On Freedom

Sometimes I just stop and marvel at the freedom I have.

 I'm talking about the little, seeming insignificant daily  freedoms that most people take for granted.  Things like being able to pull my hair back into a pony tail if I want too. Wearing a shirt that I like. Wearing jeans. Going someplace outside of the house without having to ask permission. Being in control of what I cook and eat. Being able to go places--even places as simple as church or to the store--alone. Deciding what I am going to do for the day. Sleeping all day on the couch if I want to.

Some of the things I marvel at are bigger, but still freedoms that I think most people take for granted. Driving a car, for an example. Going to school. Working at job and earning money. Getting to decide what happens to that money. Marrying someone that I wanted to marry without having to get any one's approval.

I do not take any of these things for granted because for the first 26 years of my life, I did not have any of these freedoms. 

Christian Patriarchy takes freedom away from the its daughters. In every home this looks a bit different. In my case, while I had a fair amount of freedom on our homestead, I was not allowed to leave it without my father or a brother with me (except for a few times when I went to help other large like minded families for a few weeks.)  The one time I expressed an interest in learning something that did not relate to homesteading or eventually being a stay at home wife and mother, I got a two hour lecture on the roles of women. I quickly learned not to express anything of that nature again. Things like clothing and hair where tightly controlled. We were all expected to conform to a family schedule that revolved around work, meals, and prayer. Anything that I wanted to do outside of the family schedule I had to get specific permission for, and often that permission was denied. I never made a decision on my own until I made that decision to just leave.

 I wasn't literally walled in, but for the longest time, it never occurred to me that I could leave. This is hard to explain to someone who has not been raised in a restrictive belief system. I was an adult, legally my parents had no right to run my life and I was legally free to leave, but in my mind, I did not have that freedom.

The reasoning behind all this, in my family, at least, is that girls and young women needed to be protected. Both from themselves and from the evil world and all that is out there that might harm them and tempt them. After all the original sin entered the world when Adam let Eve go wandering off in the garden by herself---this enabled her to talk to a stranger who then talked her into eating the forbidden fruit. The real original sin wasn't Eve's sin of picking and eating the forbidden fruit, it was Adam's sin of not being responsible for and protecting his wife.

And then there are those scripture verses about wives obeying their husbands. In some patriarchal families this gets translated to mean that all women, married or not, needed to be under a man, normally a father or husband, but if you didn't have either of those, the nearest male relative would do. A woman could only be assured she is in God's will if she is obeying the man who has authority over her. Leaving that authority is a sure way of ending up outside of God's will and putting yourself at risk for eternal damnation.

Is it any wonder I felt like I was in prison? The walls weren't physical, but the they were as real as if they had been built of iron and stone.

Even after I left, it took me a while to embrace the freedom that God gives to all His children. Initially I felt a lot of guilt, shame, and fear. I slowly learned that God loves me as I am and for who he made me to be. His desire is that I become that person that he made me to be. I learned that it is okay for me to make my own decisions. I learned that the world is filled with so many good people and so much beauty and that it is not a place to fear.

I have a husband whose idea of protecting me is to make sure I have a cell phone, a credit card, and a can of pepper spray in my purse when I leave the house. And a Triple A card, just in case my Explorer breaks down. (And he checks the oil and airs my tires once a week.) He would never dream of limiting where I go or limiting the decisions I can make. In his care, I feel loved, not imprisoned. I feel like a human being, a beloved child of God, and a treasured wife. I am free, for better or worse, to stand before God and be the person he made me to be, without having to go through another person.

Hardly a day goes by that I don't pause for a moment say a grateful prayer for the freedom I have, both large and small, and both as a human being and as a child of God.

One of my many mystery roses...the sunlight on her petals, the many little outstretched buds, her uplifted petals...all make me think she knows what freedom is...

Linked to Imperfect Prose.