Midlife Homeschool Mom

I wrote and performed the following monologue one Easter at a Christian assembly I used to attend.  I would love to hear if anyone likes this.  I am toying with expanding it and making it into a historical fiction.

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I was a broken woman. I lived in lonely anguish.  I was tormented day and night by what I now know was 7 demons.

My mother died giving birth to me, so I felt guilty as a child and blamed myself for her death.  My father was left alone to raise me.  Every morning he prayed the usual prayer of a Jewish man, but because of his anger about my being a girl, he prayed loudly with a fervor that pierced my very soul.  He would pray, “I thank you God that I was not born a gentile, a woman, or a hog!”

I hated myself.  I felt unloved and rejected by my father. After his death, I felt abandoned by his God, who left me alone.  And I especially cursed the fact that God had made me …a woman.  Because of the Roman law, I was left with all his property, but my pain turned to a dark anger.

My thoughts became violent.  I began cutting myself and I believe I would have taken my own life.  Then, one night in the midst of my insanity:  MY REDEEMER!

HE spoke but two words, “Shalach Ishshah”. (Free Her) In an instant I felt clean and I tasted freedom.  It was as if in me, HE had released all women.

I sold all of my possessions, laid them at the feet of the Master and pledged myself to him wholeheartedly as a willing bondservant.  I followed HIM everywhere.  I believed HIS every Word and hid each in my heart.  I saw HIS miracles; the blind could see, the lame could walk, the captives were all set free!  Every man, woman and child was declared valuable and invited to sit at HIS feet.

There was NO sin in this man.  HE truly was the Son of the Living God!  And yet, they dragged HIM off to trial and numbered HIM with the transgressors.

I watched HIS very life was being poured out like water.  They beat HIM till HIS every bone was out of joint and you could hardly recognize HIM.   Most of the 12 abandoned HIM.  His strength was dried up.

The dogs of Rome and the High Priest house surrounded HIM and they pierced HIS hands and feet.  Those precious hands that had healed me, embraced me and strengthened me.

I waited at the cross, hoping against hope that legions of angels would come and rescue HIM.  Finally, in HIS last breath He cried out

“tel-eh’-o”, “It is finished”.

And I screamed, “Rabboni, Rabboni: my teacher!  I cannot bear to loose this freedom YOU gave me!  I… am not finished!  There is still so much YOU need to teach me!

Let’s answer this question by starting at the very beginning. Here we find “the Female”.  The Hebrew word is n’qebah.  The word for male is zakar.  The word for man or mankind is Adam.

Genesis 1:27

²⁷ So God created Adam (man) in his own image, in the image of God he created him; zakar (male) and n’qebah (female) he created them.

Genesis 5:2

² He created them zakar (male) and n’qebah (female) and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them “Adam” (“man.”)

The female as well as the male, are clearly made in GOD’s image.

Iys, (the man) Adam, surrendered part of his side so GOD could make iyssah, (the woman) Eve. She was flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. Why did God create the female? He made her to be a helper.  This is the key to who we are as women.  So let’s figure out exactly what this means for us to be HELPER.

The Hebrew word used for Helper is ‘ezer.

Genesis 2:18

¹⁸ The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a ‘ezer (helper) suitable for him.”

Genesis 2:20

²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable ‘ezer(helper) was found.

The word ‘ezer is also used frequently, in the Old Testament, to describe GOD.

Exodus 18:4

⁴ and the other was named Eliezer, for he said, “My father’s God was my ‘ezer(helper); he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.”

Deuteronomy 33:29

²⁹ Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and ‘ezer(helper) and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will trample down their high places.

‘ezer is certainly an interesting word to use for helper, IF the female is simply a subordinate assistant. There is certainly a GREAT mystery here.

We all know what happened next in Gen 3, sin entered the picture and Adam was cursed to work the ground.  Eve was cursed with pains in childbirth and she would desire her husband, but he would now RULE over her. The word is Mashal, which is to rule or have dominion over.

