadequacy because your brother has been able to and you haven't and not from lack of wanting to.

I tell you there is a HUGE difference between not wanting children and not being able to have them. When I feel guilty because I know my mom wants more grand children and the pain in my heart as I told my mother in law that she might not get them from us either. It's like some how it's my fault or my husbands fault.

Now, here is where I'm at and I'm also struggling with inconsistent feelings toward our whole situation. Not sure if this is normal but it ranges from pure relief I don't have to go through pregnancy, that I don't have to have my children grow up and worry that they may trample my heart.

To complete and utter anguish because I won't know a mothers love, I won't see a little of me in a child that is mine, I won't hear my own child say I love you mommy, I might never be called mommy. The things in life that matter children to live for....

Enjoying almost to much the freedoms that come with not having children traveling, last minute plans,

I'm sorry this post is a bit sloppy....it's a true representation of my heart and brain...

Trying to sort of if its selfish of me to think along the lines of: if I don't have children by the time I'm 30 I don't want to have them at all. I don't want to be pushing 60 when my last kid is 18. I don't want to have a baby when all my friends are done. Yet I feel guilty because shouldn't it be God's choice and if I have these feelings why do I cry when someone else is pregnant. This flood of new babies this month is just crazy and it hurts so so bad. Whats up with that? I'm always so happy for them and at the same time so sad inside....is that sadness wrong or if I didn't have that sadness would that be wrong?

Sometimes what you want isn't what you get. I wanted to have babies early and for lack of a better way to explain it experience the love, the joy, the pain and get it over with. It didn't work like that and I have to face the very good possibility it wont happen at all ever.  Yes we plan to foster and maybe adopt...but it's not quit the same thing not the same experience. My husband and I may never get to see what a product of both our genes could be like.

Holidays are rough, guilt it rough,

I feel guilty for not having children. I feel guilty for being so upset that I don't have children. I feel guilty for making my husband feel bad when I do get upset. I feel guilty those time I feel relief I don't have children. I feel guilty because Im upset and therefor must not be trusting God enough. I feel guilty for setting an age limit. I feel guilty for not giving grandchildren to our parents. I feeling guilty for hurting when someone is pregnant (Not because they are having a baby but because its never more clear that I'm not). I feel guilty when I don't want to go to another baby shower or a friends child's birthday party. I feel guilty for thinking about the things I can do because I don't have children. I feel guilty for feeling so gosh darn selfish I even feel guilty for feeling guilty......Lets face it that is a lot of guilt.

Too much guilt.

Some couples are to the point in their childless journey to want to spend time with their friends kids. Though I think I am FINALLY in the last month or so there I'm not so sure if my husband is. I think I would love to steal my friends kids for a day let them have a day off and pretend they are mine.  I think I would love to go to their house and make cookies with their kids..Somehow I think I need to figure out how to have kids in my life outside of the classroom. I'm planning on trying it when my husband has more time after grad school.  I think it will be easier when we have a place of our own to spend time with kids. So you friends of mine with children that want a day off be aware because in 6-8 months I'm coming for your children!

Everyday is a step closer to if not acceptance then peace. Every day is a struggle and a battle, and every time I feel my husbands love, my friends support, and God's touch. I am thankful to have feeling at all. I'm thankful in the struggle and tired of the war. I'm not sure how to shake the guilt but I'll keep trying and moving along. Because in the loss of a dream in the face of a broken world. Hope and each other are all we got.

March on my soul,, be strong.

I don't want your pity.

Proverbs 30:15-16
“There are three things that are never satisfied,
four that never say, ‘Enough!’:
the grave, the barren womb,
land, which is never satisfied with water,
and fire, which never says, ‘Enough!’


Never satisfied... The barren womb.

In other words it's okay that I still deal with complete and utter heartache.  It's a natural desire. My.heart.hurts.

I won't apologize for writing about it yet again...
Sometimes I need to know it's okay to not be so strong, because the days when I'm not I'm really really not.

Recently my cousin and dear friend gave birth to her third child a beautiful baby boy who feels my heart with longing and joy and eyes with tears. I just don't understand how I can one day be like "I'm okay with out kids...and the next day barely able to get out of bed because without children my life and goals are basically over..."

