While I was waiting for my beautiful daughter to be further beautified at the hairdresser, I was flipping through the book and came across this paragraph:
Undeniably, all of us have been wrongly influenced by the world's way of thinking, humanistic worldly values, and worldly goals. All of these things are hostile to God's ways. One example of worldly values is the feminine belief that a woman's identity and fulfillment come from her education and career. The Bible says that being a "worker at home" is a virtue (Titus 2:5). Unfortuanately, the feminist philosophy on the role of the woman has permeated every aspect of our culture including our churches. Perhaps you have been influenced in subtle ways of which you are not aware. God wants to protect you from the influence of the world.It's that statement at the end that really caught my attention, the one about being protected.
I grew up in a very male-domintated environment. Dad has five brothers, mom had two brothers, and I had three brothers. My mother was not a "girly girl." I had many, many male cousins. My first "best friend" was Robbie Klassen, a rather timid boy down the street with whom I played "cement mixers" in the back alley. On our first day of school (kindergarten in the afternoons), we got locked in the shed of his back yard. It was I who broke the window, climbed out and "rescued" us.
I can be very independent. I can be very self-sufficient. There is a picture of me when I am about fifteen months old, trying to put my socks on. My mother apparently offered her help, but I said, "No! Self do it!" What can I say; I was articulate for a fifteen month old.
So the idea of protection has endured as a rather hazy concept in my mind all these years. I protected myself for the most part. Or so I thought. Now, when I look back at my life and the things that preceeded my salvation in 1985, I see it was actually God's protecting hand and not my own efforts. However, even after 1985, I still kind of turned up my nose at the idea of being protected. When I got married, I did not look upon my husband as my protector. We were equals, were we not? Yes, he was far superior in all matters mathematical, but I still considered us equals. Weren't we to protect each other? It is obvious that I was most certainly influenced by feminist thinking, because I bought into the notion that I could be Wonder Woman.It is only in recent years, as I have watched our daughter grow that I realize that women really do long to be protected. A lot of my bravado and mouthiness as a young woman had more to do with reacting against the fact that I was not protected as a little girl. I had parents and they loved and cared for me, but the notion of "protecting" me was really not well-developed in our home. The closest I ever came to being protected was when my oldest brother (five years older than I) told his 20 year old friend that he could not date his younger sister.
God does want to protect me from the influence of the world, and so does my husband. I believe that is one of the jobs of the husband, to protect his wife. Yesterday, I had a heated exchange with one of my boys. This does not happen often. Seriously, I very seldom raise my voice. I did yesterday. Eventually, I told the party involved that I would no longer deal with it. Things were getting too emotional. I decided that my husband had to protect me from myself in this regard, and he needed to deal with it.
I know that this is not really what Martha Peace is talking about, but her reference to God's protection made me think about the idea of my husband's protection, and how women have come to view the need for protection as a weakness. I used to think that. If I had decided to read this book even ten years ago, I probably would have closed it up after the first few chapters. Now, I will read it and benefit from it. It is obviously God's timing that I read it now, because I will be far more receptive to it.
