Hello and happy belated Valentine’s day, tender friends! And yes, as I promised last year, Cub and I made homemade cards this year!
Anyhow, as a follow-up to why I love that the men and women who attend night to shine receive crowns, I thought I’d share some of the biblical things I don’t understand first to help you contextualize my inner turmoil the day that Anthony and I got engaged:
- I don’t understand why Lot was considered righteous despite the fact that he offered up his own daughters to be raped.
- I don’t understand why polygamy was never punished in the Bible except for when it involved another man’s wife, as when David slept with Bathsheba.
- I don’t understand why there is no word for male adultery in Hebrew, only for women committing it.
- When people say that I might be where I am for “such a time as this,” I throw up in my mouth a little. No, I don’t want to be a member of the king’s harem and have to give my body up to a man who goes around sleeping with countless other women.
- I don’t understand why so many people who I know are Spirit-filled and love the Lord think it’s acceptable to stand 10 ft in front of their wives when announced as elders at churches. Even more shocking is that people had to fight for women to be included with their husbands being anointed as elders at all. (Yes, this actually happened at a church that I loved dearly, and I am seriously not throwing shade. But I’m 38, and that kind of stuff sticks out to somebody who was born in 1985 and raised to take care of herself).
But here’s what I do know: God made a man for me, and it’s that man I married in 2016. And I was mulling over all of these things the day that we got engaged.
I suspected that Anthony was going to propose to me that day because he seemed nervous. We’d just had a camp weekend for our annual “young adult retreat,” which we attended every year despite the fact that I was 30 and he was 33.
We loved everything about those retreats- sleeping in the cabins, sitting around the campfire while someone played guitar, listening to spiritual sessions, playing pickleball and other games in the gym and fields.
As we drove past cornfields back home on Sunday morning to head to our regular church service, I knew that it was the last time Anthony and I would be driving in the car together as a non-engaged couple. I didn’t know exactly how he was going to propose, just that my life would never be the same within a few hours.
In between chatting and listening to the radio, I prayed.
I had never seen a healthy marriage and wasn’t sure that I could be half of one. I was afraid of losing myself in marriage. I was afraid of never accomplishing all the things I still wanted to accomplish. I was afraid of finding out after marriage that I was miserable and spending the next 60 years of my life regretting my decision.
I was afraid of being forced to stand 10 ft behind my husband. Because I knew that- as much as I loved Anthony and was certain that God had brought him to me- being forced to stand 10 feet behind him instead of beside him as his equal would make me lose my faith that God is good.
The Lord never answered the questions that I have listed above with a word study that clarified something in Hebrew or Greek. He never sent me a friend who had attended seminary and could answer these things. He never answered them through Bible studies, despite the fact that I have done dozens of them.
Lord, you know that I’m scared and you know what I’m scared about. You know that I want to serve you but that I am not capable of being a doormat. I need to know that you’ll take care of me in marriage.
And Yahweh answered me
Yahweh said, “I will make KINGS of you.”
You might have to be bilingual to understand the significance of this. I knew that God was telling me he would make Kings of us (in French it would be les rois, and in Spanish los reyes) instead of telling me that I would be a queen as a way of affirming that my identity married to Anthony would never be less than his. God was telling me that he saw me and heard the cry of my heart and that I could marry Anthony without worry.
7.5 years later, we have this little orb of light and love:
There’s a lot more to unpack here…but this is a little long. Maybe I’ll share my favorite verses about royalty from the Bible in my next post.
But for now, I’ll say this to conclude: All sons and daughters of the king are royalty. I may not look royal in my mom clothes, but I am. And so are you, whether you’re reading this in jeans or a designer gown.
Okay, tender friends, thank you for stopping by and thank you for sharing!
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