I know there are others out there either through miscarriage, health, medical, emotional or any other reason who have found yourself and the point of life where children are normal even expected. Where you feel the world pointing at you (all married and almost 30 or older)...yelling "WHAT YOU DONT HAVE CHILDREN"... and you need to know its okay the world doesn't know your circumstance...It's normal, never knowing one moment to the next just where you stand with your cross you have been chosen to carry.

Normal a very important word for me right now when my life feels anything but normal..me someone who has never considered normal a thing..suddenly being normal is so important it takes my breath away...so alarmingly Unreachable...

Sometimes I don't know who this blog helps or reaches, I have such long stretches without words, or with to much hurt...sometimes it's all just to much. Sometimes I'm busy trying to appear normal.

I found a blog today called "childless not by choice" http://acouplesvoice.blogspot.com/ a day where I really Really needed some encouragement just needed to know I'm not alone in this struggle..and I felt like I was just a kill joy for my friends...a broken record...or worse someone to pity. I don't want anyone's pity not ever...prayer, silent encouragement sure. I'm over statements like you will have a baby someday, or in Gods time, or even the I'm sorry.

Sometimes I just need a friend, sometimes I just need a hug, sometimes I need a friend to sit down watch a Jane Austen movie and eat cookie dough with me...(it's been a terrible long time since I've done that). More often then not I just need some time with God.

I'm so thankful for my job, they might not be my biological children, but I tell you I love them with the fierce protectiveness of a momma bear.  Their hugs sometimes are the only things that get me out of bed.  My womb might never know the miracle of carrying a baby but my heart has been touched by hundreds of children. That is a blessing some in my same struggle might not have. I encourage you to find away. Albeit It adds to the hurt sometimes......the good sure outweighs the bad.

Sometimes in life you have to take the good and the bad, the joy and the pain, the saint and the sinner add them together, divide them by 2 and live well.

And I'm not a feminist....praying for my church.

     Writing this blog is going to be about as much fun as having teeth pulled....and its going to sound as cohesive as a person talking with a numb mouth. I'm sorry.


    Two problems

1. The WELS take on woman and our roles in the church.

My problem...Woman have the passion and the heart yet can't help the church in any way above cleaning, alter, and organizing pot lucks or what not....and if you have a man with a strong enough backbone MAYBE you can influence his vote by voicing your opinion at a voters meeting.

My whole life I have heard woman complain about our roles in the church and honestly it's never really bothered me that much. I grew up in a house with a mom and a dad who listened to each other and a dad who was not scared to follow through. I understand the idea outlined in the bible. Here's an article from the WELS website because I think they can do a better job then I explaining it.

However, Scripture is also clear that while we are equal in status and importance before him, God has not made us duplicates or clones of each other in how we carry out our various God-given callings. Already in the perfection of the Garden of Eden he assigned unique callings or roles to the man and the woman when God made her to be helper suitable for the man and created her right from the man (Genesis 2:18ff). God gave to the man the unique calling of being a loving head and to his wife the unique calling of being a loving helper to him. In the New Testament, the inspired Apostle Paul assures us that these unique callings were indeed found already in the perfection of Eden when he writes, "Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God" (1 Corinthians 11:3). Later Paul reminds us that what we read in Genesis 2 is indeed where this was established when he says, "For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman but woman for man" (1 Corinthians 11:8-9).....

Of course, wise heads know that God has given them helpers for a reason. The wisdom and insights, the questions and concerns of everyone in the congregation, men and women, are important. Especially when a woman may have no husband in her home, it is very important that the congregation look for ways to gain her input.

http://www.wels.net/about-wels/doctrinal-statements/doctrinal-statements
(copy and paste into your browser if you want to see the whole shot article)


I would like to draw your attention to the line "When a woman may have no husband in her home, it is very important that the congregation look for ways to gain her input."

I like that ... IF a church does...but it still doesn't solve the problem some churches have...

