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Questioning your choice

rachelle1973

New Member
Have any of you ladies been through so much persecution over your decision to be a plural family that you question wether it really is OK with God? I know my head can wrap itself around the fact that the Bible gives no reason why it would be considered a sin. Its just the weight of losing friends, my church and family being cruel that my heart is afraid that I am seeing what I want to see, because I love my husband and sister wife, could I be lying to myself to do what I want to do. Any encouragement or words of advice would be so appreciated. Thank you
 
I am really new to biblical families and living the pural lifestyle. I hope and pray that what I am going to say will help you.
My family does not know about us fully just yet. They know that YM is a good friend of mine and DH. I had a bad attitude about it a few months ago and did tell my husband mom and dad what was going on. Now do they agree no because they believe more on what the church teaches you, but they still love me, my DH and YM.I have problems with My mom because she is controling and always wants things her way and i wonder will she still love me, DH, our girls and YM. Now in saying that if your family truly loves you they will love you and respect yours and your husbands decision to live as a pural family. With your friends just like your family if they are true friends they will still respect you and your DH for the decision you both have made to live a certian way. If not that means they were not true friends in the first place.
Now to the next issue, if God was really against the pural lifestyle, wouldnt you think he would have punished all the men in the bible that had more than one wife. I would recommend to live your life as God says to live it, Be submissive, loving and obident to God and your DH. The church is going to shun you because that is taking control out of their hands of filiing your head with what they want you to believe. Live by the bible not by church or religion.
Trust God that he knows best and he is giving your DH the best answers in leading his family. When you have doubt that give satan the ability to come in and give you doubt, hate, controling spirit, a bad temper, a bad attitude and with all that you will make everyone around you not want to be around you. Dont give satan that pleasure of coming in your heart and ruining something that God has put togeather.
 
I have those moments. When I do, I go back to the beginning and how the impossible became possible and how I absolutely knew that this was meant to be. I had such a sense of peace that this was right and that this was the right couple, at the right time. I can also see and recognize how much my life has been improved so even in those moments I am fortunate to have a steady foundation on which to stand.
 
My husband and I had been married for 20 years when he asked me to study out whether PM was biblical. I thought it would be easy to find the "proof" that polygyny was sinful, but I was wrong. After we both agreed that PM was acceptable to God, he told me that he felt that God wanted him to pursue it. I had a hard time with it at first, for several reasons:

1. We had a great marriage and I wasn't really interested in sharing my husband! However, the more I studied PM, the more I realized that I had no right to control my husband, and since he was to leader of our home, I needed to honor and respect his decisions for our family.

2. I was very close to my family, and they were very conservative Christians. I knew they would be very angry, disappointed and feel betrayed by our decision to believe PM was acceptable. I knew that practicing it would even be a harder battle with them. This was a very overwhelming struggle for me. I loved my family so much and we were very close, but I knew that God's Word MUST rule my life, not how my family feels about a situation.

3. I knew that the decision to practice PM would be very hard on my children. This was a killer for me. I love my kids and have devoted my life to them. Should I put them through such potential difficulty for a practice that is totally a choice? My husband (RGK on this board) felt that it was not just an option for him, he felt that this was something God specifically wanted him to do. We explained to our children what we believed, starting with the oldest (19) down to the youngest (3). At first, the three oldest accepted it, but weren't real happy about it.

4. We were pretty sure that we were going to be rejected from our church for embracing this belief. When we told our pastor what we believed, he was very gracious and agreed to look at the issue and discuss it. We spent a year and a half discussing PM with him. At the end, he chose to disagree with us and we were excommunicated from the church. This was also a very heart-wrenching experience that was very difficult for us and our children.

5. We knew that we would be ostracized from the homeschool community in our area. This also happened, and was difficult for our children. I didn't ever want anyone to look at or act like my children were pariahs. The people were very good to our children, but they felt a very strong need to distance themselves from us, and letting our children fellowship with people who refuse to fellowship with us is a recipe for splitting up a family. This eventually happened with our three older children. The pressure was too much for them, with all their cousins, grandparents, friends, etc., saying that our lifestyle was sinful. Our oldest three children chose to distance themselves from us and choose to believe that PM is sinful. We have very limited fellowship with them, and it is a very hard thing to deal with.

So, after saying all of this, do I question my choice to live this lifestyle? Sure I do. Mostly, though, I question the ways we did things and handled different situations. Perhaps if we had done things better or more carefully or in a different time frame, we would have better results. I don't know the answer to these questions, but I do know that PM is a righteous lifestyle, and practicing it for the right reasons is a righteous choice. Even after all the pain and loss, I would still do it again, because I know that, at the end of the day, I chose to do what I know was pleasing to the Lord, and that is why I am here on earth.
 
Well, not that I have taken extra wives at this stage, simply telling people about my PM belief has caused a lot of stress. I suppose it was easier than for most people because my family is on the other side of the planet right now. I think I'm also used to not being the popular kid on the block. I'm a Torah Observant Messianic Jew, which has never made me popular in religious circles...
It is certainly easier said than done, but I think this is like many other examples of life, religious or otherwise. Are you going to go with the flow because of peer pressure, or do what is right for you, for your family? Or perhaps you're thinking that maybe going down this road isn't right for your family because of all the drama... I think there're two reasonable sides to that coin:
On the one hand, who wants to subject their children to the kind of issues that can come from the external world, especially when for some PM is a matter of choice.
On the other hand, and speaking of children: If I wanted to have a child, but people for whatever reason decided that was socially unacceptable, would I bow to their pressure, or add to my family a valuable and loved member because the family just would have been missing a vital piece otherwise... I figure adding a wife with/without children can be in the same category. I figure if you'd allow society to cut you off from people you want to have in your family, then perhaps you need to ask yourself why.
I have a little girl, 2 years old, named Rosie. I can't imagine anything, any pressure, any societal influence that would make me say that I would have rather she was never a part of my family... I love her so much, and would do anything to protect her, to keep her, to be able to see her in the morning, every morning, to hear her laugh, to hug her and kiss her good night. Even the dirty diapers and the "I don't wanna's" could never change my mind. It's not just that I want her as part of my family, she is family. No one and nothing could ever change that.
My wife, my beloved treasure, is my family. We recently celebrated our 7th year anniversary! My family would be tragically at a loss without either of them.
Taking another wife is about including another person who becomes family... not just to the husband.
 
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