We will leave the garden with our hero and heroine and take a look at some linguistics.  In the Hebrew (as well as the Greek) there is not a different word for woman and wife.  The same is true of the words man and husband. There is a word for woman/wife and there is a word for female.  In English we have three different words, woman, wife and female. We can use woman and female interchangeably, where as woman and wife are not interchangeable. So this can certainly make understanding our English translations more difficult.  Our goal is to get “the spirit of the law” so we have to use GOD’s Word as a whole.  When we just cite certain verses we only get “the letter of the law” and therefore a distorted picture.

As Christians, because of Christ, we know that physical things are pictures of spiritual things.  The one flesh union of a man and woman is a picture of a spiritual truth.  Jesus is the groom and the church is the bride.  GOD made male and female to create his image.  Female alone doesn’t paint an accurate picture and neither does Male.  That is why sex out of marriage, multiple wives, and homosexuality are so wrong.  These things are the devils way of desecrating the image of GOD. That is why distortions of the Godly male and female marriage are called idolatry.  It is vital that we submit to each other in our marriages, because a lack of humility in that area also desecrates GOD’s image.

Ephesians 5:22-23

²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church– ³⁰for we are members of his body. ³¹“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”³²This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Let’s look at this mystery that Paul is talking about.  This Mystery can be very confusing and trying to understand it can cause dissension.  And we don’t want that, right?

Proverbs 6:16-19

¹⁶ There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: ¹⁷ haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, ¹⁸ a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, ¹⁹ a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

So I should just sit down and shut up at this point right?

In the Old Testament prophets, were really good at stirring up “dissension”? If they were true prophets, they literally spoke on behalf of the Lord GOD. So, if we stir up dissension on our own authority it is detestable to GOD, but if it is the Lord’s message, while it doesn’t usually bring peace it is not dissension, it is prophecy. —Matthew 10:34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

I think we need a story. Let’s go back and look at GOD’s chosen people the Jews.  In the story they once again have turned away from the Lord and they are on the brink of being taken over by the Babylonians.

Jeremiah 34:8-17

⁸ The word came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves. ⁹ Everyone was to free his Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Jew in bondage. ¹⁰ So all the officials and people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their male and female slaves and no longer hold them in bondage. They agreed, and set them free. ¹¹ But afterward they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again.

¹² Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: ¹³ “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your forefathers when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I said, ¹⁴ ‘every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrew who has sold himself to you. After he has served you six years, you must let him go free.’  Your fathers, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me. ¹⁵ Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to his countrymen. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name. ¹⁶ But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again.

¹⁷ “Therefore, this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom for your fellow countrymen. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the LORD -’freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth.

I love history.  I am homeschooling my kids just so we can see the big picture of what GOD has been doing since the beginning of time.  Today the United States “a Christian nation” is in a conflict with Iraq.  Iraq is modern day Babylon, so once again GOD’s creation is pointing to HIM.

As Christians we are ALL spiritual Jews; young and old, male and female, we were ALL set free, by the true King.  Let’s look at one prophecy that predicted this freedom in Christ.

Joel 2:28-30

²⁸ “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams; your young men will see visions.  ²⁹ Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. ³⁰ I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

Here is where Paul confirmed this freedom in Christ, predicted in Joel and reminisces the story from Jeremiah.

Galatians 3:23-29

²³Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. ²⁴So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

²⁶You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Should any of us have the authority to enslave some of our brethren?  As sons and daughters of the King of Kings we are all ROYALTY.  Royalty implies ruling, so as princesses we also have the right to be in AUTHORITY, right???

Well, it is time to take another pause.  We need to return again to scripture, because it is sharper than a two edged sword and able to divide between spirit and soul.  We have to get our hearts and brains out of this equation.  In fact, we actually need more than mere scriptures.  We need THE WORD MADE FLESH!

We are going to rewind back to the beginning of our study, because we have our answers when we look at the female that GOD created.