Where the men, married or not seem to have hit auto pilot and the few that would fight for the life of a church are so frustrated with the men on auto pilot that they have all but given up. Now either the wives at home are not voicing their opinions loudly enough or the men are not listening. Maybe the men simply have no idea what to do to fix the problem so they do nothing...not even ask the woman for help....Whatever the problem the woman have a lot of strong feelings about the ways of the mission and my voice, and the others I have spoken too are NOT being heard.

So this is where church becomes luke warm...neither dead nor alive...and at this rate my church WILL close.

So I don't disagree with the doctrine as strongly as some woman I disagree with the application. I'm frustrated because I feel my opinion my worries are being ignored because I am a woman and can do nothing besides talk and pray...and watch a strangling church suffocate...

I know also it's not only the elders and the voting members of the church fault...there is a lot to be said of a pastor who is aware of the situation and willing to put forth the effort to change it even if that effort s simply handing out tasks to the church members to help with it. One carefully worded statement from a pastor can sway a mans vote I think more then a thousand words from a wife at least at my church. Which brings me to the call system...

2. and the WELS much beloved and defended....call system.

here is a long article on how it's suppose to work and why.....I guess.

https://connect.wels.net/AOM/schools/General%20Documents/Call%20Process/Doctrine%20of%20the%20Divine%20Call%20-%202011.pdf
(copy and past into your browser if you want to see the whole LONG article)

My problem...The whole system.

I will defend much of my WELS faith I have done much searching and learning I have left and come back.   ...but since I was old enough to understand I've seen nothing but problems develop with this "divine system"

I've watched it chew up and spit out MANY  potential teachers because someone deemed "them unfit for the calling"  My brother and his wife as two of the many....I've never understood that because in the truest form a call is something given by God. If someone has prayed and been lead by God to be a teacher NO ONE other then GOD has the right to tell them they are wrong. Maybe they would have gotten in and found they did not like it after all but at least they had a chance.

I'm sorry I have a hard time believing in the divinity of the call system that is ran by mankind that is set up by men, and men who sit at a table and discuss who should get what call. Men who send out the official call document.... Again I get the idea somewhat..but there are no biblical examples of a church ran this way and to many chances for mans free will. and brokenness to screw it up.

Another thing I have watched the call system do is take away a call from a Woman if she is engaged or married to a man who didn't "fit the mold" (my brother and sister-in-law again) and was there for not issued a call. Because someone decided the that this was not a mans calling after all. The woman then is not issued a call because they can't give a call to a woman and not the MAN who is the head of the house. Seriously? What's up with that? How is that OKAY at all EVER. I don't even consider myself a feminist...

and right now my biggest issue with the call system. The main thing hurting my church is when a Pastor is stuck in a church who has not had a call in YEARS. You can hide behind the whole God just hasn't moved him yet all you want. But when  a Pastor is stagnate..when he is so defeated with a closed school a declining church attendance that the passion is sucked out of him...The call system is a problem.

I know it's not just my church but it's as if a pastor reaches a certain age, has been collecting raises every year regardless if the church is shrinking or not. He simply does not get a call because he is too expensive. To expensive for another church and to expensive for his current church. Not old enough to retire...can't quit because they he has to be completely done with the ministry....I would find it hard to joyfully service in these circumstances myself. I pray for my pastor daily....for he really is a great man.

I've been asking for prayers for my church, for my pastor...for God's mission. This is the tip of the iceberg. that will sink this ship...and that is how a heart breaks...

It breaks  for a wonderful man with many talents who is stuck. It breaks for a church and school that is but a shadow of it's past. For a bunch of men who don't seem to care that any of this is happening. That breaks for a group of woman who can only speak...It breaks for my church where I was baptized married..where I would not mind having my children baptized and married. Where my mom was baptized and grew up and her mom before her. It breaks for system ran by human kind. My heart breaks for a great opportunity through  thriving childcare to reach MANY children and families with Gods word...that simply will not be used in such a way....

I am reminded that this is NOT my home.
Heaven is my home.

Build your kingdom here...restore your church... open the eyes of my congregation and strengthen my pastor and church leaders for the choices they may have to make.

AMEN