No Longer Quivering
by Michelle Lesley from Give Me My Church Ladies – You’re Not Awesome….and You Know it
Editor’s note: There is no greater internalized message in many Quiverfull, Fundamentalist, Evangelical and CPM groups than this – you are worthless. Just about every women I encountered across my old faith life believed this while acting just the opposite. Time and time again this horrible, self-esteem destroying bedrock belief would come bubbling out. It’s toxic and it’s not true. Time to kill this message.
Most of us are who we are, flawed and talented, but infinitely valuable in many ways. It’s human and normal to make mistakes (as they term is ‘sins’), learn from them and move on past instead of endlessly castigate ourselves. This is a message that keeps women in dangerous marriages accepting abuse as their due, always putting themselves last in life and settling for the least of everything.
I am absolutely weary of some of the memes aimed at Christian women these days. You know the ones I mean, ladies- the ones with lovely pictures of flowers or an ocean or a meadow with a superimposed flowing script practically BEGGING us to believe how much worth we have to God, how awesome we are, how we need to discover the greatness within, how God gives us limitless potential and a superfantastic divine purpose, blah, blah, blah.
You know why they have to take that begging tone to try to get us to believe those things? Because they’re not true. You know it, and I know it.
You’re not awesome or great or imbued with some radical purpose or potential that will magically make your life phenomenal and give you oodles of self esteem once you discover it.
You’re a dirty, stinking, rotten, rebellious sinner. You yell at your kids. You don’t submit to your husband. You act out of selfishness. You lie. You gossip. You covet. You bow down to your idols instead of to Christ. You sin against a holy and righteous God in a thousand ways every day in thought, word, and deed. Just like I do. Let’s put on our big girl panties and just admit it. (1 John 1:8,10)
That’s why these memes and false teachers have to try so hard to convince us of how terrific we are- deep down we know we’re not. It’s a lie. And putting all our eggs in the basket of that lie of greatness sets us up for disappointment and self-loathing every time we sin.
QUOTING QUIVERFULL is a regular feature of NLQ – we present the actual words of noted Quiverfull leaders, cultural enforcers and those that seek to keep women submitted to men and ask our readers: What do you think? Agree? Disagree? This is the place to state your opinion. Please, let’s keep it respectful – but at the same time, we encourage readers to examine the ideas of Quiverfull and Spiritual Abuse honestly and thoughtfully.
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