Anyone who knows me well, (both in and out of the Bib Fam fam,) knows that I have a personal battle cry of “Muck your own stall!!” That phrase became a potential for being yet another bumper sticker long before I came into the understanding of plural marriage, proly sometime during the era of struggling with being a single mom. I was supporting and educating my kids, being waaaaay too busy in the ministry, working on my Master’s in Ministry degree, then nearly completing an elementary education degree, counseling and being counseled, and, unbeknownst to me, being prepared by God to marry again, something at the time I wasn’t so sure I wanted to do.
I worked hard in counseling, having come into the therapeutic process with enough baggage being ported off my “boat" to rival that of Nicole Kidman in the movie Australia! Then I met my husband at a prayer meeting, was swept off my feet, got married, and began the Great Adventure. We both had gotten counseling, and yet, between the two of us, still had enough baggage that now we had to figure out if we could repurpose some of it for end tables and coffee tables in our newly blended “living room!!” We still had major work to do, survived the process only by the grace of God, and still routinely have to take our shovels out to the “barn,” muck our respective stalls, and then put in clean straw. It is a lifelong process.
So, what’s my point? Simply, that the plural marriage movement has been the scene of some real train wrecks that don’t have anything, at core, to do with plural marriage. They have to do with how much we have not learned how to let Yeshua grow us up and clean us out, let alone cooperate with Him in the process. I’ll never forget the first counseling conversation I had with a woman on the board who is a sister wife, and thankfully understood the need for “getting cleaned out.” I was feeling a bit apprehensive because she was in a lifestyle/ marital choice with which I had absolutely no experience, (still don’t,) but only a firm belief in its validity in Scripture. I actually stopped her in the conversation and said, “Man, these problems are so NORMAL!! I expected something really complicated, but this is just garden variety human stuff!!”
I’m not so naive as to think that there are not specific challenges to this particular marital choice, and once I leave the realm of being only a theorist, I know there are excellent, experienced men and women of God who will be there waiting to help, and will maybe have to bite their tongue while they do. Won’t be the first time!
Nor am I suggesting that everyone on the board empty out the self-help shelves at Lifeway or Family book stores, or pay big bucks for professional counseling.
What I AM suggesting, no, pleading with the members of this unique community is to embrace a lifestyle that takes more courage than fighting Al-Qaeda, and that is entering into a covenant with our Father where we will say with David, a genuinely flawed biblical super-hero, “Search me, El, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts.” Then when He does, fearlessly go put on your waders and gas mask, pick up your shovel, and let Him turn that mess into the foundation for an amazing garden. I believe the fruit of such a decision has the potential to yield a 100 fold, not just for our own lives, but any unto whom our God will call us. :idea:
I worked hard in counseling, having come into the therapeutic process with enough baggage being ported off my “boat" to rival that of Nicole Kidman in the movie Australia! Then I met my husband at a prayer meeting, was swept off my feet, got married, and began the Great Adventure. We both had gotten counseling, and yet, between the two of us, still had enough baggage that now we had to figure out if we could repurpose some of it for end tables and coffee tables in our newly blended “living room!!” We still had major work to do, survived the process only by the grace of God, and still routinely have to take our shovels out to the “barn,” muck our respective stalls, and then put in clean straw. It is a lifelong process.
So, what’s my point? Simply, that the plural marriage movement has been the scene of some real train wrecks that don’t have anything, at core, to do with plural marriage. They have to do with how much we have not learned how to let Yeshua grow us up and clean us out, let alone cooperate with Him in the process. I’ll never forget the first counseling conversation I had with a woman on the board who is a sister wife, and thankfully understood the need for “getting cleaned out.” I was feeling a bit apprehensive because she was in a lifestyle/ marital choice with which I had absolutely no experience, (still don’t,) but only a firm belief in its validity in Scripture. I actually stopped her in the conversation and said, “Man, these problems are so NORMAL!! I expected something really complicated, but this is just garden variety human stuff!!”
I’m not so naive as to think that there are not specific challenges to this particular marital choice, and once I leave the realm of being only a theorist, I know there are excellent, experienced men and women of God who will be there waiting to help, and will maybe have to bite their tongue while they do. Won’t be the first time!
Nor am I suggesting that everyone on the board empty out the self-help shelves at Lifeway or Family book stores, or pay big bucks for professional counseling.What I AM suggesting, no, pleading with the members of this unique community is to embrace a lifestyle that takes more courage than fighting Al-Qaeda, and that is entering into a covenant with our Father where we will say with David, a genuinely flawed biblical super-hero, “Search me, El, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts.” Then when He does, fearlessly go put on your waders and gas mask, pick up your shovel, and let Him turn that mess into the foundation for an amazing garden. I believe the fruit of such a decision has the potential to yield a 100 fold, not just for our own lives, but any unto whom our God will call us. :idea:
