I am a Christian. I believe in Salvation and I believe in forgiveness. Imagine my surprise when a few Sunday evenings back we were having a nice little bible study, and my Pastor busts out with "We should be praying for Obama to die", using Psalm 109 as his reference.
I looked over at my husband, and he looked very surprised as well. I left church, but could not get the comment out of my mind. I did look up the bible reference, and sadly it was there. I could not bring myself to pray for such a monstrosity. I mean, I am hoping for a change in the white house, but not to that extent.
The next day I woke up still shocked and now quite upset. In all honesty, I was fuming. I really thought the remarks were off color and very inappropriate. I was glad the youth of the church were in choir practice and did not hear the remarks.
That comment started an epiphany in myself. I have been taught to be subservient to men, that I am to remain silent and go to my husband and he should take care of things. Well, I started off right, I sent a text to my husband that I was pissed off at the Pastor's comments. Then I went right to a church elder, who dismissed me as being emotionally driven as a woman. You can only imagine my disgust.
The comment about President Obama, was the icing on the cake to the narrow minded, misogynistic and down right old fashioned workings of my church. At that point I decided I was not going to let it go. I was going to voice my opinion and not back down because I am a mere woman. One who should be on the fellowship committee and teach the church youth. I mean, just the week before the pastor had stated that women have no right teaching men. I bit my tongue on that. A few weeks before that a church elder made the statement that women were best suited to watching the children and doing laundry. I point blank told the elder if I had a gun I would shoot him.
I am raising an almost two year old girl, and I want her to be independent and to be able to support herself. I do not want her to go off to Bible College, where the only degree the women are interested in getting is their MRS. I was raised to be a strong independent woman. I can support myself, which is something the other ladies my age at my church can not say.
Luckily for me I have a support group of friends, who are supporting my decisions. They want to see me grow as a person, both spiritually and as a woman. Sadly, my husband does not approve of this. He understands that I am upset, but he too thinks I should just let it go, like my church community. He would prefer if I let go of my worldly friends, and go back to being his little wife in a box.
Where does this leave me? I still have faith and believe in Jesus Christ and God, but I am on a new soul searching mission. I need to find a place where I can feel comfortable and a place where my daughter will be both nurtured and taught that she can be anything she wants to be. I am not going to placed on a shelf and I am not going to bullied by a group of men whom prefer to keep their women barefoot, pregnant and at home.
