I was combing her baby-fine wisps of hair upward away from that sweet freckled face when, in the mirror, she cut her too-large-for-her-petite-face eyes upward to catch mine in the reflection.
"Mommy, are we a widow?" she asked, with absolute honest innocence.
The matter-of-factness in the statement felt like re-bar through the gut. I didn't cry. Yet. But I felt my shoulders sag as I thought about how to answer her--how to give this tiny one the bitter reality that she ought to, ought to, ought to be protected from.
"Well, according to the Bible, yes. I think we are. We say "widow." But the Bible just says, "a woman without a man."
It was enough. She seemed satisfied. But I keep thinking on it. Am I satisfied? In a way, I think we both can be, because our Father God is love, and he declares that he loves the fatherless and widow, and judgment on the wicked sends. But it's hard to believe it, because so much of the so-called church has no love for us.
We've been condemned very recently. I cannot return to the danger, destructiveness, uncertainty, objectification, dehumanization, intimidation, dishonesty, theft, and agony we lived through. Almost all my adult life was spent under that and I have been set free by God when I would not free myself. I cannot prostitute myself to gain anything in this material world--not financial "blessing"; not the good opinion of the judgmental in "the church." But that was what was held before me earlier this week. Return to your former prison. Go back to Egypt. There's garlic and onions waiting for you if you do, but it you don't, no help for you!
Religion that is pure and undefiled, before God the Father (that's OUR Father) is this: to visit widows and orphans in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
Gradually, God is taking from me every idol. I pray the children see it and my own forced surrender will help them hold more loosely as they mature. Every good thing can become an idol. Every. Good. Thing. And sinful, power-hungry men and women can play upon us in our weakness, to blur the lines between real righteousness and worshiping the creation instead of the Creator and Giver of all Righteousness in his Personhood. I've been there. It is a daily spiritual battle not to return.
He called us out of horror and into widowhood. He will gently lead those who have young. Can I embrace this imposed widowhood despite how hard it is, how contrary to all ideals? If I have him, his favor, his presence, his promises, yes. Even this. Even, "Mommy, we are a widow." If she knows he loves the widow, she knows more than I could ever give her in an intact but severely broken household.
"Mommy, are we a widow?" she asked, with absolute honest innocence.
The matter-of-factness in the statement felt like re-bar through the gut. I didn't cry. Yet. But I felt my shoulders sag as I thought about how to answer her--how to give this tiny one the bitter reality that she ought to, ought to, ought to be protected from.
"Well, according to the Bible, yes. I think we are. We say "widow." But the Bible just says, "a woman without a man."
It was enough. She seemed satisfied. But I keep thinking on it. Am I satisfied? In a way, I think we both can be, because our Father God is love, and he declares that he loves the fatherless and widow, and judgment on the wicked sends. But it's hard to believe it, because so much of the so-called church has no love for us.
We've been condemned very recently. I cannot return to the danger, destructiveness, uncertainty, objectification, dehumanization, intimidation, dishonesty, theft, and agony we lived through. Almost all my adult life was spent under that and I have been set free by God when I would not free myself. I cannot prostitute myself to gain anything in this material world--not financial "blessing"; not the good opinion of the judgmental in "the church." But that was what was held before me earlier this week. Return to your former prison. Go back to Egypt. There's garlic and onions waiting for you if you do, but it you don't, no help for you!
Religion that is pure and undefiled, before God the Father (that's OUR Father) is this: to visit widows and orphans in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
Gradually, God is taking from me every idol. I pray the children see it and my own forced surrender will help them hold more loosely as they mature. Every good thing can become an idol. Every. Good. Thing. And sinful, power-hungry men and women can play upon us in our weakness, to blur the lines between real righteousness and worshiping the creation instead of the Creator and Giver of all Righteousness in his Personhood. I've been there. It is a daily spiritual battle not to return.
He called us out of horror and into widowhood. He will gently lead those who have young. Can I embrace this imposed widowhood despite how hard it is, how contrary to all ideals? If I have him, his favor, his presence, his promises, yes. Even this. Even, "Mommy, we are a widow." If she knows he loves the widow, she knows more than I could ever give her in an intact but severely broken household.
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