Jesus gives us our first clues, when he is questioned about divorce by a Pharisee.  They just didn’t get ‘why’ GOD hated divorce, after all Moses allowed it, but Jesus replied,

Matthew 19:4

⁴“Haven’t you read, that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ ⁵and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? ⁶So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

He is saying something about equality here.  Back then women were property and men would trade in their women the way some men today trade in their old truck.  Since the fall in the garden, the men Jesus was talking to had gotten the “ruling” thing down, but loving their wives as their own body was certainly not in their field of understanding.  Sadly, men and women still don’t “get it”.

Did GOD ever intend for men to Lord it over their wives and exercise authority over them?  What is the proper order for authority?  What is GOD’s plan for us all, both male and female, since the new covenant?  Well Jesus makes in all very clear.  What he says is radical and revolutionary.

Matthew 20: 25-28

²⁵Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ²⁶Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ²⁷and whoever wants to be first must be your slave– ²⁸just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

I would invite you to read carefully through Matthew 18, 19 and 20 in your next few quiet times.  In those passages, Jesus humbles the people who exalt themselves and exalts, the unlikely ones, who were treated as second class.

Over the last 30 years, since Christ saved me, I have wrestled intensely over my purpose.  Should my purpose, in Christ, be any different if I am a woman? I formed my first opinions about what a woman can do in Christ, based on how I ‘felt’ about things.  Next, I formed opinions based on what others in the church taught that women could be.  I remember listening to a woman speak in our church and thinking, “she is violating the order that GOD has established”.  With what I thought was humility, I argued passionately, “the men need to be in charge or the feminists will over run the church”. But it was a false humility.

I spent more time in scripture and listened to many, many counselors to find wisdom; questions arose and I pursued “knowledge” as the foundation of my opinions.  Like the Greeks I used logic and reason. Soon I was radically on the other side of the equation and ‘humility’, was no where to be found.

So, the Lord used the circumstances in my life to break my stubborn will, because HE disciplines those He loves. God allowed a thorn in my flesh, to humble me. As I engaged in that familiar battle between flesh and spirit; sometimes I’d find myself filled with unholy doubt; insecure, lost and despairing.

The Lord renewed my strength and as a dear pants for water my soul longed after HIM.  The desire of my heart was to serve HIM. I knew what my talents and spiritual gifts were, but I was confused about how GOD would be able to use them.  In the last few years I have read and prayed and fasted and wept until I couldn’t weep anymore.  Relying on my own childish wisdom, I studied about elders and teachers, deacons and shepherds, prophets and apostles; parsing every word to discover the secrets of AUTHORITY.

The answer was in ME all along.  I am a woman; I am a picture of the church, the helper.  Women, who belong to Jesus, understand, about submission.  Godly women submit to their husbands.  They lay down their lives in service to their children and other people’s children.  They feed, they clothe, they wait, they sacrifice, and they get their own bare hands in other people’s filth.  The question I needed to ask was not, WHO SHOULD BE IN AUTHORITY. The question was and IS, WHO will lay down their LIFE as a SLAVE?

In Matthew 23 Jesus said, “you are not to be called ‘Rabbi’ you have one Master and you are all brothers.  Call no one on earth ‘father’ you have One Father and he is in heaven.  You are not to be called ‘teacher’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ.  The greatest among you will be your servant.  For whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted!

Women are not to be in authority in the church…but neither are the men.

There is ONE authority… ONE Head… in THE CHURCH and HE…is…not…US!

GOD is NOT a respecter of persons.  Woman…. in Christ, you are free to be and do whatever GOD has called you to do.

Unity in the Body of Christ

¹As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. ²Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ³Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. ⁴There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called to one hope when you were called– ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

⁷But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. ⁸This is why it says: “When he ascended on high,
he led captives in his train
and gave gifts to men.” ⁹(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? ¹⁰He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) ¹¹It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, ¹²to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

¹⁴Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.